Perpective

(In respect to the private conversation that I refer to, I have shielded the identity and particulars of the situation that the individual is working through.)

I had a conversation regarding the recent killings of three police officers in Pittsburgh. I was talking with a young friend who has done some pretty hardcore traveling recently. (S)he talked about not being able to muster the same outpouring of sympathy as the rest of the community displayed.

I saw the struggle in him/her. The crime was heinous, but in other parts of the world atrocities of much greater magnitude happen regularly. Are the lives of police and military in Afghanistan or the West Bank any less worthy of our collective sorrow?

I felt a strange sense of guilt and rage when I started to reintegrate into American life after developing world trips. We are privileged here. We don’t even think about our expectations of entitlement for things like clean water, governmental stability and basic human rights.

I realized that something had changed in me when a beloved pet had to be euthanized. I was devoid of emotion, where it would have been in the bounds of normal to be broken up. I called a friend who had served in combat. I said, “Why don’t I feel anything? Why am I not crying?” I was worried that my emotions had somehow died. He reassured me that this was not true, but that I would deal with loss when I had taken care of all of the things that needed done. He talked about the painful gift of perspective that people receive after they have seen poverty, disease and war.

The perspective scared me. It is like looking down into a valley of grief and realizing that I am absolutely powerless to ease the agony. I had shed a layer of ego.

That created the next conflict in me—why care? Why witness?

The answer was as simple as the questions: because it is my nature. In telling stories I find that while the overwhelming problems still plague us, some good does come of it. I found a compassion for people that is worth cultivating. It is not pity because pity erroneously usurps part of the experience that the other person is going through. I witness the other person’s humanity. I think that it is important to express kindness if it is welcome. The other part is to redirect judgment into something positive. What is the real reason that people act as they do?

I didn’t have an assignment to photograph the memorial service for the fallen police officers. I’ve learned to listen to my inner voice that says, “Do this. It is the right thing.”
So I went down to the City/County Building and photographed the memorial service. You can see it here at http://www.rosensteel.com/Tribute/
I knew that I could carry the burden of witnessing with compassion and sensitivity. I knew that I could do it without exploiting people deep in grief. That was the gift that I could offer.

I was curious, too, about the whole ritual. I learned why we, as a community, felt obliged to mourn so greatly. Most of us didn’t know the officers, but we knew what they represented. They were our symbol for protection, for the order of things. That symbol had been compromised by extraordinary, irreparable violence. The illusion of safety had been shattered.

The community responded with an overwhelming, powerful display. Thousands of officers, some from as far away as Canada paid their respects. The procession of police cars to the funeral lasted hours. There was little doubt that many would have laid down their lives to have stopped the events of that terrible day. In the rite of funeral, we sought to heal the insanity with and exceptional exercise of order; public acknowledgement of the lethal risk that lurks despite our best efforts to thwart it and the valor of those who would face that evil despite the price. The collective presence was the only meaningful gift that anyone could give.

It wasn’t about how many people died. It won’t keep a bomb from ripping through a market crowd in Pakistan or solve the poverty of the Kenyan ghettos. It was about being human despite history that each of us owns.

My friend had chosen not to experience the memorials. I saw the same churning emotion in him/her that I go through after a tough trip. (S)he’s got to find his/her own resolution to walking between the developed and emerging countries. The only thing that I could say when (s)he looked at me for a response was,” I understand.”

Photos of an Orphanage

In Ethiopia:
I told John Mckay about my bad experience with the Kenyan orphanage. He didn’t seem surprised as the way of things in Africa doesn’t necessarily make a bit of sense to a westerner. He said that I could help out another orphanage though. The Youth Campus was affiliated with an orphanage on the outskirts of town. He took me there one afternoon where I photographed the children and facilities for them.

I am so very excited about this time that we live in. I was able to produce a high-quality CD of images for them, and take a duplicate back to the States to be used for further fundraising for them. We have so many possibilities to help people out.
Anne Frank: No one has ever become poor by giving.

