YINGXIU, China – When the earthquake hit China’s Sichuan province on May 12, the epicenter looked like an apocalypse.

One of the most painful reminders of the devastation is the Xuankou Middle School.

To find out how people are coping, we drove into mountainous region of Wenchuan, the quake’s epicenter.

We needed to drive through bucolic mountain villages which have sustained aftershocks and rock avalanches, so I braced for a rough ride.

To my surprise, 100-kilometer ride turned out to be relatively smooth. Traffic has started to move even though in a few sections boulders as big as a Mini Cooper still blocked one lane of the highways.

We did not encounter bureaucratic roadblocks either. In the past, Chinese authorities typically accosted and turned back foreign journalists trying to get in disaster areas. This time, it was green lights all the way, except at two police checkpoints leading into the worst hit areas. Both times, we showed our press passes and the police politely waved us through.

We witnessed organized chaos. Police directed traffic. Janitors swept the streets. Medics sprayed disinfectant. Convoys of military trucks moved in more troops and relief goods as ambulances moved out injured survivors from local clinics to city hospitals. In every other village we passed, we saw communities of survivors and relief workers striving to get Sichuan back on its feet.

The quake has dislocated lives of more than 30 million people, including five million who have lost their homes. Among them is Sun Lirong, a factory worker in Sichuan’s Yingxiu township.

“When the quake hit, I ran out from our apartment building. I blacked out for a minute and panicked: Is my son safe? Are my husband and in-laws safe?” All survived the quake, but they have lost virtually everything, including their home. They evacuated to the home of relatives in the suburbs of Chengdu, Sichuan’s capital city.

Today, Sun and her husband returned to Yingxiu to retrieve valuables buried under the rubble of what used to be their home in a collapsed four-story apartment building. Now she is heading back to their relative’s home with three bags full of clothes, toys and pictures of their one-year-old son.

Sun and her husband, both 30 years old, used to work in a nearby cement factory. The factory is now totally destroyed and bankrupt, the couple jobless. “We hope to find odd jobs soon to take care of our son and three retired in-laws,” says Sun.

But prospects of finding jobs look bleak. Local officials say they need to show ID cards and other supporting documents. “But we’ve lost all our papers and documents in the rubble,” she frets. “How do we prove we are quake survivors?”

Wang is driving back home to an uncertain future.

Wang Guixian is not banking on much government help. The migrant worker from another Sichuan town had been working in one of Yingxiu’s construction projects until the quake ruined everything.

Now the 46-year-old Wang has put all his belongings — pots and pans, clothes and a TV set — onto his motorcycle and is driving back home to an uncertain future.

“Later I’ll try to find work in other cities,” he says glumly. “It’s too sad to stay here.”

One of the most painful reminders of the devastation is the Xuankou Middle School –or what is left of it. Nestled at the foot of the Wolong mountain range, it prided itself of fine teachers and facilities dedicated to “raise the overall quality of education.”

What used to be the best middle school in the region is now an empty shell of crumpled buildings. What used to be a dormitory is now a tumbled heap of rubble.

Scattered in the debris are tattered books, a basketball, and a pair-less shoe. More than 1,600 students used to be enrolled here. Only about 1,000 of them survived the quake.

It’s not all deaths and despair. From the capital city of Chengdu to Wenchuan county, we see stoic Sichuan residents coping with extraordinary resilience and resourcefulness.

In and around the epicenter, they have started to clear debris and rebuild. Using government subsidies and private donations, they are building temporary housing double-time. Farmers are planting rice and other crops. Some factories are operating again and traders are back in business. Among those doing a brisk business are movers who, for a fee, help families relocate into temporary housing.

Life goes on in most neighborhoods. Some residents while away their time playing cards or mahjong. Others tune in to local television or radio broadcasts to catch up with the unusually extensive coverage of the disaster. Local programming is often interrupted by a segment called “Phone-in for Peace,” which disseminate messages from relatives and friends of missing people.

