Torbi - "Gabbra Wood Hauler"


CAPTION:
One in a series of portraits for The Paradigm Project which focuses on the plight of mature women who carry wood or seek fuel
everyday - to sell in order to feed their family.

Torbi - "Gabbra Tears" Part 2

We pulled in at dark - a well known taboo - but our driver is from the same Gabbra clan that live here and so he knows literally everyone along the way which increased our odds in providing us a modicum of security in what would be a region thrust into the international news arena with violence on the Somali border. For now though we drove quietly to the womens lodge where we would live for the next few days...

This would be Scott's first night in the field where he would come face to face with the humble conditions that people live in. We gave Scott the choice of 4 rooms, each with it's own kerosene lantern, brightly colored mattress and pealing painted walls and matching flojos at your bedside to wear out to the open trenched squatty pottty...with his delight being too great for words - oddly enough he was just kinda silent as he wandered from room to room seeking "the best room" in the house. Well, I've been "here" before so I knew I couldn't sleep in there so we hauled a vintage bed frame and it's equally vintage mattress out into the open dirt field - just like a Marriott - and up came the mosquito net for a nights sleep under the stars that were just without words - so bright and so full with stars and planets and shooting stars that I couldn't focus on the nights sky for all of the baubles twinkling away...

We pulled the cases out, circled a few chairs, put our headlamps on, Scott fired up the fuel tank on the hood of the truck for our evening tea ceremony and for a moment with the engine noise finally dying down, we became silent - humble and thought of days gone by...

My nights sleep was wonderful except for one small detail. As it were, hyenas, (yes hyenas) were moving closer to our camp with their characteristic call to one another and I have to say having seen one about 10 feet in front of me in Ethiopia, it's right out of "Sherlock Holmes Adventures" to see these creatures and a very creepy thing to know that these animals were just a stones throw away - not behind bars - out there in the dark eating things well beyond the odd big mac meal deal...and so as the lamps were put out I laid down and zipped in my net...I couldn't have felt more relaxed nor more vulnerable at the same time but sleep came quickly in the cool night air with the sound from the mosque calling the faithful to prayer...such are the textures of this land...such is Africa

Gabbra Women - "Salo"


CAPTION:
Salo is a quiet woman who leads a very humble life and spends most of her time in the service of her family - making ends meet
as best she can with little food and even less water.

Torbi - "Gabbra Tears" Part 1

From Meru we left for Torbi, a windswept village located some 30kms from the Ethiopian border, mostly noted for an infamous massacre which took place in the early morning hours of July 12th 2005. The pain from the enormous loss of innocent school children and their parents that day by Boran raiders, a tribe that's been fighting with the Gabbra people over water rights, continues to this day with peace efforts being made by the elders of both the Boran and the Gabbra clans to stop the blood feud. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbi_massacre)

I want to move past this tragedy because there are so many moments of true pain and hardship out here without looking too hard yet know that the memory of that day cut deep into each of those who escaped death. The survivors however live to work hard each and ever day to stay alive in what could only be described as a blisteringly hot landscape that's devoid of trees or shrubs - covered only by rocks for as far as you could see with barely enough water to use for cooking, none available for washing their clothes or bedding and definitely none for bathing - just a tough existence for anyone really. However in the middle of this drought affected region are an amazing group of women from the Gabbra tribe, who defy all odds by surviving at all, that helped me by taking the time to understand the project about empowering women and couldn't do enough in playing their part...

Meru - "Women of the Forest" Part 2

The day ended with our waving good bye to our new found friends then quickly I realized the opportunity to create a series of portraits of these strong women and so we made a deal to be back at the big tree at 10am..."oh and we want fanta...coca cola"!...a common language everywhere no less...

The next day Scott and I arrived early to set up a traditional film based camera system. i kept wondering about shooting film but more importantly it had a focus "ring" that actually needed you to use a skill instead of just pressing the button half way down for the computer to kick in and focus for you. So this tree was about 12 feet across and provided solid content to the story....wood, big tree, wood, wood cutters...so we spread the gear out without the usual comforts of an advertising set and they soon started to wander in. By the time we were finished 4 hours later we'd shot the original 11 plus 17 "new" friends who wanted their photograph taken as well and so to keep the peace we wound through a few more magazines to please everyone...

With a few waves of their hands and feigned soft smiles appearing through hard-worked faces and lots of "Asanti Sana's"...we all bid farewell to each other and with that our team went looking for charcoal burners, which is also illegal so as a highly kept secret by just about everyone, our yield on this part was low so we headed back to the hotel to suit up, load up and prepare to head north to Marsabit...

Thanks to the FH staff, we were assigned a serious land cruiser for the open desert journey. At the end of the day, we'd traveled some 11 hours over open terrain, flat salt pan desert and volcanic rock fields all at high speed with us being thrown about like rag dolls - although visual to the core, we both found the desert to be majestically beautiful in its desolation with monkeys, guinea fowl and antelope running across our tracks...and soon the landscape changed from forested Meru to high desert Samburu lands with it's distinct tribal culture and then quickly changing again as we drove into Rendille territory - equally marked as a tribe with very dark skin - appearing to be nearly jet black in tone. All along the route young men stand at the side of the road watching over their grazing cattle, hesitantly returning our peaceful waves as we pass on the track north...

