In Times of Peace ~Khan Yunis, Gaza Strip

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Damage from attacks on a Palestinian neighborhood in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip in March, 2006

At the moment, with journalists trapped in Israel and not able to enter the Gaza Strip to report, I will focus my attention on the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. If people have contrary views to mine and believe different sides of these issues need to be covered, I encourage you to get out there and do it. My assumptions were affirmed by friends living in Gaza that the situation there is quite desperate. My focus continues to be the human side of conflict and not the political side and I hope the images I am posting from Gaza will show how bad the situation is there even during "times of peace." I also encourage comments and will pay special attention to those posted by people who have lived both in Gaza and in Israel and understand both sides of this situation in reality and not just in theory. ~Zoriah

Kindness
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
~Excerpt Naomi Shihab Nye.

Prayer in My Boot ~ Robert Larson Images

Prayer in my Boot
By Naomi Shihab Nye

For the wind no one expected

For the boy who does not know the answer

For the graceful handle I found in a field
attached to nothing
pray it is universally applicable

For our tracks which disappear
the moment we leave them

For the face peering through the cafe window
as we sip our soup

For cheerful American classrooms sparkling
with crisp colored alphabets
happy cat posters
the cage of the guinea pig
the dog with division flying out of his tail
and the classrooms of our cousins
on the other side of the earth

how solemn they are
how gray or green or plain
how there is nothing dangling
nothing striped or polka-dotted or cheery
no self-portraits or visions of cupids

and in these rooms the students raise their hands
and learn the stories of the world

For library books in alphabetical order
and family businesses that failed
and the house with the boarded windows

and the gap in the middle of a sentence
and the envelope we keep mailing ourselves

For every hopeful morning given and given,
and every future rough edge

and every afternoon
turning over in its sleep

~Naomi Shihab Nye

About The Photographer:

Robert Larson

A Journey To Haiti

“When I walk, I walk”~Jeanmary Michel

In January of 2010, I met a 27-year-old man in Port-au-Prince named Jeanmary Michel. We were strangers walking down the street together. It had been a difficult trip, and up to that point the reaction that most strangers had to my presence was hostile. This man simply looked at me, smiled and said “Whatsup?” He then continued on his way as if he had no desire to receive a greeting in return. I said hello, and asked where he was going. He said, “When I walk, I walk”.

I had traveled to Haiti in the days after the earthquake to photograph a historic moment for the world. I was in over my head. This stranger sensed my frustration and offered to show me whatever I’d like to see and to make sure I was safe. I agreed, and we spent the next 5 hours walking through the city on foot or riding in the back of taxis. I experienced more with him in 5 hours than I had in the last three days. We agreed to meet up the next morning and do it all over again.

We stayed in touch after I returned home to Los Angeles. In February of 2011, I received a grant from the Gilhousen Family Foundation to travel back to Haiti for two weeks and continue my photography project. This project had now been named Waiting for Haiti. I called Jeanmary, and we made arrangements for me to stay with him at his house so that I could experience the day-to-day life of a Haitian family. We emailed back and forth; composing a list of places that I would like to photograph, and he made a list of things he wanted me to see to better understand his country. Over the course of that last trip, Jeanmary and I became best friends. We had opposite backgrounds and perspectives, and we saw Haiti through each other’s eyes.

The more I learned about Haiti and the stronger our friendship grew, the more clear it became that these pictures meant a lot to both of us. One place that we repeatedly visited was the morgue at the General Hospital, in Port-au-Prince. Seeing the same decomposing bodies in the same place year after year and how they are carelessly stacked and slowly putrefying in the inefficient freezers; we felt deeply compelled to understand why the country functions the way it does. Jeanmary bought a notebook and began asking questions of his fellow Haitians, starting with the staff at the morgue. There were many places I could not go without him as a guide and translator. At the same time, having a foreigner by his side and a new sense of confidence opened doors for him that have always remained shut to the general Haitian population. We collected as many images and notes as we could in the short amount of time that we had.

