jake lyell photography (blog) » Photo Essay

Our Growing Numbers | Accessible Contraception in East Africa

Jake — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 16:45:19 +0000

As unemployment remains high and the region’s resources are rapidly being swallowed up by the booming population, family planning is something that every family should consider here in East Africa. In Amuria, Uganda where I live, 57% of all people are under the age of 17. When one compares that to my home town of Richmond, Virginia, in the US, that number falls to 22%. Uganda’s youthful population of 32 million has nearly doubled in the past twenty years. It has one of the highest growth rates in the world. If the current trends stay on track, the country will be home to more than more than 130 million people by 2050.

I’ve recently been working with PSI, Population Services International, in Tanzania and Uganda. PSI works in a number of areas in Global Health, but I’ve been specifically documenting their family planning services here in East Africa. Working in both rural and urban areas of East Africa, PSI educates women and families about family planning and provides them with birth control solutions such as condoms, IUDs, and oral contraceptives. According to the organization, PSI prevented an estimated 3.5 million unintended pregnancies and over 17,000 maternal deaths in 2009 alone. Fewer pregnancies and spaced births provide families with a more sustainable way of life, and further boost the chances of survival for existing children. Above, women visit a family planning clinic in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Most Ugandan women average seven children in their lifetimes. Here large families are needed to work the land, but the number of children a family has also determines that family’s, and larger clan’s, social hierarchy, especially in rural areas. However, when children reach adulthood they often find themselves in deeper poverty than their parents because their parent’s land must be divided among such a large number of children. Families who have large numbers of children in turn find it a struggle to come up with enough money to educate them all. Often families must choose which children to send to school and which ones to keep at home. When parents do choose education for their child, it is often in overcrowded classrooms, averaging about 70 students per teacher in Uganda. In my district this number reaches 120 students per teacher. Above, children learn in a crowded classroom in Tororo, Uganda.

Above, Sylvia Mkuteni (name changed) is twenty-five years old and lives in Masaka, in southwestern Uganda. Her husband lives and works in Kampala and only comes home once every few months. She has a hard enough time raising their five children on her own, and so, despite her husband’s wishes for a larger family, she’s decided not to have more children. Three months ago she received an IUD through PSI’s services. She hasn’t told her husband about it and doesn’t plan to.

While access to contraception in Africa is widely available in most cities, those in rural areas may be a day’s journey from any family planning services. In East Africa, PSI works to make their products and services available to all by establishing programs in small private clinics in both urban and remote, rural areas. Often women first hear about their option to plan families through PSI’s informational adverts on the radio.

While most women can pay for their contraception, PSI has designated one day a month in Masaka as a discount day, where women can receive services at a highly discounted rate. They’ve been extremely successful at stamping out common misconceptions about contraception that are whispered between women in the village: contraception makes you sterile, contraception causes abnormalities in future offspring, breast milk decreases during use, etc.

Above, Bashir Hassan (left) sells Salama brand condoms in his general store in Dar es Salaam. PSI is the manufacturer of these the most popular and widely available brand of condoms in the country.

Despite the large presence of the Roman Catholic Church (42% of Ugandans are Catholic), the nuns and clergy here are quietly supportive of family planning operations, directing parishioners to where they can receive such services or even handing out condoms. Above, Sylvia Mkuteni (right) examines an IUD at Kawoko Muslim Health Centre in Masaka District, Uganda.

PSI has programs in over 65 countries throughout the world. Reproductive Health is just one of the areas in which the organization works. Others include malaria and TB prevention, HIV/AIDS and water treatment. If you’ve ever wondered how many residents we have on our planet and at what point humans will outgrow the earth’s resources, this recent David Attenborough/BBC documentary suggest that things may get pretty tough within the next forty years. As the average American consumes as much of the world’s resources as 300 Tanzanians, it’s a topic in which we have a vested interest. Take a look. It’s thoroughly interesting. Take a look.

Braving the Swarm: Malaria in Uganda’s Amuria District

Jake — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 04:54:38 +0000

Amuria Health Centre has been packed beyond capacity in recent weeks, with more people occupying the floors than hospital beds. As the rains continue to fall, more and more people here contract malaria. During the rainy season, when streams rise and lowland areas become flooded, mosquitoes breed in greater numbers.

This health centre’s resources (Amuria has no official hospital) are stretched thin even outside the rainy season. The entire district of over 300,000 shares just one doctor for all its public health centres. He travels around from village to village and is rarely in one place for more than a day. When medicine and supplies are available, the cost is picked up by the government. When they run out, which is all too often, the only option for patients is to pay cash for drips, drugs, and needles from the local pharmacy and bring them to the hospital. “Most of the time the drugs are out of stock because the patients are many and the drugs are few,” says nurse Damali Akello.

Amuria town’s health centre is the largest in the district of the same name. Patients from all over the district are sent to this, the largest town in the district, in order to treat ailments of any kind requiring more advanced treatment. “Severe malaria they refer here,” says nurse Akello.

“Usually six months out of the year I have it pretty consistently. I am always attacked when the rains come,” says Grace Auma, while connected to a drip of sodium chloride mixed with quinine. Pictured above, she’s spent the last two nights on the concrete floor of the centre, her pillow a plastic bag stuffed with a change of clothes brought from home.