A typical message goes: “Dear xxx, after you hear this message, please call xxx who is keen to know if you are okay.” Mostly, they are voices of desperation. Sometimes, however, the program is punctuated by uplifting news.

“This is a message for xxx with mobile phone number xxx,” goes one. “Your Mother has been found and she is safe!”

BEICHUAN COUNTY, China – It has been a race against time for the Chinese government: ease water out of the monster Quake Lake before it spills over and pours downstream into the town, villages and cities already hit by the earthquake.

Yet no one had really seen the work military engineers were doing to solve the crisis. Only Chinese media were being let into the “restricted” area. No foreign reporters had a firsthand view.

So our brilliant producer Samson was able to obtain an official permit to get in — but the only way to the site is by helicopter. All the roads are blocked because of landslides.

After begging and pleading with Chinese officials, even going to the airport where the helicopters were taking off from and flashing our permit, we were told no.

But in Beichuan, downstream from the quake lake, we heard there was actually another way in.

“Oh no. It is too tough,” locals told us.The Chinese military had cut a path up over several mountaintops, just in case the helicopters could not fly due to bad weather. We all agreed, if we could make it, the hike would be worth it. We loaded up our gear: equipment to broadcast live, some water and food.

Thankfully, the military had placed little red flags on trees to guide the way.

It was too tough. It ended up being a six-hour trek, almost all of it straight up.

Soaked in sweat, we scrambled up narrow paths, many split with huge cuts from the quake; crawling over rubble from landslides; passing through small villages where homes were completely flattened. There was no sign of life.

We finally got to the top with a clear view, helicopters flying below us. We had just ten minutes to set up our kit to broadcast live.

Farhad, our cameraman, captured the amazing pictures from above the backhoes and bulldozers creating a new river, where the water will eventually flow in a controlled way.

We got as many pictures as we could but daylight was running out. We found a good spot to camp away from any landslides. We made a small fire and slept in the open — a few aftershocks overnight but nothing huge. At sunrise we stumbled down.

The entire team agreed: none of us had ever been so exhausted for one story.

DJIBOUTI – As you might imagine, getting on a U.S.-guided missile destroyer off the Somali coast isn’t the easiest thing to do. The USS Shoup is a tactical battleship and its plans are as fluid as these waters are dangerous. The Shoup can travel at 30 knots and changes plans on an hourly basis.

CNN's David McKenzie aboard the USS Shoup.

But after months of pushing to get on a destroyer, the e-mail came from Bahrain and we scrambled to get to Djibouti, a tiny country wedged between Somalia and Eritrea. We flew from Nairobi, through Ethiopia, and landed in the deathly heat of the Horn of Africa.

After staying a night at the sprawling Camp Lemonier naval base we flew out in an aging and agile Allouette helicopter. A guided missile destroyer holds over 300 sailors, but to see it on the backdrop the ocean it at first looks impossibly small.

The ship is a labyrinth of cramped ladders, flashing lights and rooms you can’t enter. But in the perfect weather of the Gulf of Aden it was a dream for the cameraman. It is a mix of the archaic and modern: pollywogs and Aegis weapons systems; whistle calls and boarding assault teams. There is no denying that the open ocean has a romance sometimes lacking in other the other armed forces. For every corner of the ship there is an ancient naval term, for every event a spot of tradition, a touch of class.

But we wanted to see if we could do lives from the sea. Simple, perhaps, but at CNN we have a device that needs to point at a satellite and stay in that exact direction. Try doing that on a battleship that is changing course every few minutes and is in the middle of pre-planned exercises.

Three minutes before live. We are set up but the Shoup is traveling near 30 knots. We have to hold down the equipment or it will blow off the edge.

Two minutes before live. The boat slows down and we breath a sigh of relief — we have a signal.

One minute before live. A French Mirage fighter jet appears out of the blue and banks across the destroyer cracking right overhead. The bridge shouts commands and aggressively maneuvers to the starboard.

