The Farmer

The Farmer, originally uploaded by joaobambu.

7:26pm, my friend Akio waits for the tractor to arrive patiently. He is the descendent of Japanese farmers who came to the state of São Paulo for a better life in the beginning of the century. They prospered and now they are Brazilians as well.

This is the first week his tomato plants are in the ground.

Taken with a 58mm pitch:0.75 HOYA CIR-polarizing filter I recently bought on a Canon Powershot Pro 1.

This photo happened by chance.

I was cruising around Echaporã late afternoon on my new motorbike...

I saw him in the city in his pickup truck and asked him where he was going.

".. To the new field, where we are planting tomatoes..."

I was on my new motorbike and sensed an opportunity. The weather was perfect and I captured some amazing shots afterwords of a rainbow, lightning, and the serenity and peacefulness of living in the countryside.

Photo by João Paglione, Echaporã - BRAZIL.

El ropabejero

El ropabejero, originally uploaded by Ram!.

Photo by Ram Martinez, Barquisimeto, Venezuela.

80 years later

80 years later, originally uploaded by Tous les noms sont déjà pris... pfff....

Photo by Rod, FRANCE.

Scream for your rights (suggested title)

167., originally uploaded by guilherme.schilling.

There comes a moment when it's necessary to scream for our rights.
Exchanging words with two street dwelling women, who received me very well.

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Chega um momento que é necessário gritar pelos nossos direitos.
Duas mulheres moradoras de rua que conversei e fui muito bem recebido.

Photo by Guilherme Schilling, Porto Alegre -BRAZIL.

Tattoos

Tattoos, originally uploaded by Jan Dara.

There were a lot of "up-country" people living next to the railroad tracks in Bangkok. They used this "free" area to construct wood and aluminum shanties to live in or set up shop

Photo by Jan Dara.

All That Fall / Tutti quelli che cadono

all that fall/tutti quelli che cadono, originally uploaded by centrifuga.

Potessi spiaccicarmi sulla strada come un grumo di marmellata, un grosso grumo colato dal suo vaso, e non muovermi più.
- Samuel Becket, "Tutti quelli che cadono"

Just let me flop down flat on the road like a big fat jelly out of a bowl and never move again!
- Samuel Beckett, "All that Fall"

Photo by Centrifuga, Rome - ITALY

Legally blind

legally blind, originally uploaded by stoneth.

...John from texas; gets SSI benefits because he's legally blind; the benefits pay for his hotel (about $700); he has $50 left per month after housing which he makes up by panhandling.

Photo by Tomas, San Francisco - USA.

B A I D E H I. Varanasi

B A I D E H I. Varanasi, originally uploaded by Claude Renault.

I know it's a simple portrait, not a very good image. But it has a story.
Baidehi is a old woman, people told me, 100 years old. She is a destitute woman from the state of Bihar. She came to Varanasi to die. She is living with other older women inside a house next to the cremation ghats.
A very nice woman, I forgot her name, has set up this place for those women to die peacefully.
She was adorable.

Photo by Claude Renault, Reykjavik - ICELAND.

Alan

Alan, originally uploaded by Keith Emmerich.

Alan has been homeless for 20 years and lived in 14 states. He now presently lives and has lived under this underpass for 4.5 years.

Photo by Keith Emmerich

Today, a sad look

today, a sad look, originally uploaded by Tatiana Cardeal.

This are Romilda Nunes, 63 years old, and her sick husband, João Cosme.
They live at the Prestes Maia building.

Prestes Maia, is a colossal abandoned clothes factory that towers over central Sao Paulo, and the biggest occupation of Latin America, with 22 storeys in total, is home to 468 families; around 2,000 people from the MSTC (Downtown Homeless People's Movement).

"The owners of the building, Jorge Hamuche and Eduardo Amorim, who do not possess the title deed, abandoned the building for twenty years and owe close to BRL$5 million (EUR$1.8 million) in taxes.
Despite this, the judge of the 25th Civil Jurisdiction of Sao Paulo granted an injunction for the repossession of the property, ignoring the residential rights of the occupants and even a UN report that declares; "the municipal government of Sao Paulo, through the Secretaria de Habitacao e Desenvolvimento Urbano and COHAB, should promote the renovation of the Prestes Maia building for housing and social interests, to meet the objective of the dispossession of the building by the municipality."

