May 11, 2013
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Running Commentary
It isn’t that I take fantastic pictures. It is that eventually you are bound to get some good pictures. And I have amazing subjects to photograph.
Point proved.
This is where I was today:
And you can’t go somewhere like the dump and not be touched. Even if it is just by the horrible smell, stink, and flies.
Since it has been raining, the road was almost impassable. For part of the week, the garbage truck couldn’t make it all the way to the dump. So what did they do? Fix the roads. No, of course not. They dumped all the trash on the side of the road toward the entrance of the dump. Into the sugar cane fields that line the area around the dump.
The smell was overwhelming. And I’ve been going for over a year, so should be used to it.
It is the time of year where flies are everywhere anyway, but this was ridiculous. Also because of the rain, the people couldn’t work in the dump as much, sorting the trash. So extra piles lay everywhere. They normally sort out what they can and then burn the rest, but that was out of the question as well. More and more trash. More and more flies. More and more stink.
And those birds. Those gorgeous, dainty, white birds. I find a smirk on my face as I remember the last time I saw one: Disney World. Disney World to the dump. Where rich kids were feeding the white birds $5 pretzels.
The black vultures are the birds that belong here, not the Ibis.
This. it just won’t go away. It won’t let me go to sleep.
Nor will this. These beautiful children. One was remarking to me how she’d made her mother a card. And how for mother’s day, she would read that card to her mother. Because she was the first in her family to learn how to read. Oh dear God!
And the mothers. Looking at the blurb book I made of their children, and grinning such proud grins. I paid $7 for that book. Their faces were priceless.
She picked up a piece of plywood out of the pile of trash and began to make a fort. She giggled at my camera and then scooted under into her house.
I’ve finally figured it out, what it means to be a mother. It means to give your child the cupcake.
And that is what it means to be a child: to be given the cupcake.
It all makes so much more sense now.
Except for the flies. With smiles and laughter like this, you can forget almost every pain and unfairness. Except the flies. The flies that land on her mouth as I go to snap the picture. The flies that carry disease and filth. The flies that hover just over everything and never quite go away.
What is it to be a mother in Brazil? At the dump? What is her story? I wish I could sit and listen.
Too many stories to ever truly know. Except in heaven. Perhaps in heaven.
Happy Mother’s Day. Life is hard on these women. Perhaps that is why I never found a Brazilian boyfriend. Part of me saw how hard it is to be a woman, a wife, a mother in Brazil. I don’t know if I could do it. Honestly, I don’t think I really want to. Not most days.
A random picture. Where there is so much more going on than you see. Passing out drinks and cupcakes. Kids waiting for mother’s first. The little boy who climbed up and you can just see his feet. You can’t see the donkey just behind them, braying. You can’t smell the trash, just a field over. You can’t feel the flies landing on you, or Jasmim kicking my foot because she wants my attention.