Children and pregnant mothers, those whose immune systems are weak, are most susceptible to malaria. According to the World Health Organization, 2,800 children die every day in Africa as a result of the disease. Here in Amuria, nurse Agnes Alungat sees the most deaths when malaria is present alongside other health problems. “We only lost one child the day before because of malaria complicated with anemia.”

Earlier this year, Bill Gates announced that his foundation was in the last trial phase of a malaria vaccine that could change the future of Africa and other continents affected by the disease. It is hoped that within five to ten years a fully effective vaccine will be on the market and available to all. In the mean time, seeking treatment and doing so early is the key. I know this from personal experience, and it seems that all here in the centre tonight know this as well. Thankfully for now it it looks as though everyone here is going to pull through.

Oceans apart – the other side of Tanzania

Jake — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 02:34:04 +0000

It’s not really what you think of as Africa, but neither is it the Middle East. The island of Zanzibar, otherwise known as Unguja, is in part its own entity, and the center of Swahili culture in East Africa. In an area of the world where political unrest is not uncommon, it’s a wonder Zanzibar has been in union with the Tanzanian mainland for as long as it has.

The Sultanate of Zanzibar, an archipelago nation off the Indian Ocean Coast of East Africa, merged with the East African nation of Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania, a hybrid name reflecting both countries. Earlier that year Zanzibar, a newly independent state itself, experienced a revolution in which over 12,000 ethnic Arabs and Indians on the island were massacred overnight. In the wake of the revolution most of Zanzibar’s wealthy and educated fled the country never to return. Its president, facing a potential coup by extremists and a devastated economy, had little choice but to join forces with the mainland country of Tanganyika.

Culturally, Zanzibar is almost quite literally oceans apart from its mainland counterpart. The population today is overwhelmingly unhappy with what they see as the destruction of their conservative Islamic culture brought on by relaxed travel rules between the island and the mainland and their limited autonomy as part of the union government. However, each cycle of elections, the results of which are usually disputed by international observers, sees victory for CCM, the party favoring closer ties to the mainland. The union government has survived to this day, but the marriage has never been happy.

These photos were taken over a four-day period while practicing my Swahili in Stonetown, known as Mji Mkongwe to speakers of the language. I intended to get out of Stonetown and photograph a bit more of the island, but the myriad of winding alleyways, hidden rooms and endless cups of fresh coffee brewed over open coals on the street were enough to keep me wandering around in town for more than a week.

Shoreculture II: Lake Malawi

Jake — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:51:43 +0000

More like an ocean, Lake Malawi runs almost the entire length of this Southern African country. I went to one of the least developed parts, the northern town of Karonga, on my way down to a recent assignment shooting Gucci funded UNICEF projects for Marie Claire Magazine.

KEEPing the rainforest alive – Kenya’s Kakamega Forest Reserve

Jake — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:20:06 +0000

I was recently in Western Kenya. What was intended to be a quick stopover en route to Uganda turned into four days of rummaging through a rainforest with my camera wrapped in plastic shopping bags. As my “hotel” was without it, I had to hitch a ride on the back of a motorcycle to the nearest place with electricity so I could download images and charge batteries every night.

Not too long ago Africa’s midsection was a band of almost solid rainforest, stretching over six million square kilometers from West Africa along the Atlantic, through to the Central African Republic and the DRC, into East Africa. Today, the Guineo-Congolian rainforest, as it is known, is now just a remnant of what it once was, its canopies having suffered the impact of logging, oil and mineral exploration. In the case of the Kakamega Forest, large areas were cleared during colonial times to make way for large tea plantations. Below, children stand in front of tea fields along the the forest’s periphery.

While vast ares of the rainforest are still present in Central Africa, only a tiny section of it remains in Kenya, where it is now a protected area. The Kakamega Forest Reserve occupies 240 square kilometers in Western Kenya and contains huge varieties of birds, insects, snakes, plants and small mammals. Many of the plants in the forest are highly medicinal.

The most exhilarating of events for me came as I accompanied a group of forest rangers on their daily rounds through the reserve. Following behind these soldiers with loaded weapons in tow, through thick vegetation and winding streams, really got my adrenaline going. At one point we were in hot pursuit of some poachers who were cutting down a tree, but they managed to escape.

The area around the forest, though rural, is one of the most densely populated areas in Africa, with around 400 people per square kilometer on average at its western and southern perimeters. As the communities around the forest are impoverished, the pressure is great to exploit the forest for its vast stocks of wood to be used as firewood or made into charcoal. Arrests do occur here every day. Steep fines accompany arrests and increase with repeat infractions.

KEEP (Kakamega Environmental Education Program) is the government agency responsible for the care and protection of the forest. It also provides guides for tourists wishing to visit the reserve. These guides double as educators who teach environmental education awareness classes to children at the reserve headquarters on weekends, and also in public schools around the forest. Below, Mr. Abraham Imbai speaks to the Environmental Management and Conservation Club at Lunyu Secondary School.

“If we destroy the forest we lose rain.” says Maurine Cecilia, below, whose corn and herb gardens rely on the (usually) daily rainfall that results from the evaporation of the mist from the forest. Indeed, the land around the forest is extremely fertile, and farmers often reap several harvests a year because of the year-round rain. Soil erosion, a serious problem in most other parts of the county, is not an issue here.