Forty seconds before live, the signal drops, we are pointing exactly in the wrong direction, 180 degrees from starting point. We dive across, flip the satellite modem, drop the signal, put it back up just in time.

There is the power and aggression of the USS Shoup and the practicality and grace of the FS Marne, a refueling Durance class vessel that we hop across from the Shoup. It is everything that the modern destroyer isn’t: roomy and classic cabins, tasteful officers quarters. It is a four-star hotel stuck on top of a gas station.

Dining with the Admiral of the CTF-150 — the multinational force that polices these waters — is like stepping back in time for this landlubber. The French Navy takes their hospitality and their food seriously. The moon dips under the ink sea as we feed a story way past midnight on the deck of the Marne, and it’s hard not to marvel at a world so far removed from the one anchored on land.

Watch my report

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — If you haven’t been to South Africa before, it must be hard to imagine the incongruity of a tented refugee camp in the suburb of Germiston, in Johannesburg’s East Rand. It’s quite an odd sight.

The scene reminded our cameraman, Barnaby Mitchell, of Goma, a town that became famous when hundreds of thousands sought refuge there after the Rwandan genocide.

Except this is no war zone.

It’s a lower-income suburb with carefully tended gardens, houses with net curtains and neat white wrought iron fences.

But in the local park — which is sandwiched between a police station and a church — about 70 white plastic tents more commonly used in disaster areas or conflict zones have been pitched on the lawn

Immigrants fleeing the xenophobic violence came here for protection in the past few days. Many have horrible stories to tell of being hounded out of their shacks, taunted and threatened by angry South Africans who blamed the immigrants for their own economic woes.

So now the grass of the public park is littered with small fires, topped with cooking pots, and Zimbabweans and Mozambicans trying to warm food or boil water on the meagre looking flames.

People have so little, they tell me they left most of their possessions behind in their homes. They escaped with just a small bag or a trunk-load of valuables.

Most of the immigrants here had very little to begin with — they’re economic migrants, who come to South Africa to scrape together a small income from working in the mines, or a gardeners and handymen in the richest country in the region.

I watched as two men were trying to bundle up two double bed mattresses and another tried to flog his small portable radio for 10 rand (about $1.50).

Even cooking pots and pans are in short supply. I also watched as someone tried to warm up water for a cup of tea on warm coals — in a plastic bottle. I didn’t stay long enough to see if the plastic melted before the water was warmed up.

I spoke to a young Mozambican man called Antonio who had a backpack stuffed with three pairs of trousers, a roll of toilet paper and his toothbrush, toothpaste and some deodorant.

He said he was too scared to go back to his shack — a mob of South Africans had already warned him not to come back after they stole his DVD player and other valuables.

He and hundreds of other Mozambicans were waiting for a bus to take them back home. The Mozambican government has supplied buses to evacuate their citizens from South Africa. So too has the Malawian government. Even Zimbabweans have been promised emergency evacuation out of South Africa by the opposition MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Who would have thought that African governments — who sheltered South African freedom fighters like Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki during the apartheid days — would be retrieving their own victimised people out of a democratic multi-racial South Africa?

A policeman told me that at least 500 Mozambicans left on Wednesday. Another few busloads are expected to go on Friday.

In anticipation of the mass exodus, there is long queue of people and luggage lined up by the park. The bags are neatly packed, the line is orderly and the families are patient.

They can’t wait to get home.

Because they know they are not welcome here.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – The images are so familiar to South Africans. I grew up in Johannesburg and the pictures of the recent xenophobic violence remind all of us of the dark days of apartheid.

South African police set up cordon as victim lay dying

The cat and mouse game between heavily armed police and residents in the townships.

The black smoke from burning shacks.

The bloodied bodies in the streets.

Even the method of killing — two people have been burnt alive — is a throw back to “necklacing,” which was a favored tactic in the townships in the 1980s. Used on suspected informants, the “necklace” is a car tire, filled with petrol, put around the person’s neck and set alight.