Video for the Youth Campus

Making media for NGOs
One of my other social service projects was to create a short video for the Awassa Youth Campus. John Mckay wanted me to make something that they could use on an upcoming fundraising tour of the US. I wanted to tell the story totally in their own words, not through a narrator. It wasn’t too hard. I had a ton of B-roll and really just had to do a few interviews.
See the video>>

Back in Awassa

After the project for the Zany Umbrella Circus, I was supposed to stop in Kenya for a week to do some free documentary work for a tiny orphanage. Things got really shakey with the organization. For months I had worked on communications and given project plans to the board members. On the day I was to leave for Africa I got a bizarre email from the orphanage that nearly accused me of trying to set up some kind of smear expose on them. This was of course after I had spent MY OWN MONEY to arrange the extra transportation. I was a little freaked out, and extremely insulted. It could have been a really powerful gift for their fundraising efforts. I looked back at my documentation to try to figure out what had made a 180 degree turn in their attitude. I could not find anything. I had done my part correctly. I tried to communicate with them while I was in Ethiopia. Time was running out. I changed my flight at the last moment to stay an extra week in Awassa. I felt angry at the agency who had irresponsibly squandered my goodwill. But I had straightened things out. Mostly, I felt relieved.

In my week in Awassa I had the opportunity to make some media that orgs there really used. I shot for a grass roots NGO for women with HIV/AIDS called "Tilla" which means "umbrella". They were putting together a book of biographies. They needed portraits of the women. I was honored to help out. I shot for an afternoon. My set up was pretty simple. In the first location things were easy, rainy season there produces soft, beautiful light—nothing else needed. The second location was a bit harder. I threw a tarp (I carry it in my pack for emergency shelter) over a door for a backdrop. Then the fundraising director from Tilla assisted by managing a small reflector that I used as a fill light. I was nervous before the shoot. Ethiopian women generally keep to themselves for a lot of good reasons. I was concerned that they wouldn’t open up for the portraits. I was happily wrong. These women are brave. They have fiercely faced disease, poverty and ostracism. They have looked at their own mortality and told death, “Not today.” So a geek with a camera was no problem for them. I wanted to share their images with them by showing them the review screen on the back of the camera. Each of them said “konjo” which means “beautiful.” I thought about how few American women react with that kind of acceptance and kindness toward their own image. I learned something that day.

The Awassa Youth Campus

I’d gone on other developing-world trips with Ben Sota before. He teaches circus skills in youth organizations that have circus programs. It sounds odd for Americans, but street performers are not uncommon. Because many aspects of circus rely on communicating through gesture, it fits in places where many languages coexist.

The Awassa Youth Campus which runs a circus, is a free-form self-described “open door” courtyard where kids from 5 or 6 years through young adulthood go. Spontaneous jam sessions break out. Teenagers practice acrobatics with ferocious intensity while other kids hypnotically concentrate on the juggling pins that fly through the air. Four tiny boys watch intently. These little ones are homeless. The campus welcomes all kids—homeless, working class, middle class. It doesn’t matter. There are only a few organized classes: Aikido, English, and circus practice. One young man paints in an open air studio. Others play foosball. There is an air of randomness that fits with the laid back rythem of the town. John Mckay keeps track of the kids, trying to fuel the sparks of creativity and interest that happen spontaneously with the kids.

Ben’s job was not so layed-back. He had to act as artistic director for a show that was to go on tour in the Omo Valley in just one week. A second circus, Fekat Circus, from Addis had come down to join the tour. He cobbled together the existing acts of the two circuses around a loose storyline about three little boys who discover a world of circus underneath the trappings of everyday life. Check out the slideshow >>

We went to the Omo Valley—35 people stuffed in a 24-person bus for 5 to 8 hours a day mostly on dirt roads. The landscape changed to a more arid savannah. We saw fields of corn that had received too little rain too late brown-edged leaves on scrawny stalks hopelessly finishing the growing season with the only the anticipation of a woefully lean harvest. It was the beginning of a green famine. Most people looked relatively good, but the mood was angry and jealous of anyone who had the money to ride into their town on a bus.

It was obvious that for every look, for every plea for money, for every brown field, there was a deeper, incredibly complicated tangle of failure that was so much a part of everyday life that people had adapted to it. Loss of the tribal seclusion, the spread of AIDS and malaria, conflict escalated by cheap, plentiful and deadly weapons, and misplaced foreign aid were just the easy factors to point to.

I felt frustrated. I felt humbled by my own self-righteous ideas that I might be able to help right something in a tsunami of wrong. I stayed focused on my work, videotaping and photographing everything I can find. The trip is exhausting, bouncing in an overcrouded bus along unpaved roads for hours. We can only travel by daylight because the risk of running off the unlit mountain roads is too great as is the threat of bandits. When we would reach the day’s destination, the troupe sets up for a show at a market-o (outdoor weekly market) or a football (soccer) field, blares the bus’ loudspeaker to draw a crowd, does the show and then moves on until late afternoon when we would find cheap hotels to stay in. (I opted for the relatively posh rooms at $5 a night.) At one hotel I pitch my tent on my bed and keep my gear locked down because there were just too many cockroaches in the room.