Still many who live around the forest have little choice than to operate on the one day at a time mentality. “I know its illegal but its my responsibility to cook food for my family,” says one poacher (below, left) who along with her children have cut several fresh trees down and have to risk making three trips through the forest to take it all home.

Villagers are willing to risk fines in order to pilfer the abundant, free, firewood that comes out of the forest, especially if they can turn it into valuable, slow burning, charcoal. Though the production of charcoal is illegal, its lucrative rewards tempt some around the villages to produce and sell it. Below, men in the village of Virembe, on the forest’s western perimeter, smolder wood for charcoal.

“Right now there’s a total ban, but we’d like to allow it in order to bring prices down and discourage lucrative poaching,” says head Forester George Aimo. “If it was allowed under certain circumstances the forest would be better protected.” While there is an outright ban on charcoal production, it is permissible to collect dead wood in some areas of the reserve as long as the scavenger bears a receipt costing 100Ksh (USD $1.25) per month. The fine for a first time offense of collecting dry wood without a receipt, or felling trees or limbs is 2000 Ksh ($25 USD). Below, Mr. Patrick Asutzi, a KEEP employee, prepares seedlings for planting at the central ranger station.

Other problems in the forest include illegal logging, grazing and grass cutting. The A1 highway runs along the western edge of the forest making guerrilla logging easier. Villagers also graze their cattle in the periphery of the forest or even in the forest itself causing long term problems. “Overgrazing degrades the soil and inhibits regeneration of trees,” says Forester Aimo. Below, a man cuts grass in a high glen in the forest.

Above, a Black and White Colobus Monkey hides in the treetops. Its numbers have boomed back in the forest since the time when they were hunted for their fur, which was used in ceremonial garb. Today the monkey is still endangered, as the tree whose leaves are crucial to its digestion, the sandpaper tree, is also in danger due to logging and predation from pest trees in the forest. These predator species wrap themselves around other trees and over years suffocate them to death (see below).

We can never convince an entire generation that it must make sacrifices in order to provide quality of life for those to come, but for the most part KEEP is succeeding in this. Though serious problems exist, the forest not only remains but in some areas is growing. For the moment life is abundant here, though it is not without heavy cost and toil.

Women’s Work

Jake — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:36:17 +0000

Gender roles are strictly divided in Sub-Saharan Africa – more so here than in any other place I’ve traveled. Women perform most of the tasks here from fetching water, to washing clothes, to taking a child to the hospital. However, few roles are solely set aside for men, except perhaps playing football or napping in the afternoon shade. A breach of code whereby men venture into women’s work is a sore embarrassment and one not to be done publicly. For the majority of those living on this continent life is hard. For women, the burden is harder still.

Shoreculture – Lake Babati, Tanzania

Jake — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 20:53:08 +0000

Lake Babati is one of dozens of water bodies known as the Rift Valley Lakes that span the eastern side of the African Continent from Mozambique to the Red Sea. The lake is the lifeblood of the town of Babati in Central Tanzania. Here people draw their cooking, cleaning, and even drinking water. Cattle feast along the densely vegetated shorelines beside women from nearby villages washing clothes. The lake is also home to abundant wildlife including fish, prawns, eels, hippos and many species of water bird.

Like the diverse wildlife found in the lake, Babati is a melting pot for Tanzania’s various tribes. On a given day one may find members of the Masai, Barabaig, Iraqw, Irangi and Man’gati tribes laboring along the shores of the lake or harvesting its fruits from within. However, the tranquil balance between man and nature has shifted as overuse of the lake’s resources have begun to affect natural habitats. Overfishing, excessive water drawing, and the destruction of wetlands for firewood and cattle grazing areas are resulting in dwindling numbers of the lake’s inhabitants as well as receding of its waters.

Motor City, West Africa

Jake — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:50:18 +0000

On Monday I had a few hours of time on my own to explore the city of Bamenda, in the North West Highlands of Cameroon. Away from the steamy jungles of the South and Center, the North West has a cooler climate than the rest of the country, which contributed to my desire to get out of my hotel room and explore the city. I came to Cameroon expecting to practice my French each place I went, but found that Pigeon English was more widely spoken in this region than any other language. I never really got a grasp on it.

In the North West, the motor bike is king- the quickest and cheapest form of transportation around the city and a must-have for any young bachelor looking to find a date for the evening. I found a driver with whom I could communicate and we agreed upon a price for him to show me around the city for the afternoon. At the time, I only deemed my ride on the back of the bike, camera in tow, a small risk – one that was worth taking for the exhilaration of riding through the markets and neighborhoods of this dusty, sprawling town. Besides, everyone else was doing it.

At times we’d pause on the street and snap photos, chatting with the subjects. I picked up some new Congolese music for 50 cents a CD and a new pair of Ducci sunglasses. After a couple hours of riding, the chain derailed off our motor bike. We pulled over at the side of a large intersection and got to work on removing the chain’s metal housing.

As my driver, Frankie, was just getting his hands dirty on the greasy chain, we heard a loud crash in the intersection and looked over to see a large cloud of brown dust billowing from the road into the sky. A few seconds later, a man came running from the cloud saying something like “I tink go man die.” The Pigeon English took a second to process.