In 2012 I will return to Port-au-Prince with the resources to help Jeanmary and myself share our story, his story, and Haiti’s story. Together with a talented and passionate production team, we will film Haiti in the way that it is. We will show the reality of a beautiful and mysterious country that has been left by the wayside. Through Jeanmary’s eyes, the film will show what a large natural disaster and subsequent flooding of foreign aid money really mean to an undeveloped and highly corrupt country. Haiti has a complicated story; its history is full of mistakes that many promise to never repeat. This project is an ongoing study of the country's future through the life of a man who calls it home.

Robert’s Website for this Project: Waiting for Haiti

Robert’s Other website:  robertlarsonphotography

All Photographs in this post are ©2011 Robert Larson All Rights Reserved. They were posted here with the permission of the Photographer. Thank you.

Narcissus

 St. Louis, Mo. Series ©2011 Thomas Hawk

"When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else."—Georgia O'Keeffe

Narcissus – Poem by Jane Hirschfield

NARCISSUS:  Tel Aviv, Baghdad, San Francisco; February 1991
by Jane Hirschfield

And then the precise
opening everywhere of the flowers,
which live after all in their own time.
It seemed they were oblivious but they were not,
they included it all, the nameless explosions
and the oil fires in every cell, the white petals
like mirrors opening in a slow-motion coming-apart
and the stems, the stems rising like green-flaring missiles
like smoke, like the small sounds shaken
from those who were beaten—like dust from a carpet—
into the wind and the spring-scented rain.

They opened because it was time and they had no choice,
as the children were born in that time and that place
and became what they would without choice, or  with only
a little choice, perhaps, for the lucky, the foolish or brave.
But precise and in fact wholly peaceful the flowers opened,
and precise and peaceful the earth: opened because it was asked.
Again and again it was asked and earth opened—
flowered and fell—because what was falling had asked
and could not be refused, as the seabirds that ask the green surface
to open are not refused but are instantly welcomed,
that they may enter and eat—
As soon refuse, battered and soaking , the dark mahogany rain.

—Jane Hirschfield From  THE OCTOBER PALACE

Historical Context of Poem:  BBC On This Day

About the Photographer

Photo by Karen Hutton

Thomas Hawk

Introduction

Sometimes I like to think of myself as a photography factory. I see my photographs mostly as raw material for projects that might be worked on at some point later on in life.
When I'm not taking or processing the pictures I'm mostly thinking about the pictures. I'm trying to publish a library of 1,000,000 finished, processed photographs before I die.
The absurdity of my obsessive compulsive view on photography is not lost on me. But it is the absurdity of life that I find most beautiful of all. Where Sisyphus had his stone I have my camera and a bag full of lenses.
Document, explore, lather, rinse, repeat. Photography for me then becomes a kind of hyperactivity, loosely arranged and presented. My work is less about individual images and instead more about the power of a massive amount of excessive and disjointed images where stories, characters and places sometimes stay and other times reappear or disappear entirely for no good reason at all.
Most of my images are Creative Commons licensed, non commercial with attribution.  If you'd like to use any CC licensed images for non commercial or personal purposes feel free.  If you'd like to use any of my images commercially, please contact me.
"Don't think about making art. Just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they're deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol

HANDS: Only Kindness Matters

Hands ©2011 Istvan Kerekes

"Hands"
If I could tell the world just one thing
It would be that we're all OK
And not to worry 'cause worry is wasteful
And useless in times like these
I won't be made useless
I won't be idle with despair
I will gather myself around my faith
For light does the darkness most fear
My hands are small, I know
But they're not yours, they are my own
But they're not yours, they are my own
And I am never broken
Poverty stole your golden shoes
It didn't steal your laughter
And heartache came to visit me
But I knew it wasn't ever after
We'll fight, not out of spite
For someone must stand up for what's right
'Cause where there's a man who has no voice
There ours shall go singing
My hands are small I know
But they're not yours, they are my own
But they're not yours, they are my own
I am never broken
In the end only kindness matters
In the end only kindness matters
I will get down on my knees, and I will pray
I will get down on my knees, and I will pray
I will get down on my knees, and I will pray
My hands are small I know
But they're not yours, they are my own
But they're not yours, they are my own
And I am never broken
My hands are small I know
But they're not yours, they are my own
But they're not yours, they are my own
And I am never broken
We are never broken
We are God's eyes
God's hands
God's mind
We are God's eyes
God's hands
God's heart
We are God's eyes
God's hands
God's eyes
We are God's hands
We are God's hands