But this week, after this february, 15th, the people must leave the building, and they won't, and I'm afraid there will be a lot of violence there, by the military police. The authorities didn't plan a project to remove everybody, and we know that they will return to live at the streets. We are trying to stop this, and to pressure the state governor Geraldo Alckmin and the mayor from the city José Serra, to make first a project, and then remove the families.
Please, help us signing this on-line pettion, spread this.
www.petitiononline.com/pmaia911/

Por favor, leia o link acima (em português), espalhe e clique para assinar.
Entenda melhor o Prestes Maia e os seus moradores:
prestesmaia.weblogger.terra.com.br/

Please join the new social injustice group in support of the Prestes Maia families in their plight for justice.

Photo by Tatiana Cardeal, São Paulo - BRASIL.

Dignidad púrhepecha / Púrhepecha dignity

Dignidad púrhepecha / Púrhepecha dignity, originally uploaded by arantxamex.

Iba a escribir algún comentario, pero creo que las arrugas de su rostro hacen vanas las palabras.

I was to say something about them, but her old and wise face makes useless any comment.

Photo by Arantxa, Morelia, Michoacán - MÉXICO.

Dark

dark, originally uploaded by toune.

Photo by Toune, Paris - FRANCE.

Javier, Salvador y Adán

Javier, Salvador y Adán, originally uploaded by Arantxata.

Viven en Santa Rosa, la última localidad del municipio de Los Reyes (Michoacán), allá en una zona montañosa donde continuamente sopla un viento que corta la piel y hace polvo las rocas.

Hoy tuvieron visita, gente importante de Morelia visitó su comunidad porque después de mucho trabajar con toda la población, fueron certificados como Comunidades Saludables, junto con otras dos localidades hermanas: San Antonio y San Isidro.

Javier, Salvador y Adán descubrieron hoy la magia de la fotografía, primero como modelos y después como fotógrafos.

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They live in Santa Rosa, the last village of Los Reyes municipality, in Michoacán. It is a mountain region, where the wind blows hurting the skin and making dust from the rocks.

Today they were visited by important people from Morelia, the State capital. The governor's wife and the Health Secretary, among others, went there to celebrate that after a hard work by all the people, their town (and two others, San Isidro and San Antonio), are considered "Healthy Communities". They have now a clean and beautiful village, where all the kids under five are vacunated and the mums have prenatal control and lactancy control, among other actions.

For Adan, Javier and Salvador (the older), today was also the day they discovered photography, first as models, then playing with a camera.

Photo by Arantxa, Morelia - MÉXICO.

Cold morning

cold morning, originally uploaded by phitar.

Photo by Philippe Tarbouriech, Geneva - SWITZERLAND.

Leaving the shadows behind...

Leaving the shadows behind..., originally uploaded by carf.

...is so difficult when they always seem to catch up with me.

Note:
Roney is one among 15.000 lost children still roaming the streets of São Paulo.

Photo by Gregory J. Smith - CARF, São Paulo - BRAZIL.

Orphan

Orphan, originally uploaded by camera_rwanda.

"The warmth of his tiny body snuggled against mine filled me with a peace and serenity that elevated me above the chaos. This child was alive yet terribly hungry, beautiful but covered in dirt, bewildered but not fearful. I made up my mind: this would be the fourth child in the Dallaire family. I couldn't save Rwanda, but I could save this child.

Before I had held this boy, I had agreed with the aid workers and representatives of both warring armies that I would not permit any exporting of Rwandan orphans to foreign places. When confronted by such requests from humanitarian organizations, I would argue that the money to move a hundred kids by plane to France or Belgium could help build, staff and sustain Rwandan orphanages that could house three thousand children. This one boy eradicated all my arguments. I could see myself arriving at the terminal in Montreal like a latter-day St. Christopher with the boy cradled in my arms...

That dream was abruptly destroyed when the young soldier, fast as a wolf, yanked the child from my arms and carried him directly into the bush. Not knowing how many members of his unit might already have their gunsights on us, we reluctantly climbed back into the Land Cruiser. As I slowly drove away, I had much on my mind.

By withdrawing, I had undoubtedly done the wise thing: I had avoided risking the lives of my two soldiers in what would have been a fruitless struggle over one small boy. But in that moment, it seemed to me that I had backed away from a fight for what was right, that this failure stood for all failures in Rwanda.

Whatever happened to that beautiful child? Did he make it to an orphanage deep behind the RPF lines? Did he survive the following battles? Is he dead or is he now a child soldier himself, caught in the seemingly endless conflict that plagues his homeland?