I raced to the accident. At first it was to see if those involved needed any help, but there was already a crowd surrounding the victims- the drivers of two motor bikes and a taxi cab, their faces bloodied and limbs contorted. The cab had apparently swerved into a bridge after hitting an oncoming motor bike. The driver was knocked from the car and into the river below. Camera already in hand, I continued to shoot as the taxis, which doubled as ambulances, arrived on the scene to transport the victims to the hospital.

Slightly delayed and perhaps not as shaken as I should have been, I made it back to the hotel in time for dinner with the crew. This is Africa, and this is sort of thing is commonplace.

Armenia, Stuck in the Middle.

Jake — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 14:12:22 +0000

A small nation with a big heart, Armenia has nearly been whittled away by its neighbors over the centuries. Today, most Armenians live outside the country’s borders in diaspora communities throughout the world. Its ancient traditions remain strong and intact, however, despite years of invasion, persecution, occupation and displacement. Even though conflict continues to this day, Armenia’s hospitable and vibrant people have not lost their disposition to live life to the fullest, seemingly oblivious to current and past upheaval.

Armenia has been called a master of geopolitics. Straddling Eastern Europe and Western Asia, and in the peripheral vision of both Tehran and Moscow, it maintains excellent relations with the two while looking more toward the West for its model of government. Above, Leyli learns to walk in Gusangagyugh Village, Shirak Region.

The Caucasus region is no stranger to turmoil. Nearby Georgia experienced the most recent eruption of conflict in the area this summer. The brief Russia-Georgia war was a reminder of the competing spheres of influence in the world, and that this narrow strip of land between the Black and Caspian Seas is still as strategic as it has ever been. Above, Naira Sargsyan (36) feeds her youngest of eight children, Leyli. Large families are common in Armenia, as they are throughout the developing world.

The Capital city of Yerevan is the only bustling metropolis in this small nation of 3.2 million in the Caucasus Mountains. Above, the doorway of an indoor food market in central Yerevan.

Despite Yerevan’s wealth and western feel, conditions outside the capital city are less developed, and the post-Soviet collapse is still evident. Often it feels like stepping back in time. Below, potato harvesters in Saramedj village, Lori Region.

A statue of Mother Armenia stands sword-in-hand looking toward the Turkish border in a Soviet-era plaza in Yerevan. Turkey and Armenia have never experienced normal diplomatic relations with each other since Turkey’s refusal to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide of 1915.

Above, a view of the valley from an earthquake-damaged home in Saramedj village. The great Spitak earthquake of 1988 killed at least 25,000 people in this area and prompted Mikhail Gorbachev to call for foreign aid in the Soviet Union for the first time since World War II.

Twenty years later, residents like Tsaghik Frangulyan (31) and her children still live in “temporary” trailers brought in by the Soviet government’s FEMA equivalent.

My visit to Armenia coincided with harvest time. I’ve never tasted such rich, flavorful produce than in the Caucasus. Much of life outside the capital centers around agriculture and farming. Above, Susanna Karakhanyan harvests vegetables from her organic garden. Below, a bit of her freshly harvested, all-organic vegetables.

A farmer negotiates rush hour in Lori Region.

Above, a view of Berkaber village along the Azerbaijan/Armenia border. The center lake marks the countries’ boundary. The two nations continue to exchange cross border gunfire several times a week in spite of a 1994 ceasefire agreement.
Residents in Berkaber like Mr. Yura Tamrazyan and his wife Siranuysh Mantashyan must remain vigilant. Several villagers have been killed by sniper fire in years past.

At the source of the conflict between the Armenians and Azeris is a portion of land within the borders of Azerbaijan known as the Nagorno-Karabakh, whose population is predominantly ethnic Armenian. This month, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev sat down in Moscow with the presidents of both countries, successfully persuading them to engage in future talks on a political solution to the stalemate.

Wood and dried cow manure are stored for winter fuel in the shell of an old Lada in the village of Gusangagyugh, Shirak Region. Extreme Canadian-like winters last until April or May throughout much of the country.

Hrach Nalbandyan (66) and his wife Zubeida (60), in the village of Gusangagyugh in Shirak Region, with pickled vegetables stored for consumption during the harsh winter ahead.
Yerevan residents attend a jazz concert at the Opera House.

Armenia was the first nation to adopt Christianity as its state religion. It did so in the early 4th century. Since then, the Armenian Apostolic church continues to play an important role in the lives of citizens here. The church made history again this century as the only one in the Soviet Union to operate openly in staunch defiance of Soviet policy. Above, a Sunday service at St. Karapet Church (circa 1227) at Noravank Monastery near Yeghegnadzor.

A tomb from around the turn of the first millennium, Areni Village, Vayots Dzor Region.

New generation: Hripsime Hovhannisyan (5) sits on her living room couch with her grandparents Artavazd (82, left) and Siranuysh (79, right) Karakhanyan, in the village of Areni, Vayots Dzor Region.

Church leaders from around the world tour the Armenian Genocide Memorial and Museum in Yerevan. Karekin II, who is the Catholicos, or head of the Armenian church, walks in the center holding a staff. Below, the eternal flame.