The pictures of a burning man were published on the front page of a daily newspaper. It was so disturbing I couldn’t shake the image all day.

The brutality has shocked most people here. The suddenness of the violence and depth of resentment towards immigrants took the police, the government and community leaders by surprise.

But as winter approaches and the days get darker and colder, many here say they understand the anger.

Life is getting tougher for South Africa’s poor. The slow delivery of social services, like housing, electricity and running water has left many disenchanted with the pace of social change since the end of apartheid 14 years ago.

Joblessness is rampant — real unemployement is about 40 percent. And crime remains a daily worry for most people here — 20,000 people were murdered in the past year.

So as life gets harder and harder, the poor look around for someone to blame. And they see the growing influx of foreigners — mostly Zimbabweans fleeing the meltdown in their own country — and get angry that they are having to share what little they have with non-South Africans.

That sense of resentment over scarce resources is understandable, but I find the people’s brutality difficult to stomach.

I have spent a lot of time filming in the East Rand of Johannesburg, in the shanty towns and settlements and it astounds me everytime I hear and see the ugliness of xenophobia.

In those areas I have not found one person who feels sorry for the foreigners, who empathises with them. Instead there is a raw and vehement hatred of the “other.”

My cameraman captured this distain on camera, when he filmed a young South African laughing and mocking a badly injured immigrant who was lying on the ground.

But one of the more troubling incidents I’ve witnessed was the attitude of the police — who seem to also have little sympathy for the foreigners.

We watched them set up a crime scene around a bleeding man who had been stabbed in the chest … they spent a lot of time trying to set up a police cordon but no one went near the man.

Lying on his back, gasping, choking on his own vomit, none of the police tried to help him or make him more comfortable.

Pinned behind the cordon, but just meters away from the dying man, I asked one policeman if he could hold the man’s hand, at least.

The immigrant looked so alone. Sprawled on the dusty ground of a foreign country where he is not wanted.

He died soon afterwards. His body just went limp.

No one held his hand.

Dear In the Field readers, thank you for your comments on my first blog about the Naples trash crisis.

A woman adds to the trash pile.

I met Roberto Saviano, the author of Gomorra, and interviewed him on the subject several weeks ago. You can watch my report on CNN.com/videos (type “mafia writer” in the search box). Perhaps this report will provide you with some answers to your questions.

As to why it took 14 years to come up with a “garbage czar,” well it isn’t entirely true. He is the ninth such official to get the job. They all failed in the past. This one has more powers, a stronger government backing him and he will be able to use the military to protect sites which otherwise would remain in the hands of the local population.

And when I speak about “locals”, I don’t necessarily mean “residents.” Locals are also people connected to the organized crime (known in that region as the Camorra), whose businesses thrive wherever there is an emergency. And when there is an emergency, emergency funds are usually released, often bypassing antiracketeering legislation. The longer the emergency, the more money is being devolved in trying to solve it, and that is why the garbage problem is a never ending story. More than 20 local officials, including a former mayor and the president of the Campania region are being investigated for mismanagement and in some cases for collusion with the local mafia. A few have already been convicted.

The garbage crisis is a toxic combination of government inefficiency, mafia interference and citizens’ inability to understand the value of recycling. In fact if you watch my previous reports on the garbage situation in Naples you will notice that brand new recycling bins are being totally ignored and are being used instead as barricades. Berlusconi called in the army because he knows that without strong authority the local mafia will continue to make sure that the problem doesn’t get resolved.

Watch videos:

• Garbage politics in Naples
• Stinky streets
• Mountains of trash

It is possible that over the next few months we may see some clashes between “locals who don’t want the landfills in their backyards” and riot police (I doubt the army will get into that fight). Those locals are not residents, but mainly thugs and petty criminals enrolled by local chieftains to create havoc and to give the impression that the problem can’t be solved.