It all seems so pastoral, even picture post card-esque and yet just last night there was a cattle raid with a group of Turkana raiders stealing goats and cows from the Boran tribe - killing 5 Boran shepherds in the process and so the tribal rifts run deep with revenge blood feuds being commonplace...making you pay attention to where your path is taking you. As it were we stayed in Marsabit last night and are late to get on the road today, now 4:30pm as our driver was suffering from food poisoning. Hes not just any driver, Debaso is Gabbra, a tribe that is prevalent in the communities along with the Boran, living together in a town 3 hours to the North. Torbi is our destination which is about 30 miles from the Ethiopian border, infamous for a massacre in 2006 between the Boran and the Gabbra where scores were killed in cold blood - and so we will stay there for the next couple of nights...

While there we'll continue seeking out women which endure the heavy burden of collecting fuel for the family stove or to sell for money to buy food and we'll try to engage them through our interpreter to earn their trust. If we're lucky, we wont be rejected and in that I hope that I'm able to create portraits of these strong, dignified women that suffer under the hardest of labor...I'm sure it's culturally and tribally correct, but it surely has to be one of the most grueling forms of labor anywhere...

Scott's loading up the truck and so were away to T0rbi...till then...Rodney and Scott

Meru - "Wood Hauler"


CAPTION:
Age doesn't pose a barrier - if you want to eat - you go to the forest and you carry as much as you can for as long as you can.
It's just that simple. The strength of one woman in lifting and carrying nearly 100lbs of wood for an unknown number of miles,
twice a day, left all of us in utter silence...maybe equally embarrassed.

Meru - "Women of the Forest" Part 1

Finally we managed to get ourselves out of Nairobi and on the road north for Meru. I've been here many times over the years to support work on Hiv/Aids but this "carbon project" was a new experience with a new set of demands on our shoulders. Considered in many ways as the crossroads of the Hiv/Aids epidemic - a transit town with a bustling street trade we unloaded our gear into the cramped quarters of the Meru Safari Hotel, which made us long for the Fairview but as in most of Kenya - its people are very warm and equally generous and so all the rest is of little consequence - we got over it quick enough...

From a local tip, we set out early to locate a group of women that were beginning their walk to the forests to cut down wood to haul back to the town for sale so they could put food on the table for their children. The woman in the image below this post, typical of the hard life she's endured, was tired and about 60 years old although she couldnt remember really her true age - remarking that she's been carrying wood her whole life. We finally caught up with them and thru our interpreter assured them of our intentions and for them to not fear us as chopping wood down is illegal and carries stiff penalties. Soon we found ourselves to be the unwelcome house guests but were committed to understand it all. We walked a kilometer or two at the side of the road with the group and soon found ourselves at a beaten path that led into the heavily tree'd forest where the women quickly sat down...went silent and began to pray out loud for protection.

As it turns out, there are wild elephants in this part of the forest and so it's a dangerous proposition to go too deep into the wood. For our part, Scott and I also paused at the thought of coming face to face with a wild elephant that stands some 15' at the shoulder with a couple of ivory tusks to finish the visual for you.

And with that, they all wandered off in to the thicket to find saplings to cut down leaving Scott and I to wonder what we'd do beyond having a heart attack on the spot or trying to climb a tree if this actually happened. With nervous laughter and a few jokes we pondered the memories of Saturday afternoons watching "Tarzan" clips where the elephants are shown stampeding at warp speed - chasing Tarzan and then it pans back to Tarzan running thru the forest as fast as he can looking over his shoulder...then the elephant...then Tarzan...a few "Un-Gowaas" and well...you kinda get the picture...

As fear faded and the work at hand came to the forefront, I cant say I have ever been more humbled, almost to tears, watching these women with a panga-machete in hand, scatter into the bush to cut a load of wood to haul home, some their second trip of the day. Outside of a few giggles traded back and forth the tone was serious and you could here the repeated smack blades to bark ring thru the dense forest as these women, clothed in the humblest of garments, simple shoes torn and untied, drenched in dirt,sweat and wood cuttings...strong arms and backs tucked into the work at hand leaving us not knowing how to help them. Scott, as a well built Marine stood and watched helplessly as I did - in awe of what they were asked to do for their families without any help on any level. It was just expected.

We made our images and then followed them out of the forest, bundles held low and heavy on their lower backs as they walked silently out of the forest in a single file into the late day sun that trickled thru the branches to highlight the pools of sweat on their faces and tense outstretched arms...and so the Marine and I - we walked with them home with no fanfare, no applause, no words of thanks in what was a silent long line of 11 women - shuffling under heavy burden to provide for their loved ones...

Meru - "Women of the Forest"


CAPTION:
At rest - One of the many women that silently shuffle to the depths of the forest to cut and haul - 80lb bundles of wood - carried
on their backs...twice a day for $2.90 to feed their families.