In 1915, the Ottoman Empire began its systematic campaign of destruction against the Armenian people living within its borders. Most Armenian diaspora communities were established as a result of the genocide which ended in the extermination of up to 1.5 million Armenians.

Mount Ararat, the Genesis account’s final resting place of the ark. Even though the mountain was ceded to nearby Turkey in 1923, following the invasion of the Red Army, Mount Ararat continues to be the symbol of Armenia today, keeping its place on the coat of arms and dominating Yerevan’s skyline.

Georgia: the Cost of Conflict

Jake — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:28:00 +0000

It’s my job to shove my camera in people’s faces. Though I’m usually more tactful and delicate than that, it sometimes feels like I’m intruding beyond my bounds – at times being insensitive. Today was one of those days. I’m in Georgia (the Republic) and I’ve spent the day photographing some of those displaced by the recent war between Georgia and Russia.

It can be distressing to be in the same room with the victims, hearing their stories of how their homes were destroyed, fields burnt, loved ones killed, while I am forced to walk a thin line between having a sympathetic ear and getting the job done.

These people have lost virtually (or almost) everything except their lives. Even if they had homes to which they could return, the political situation in South Ossetia, where most refugees shown here are from, is not welcome to ethnic Georgians and is still occupied today by Russian troops.

“Its very difficult for a Georgian living in Tskhinvali (South Ossetia’s capital); they kill Georgians there,” says Natia Bdziharashvili, 25 (shown above in black). “So why do you want to return?” I ask through my interpreter. “Because I was born there. Every blade of grass and every stone is ours. It is my motherland.”

These photos were taken in the town of Gori, the nearest Georgian town outside of the separatist province of South Ossetia. It is the hometown of Joseph Stalin. Oddly enough, he’s still admired here despite the recent display of Soviet-era aggression by Vladymir Putin. Above, a statue of Stalin stands in Gori’s main square. These days, the Red Cross uses its spacious tarmac to park their distribution trucks.

The Gori area experienced casualties and heavy damage when Russia invaded Georgia proper after pushing the Georgian army out of South Ossetia. Above, a government contractor works to repair the bomb-damaged home of Larama Tlashadze in central Gori.

The small country of Georgia is providing shelter for about 90,000 people left homeless as a result of the recent conflict with Russia and the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Many are living in the Gori area. The Georgian government, in conjunction with NGOs like the Red Cross, has moved efficiently to provide food and shelter for the refugees and to restore damaged homes when possible. Some live in refugee camps like the one shown above located in Gori’s central park. Others live in schools. Below, Valia Baryachvili is an ethnic Russian whose home in a border village was destroyed by Russian troops.
Fearing that most would not be able to return to their homes, the Georgian government immediately began constructing homes outside of South Ossetia for the war-torn region’s former residents. Residents in the refugee camps complain that such housing is sparse compared to the large farm estates where many lived before the war. It is the goal of Heifer International, with whom I am now on assignment, to begin agricultural and sustainable farming projects with refugees once they move out of temporary housing.

These projects will help the refugees establish themselves in the area and begin earning an income. Below, a woman shows me an image captured on her mobile phone of the shell of her war-damaged home.

The compensation for my discomfort regarding these photographs came from the subjects themselves. Many were eager to tell their story. Many welcomed me into their quarters with whatever they could offer: a chair, some chocolate, a cup of coffee. I hope in turn I will have had some small part in the process of returning their lives to a state of normalcy.

Remembering Gonaives

Jake — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 18:47:53 +0000

Parts of Haiti are under 16 feet of water this week. Over the past month the country has been inundated with heavy rains brought by four storms: Fay, Gustave, Hanna and Ike. Caribbean nations are often the first to bear the brunt of these powerful storms that form in the Atlantic.

Last December I photographed for ten days in Haiti. Most of the time was spent in the Northern port city of Gonaives, where these photos were taken. Today Gonaives is the scene of some of the most widespread devastation wrought by recent storms in this developing nation that sits just a stone’s throw away from the Florida coast.

Gonaives occupies a low plain between the bay to the west and the mountains to the north and east. Haiti is known for its extensive deforestation, and the mountains around this city are representatives of this trend. When rains come, the surrounding hills become quickly saturated, soon flooding the town below. A witness in Gonaives during the recent tropical storm Hanna described this scenario as a “river of mud” flowing off the hills and into the town.

Above, this is what Gonaives looks like on a good day: trash piled up around pools of standing water. Even when rains have long since passed, flooding is a problem in this city. Most of Gonaives has no organized trash collection, nor any structured drainage system. The water crested this week at 16 feet and has now gone down to about chest level.

This is a busy city of 300,000 to 500,000 depending on how much of the surrounding area one takes into account. If you can look past the garbage and sewage in the street, it has a bit of an old world charm. Most of the activity centers around the lively port and market which are in close proximity to one another.

Back in December I discovered that the Haitian government had commissioned a French private contractor to build drainage canals throughout the city in order to channel water from the hills outside town to the bay. These canals were begun, but very early in the process the funding disappeared and the project was never completed.

In addition to a terrible eye sore, these canals became a dumping ground for the city’s waste and a breeding pool for disease carrying mosquitoes. Now that these cesspools throughout the city have flooded, the humanitarian catastrophe will surely be compounded. For more on these canals see my post from last December.

