Tag Archives: Children
Small Miracles
Posted on September 09, 2009 by Barak in Africa | No Comments
Sorry, I can’t help it. These kids are awesome. This little girl was laughing at me from across the drill site and then laughing at my friend who was goofing off beside her. Believe it on not, for as young as she is, she was carrying around her baby brother on her back earlier in the day. Responsibility comes at a young age in this part of the world and children are expected to play key roles in daily life. Earlier today we carried water in 5-gallon jerry cans from a river half a mile away; the same place where this community goes in the dry season when their hand-dug wells run dry. It was exhausting. Putting my own daughter in this girl’s shoes, carrying containers of water several hours a day from river to home, with no way to purify it before drinking, helps me realize the real miracle this well represents in the eyes of this little girl.
1 of 1000 Smiles
Posted on September 07, 2009 by Barak in Africa | No Comments
There are a thousand smiles that could be photographed in a single community. Today there were even more. A new well is being drilled.
Blending
Posted on September 07, 2009 by Barak in Africa | No Comments
I love watching kids playing together. Perhaps your experience is different, but in mine, young children do not conceptualize differences in race until later in life, and usually the concept has to be taught. Differences in skin color are taken in the same stride as differences in hair color or height or favorite flavor of ice cream. Even language seems to pose little barrier as children easily slip into gestures or simply drag one another around by the hand from one game to another. The conflicts of childhood are, of course, ever present, but they remain isolated to those things that historically plague humankind; learning to share, say sorry, and act in consideration for one another.
Presence
Posted on September 07, 2009 by Barak in Africa | No Comments
It is amazing to consider that over the last 50 years over $2.3 trillion dollars in Aid money has been poured into Africa. Most of us can’t even conceptualize what a trillion looks like. To put it into perspective, a trillion seconds is just over 31,000 years. That’s a lot of money; a lot of activity; and yet progress seems inexplicably slow. We American’s tend to define poverty according to the measure we use to quantify wealth – i.e. the presence of material goods. Therefore poverty must be the absence thereof. Yet poverty is so much more complex, so much deeper than the just the material; even as wealth can be defined by stuff much deeper than money. As my Rwandan friend and director of AEE Rwanda says so pointedly ”We don’t need a ministry of projects. We need a ministry of presence.” ~ Antoine Rutayisire
Curiosity
Posted on September 05, 2009 by Barak in Africa | No Comments
A group of kids in Twapia, another peri-urban community in Ndola, Zambia. They were gathered around a pump that had just been installed on a new borehole. This is 1 of 17 wells, and while a well with a hand pump can technically provide water for a couple thousand people, long lines and wear and tear on the pump dictate a functional maximum of 750 to 1000 people per well. With 65,000 people living in Twapia, there’s a lot that still needs to be done.
Hypnotic
Posted on June 18, 2009 by Barak in North America | No Comments
A storm on our Smokies vacation swept through and knocked out electricity for 6 hours. It’s always fascinated me how a loss of electricity takes the busy, largely antisocial atmosphere of modern American homes and magically transforms it into an intimate gathering of family who take pleasure of a cup of coffee around candles, and engage in relational conversation. Sometime I wish the power would go out more often. Araella, normally scared of the dark, became distracted with a spinning-light-up-toy and I captured this shot.
Goldilocks
Posted on December 06, 2008 by Barak in North America | No Comments
Araella all gussied up for a wedding. Gussied? I’ve been in TN way too long.
Recent Comments