That moment, when the boy, in the arms of a soldier young enough to be his brother, was swallowed by a whole forest, still haunts me. It's a memory that never lets me forget how ineffective and irresponsible we were when we promised the Rwandans that we would establish an atmosphere of security that would allow them to achieve everlasting peace. It has been almost nine years since I left Rwanda, but as I write this, the sounds, smells, and colours come flooding back in digital clarity. It's as if someone sliced into my brain and grafted this horror called Rwanda frame by blood-soaked frame directly on my cortex. I could not forget even if I wanted to. For many years, I have yearned to return to Rwanda and disappear into the blue-green hills with my ghosts. A simple pilgrim seeking forgiveness and pardon. But as I slowly begin to piece my life back together, I know the time has come for me to make a more difficult pilgramage: to travel bcak through all those terrible memories and retrieve my soul...

...That mission, UNAMIR, failed. I know intimately the cost in human lives of the inflexible UN Security Council mandate, the penny-pinching financial mangement of the mission, the UN red tape, the political manipulations and my own personal limitations. What I have come to realize as the root of it all, however, is the fundamental indifference of the world community to the plight of seven to eight million black Africans in a tiny country that had no strategic or resource value to any world power. An overpopulated little country that turned in on itself and destroyed its own people, as the world watched and yet could not manage to find the political will to intervene. Engraved still in my brain is the judgment of a small group of beaurocrats who came to 'assess' the situation in the first few weeks of the genocide: 'We will recommend to our government not to intervene as the risks are high and all that is here is human.'"

Lt. General Romeo Dallaire, Force Commander of the UN Assistance Mission to Rwanda, 1993-1994 in his introduction to _Shake Hands With The Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda_.




The text below is from www.orphansofrwanda.org

"Centre Memorial de Gisimba (Gisimba Memorial Center)

The Gisimba orphanage, located in the Nyamirambo quarter of Kigali, is led by Damas Mutezintare Gisimba. Damas's father founded the orphanage in 1980 with 18 children living in one house. Damas took over in 1986 after the death of his father. During the genocide Damas sheltered over 400 children and adults in the small orphanage compound from the predations of the interahamwe [the Hutu paramilitary squads that carried out much of the genocide]. Though the orphanage was repeatedly menaced, Damas and his colleagues held their ground and did not give in to the genocidaires. He has been honored for his heroism by the Rwandan government and many other organizations.

The orphanage currently houses over 150 children. Ten years ago almost all were genocide victims, but many of the newer arrivals have been orphaned by AIDS. Because their parents were HIV+, a number of them are also infected."

PLEASE DONATE TO ORPHANS OF RWANDA: www.orphansofrwanda.org

Photo by Kresta King Cutcher, USA.

La Procesion

La Procesion, originally uploaded by Ram!.

Photo by Ram Martinez, Barquisimeto - VENEZUELA.

The Exorcist 9/10 Desesperación y Esperanza

The Exorcist 9/10 Desesperación y Esperanza, originally uploaded by CarlosBravo.

Tribute to the Exorcist
Photo 9. Desesperación y Esperanza.

Photo by Carlos Bravo, Monterrey - MEXICO.

Homeless Iraqi women

Homeless Iraqi women, originally uploaded by masser.

Baghdad, October 2003

Photo by M Asser.

Muddy boy with a doll on his back

muddy boy with a doll on his back, originally uploaded by phitar.

This young Hmong is living on a roadside, with no official status. Laotians do not want them, Thais neither. 6000 people (1/2 under 5) live under the constant threat of being arrested and sent back nightly over the Mekong into the jungle (so they have a chance of escaping the Laotian army).

Photo by
Philippe Tarbouriech, Geneva - SWITZERLAND.

Back to breathing everyday life...

153., originally uploaded by guilherme.schilling.

Voltando a respirar cotidiano.

Photo by Guilherme Schilling, Porto Alegre - BRAZIL.

"Are Some More Human Than Others?"

"Are Some More Human Than Others?", originally uploaded by camera_rwanda.

--Gen. Roméo Dallaire

1994: Rwanda.
Today: Darfur.

What happened to "Never Again"?

Genocide Memorial.
Nyamata, Rwanda.
June, 2005.

Links/Books on the Genocide in Darfur:
www.spaces.msn.com/stopsudangenocide (fantastic)
www.genocideintervention.net
www.darfurgenocide.org
www.protectdarfur.org
www.kukummi.org (for high schoolers)
www.passionofthepresent.org (outstanding)
www.hrw.org

WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT DARFUR
www.hrw.org

Gerard Prunier's Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide.



Photo by Kresta King Cutcher, USA.

This is Society

01186, originally uploaded by Junkmale.

I am nearing the end of my time with this site. Like everything else in life, there has been good and there has been bad. By and large I have enjoyed it though.

Photo by Steve Harrison, United Kingdom.