So it begins...

Nairobi - I've arrived once again on assignment to the other side of the planet - East Africa has called me back to its remote frontiers with my last visit to this country less than a month ago with barely enough time to get my laundry cleaned. Over the past few days I've been resting at the Fairview, my home away from home, in preparation of an arduous project that is centered in the northern regions close to the Ethiopian border.

This time though were better prepared - the last experience crossing the Chalbi Desert at high speed was a mirage filled experience I wont soon forget however the knowledge that we were racing across the desert without a tire iron nor extra supplies - made me pause for a moment although one thought is quickly replaced by another out here and soon my mind drifted away. It wasnt difficult to ignore the heat or the blast furnace temperatures but it was the jarring bone crunching - kidney pounding you take - the constant thrashing that the vehicle and its human occupants feel every kilometer of the way that makes you know youre not in Idaho anymore.

Its difficult to focus with dust devils, the odd dust storm and sand pits that can easily swallow a land rover and its experienced driver...all of these elements accompany the endless single beige toned landscape without even a camel to break the lines on the horizon. The open desert in this northern range is a salt pan, once covered with cool waters and now the home of bleached white sands that while beautiful in its own way, is an emotionless landscape that makes you pull inside yourself and dream distant dreams until the engine stops and the heat goes down and the dust settles about your feet.

This time were prepared with a solid land rover, 160 litres of extra fuel, water bladders and what seems to be an endless supply of food stores and not enough clothes held safely inside our favourite black rolling thunder bags and somewhere in the mix is an old mechanical hasselblad system to support the need creatively for the feel and look of film as well as the usual compliment of Canon's best digital gear in tow...(i hope we remember how to load the film magazines although my biggest worry isnt the land rover breaking down or running into bandits or a choking dust storm, malaria or even that "Somalia is just down the road"...its that I actually have to manually focus a camera again...and that makes me pause

I dont know - there are so many things to speak on and yet no time. Its a travel day to Meru, about 4 hours north of Nairobi and its the beginning of a long 15 day photographic assignment in support of a new program called The Paradigm Project - which I'll try to explain later on. For now, a small crew of our driver, my photographic colleague Scott Shepard (for those of you that are wondering why hes not answering his cell phone or why hes not at the beach...hes in nairobi) and me. The project has been in the works for a few months now and is an exciting one that deals with carbon credits and the empowering of women in the vast tribal belt around the Chalbi Desert.

Our charge is to create a different style of image - a set of serious portraits to lend awareness to the plight of the women living in the remote tribal belt east of Lake Turkana - beyond the typical style of photographic image employed in development work these days. So with Scott's help, my friend and former - no - always Marine Seargent - and also a photographer in his own right, we're going to try to make a difference out here for those whose lives can be difficult at best. Scott may have paused for a moment about coming to this part of the world again but without question he stepped up as he always does and answered my last ditch call for help just 2 days before I took off for London...and it's not the deserts of Iraq with a gun in his hand anymore - its a camera - and a heart for good...and I'm grateful for his service in being out here with me...

I intend on creating images of consequence in continuing what has been 10 years of playing my part out here...and yet this new project is just as much a new paradigm for the both of us as it is for those in the region where the project is being rolled out - for me, even though I am very experienced out here its been difficult to decide on the right creative thinking behind these new images that I am about to create...lots of pressure not about me or the photography but that I get it right - for now though, were more focused on getting out of Nairobi before dark sets in...

gotta run...speak when we can...Rodney and Scott

"One Voice" - The Global Food Crisis in Kenya


CAPTION:
This young child, enduring a degree of malnutrition, is comforted by his mother's touch located along the border with Ethiopia in a wind
swept desert region known as the windiest place on earth making it difficult to grow crops. Northern Kenya (actual location protected)

Update: September 07.09 - Awarded 3 Honorable Mentions 2009 International Photography Awards (IPA)

day one:

As a mature photographer...I believe I'll hide behind my images for a short while until I can get a sense of what's valuable enough to share in print - what it is you'd like to know and what I'd like to give...to you. That this image maker would have anything worthy to say that others would want to read about is interesting in itself - especially when so many words...at times...can mean so little

We've just returned from East Africa, producing portraits of people in a hot zone for malnutrition located along the edges of The Chalbi Desert in Northern Kenya - with many people suffering under a multi year drought that has exacted a heavy price on the youngest of children with their mothers having few resources to ease their hunger...like the young child in the image above, it's a hard life with few choices available

Part of my ongoing work around the globe is to help raise awareness to serious issues that have to do with the human condition and its from these journeys that I'll share with you, what I believe is the best that I have to offer - my journeys to the field which are blanketed with memories of the sweetest children's smiles to the deepest of human sorrows that anyone could ever imagine...this photographer has experienced so much and for those interested in such topics - i'll do my best to give you a taste of development work - having spent so many miles and so many years away from home to play my part for good...

I'd be more than happy to answer any questions you may have or give you information on how to get involved and how to find an organization that's a good fit for your interest and ability.

Rodney