Since the Haiti earthquake in January, many celebrities have traveled to the island to raise awareness about the continuingly horrible conditions that survivors are living under, and the need to for developed nations to reach out even more, months later. Many of these celebrities – like Angelina Jolie, Demi Moore and Gerard Butler – are working with some organization (like the UNHCR, or Artists for Peace and Justice) and travel in-country for a few days, then leave. Sean Penn is not one of those celebrities.

Sean came to Haiti a week after the earthquake, and has spent the last four months mainly in Haiti (he was at the Oscars, right?). CNN has an exclusive and extensive profile of Sean and his work in Haiti on their website. Now, here’s the thing – the story is equally heartbreaking, righteous, and uncomfortably funny. I don’t have any doubt that Sean genuinely cares, and I have no doubt that Sean is doing more good than harm. However, the Sean Penn that we know – the a-hole, the egomaniac, the caustic, humorless jackass is still very much here. There are brief glimpses of that man, as he chain-smokes, makes nasty comments about other humanitarians, and rides around Haiti in a red Jeep with a sign that reads “SEAN PENN”. The full CNN piece is here, and here are some highlights:

At base camp, Sean Penn sits under a lampshade made with discarded Chef Boyardee packages and pulls closer a Bic lighter dangling from a rope. It’s not quite 7 a.m. and Penn is smoking another Marlboro Light. He brought Nicorettes with him to Haiti, but quickly gave up on the idea of refraining from cigarettes. He runs his hands through disheveled hair, takes another drag. Wrapped in an embossed white towel and barefoot, he says no hellos, makes no attempt at niceties.

He starts telling a harrowing tale from the day before. He hunted every corner of Port-au-Prince for an antitoxin for Oriel, a 15-year-old boy who contracted diphtheria, an acutely infectious disease spread through respiratory droplets. The American Red Cross didn’t have it. Nor did any of the major hospitals. Penn even had the U.S. military on the search. The United States stockpiles the vaccine and antitoxin. But in Haiti, it took Penn — even with his star power — 11 hours to get his hands on one dose. It was at a medical warehouse and Penn wrested the head of the World Health Organization from bed to unlock the door at a late hour.

“This country is not ready for an emergency,” he says. “Three months in and nobody in the major hospitals knew where to find the immunoglobulin. That kinda says it all to me.”

Penn feels personally responsible — for the boy, for the entire camp, for the city. Diphtheria could spread lightning fast through the congested tents and shanties.

Penn cannot comprehend why, with an abundance of aid agencies working in Haiti, prevention like this has to be so difficult. He is not one to shield his anger, or mince words. “If the boy were to die,” he says, “this would be murder.”

He landed in Haiti a week after the earthquake, he says, with a genuine concern. He insists he will be here for the long haul, that he’s more than a celebrity goodwill ambassador who has dropped in to smile with orphaned kids for a day. No stunts. No gimmicks. His staffers say the actor is simply following his heart.

For the past few weeks [Penn] has been helping manage 50,000 displaced Haitians living in the camp that sprouted on the nine-hole course at the capital’s once-exclusive golf club. Perched atop a hill that affords a view of Port-au-Prince… he’s sleeping in a tent along with a small proletarian staff. They wear navy blue shirts with the J/P HRO logo loudly emblazoned — and answer only to Penn. Void of the bureaucracy common at the United Nations and other major humanitarian agencies, Penn says his J/P HRO, is often able to get things done faster.

Penn called in the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division to help secure the hills with gravel and sandbags.

“Pretty soon, we were managing a camp,” he says. “Then you find you are filling a gap and you feel responsibility to keep going.”

He negotiates the terrain in a bright red golf cart that says “SEAN PENN” in the front, though few recognized him when he first arrived. Even now, some camp residents barely recognize the name.

“Yes, I know,” said one. “He is Madonna’s first husband.”

[On his way to sort out a problem at a field hospital, Penn] asks the driver for a light, smokes another Marlboro Light and sings a song by the politically charged rock band The Clash. “This is Radio Clash on private satellite.”

“That’s what we need — a pirated radio station,” he says. “No, no. I don’t mean pirated.”

Penn sees a lack of communication and coordination as a big problem in aid delivery to Haiti. He sees some aid workers as having been in the business too long.

“Dispassionate,” he calls them. Others bask in the glory of their achievements. He sees it as a clique — one that hasn’t let him in yet. What do they, in turn, think of him?

Several aid workers who were asked about Penn’s contributions in Haiti did not want to be quoted. Most said the actor was doing more good than harm. “He has money and an organization,” says Mark Turner, spokesman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM). “He’s done a very credible job.”

On the boy with diphtheria: “He’s not going to die,” Penn says of the boy. “He’s his father’s only child. That’s not allowed.” He pauses before finishing the thought. “But that’s a brand new law around here.”

“If you have a hospital with some medicines, you start treating the patients. You don’t wait for the shelves to be full,” he says. Penn brings up the diphtheria case. He wants aid agencies to begin immediate vaccinations. UNICEF has plans to do just that, but has not started yet. He says Oriel is suffering needlessly. He doesn’t want to point fingers but in his mind, he blames inertia on the part of humanitarians who should be acting faster, more efficiently. He doesn’t want to hear that they are experts from Africa and that he is just a Hollywood actor. He just wants them to act.

In the end, Penn’s efforts to save Oriel were not enough. He had been sick for six days before receiving treatment. He died Thursday night. The child’s death, Penn says, was needless; one that could easily have been prevented. Even in Haiti. Penn has already started chastising the international community. Where are the vaccines? Where is the prevention?

There won’t be a rebuilding of Haiti without its people, he says. Saving their lives must be the top priority — before jobs, before reconstruction, before anything else.

“We’ve got to get people out of these ad hoc camps where these kinds of diseases can spread so quickly,” he tells Anderson Cooper. Penn thinks of his own children often. They’ve been down to visit him in Port-au-Prince. He had said Oriel’s death would not be allowed. But Penn didn’t have it his way this time. There are no retakes. And in his mind, no excuses.

[From CNN]

I think Sean genuinely cares. I applaud him for putting his time, his money and his energy where his mouth is. And I don’t think there are very many people – nevermind celebrities – who could spend so much time in Haiti under those conditions and not go crazy, not go out of their mind, not be incredibly frustrated and angry. I would be chain-smoking and cursing up a storm too. But what I don’t understand is why there needs to be a comparison or a criticism of us-versus-them – for Sean or for CNN. Why does Sean “see some aid workers as having been in the business too long. ‘Dispassionate,’ he calls them.” Maybe those aid workers have worked in equally horrible conditions over the course of decades? One man’s “dispassionate” is another man’s “even-tempered” or “in it for the long haul” or “not acting like every humanitarian stumble is the big Oscar-bait dramatic scene”.