It’s difficult to asses the full scale of the disaster in Haiti as flood waters have yet to fully recede and some areas still remain inaccessible. Higher estimates put the death toll in the 700s. Gonaives remains largely deserted as people continue to stay in shelters outside town. Those that remained were forced to stay on the rooftops of their houses in order to fend off looters.

Though the recent storms in Haiti have proved disastrous, the destruction they leave behind is still not on the scale of the worst hurricane in recent memory: Hurricane Jeanne. In 2004 Jeanne pounded Haiti’s northern mountains with rain before it came sweeping into Gonaives killing 2800 of the city’s residents.

After all this it is clear that Gonaives’ finest asset is its people. They are patient, tenacious, and most of all, resilient. In this the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, most have no choice but to return to town and attempt to rebuild lives with whatever the storms capriciously left intact.

Rusty ghost ships linger in the city’s harbor, left over from the days of François Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude, who ruled the country from 1957 to 1986. Despite it being common knowledge that these presidents looted tens of millions of dollars from Haiti’s coffers, there is a longing for the return of the old leadership. The New York Times recently reported growing frustration by Haiti’s poorest who have seen security lapse, food grow scarce and garbage pile up in their streets. Life was more stable under the rule of harsh dictators. Reforms introduced by current president Rene Préval have been slow to take effect.

The national government has such little power here, it cannot coordinate disaster preparedness or response in such emergency situations as were experienced in the past month. It is forced to rely on humanitarian efforts of the UN and other NGOs for relief efforts. Such is life in a fledgling democracy that seems to take more orders from the wind and the rain than from the people themselves.

CARE is contributing to the relief effort in Gonaives.
Words & Images Copyright 2008 Jake Lyell Photography

Observations in Lima:

Jake — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:15:35 +0000

Peru’s capital is a teeming megalopolis of street vendors, exhaust fumes, cathedrals and bright lights. Following my most recent assignment with Heifer, I spent four days photographing some of Lima’s 8 million residents. I’ve divvied up the following photographs into what became four dominate themes: work, devotion, transit and leisure. From the wealthy suburbs of Miraflores to the up-and-coming pueblo joven of Villa Maria, Lima enjoys a stronger economy than the rest of this developing country. For this reason, many leave their homes elsewhere to make new lives in this boomtown on the Pacific.

Work…

Devotion…

Transit…

Leisure…

All photos Copyright 2008 Jake Lyell Photography

High and Dry – out in the sticks of Northern Peru

Jake — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:03:08 +0000

I can’t be sure what comes into mind when you think of Peru but I imagine your thoughts are similar to thoughts of Egypt: ancient ruins and exotic kingdoms. Lately when I mention I’ve been in Peru the next question is usually a bright and inquisitive “Did you visit Machu Pichu?”

Unfortunately I did not, though it’s not a total loss as I much prefer the company of the locals to 50 or so backpacking gringos. While some might have to do a Google search to match the country of my latest destination to its continent, Peru’s ruins, its mountains, culture, customs and even cuisine have put it squarely on most westerners’ mental gazetteer.

This is my second journey into Peru. My first was exactly one year, and maybe 12 or so blog entries, ago. Back then I found some very dire living conditions in the Amazonian city of Iquitos, but nothing as desperate as the struggle for life and death that I’ve witnessed many facing in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Peru can be classified as moderately poor country, where around 44% of people live in poverty and around 13% live in extreme poverty. It is most fortunate that one would be hard pressed to find starvation or rampant levels of HIV infection here. Most people are making do but are still striving for a better quality of life; I suppose we all are. With increasing foreign investment and trade, however, Peru’s economy is expanding. It is a country that is rapidly changing as globalization expands and as people leave their agrarian lifestlye for the cities.

Despite our ever-expanding global village, there remain frontiers so remote in this vast country that their inhabitants have never had contact with outsiders. Though my most recent journey was not so pioneering as to have stumbled upon undiscovered peoples, it is possible that Christian (writer and traveling companion) and I were the first gringos ever to visit these villages, at least for some time. Christian and I actually began the Peruvian leg of our trip in the warm and dusty region of Piura, near the Pacific Coast. We took a detour to the Andes in search of photographs and stories of alpacas.

Somewhere between the cities of Chiclayo and Cajamarca (I still haven’t pinpointed exactly where) lies Incawasi, a district of Lambeyeque province. In the villages of Incawasi (Quechua meaning House of the Incas) ancient tradition continues to thrive. The district’s inhabitants continue to adorn themselves in colorful dress while maintaining their agro-centric lifestyle much as they have for centuries past. At first I was want to think that the colorful garb was a show for the newly arrived visitors, that I was experiencing the equivalent of an historical reenactment at Colonial Williamsburg.

However, not much has changed here in the past 500 years since the fall of the Inca Empire. Though tourism is a massive industry in Peru, the isolated villages of the North remain a little-traveled backwater. Heifer began to work in this impoverished area a little over two years ago, providing villagers with instruction in productive farming, tree-planting and sustainable agriculture. Villagers received guinea pigs, used as food (they love them up here) and especially prized for their fertility, as well as alpaca, whose wool is used to make clothing or is sold or bartered for goods.

