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A week after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Evelyn posed for me early one morning just outside her home. Crumbling at the edges with large cracks streaking down her walls, Evelyn slept on the dirt with her babies outside her door – fearful of another earthquake bringing the roof down as they slept. I had asked at the time if she was hopeful with all of the relief work taking place in Jacmel. Her answer was starkly simple.. "No I am not confident of anything anymore today or in the future." Out of hope – presenting what appeared to be the spirit of stoicism, was actually a blanketed mix of fear, tears and the spirit – to survive.
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This location was found in Manipur, the eastern most region of India during the filming of "LOG ON.RISE UP. for WORLD PULSE, a poignant online platform created for women. Urmila.. is a leading activist campaigning for womens causes – specifically focused to end the stigma within Indian society – of menstruation and the indignities women face by both genders. Urmila has made it her lifes work to bring change to outlying villages where education can prove limiting.
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"Blessed are the innocent.. and blessed are the prayers of our children.. "
This young boy in his best school shirt, prepares for his day in prayer with and for his HIV positive mother. I met their humble, warm-hearted family while on assignment in Ethiopia for respected NGO, Food for the Hungry, while shooting a Day in the Life – with their mother who was suffering through the pains of HIV/AIDS. Thankfully the medicine she received under the loving eyes of volunteers, enables her to live a full life caring and tending her family, with the love only a mother can give. Many of us seem to know someone in pain these days as there never seems to be a shortage of suffering in our midst – so this young boys un-staged image.. his innocence.. his silent prayer – touched me tonight.
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This man, a grandfather, holds his young grandson on the road to the sea behind what used to be his home. The waves came ashore quickly and swept back to sea, again and again, scraping and stripping the earth of every living thing – growing more powerful with each wave until there was nothing left. We saw each other at the side of the road, and I stopped and asked to photograph him – quietly he shared his story of outrunning "waves as tall as the palm trees" that stand behind him. He was on a scooter when the first wave came ashore, but it soon rushed back out to sea with the birds, the air – drawn silent. He sensed danger, hearing a growing rumble out to sea, and then over his shoulder he could see a new wave building – instinctively he grabbed his boy and literally had to run for their lives. They were very lucky that day to have survived. Nearly a quarter of a million others – did not.
Two weeks after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami drove mercilessly across open ocean to hit the coastlines of some 14 countries, I was initially on the ground in India for Food for the Hungry US, to cover the tragedy and the global response that was being rushed to the region. Straight from the airport to the beach, literally the funeral pyres were still smoldering while women wailed into the offshore winds at the searing pain of losing their babies and complete families – the waves taking dreams, hopes, laughter and life – without a kiss goodbye. It would be my first time in a relief zone – naively thinking India was as bad as it gets. I was wrong.
After 10 days up and down the eastern coastline, I asked to be sent to Indonesia, to Banda Aceh, to begin documenting the carnage at the centre of the greatest natural tragedy on earth. I would spend weeks in the region and return for years that followed. Each and every visit, I would find myself pulled under by the memory of stories I heard, the broken hearted sobbing and images of death from what felt truly like The Apocalypse had been unleashed.
To share just one moment is the best I can do tonight but – my time in Banda Aceh stole my ability to speak, it reduced me to constant tears having spent far too long without relief in the midst of tortured souls trying to come to grips with having lost their entire world.
A few flashes of those times tonight – still brings me to my knees.
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Emily is a nomadic MERU tribeswoman from the desolate, arid desert lands of northern Kenya. I spent a few days with her family at her humble home, while on assignment to create a "Day in the Life" for The Paradigm Project. In Emily I found a strong, tireless and quietly driven woman who wakes up with the cooling of the earths surface, makes a raw wood fire to warm her daughter and her baby goat, while preparing a meagre meal of crusted break and chai for her son before he goes to school. At dawn she tends her sheep, hauls more wood on her bare back from miles away from home, searches for precious water supplies, tries to save a few garden plants from the scorching sun, and is doing everything she can to make sure her children are getting well schooled. While most of us will never suffer the effects of a drought – an endless numbing drought that has dried up most of the open water sources for cattle and humans to drink for thousands of square miles, at 42, Emily's story of strife is commonplace.
"Emily's Story" Meru, Kenya
"She shares a daily struggle to survive with women across the globe yet you'll never see her cry. Never see her beg. Never see her complain. Instead she is strong, fiercely determined, full of dignity, yet even with so little for her and her children to eat, will open her humble home and extend her scarred hands to share with you what little she has..."
If you have time read the full story, it will give you a feeling of how one woman lives her life in the developing world - faced with so much hardship yet Emily never gives up.. because every single day demands a fight for survival in Kenya's arid lands, where ongoing drought brings suffering to everyone.
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This young girl is one of Evelyn's children photographed over a three week period while on assignment for Suisse based MEDAIR and The Paradigm Project - shortly after the tremors from the 2015 Haitian earthquake calmed down. Like many who escaped the initial impact of such a violent tragedy, Evelyn and her daughter did the best they could. Evelyn held a piece of wood in her hand to protect them as they slept, too dangerous to stay in her damaged home and hearing rumors of a different kind of danger for women and girls if she went to the relief camps living in tents. So they stayed together on a dirty sheet until it was their turn to receive assistance.
But beyond the initial impact the Haitian earthquake like all tragedies, keeps visiting the survivors in their sleep, in their dreams, hearing voices and replaying images in their head, while guilt becomes a constant companion for never having had a chance to say good bye or asking themselves - why did I survive. The United Nations stated that the loss to those who survived the 2015 Haitian earthquake was enormous with over 1.5 million children under the age of 18 effected by the tragedy - much of it personally experienced. They lost complete families, lost generations of mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, with laughter and dreams exchanged for nightmares, screams and fear. The sights and sounds of such enormous human loss, the emotions felt in losing loved ones, will be forever trapped inside young minds with memories and experiences more dark than not. A survivor yes thankfully - yet forever scarred.
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While not everyone survived this immense tragedy, those that did were trying to sort out their lives by asking questions on which way to turn, how to move forward, where to find work and what to do with themselves as they deal with the enormous pain for having lost loved ones underneath the debris. Still more pressing questions remain each day. Where will I sleep. Where can I find something to eat. Is my family safe tonight while they sleep and how do I take care of my babies when I have nothing left to give. Evelyn slept on the dirt with her babies for six weeks, too afraid to sleep inside her humble, red walled single roomed home, with finger sized fissures and cracks form floor to ceiling from the earthquake that took so many of her neighbors lives. In this image, on one morning, she was less concerned about her own life than she was about finding food, any food, and a bit of brown water from the river..for her babies.
