Such an inspiring program!
Such an inspiring program!
Lots of it.
So I was one happy girl when we finally reached the salt flats in northern Argentina near Purmamarca. Following a beautiful drive to reach Las Salinas Grandes, we were surprised to find that all of the buildings (and the tables inside of them) were built from salt.
We covered camera operation, lighting, composition, aperture/shutter speeds and the psychology surrounding taking a compelling portrait.
I will truly miss being with these women, and I look forward to reading their stories and seeing the beautiful photographs they will make which will enhance their articles.
Women reporters use their new photography skills while photographing a juggler on the streets of Argentina
And I am a cheap date: magazine editorial rates can pay for a few books, but hardly enough to help with college tuition for my three offspring.
But if truth be told, I do this because I repeatedly fall in love with some of the subjects. I never know when it will hit me, and it is a random thing. The way a hand brushes lint from a skirt, a pause in a spoken sentence, a flip of an attitude, a squeal of glee, one sarcastic comment.
I go home, download the images, and BAM. I am in love.
Here are a few people who have had that effect on me. There are more tucked away on external hard drives, but I snagged a few here because, well, I love to think about what they bring to the world, one small gesture at a time.
(See if you can guess who each person is. Scroll your cursor over each image for the answer.)
An author:
A girl living happily on a commune:
A beer maker and a building restorer:
The Littlest Cowboy In Frenchglen, Oregon:
A dancer:
A redneck bar stool philosopher:
An architect with a penchant for the drawing outside of the box:
Two crusty miners in Plush, Oregon:
A lovely creative force who conceived of The Girl Effect:
A bread maker:
Another author:
We are all very excited to see which images will be selected for the layouts. Participants learned some insider tips regarding fulfilling a magazine editorial assignment.
(Photo by Sarah Cross)
In this world
Do you know
Do you know
Do you know what it feels like for a girl
What it feels like in this world?
There are 42 students in Kuye’s class, and only four of them are girls. In a society that cherishes girls to a point of thinking of them as “prizes”, too often girls are not seen outside of the home for fear that she will steal the heart of a man before they are ready to have her live outside of the home. When a girl goes outside of the house to socialize or to school, she can also be ostracized a bit, out of fear, jealousy, or the upholding of traditional norms.
Kuye used to go to the spring to fetch water at 3am with her friends because water was very difficult to find. In exchange for her labor, these friends helped her by purchasing pens and exercise books for her to use while at school. If she didn’t help them fetch water, they would not help her. Sometimes she would arrive at late school because she was so tired.
However small, her support is provided by her mother, Taiko. Since she attends school under such financial hardship, sometimes she wanted to quit, but her friends encouraged her to remain in school.
Mercy Corps supports Kuye by covering the expenses of pens, exercise books, uniforms, and soap. Kuye speaks about her moral obligation to her friends, and still wants to help them. But now she tells them that she has assignments to do and will help them as soon as she is finished with her homework.
I ask her what her dinnertime is like, and she tells me that if food is present, they eat. If no food is present, they don’t eat. Sometimes Kuye walks home from school with a friend and they search each other’s homes to see which home has food for that evening, and they will share what they find with each other.
A tough life she has. Yet she remains confident and excited about her future.
She realizes that she is learning more than just the traditional subjects at school. One area that has been particularly difficult is changing the way her family and village think about equality between males and females. Since attending school, Kuye has successfully built the case surrounding her brother’s and her duties at home: hers should be no more nor less than those of her brother’s.
Kuye wants support to be available so she can go to university. She wants a comfortable home in which to lay her head down at night. She wants a husband to love, and children to educate. She also knows more about family planning, and has decided that she would like to have only two children, which will reduce the burden she and her husband will have to feed and educate them.
Kuye is a girl. She loves pretty shirts and skirts and hair bows and bracelets.
She is also a pioneer and a fearless leader, bold and defiant, paving the way for others.
Madonna would be proud.
Her eyes dart back and forth, her smile is wide and mischievous, and she makes little sounds when she giggles that make me want to live with her forever.
Her name is Taiko and she is a mother of six children, three of which are attending school. She secured a loan from Mercy Corps to purchase an ox to fatten up and sell for a profit at the local market. The ox lives right outside of her thatched roof hut, and everyone pitches in to help care for the ox. Yet, the job of cleaning the ox’s space is usually left up to Taiko. Who wants to grab handfuls of ox poop?
Taiko does it with a smile.
She tells us how her life is better now that she has support from Mercy Corps to assist with books, pens, uniforms and toiletries, all things that were extremely difficult for Taiko and her husband Orxayito to purchase so that their children could be in school. Three of their six children are already married and were not able to go to school, so they celebrate that their remaining three children will be educated.
Taiko shows me how she makes a local drink, cheka, which she sells to help support her children’s school needs. She also shows me the sorghum and corn she will send to her daughter who is attending university so that she has something to eat while attending school away from home.
As we talk, she starts to scurry about madly, gathering up corn and wheat that have been drying in the sun. Her spindly legs and arms cannot move fast enough for her and we all wonder what she is doing, and why.
Soon, the rains break through, making us all dash for cover. How did she know they were coming?!
I keep searching for her eyes to falter, to drop from their pixie up turned edges. Is she ever sad? She said she has two main problems right now: to not let rumors from other villagers bother her, and to be confident that her two other children will have funds for university classes. She knows that the Mercy Corps program is for high school level only. She is preparing now for how she will be able to support her children as they move along their chosen paths.
Swiftly, her eyes assume their dancing pattern again and she looks straight into my eyes, locking in for a time that is usually highly uncomfortable for my Western cultural influence. I expect her to ask me for support.
Instead, she throws her head back and says “I am also very happy. Let us laugh! She will put my picture on her wall. It seems as if we eat from the same table.”
My image of Aurelie Tu made the cover of this jam packed with good stuff issue!
(Photo by Sean Sheridan for Mercy Corps)