Above, Christian and Feliciana Calderon (37) converse though two translators, one for Spanish, another for Quechua. Here at 13,000 feet, Heifer is helping to streamline Andean agrarian traditions such as irrigation, fishing and the domestication of animals such as llamas and alpacas. Heifer is also introducing new conventions such as reforestry and gender equality, the latter of which is taking some time to catch on.

I say that not much has changed here in the last 500 years. The quality of life has improved somewhat in Incawasi since Heifer began working here two years ago, but Incawasi then fared just the same as it had two hundred years ago. The real change has come within our own society, so that we now look at another that has not kept pace with ours and say that lack of education among children is unacceptable, or that land to work and proper shelter in which to live is a fundamental right.

The people of Incawasi will not starve without Heifer’s help, but it is very likely that without the aid of the guinea pig or alpaca projects here, this district would lag a century behind in its development. Because of Heifer, it is on track to becoming not only a self-sustaining community, but a healthy and prosperous one. Above, Martina Sanchez Barrios (26) weaves clothing from sheep and alpaca wool.

The land of el Morante, 100 miles north-west of Incawasi couldn’t be any more different from the nearby Andean communities. Lying at sea level, this dusty, parched land is almost uninhabitable; in fact it was deemed such until recently. The government owned the once-vacant land here but in the last two decades began leasing it to lower income city dwellers who wanted to move in to make new lives for their families.

The new community is made up of hardy pioneers who constantly fight the region’s adverse conditions in order survive and, in some cases, prosper. Their greatest challenge: water. Unlike Incawasi, where fresh water flows freely from springs into strategically engineered furrows, the people of el Morante must trek long distances to the nearest watering hole.

Some families have closer access than others. However, for those we visited the journey involved waking each morning at 3 o’clock, loading up their donkeys with empty barrels and caravaning two and a half hours to the well. If all goes as planned, they will return home again, their barrels full, by 11AM, just as they heat of the day becomes most unbearable. Above, Perpetuo Cueva (42) and his neighbor Yolmer Delgado (41, far distance) travel to the well to fetch the day’s water. In the interest of sleep, we did not join them for the entire journey, traveling by truck to meet them at daybreak along the way.

Gender roles vary from culture to culture, especially in the developing world where they are often clearly defined. In el Morante it is the job of the men to fetch the water, unlike in African societies where the women inherit the task. The men of el Morante are charged about 35 cents per barrel, money that goes toward upkeep of the well and gasoline to fuel the pump that brings it from 180 meters underground. Because the water is so far below ground, building a second well is no small feat, and so for the moment this well must meet the needs of communities far and near.

Above, Maria Cuenca (44) takes laundry off the line. It doesn’t take long to dry here. A new well which is under construction just outside her house will save her husband 5 hours of commute time a day. Despite this, all of her children have left the area in pursuit of an easier life in Peru’s cities. Citizens here used to petition the government and NGOs to bring running water to the villages. They have now realized they would not be able to afford the subsequent spike in property values as a result of the service.

Sheep and goats are the only animals that people raise out here. It’s much too dry for cattle. Below, Madeline Quispe (38) and her husband Yolmer Delgado (41) have the best looking garden in all of el Morante, raising beans, tomatoes and kasava. They use manure from their goats as fertilizer and water from the well to irrigate the sandy soil.

Roxanna Garrido (28, far right) is the sole teacher at this one room school in el Morante. She technically lives in the city of Piura, three hours away. She comes to the village for five days at a time and returns home on the weekends. All of her students come from families that are Heifer participants. The fact that they are able to afford the services of a qualified teacher to lead the classroom is a result of extra income earned as a Heifer Project participants.

Whether it’s the high cool villages of the Andes or the dry scrub desert of el Morante, the demanding life of these inhabitants puts our own into perspective, making life in Western society, with all its stresses, feel like a vacation. Those of us who have experienced want in our lifetime should be ever grateful of our plight.

Copyright 2008 Jake Lyell Photography

Kilimanjaro to Victoria Falls – Documenting Heifer’s work in the African interior.

Jake — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 02:55:57 +0000

Traveling in the developing world can wear on one’s conscience. Although the simplicity of lifestyle and overwhelming hospitality found there can be extraordinary, more often than not, essential needs are not being met, and daily life is a struggle. As my friend, writer Christian DeVries put it while remarking how fortunate we were to be born in America, we (Westerners) hit the jackpot in the global lottery.

Lucky we are indeed. It is my observation that those in the States, regardless of background, who truly work hard and make good decisions can provide for their own needs and those of their family and possibly even save a bit on the side. This is not the case in many places in the world. Work ethic is certainly an essential ingredient in success; but drive, determination and hard work mean nothing when the pillars of society are not in place to reward such attributes.

These same thoughts were stirring in my mind last year while in an open-air restaurant in Iquitos, Peru, on the Amazon River. Until a few moments prior my greatest anxiety was how I might purge my mouth of the intolerable fiery sensation leftover from consuming the world’s hottest chili pepper that had innocently garnished my plate of octopus and crawfish.

A young man, about my age approached my table peddling newspapers, magazines and talk time for mobile phones. Without success at mine, I watched him as he criss-crossed to each table in the crowded restaurant without making one sale. I could genuinely feel the discouragement in my own heart that I’m sure he felt inside, and I also knew that this discouragement was nothing new to him. I wondered what kind of home he might go back to empty handed that evening.

