Dawn came early today with the sounds of roosters, donkeys and scruffy little children peaking through the bushes to see who came to their desert oasis in the middle of the night. Before I could get dressed, the leader of Torbi’s main women’s group came for a quick visit, albeit somewhat skeptically, to try and understand what we were doing in town.
Few words were spoken although examining glances said just as much. But before long, handshakes ensued and even a few smiles were exchanged after a long conversation was made possible by DeBaso, my Gabbra driver…the result being that we had some 10 women willing to have their images made. Breakfast was on the fly as the whole group wanted more information with all of them standing in front of me with all eyes focused on what I had to say. And so a mini presentation was on with my walking them through The Paradigm Project - what it meant, what it’s goals are and that without them I didn’t have a project.
You can plan all you like, and we did plenty, but once you’re face to face with another culture it’s their call to either believe what you’re saying or back away. What it meant for our project is that without their support there were no images. It’s just that simple. However, everything was on our side today. They wanted to help on this project in an effort to highlight the difficulties women face far from the big cities – they wanted to play their part in something bigger than themselves.
DeBaso told me that they “appreciated my coming to their town to help them” and that “they’d like to help me as well”. With this I asked the women to join me in the rough edged cottage with DeBaso in tow, opened my laptop and showed them a few images I’d just created in Meru a few days earlier. The images were of other wood cutters that they share a kinship with and I guess a picture at times does speak a thousand words as small sounds of approval were uttered in the dim lit space.
I ventured then to share with the women a printed image of a young child I’d photographed a month earlier in support of the global food crisis which is shown above. Each of the women delicately handed the image to the next - transfixed it seemed on the condition of the child... even more so after we interpreted the words from the printed piece. I assumed they were able to relate to the suffering, which is all too common in East Africa. I saw from their eyes that I appeared to be part of the solution and with this they gave me access to their world for just a short while. A relationship of trust was developed based on this exchange and all without uttering a single intelligible word. And because of this trust I felt compelled to explain what often may seem a small point...that not all photographers use the images they produce for good intentions. I do…
Between inquisitive tourists who push the boundaries of common sense and unscrupulous professional shooters which tear the boundary fence down, there’s been enough misrepresentation of a people and unfortunately this seems to occur everywhere I go. So, I work hard to maintain a high level of integrity when interacting with people especially when I find myself in far away places. Places where I'm the one who's the stranger or the interloper. I'm the one that doesn’t speak the local dialect and I am the one…who doesn’t belong there...
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