Fourteen months since his last trip to Haiti, Jose Iglesias landed in Port-au-Prince last month with his video camera in hand, looking for the images that captured this chapter in the country’s post-quake recovery.

He had spent nearly eight months there in 2010 to produce a one-hour documentary —— Nou Bouke (We’re Tired): Haiti’s Past, Present and Future. It aired nationally on PBS last year and was awarded a regional Emmy.

Iglesias said he was hoping to see clear signs of progress.

“You have to dig to see it,” said Iglesias, an el Nuevo Herald videographer. “It was subtle.”

The rubble is gone, the airport is being rebuilt and many of the tent cities have been cleared, giving way to parks where children ride bicycles. And the sounds of life are back, said Miami Herald interactive editor Nancy San Martin, who returned with Iglesias in December.

“The music was blaring from the tap taps [buses]. You could hear the vendors on the street,” she said. “To me, the stunning silence after the earthquake was deafening.”

Just as telling is what you don’t see, said Jacqueline Charles, The Herald’s Caribbean correspondent, who spent a majority of her time in Haiti last year.

“You see progress but it’s so complicated,” she said. “It’s not black and white.”

On a recent return visit to a school outside the capital, the large, white tents where classes had been held are now gone. But the children have been moved inside a still-damaged building.

“You see the tents are gone but you have to ask, where did those people go and are their lives any better?” Charles said.

Today, we kick off a series that examines Haiti’s complex story, from the “seeds” of recovery to the many challenges ahead. Our sequel to Nou Bouke is posted at www.MiamiHerald.com/Haiti, along with an extended interview with newly elected Haitian President Michel Martelly. On Tuesday, we examine how the millions in donations have been spent.

Charles, who has covered Haiti off and on for 17 years, again expects to spend considerable time there this year.

“It’s not about parachute journalism,” she said. “We’ve been there and we’ve been telling the story.”