This has been the ongoing problem for almost 15 years, and everybody benefited from it, except the REAL residents, who are forced to live next to garbage blocking their children’s school entrances and their bus stops. In fact the running joke in Naples is that if you want to know where the Mafia bosses live, look for the clean streets.

These REAL residents, as I like to call them, are too weak and in some cases too afraid to speak up against the Camorra. So yes, you are right; no one should ever forget that organized crime is partly responsible for this mess. But ever since waste management has become a business, and a good business at that, organized crime the world over has tried to grab a piece of the action (if you are familiar with the series “The Sopranos,” guess what Tony the boss is involved in?). But nowhere in the world where I have lived (and I have been in some pretty horrible places in Russia and the Balkans before moving to lovely Rome) have I seen mountains of uncollected garbage rotting in the streets for years.

So let us agree on this. The Camorra is partially responsible, but the failure of the Italian State to deal with the issue for such a long time is perhaps just as embarrassing.

Today marks the third and last day of China’s official national mourning.

The Red Cross booth in Chongqing.

When official mourning began two days ago, I’d just arrived at a waste water treatment plant in Fuling, a district of Chongqing, across the border from Sichuan province where so many people have been killed by last week’s earthquake.I was part of a group of 12 Asian and U.S. journalists visiting the plant as part of a trip to western China to study its development boom.

Our hosts at the Chongqing Municipal Three Gorges Water Fuling Drainage Co. had wanted us to be there before 2:28 p.m. in order that we mark the one-week anniversary together with the rest of the nation.

Minutes before, we gathered in a line in the parking lot, facing the Yangtze River as it wound westward and more specifically facing in the direction of Sichuan and the devastated area of Wenchuan County, the quake’s epicenter.

Some of us expected a three-minute silence. But it became clear that the truck and our bus, whose motors had begun running, had a purpose.

At 2.28 p.m., the men behind the wheels placed their palms on the horns and pressed for three minutes. As the horns wailed and pierced the air — a collective cry across the nation — we reflected on what must have happened at this moment a week earlier.

My own experience of the quake was an insignificant one: Wondering whether the wind was strong enough to cause the giant chandelier to swing back and forth above our heads in a museum lobby in Beijing.

A colleague said he believed it was an earthquake. And after we ended our museum visit, he confirmed that there had been one — 100 kilometers from Chengdu.

It would be several hours before initial reports of “no knowledge of casualties” gave way to the first report of deaths.

In Chongqing on that first night of official national mourning, we saw candles lining a bridge in memory of the earthquake victims. We drove by Chinese flags drooping at half-mast.

Near Liberation monument the Red Cross had set up a donation table. As young and old, parents and children came to donate money, volunteers would clap, yell “thank you,” and bow their heads. My parents called from the United States: “This is our homeland. We want to give as much as we can.”

Our family’s donation went into one of those Red Cross boxes. In return, I got a yellow heart-shaped sticker that read: “The earthquake has no heart, people have love, we have compassion for Wenchuan, angel of love.”

At Chongqing’s Wal-Mart on Monday night, every bench in front of a single TV was occupied by people watching quake coverage on state-run TV. I don’t know whether the benches were always there or whether they had been set up for this occasion. It was like walking into a community living room.

During this mourning period, doors have been closed to Internet cafes, where many young people find enjoyment in video games. Channels devoted to entertainment programs have gone to black, with apologies from the government.

In neighboring Yunnan, the Prague Cafe and the Naxi Orchestra in Lijiang, where we are now, have been shuttered through Wednesday in honor of the earthquake victims. It is a scene repeated in many, many parts of the country in a collective bow to the dead of the Wenchuan earthquake.

NAPLES, Italy — The problem stinks, there is no question about it. But what really enrages most people here in Naples is that it has been ongoing for almost 15 years and nothing serious has been done to solve it.

A firefighter extinguishes burning rubbish in a street in central Naples.

Some $3 billion has been allocated in emergency funds over that period of time, but no one is really sure how that money was spent. One local newspaper suggested that 20 percent of that money was used to pay the salaries of those in charge of solving it. I can’t confirm it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this was true.
 