~Jewel

Jewel: Hands

FOOD CRISIS IN THE HORN OF AFRICA

Samaritan’s Purse is distributing tons of food staples to fight hunger in drought-stricken Kenya, near the Somali border
As famine spreads across the Horn of Africa, Samaritan's Purse is supplying food and other aid to thousands of hungry families and malnourished children.More than 12 million people are in urgent need of food, water, and medical care in drought-stricken Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia. Experts estimate that starvation and related diseases have already claimed the lives of over 29,000 children under age five. The United Nations is calling the crisis "the world's worst humanitarian disaster.”Samaritan’s Purse has a team based in Garissa, Kenya, along the Somalia border, where we are distributing tons of maize, beans, corn-soy blend, cooking oil, and other necessities.
Our team—which includes experts in nutrition, healthcare, water, and sanitation—is reporting that these are some of the harshest conditions they ever have encountered.
“We drove to a local cattle market, and dead animals could be seen all along the road,” a staff member said. “At the market we spoke with local residents who said this is the worst drought they have experienced in living memory. They made a point to mention that ‘even the older generation has never seen a drought this bad.’ Many of the rural residents are flocking to town because of a lack of water and their diminishing animals stocks. At the market, there were several animals writhing on the ground, left to die because they were so badly off.”
Our emergency response includes plans to implement therapeutic care and supplemental feeding programs for malnourished children. In coordination with our local partners, we have identified sites for food distributions and therapeutic nutritional interventions.
In addition, Samaritan's Purse has launched a cash-for-work program in several villages. We are paying people to build latrines, which will help with health and hygiene conditions while providing some income in these poverty-stricken communities.
"If they are in desperate need, they can use the cash for food, but they can also use it for healthcare or other necessities," said Ruco Van Der Merwe, team leader for the response.
Clean water is another dire need. In some areas, only 20 percent of the families have access to safe drinking water. Many people are now forced to walk miles to reach a water source. As populations are shifting toward areas with better access to water, community resources are being severely strained. Our team is using tanker trucks to haul water to vulnerable villages while we identify longer-term solutions such as drilling boreholes.
“Water is such an issue,” said Zeke Rhodes, program officer. “We see women in the middle of nowhere waving their jerry cans, asking for water. It’s not unusual for people to walk 10-15 miles for water.”
The crisis in the Horn of Africa was brought on by two years of drought that is the worst in 60 years. Massive crop failure and loss of livestock have led to extreme food shortages in a region straddling Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia—a region that has been labeled the “triangle of death.”
As a result, hundreds of thousands of people without food and water have fled to makeshift camps in eastern Kenya looking for emergency aid. Many of the displaced are refugees from neighboring Somalia, who left their war-torn country in hopes of finding help over the border. Much of Somalia is controlled by a militant group, affiliated with al Qaeda, that has denied that a food shortage exists and threatened to maintain their ban on food aid.
“We saw a family with a donkey cart. It was a father and mother, an infant, and two daughters,” Rhodes said. “The girls were in bad shape, emaciated, but still able to walk. It was kind of a glimpse at the journey they’ve taken over the last couple of months. They’ve come a long way, and they’re going to a camp of half-a-million people in some of the most harsh environments you could imagine. It was very sobering.”
The camps in Kenya are overcrowded, and resources are stretched beyond capacity. Conditions aren’t much better outside the camps. Samaritan’s Purse church partners are finding households facing dire shortages of food and water.
Some of the worst hit counties include Wajir and Garissa, areas considered the focal point of the Somalia refugee influx. In these areas, particularly where Samaritan’s Purse partners are involved, there is limited government assistance and little help from other agencies.
Please pray for the people impacted by malnutrition and starvation, for our staff and church partners as they respond in the Name of Christ, that the conditions that are causing this catastrophic food shortage will end, and for God's help in meeting the overwhelming needs of the region.
*(Message Above Taken Directly from The Samaritan’s Purse Website).
Please Take a moment to watch this amazing short film to see what Samaritan’s Purse is doing in Kenya right now!

