"Grandfather and Grandson" Tsunami Survivors.. Bande Aceh, Indonesia

CAPTION
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.

"Emily - A Tribal Nomad" Meru, Kenya

CAPTION
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.