When I was there on Wednesday, Naples city center did look somewhat different. To make sure that mountains of trash didn’t get in the way of journalists covering the first ever cabinet meeting taking place here (and there were hundreds of us), city officials magically managed to clean up the area surrounding the location where Berlusconi arrived with his ministers.

But less than 20 minutes away by car, the situation looked as dire and desperate as ever. No television pictures or words could ever convey the disgust that one feels walking along mountains of garbage that have been piling up in some areas for more than a year.

I bumped into a woman who gingerly walked out of her flat, crossed the street, and carefully deposited a bag full of trash next to a pile that was as wide and long as a basketball court. I asked her whether all this didn’t disgust her. “Of course” she replied. “But I have nowhere else to trash it.”

It’s sad. No, let me rephrase, it is disgusting and embarrassing. As it is embarrassing to see empty garbage bins, some of them brand new, overturned in the middle of the road next to a pile of garbage covering a sidewalk half way. “It’s a form of protest,” said one bystander.

I’m here in Naples because the newly elected prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, promised to solve this problem. Can he succeed there were so many before have failed? Honestly, I don’t know, but I have the distinct impression that if he can’t, then no one really will.

He has appointed a new “garbage czar”. Nothing new, you will say, since he is the ninth such official to having been given the job to solve the problem over the last 14 years. But this is the guy who heads the civil protection unit in this country, tasked with – among other things – dealing with natural disasters such as volcano eruptions, earthquakes, floods and forest fires.

Now he will deal with garbage, a man made disaster that has reach unnatural proportions.

Oh, one more thing. If you are one of those Naples residents (like there are many around the world who don’t like to live near landfills), don’t bother to demonstrate and obstruct government plans to open the new sites: They have been declared military zone, and if you breach it you will be arrested, prosecuted and could face up to five years in jail.

That is why I think Berlusconi will may succeed where other failed. But it will be painful. Buckle up because it is going to be a bumpy ride.  

MOSCOW, Russia — Whichever team wins tonight’s Champions League final, the victory will be historic. Chelsea are playing in the finals for the first time, while Manchester United’s appearance in Moscow coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Munich air crash, a disaster that killed 23 people including eight of the team’s stars.

Football fans are gluttons for omens and for United the disaster is such an intrinsic part of the club’s history that it would be fitting if the Reds lift the European Cup on a significant anniversary.

Chelsea’s fans also believe that victory is on the cards. Their benefactor Roman Abramovich is Russian and the game is being played in his homeland.

Much has been made of the high cost of flights and accommodation for the fans and for some it will have been too much. But the tens of thousands that have made the trip are being treated like celebrities - posing for photographs and even signing autographs for the locals.

Chelsea supporters in particular have told CNN that they couldn’t have missed Chelsea’s first ever European final although some took a bit more persuading than others.

Ian Spillett from London told us that his wife encouraged him to make the trip because she knew what it would mean to him. “But I think she’s hoping to get a new set of patio doors to the house, I’ve backed the team to win 3-1 because that result would offset the cost of my trip,” he said.

Very few are expecting so many goals though. The teams know each other intimately and it is expected to be a tight game. But remember, two of the most exciting finals in recent memory involved English teams - United in 99 and Liverpool in 05 — so the optimist in me is holding out for a thriller.

There had been fears here in Moscow that the English invasion of football fans could bring with it destruction and chaos. But so far everyone has been well behaved and I have only seen a festive atmosphere leading up to the big kickoff.

Thousands of fans keep flocking to Red Square, one of Moscow’s main attractions, to savor the build-up to the most important match of the season. Draped in their teams’ colors, they sing, chant and dream about a victory here tonight.

Some of the more decorated fans have enjoyed celebrity status among the Muscovites, with photo requests in abundance. The lucky few have even been asked for autographs!

Everything is moving along smoothly as kick-off approaches. So far, so good.