'“This is the youngest right now,” Ali tells me as she picks up this sweet girl to carry her as we walk through the slums to greet others. “She’s five years old, and she can hardly walk sometimes. She can’t sit down and she usually walks kinda funny with her legs all spread apart … She’s even come with blood on her dress before.”
I look at her sweet little body and I am totally incapable of grasping what this precious little girl has already been through in her short life. When she should be tucked into bed and sung to sleep each night, she is repeatedly raped numerous times by many men each night. To make it worse, they’ve paid to be with her.'
on thursday night i had a chance to go to my friend elizabeth's gallery. i have kind of stalked her photography and writing for the past couple years, and was really honored to be able to check out her photos at latta arcade the other night. elizabeth is an incredible photographer and writer, an incredible woman, and has incredible passion. she's one of those people that you hear talk and in turn just makes you want to do something awesome with your life.
i couldn't help but tear up with each picture that had a caption underneath. i think it was the mixture of my passion for kids, and my appreciation for the beauty of images and writing to convey something so much more than just another "really good" picture.
i read the caption that i posted above that was paired with this picture elizabeth took and i thought, what if this little girl were my student? in a matter of about ten seconds, i went from shocked, to heartbroken, to angry, to sick in the stomach.
after elizabeth's gallery, i was talking with christina about how important it is for me to feel those things. and i was just remembering how hard it was after i got back from haiti. in haiti i was overwhelmed with the need and the emotional and physical poverty that literally surrounded me in hours of daylight and darkness. and i also remember coming back and being frustrated with not being able to really convey what i saw. i remember the day after i got back i went out with my friend who understood me better than i understood myself most times. i tried to tell him about the things i saw and felt, and i couldn't even describe it. and because after a while, i felt so helpless and so incredibly far from haiti, i just began to ... forget. not really forget as much as i made the conscious effort to become numb. i wrote about this after i got back as well.
i feel like our culture totally supports remaining numb to the need surrounding us. sure, there are 60 minutes episodes to expose the underground dirt in our countries and others, but after that hour, what do i change in my every day life?
i was sick to my stomach because any human that would take advantage of another human being is really frustrating (for lack of a better word) to me, but i was also sick to my stomach because i feel like i have done nothing to help end this injustice.
i am so thankful to know people like elizabeth, joy jones, steve cook, and the georges and mccollums who are willing to really throw themselves into the middle of things in an effort to change the way others are stuck living. i'm encouraged by the way they do things and look forward to others being opened to their massive moves to eliminate injustice.
check out their websites:
http://www.silentimages.org/
http://www.lovehaiti.com/
http://www.equitas.cc/
http://georgesinmalawi.com/
http://mccollumsinmalawi.com/
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