Here is a link on the Samaritan’s Purse site to some quite amazing photographs of the area that will give you a much better sense of what is taking place there right now.

You may find the link to this charity’s Financial Report Here.
In addition, a link to start a sports event or any special event and create a team page on Samaritan’s Purse to raise money for the project of your choice is right Here.
Open Your Heart, Your Hands and Your Eyes to What is Going on in Our World. According to statistics on Democracy Now with Amy Goodman, this morning, 12 million people in the Horn of Africa are suffering from famine, 3.2 million, Somalis. We Are Not Alone. Children are Hungry and 29,000 Children under the age of Five are no Longer Alive because they have been claimed by Lack of proper Nutrition and the absence of Clean Water.
Be Mindful and Compassionate toward those who are Suffering. Starvation is not something you can hear or see until it actually happens and it is often too late. It is a silent killer. Today on NPR, I heard that there was a measles outbreak in several of the camps because Al-Shabaab disallowed children from getting vaccines, believing it was a Western plot. Something as simple as a vaccine can save many lives. Samaritan’s Purse also offers a World Medical Mission for doctors to volunteer on short-term mission trips. You may read more about this wonderful program Here.
Thank you for coming here and taking the time to read and watch. May Your lives be surrounded by Kindness and Compassion Every day,
Noelle Renee
My Thanks to Istvan Kerekes for his amazing photograph. Istvan, you bless me with your images and I am so grateful for them. I am also grateful for Jewel’s beautiful song, “Hands”.

When Art Becomes Life

London Busker South Bank© 2011 Heather Buckley

 

Cloudy Bell Jar

by Delilah Miller

Someone remind me it's a beautiful life;
even if it's the ground keeping you the right way up.
Trip yourself, pat down yourself, unwind yourself and brush off yourself.
I do it all like I've done for everyone else.
The bubble of loneliness always seems ready to pop
while I try to give it a happier name,
As in art, light and movement persist to never stay the same,
Watching summer fade out of my skin
and my eyes and the air I breathe.
Still the ground's under me

and I'm under a huge cloudy bell jar.

England riots: Tariq Jahan, father of Haroon Jahan, one of the three people killed in Birmingham, speaks to the media. Photograph: Carl de Souza/AFP ~guardian.co.uk  8/2011. Link to story is Here

‘I don’t want you to fight.

I’m lost for words. Go home please,

go home.’

~Tariq Jahan , father of one of the murder victims, addresses the crowd desiring revenge for the deaths of the three in Birmingham.

‘It doesn’t matter what colour you are.

For anyone to lose a son is sad.

I’m just praying that nothing more happens tonight.’

~Carol White, 50, a black mother of four who has lived in Winson Green all her life.

More on this story Here

Although these are not quite haikus, I thought that the words of Haroon’s father and some observers of the scene were powerful enough to stand as such.

Linked to Haiku My Heart. For more Haikus Please visit Recuerda mi Corazon. Thank you.

 

About the Photographer:

Heather Buckley Photography

I simply love photography. Since I gave up commercial photography and just do it for the love of it, I probably do even more! I would take on a commission if it really excited me so do get in touch if you think it will – but right now I am really happy just taking images, experimenting with style and processing and having some fun.

I do sell my images of course and you are free to browse the gallery – images are available as prints, canvasses and downloads.

*Photo of London Busker South bank published with author permission.