I have had a pretty easy trip in comparison with the way that most people in the country travel, still, I feel a resentment when I see the Landrovers full of rich adventure tourists in Jinka. I feel it, so I can’t imagine how many times it amplifies in the minds and hearts of people who do not have enough to eat. White means “extravagantly rich” there. I can’t hang a disclaimer on my skin. And I can’t even imagine the absurdity of translating, “but really—I don’t have money, not money like THEM.” So I just don’t. I understand better why there are so many warnings about banditry. All those CNN clips about class warfare take on a new dimension. But to only tell the violence of the story is not fair.

Anne Frank moment: “Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.”

Bringing pictures from home

Awassa, Ethiopia:
In Pittsburgh I read a Post Gazette article about Ethiopian boys who were adopted by American families. One of the boys, M, was from Awassa. I contacted the boy’s family in the US. His mom, Kim, and I devised a plan to take images of M back to his relatives in Ethiopia. Kim made a video and put together a long letter and care package of photos. She worked through the adoption agency to reach his aunt in Awassa. At first the agency discouraged us. Things get messy quickly. For the family who gives up a child having a stranger come around—especially a white stranger—can be a disgrace. Kim persisted. Somehow a bunch of undelivered letters from M’s aunt were surfaced in the agency office. Kim got a phone number for the agency’s Awassa office. All I had to do was to deliver the package and videotape M’s aunt’s message.

I contacted the social worker in Awassa. It took a set of emails and more approvals. He met me ahead of time. The agency was freaked because I am a photojournalist. We set a date to meet. I’d imagined what M’s aunt might look like. I was wrong. She had on a bright purple pants suit. She looked about my age. The agency office was tiny and dismal, lit by failing florescent lights. The only decoration was an official looking map of the country. I played Kim’s DVD on my laptop for M’s aunt. The social worker patiently translated the long letter. I videotaped the meeting. I couldn’t guess what Mahari’s aunt was feeling. She said that she prays for M and his American family. I felt relieved to safely deliver the messages and that Kim and I had run the gauntlet to make contact, but I still wasn’t sure how the encounter translated socially. M’s aunt had looked interested, but tired and anxious through the meeting. I wasn’t sure if it was just a bad day, the stress of the meeting or any one of a host of emotional triggers that the meeting could have pressed.

I found out M’s aunt’s reaction the next day. A young man approached me. He asked if I knew Kim. He introduced himself as M’s cousin. He wanted to send a letter back with me. I knew then that the encounter had been a good one for both sides.

Months later Kim had contacted me with an update. She had kept up with the family in Ethiopia through email. A real relationship had developed through cyberspace.

Kids and money

More thoughts on Ethiopia
Getting from my hotel to the Awassa Youth Campus was a challenge. It was a simple half km walk, but I found that every kid on my way was terribly curious about the pasty white woman with too many bags. Some kids would scream “FORENGEE” and run to me from across the street. I remember having the same reaction to ice cream trucks when I was their age. The greeting is really intimidating. Kids calling attention and drawing a crowd. Then they would put out tiny hands and say “MONEY.” They’d say it with expectation, without shame. That was unsettling. It was just weird and wrong. I wasn’t mad at them. I was mad at the idiot forengees who came before me and dolled out pennies to buy the momentary delight of these kids. For the record DON’T GIVE MONEY TO KIDS. Think about how you would feel if a stranger was giving pennies to your kids. Think about a country with no 911 system. It is a really dangerous for them. Still, I knew that the kids were going to do it. I had to come up with a way to deal with it positively.

My strategy was to take the economics out of the encounter. When a little boy yelled, “FORENGEEEEE!” I yell back, just as loud, “KONJO LEJ!” That is Amharic for “beautiful child.” The kids thought it was pretty cool and the adults walking down the street looked openly relieved that I was being nice to the little ones. When the kids would demand “MONEY!” I’d respond, “That’s not my name. My name is Renee. What is your name?” Then we’d go through a whole circle of introductions and handshaking. It worked really well. It took a lot of time. I learned quickly to just plan for it. Sometimes I’d encounter groups of kids who were already professional beggars. They were tough, but they were still kids. I’d stick with the no money thing, but my secondary strategy was to teach them a song. Lots of kids in Ethiopia now know “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”

I would give money to some people—old people, disabled folks or skinny mothers with chubby little babies. Maggie McKay, and Awassa native, told me that these women breast feed long after the child is able to eat solid food because they have no food to give them. They starve themselves for their children.

I had to really think about my actions and reactions every time I left my room. The loss of anonymity is jarring. I had to shed the illusion that I controlled the way people saw me.