What is different about my assignments with Heifer International is that the day is spent documenting progress and change. I dwell on successes in farming, education, economy and family life, not sickness, injustice and upheaval. The people I photograph, if they haven’t already done so, are climbing farther out of the desperate circumstances into which they were born. Never is it discouraging work. On the contrary, it is inspiring.

Heifer Project International (HPI) is a development organization that fights poverty and hunger by implementing long-term agricultural programs that lead to self-sustainability. Usually that program is an integrated approach that combines a variety of solutions to meet this goal, helping the farmers along the way with whatever materials or training they may need. For example, Mr. Ndossi, above right, received cows from Heifer. He uses milk from the cows that he doesn’t drink to make cheese and sells it in the market. He spreads the cows’ manure on his coffee and banana trees as fertilizer, producing more at harvest time as a result. He also shovels the manure into a pit where it gives off methane. The methane is piped into his home where it used to light lamps and as fuel on his gas stove. Mr. Ndossi has no need to chop down trees for firewood or buy candles in the market. He has plenty to eat and earns a steady income.

On my third assignment with the NGO, I have recently been traveling in Tanzania and Zambia. While it’s true that I mention Heifer quite a bit in this forum, it’s not simply because they are a client; Heifer’s approach to ending poverty works, and to this I am a witness. Above, Yedida Matonya is a Heifer recipient (project participant) near Dodoma, in central Tanzania. Below, participant Ryness Himululi helps her daughter Jennifer with her school work near Ndola, in Zambia’s Copperbelt.

Heifer’s effectiveness as an NGO can be attributed in part to its community-based organization. More often than not, community groups will approach Heifer after hearing of the success of other project farmers, rather than the other way around. After a dialog with local HPI country staff, Heifer will then form an animal or agricultural project that best fits the needs of the given geographic area. Below, Kulwa Selemani farms chickens in Tanzania’s Coastal Province, near Dar Es Salaam.

As a project is established, country staff select members of the local community to act as intermediaries between themselves and the project participants. Supervisors must show leadership skills and a desire to help their neighbors before undergoing training on how best to implement Heifer’s 12 cornerstones (ideals such as Sustainability and Self-Reliance) in the community. Sister Alexandra Buretta (below) is one such person. At the age of 69, she supervises a Heifer pig project with over 200 participants in various villages on Tanzania’s Mt. Kilimanjaro. By using community-based supervisors and local staff, HPI employees are already versed in the language, culture and community nuances in which they operate.

Tourism is booming in and around Arusha, about an hour west of the great mountain. The city is the gateway both to Serengetti National Park, where wide-eyed travelers come to spy big game like elephants and giraffe, and the snow-capped Kilimanjaro, where trekkers can ascend Africa’s highest peak. Many Tanzanians come here in hopes of finding employment in the tourism industry. Most residents in the area, however, benefit little from the constant influx of foreigners to the area.

In 1999, residents of the Village of Mkuru (above) approached Heifer International and requested assistance. The village, located in a dry, isolated region one hour North East of Arusha, lies at the base of Mt. Meru. The residents here are members of East Africa’s formerly nomadic Masai Tribe. In 1999, children in Mkuru did not receive any formal education. Soil quality was low due to overgrazing, and infant mortality was high from lack of access to medical facilities. Heifer concluded that cows or sheep were not what the village needed to improve their way of life. Though these are familiar livestock to the Masai, HPI in turn introduced 12 camels to the village, along with training in veterinary care, plowing, and camel breeding.

You won’t find many camels farther south than Northern Kenya’s Chalbi desert. Though it took a while to catch on down here, they turned out to be just what Mkuru needed. In the dry, harsh conditions of the village, the grazing habits of sheep and cows make them ultimately unsustainable, eating the vegetation that does grow and trampling away what is left. Camels do not compete with such livestock, preferring thorny scrub brush to grass; and unlike hooves, their soft padded feet don’t contribute to soil erosion. Known for trekking long distances without needing to refuel, camels are shoe-ins for the area’s low water table.

“When we get camels we are happy because they changed our life,” says village chairman Isaya Shakwet (above right). “Camels can carry a lot of goods like water and supplies. We are able to take people to the hospital by camel.” The improvements are many. The overall nutrition of the village has improved since 1999 as residents are drinking milk from the camels. In addition to the animal’s use for its plowing abilities, crop yields have increased as a result of better soil quality. Families are being fed larger meals and are earning an income by taking the abundance to the market. Parents are now able to afford medical and education fees for village children. “Through camels we get a lot of income… We pay doctors once a month to come out and give medical care to pregnant and nursing women. Our community is improving a lot because of all of these things,” continues Shakwet.

As if all this progress is not enough, Mkuru is now earning the majority of income in the tourist industry. Tourists arrive in the village where they begin a 3 or 5 day Safari on camelback through Northern Tanzania’s rugged wilderness. Even after Passing on the Gift (a system where animal recipients give offspring to other villages in need), Mkuru now has 26 camels in the village – more than enough to provide for the village needs as well as meet the demands of carefree foreign adventurers. Before 1999, no one could have predicted the changes that would come about in this village in the next ten years, and no one could be more pleased than the villagers themselves.

Bordering Tanzania to the Southwest, remote and landlocked Zambia is one of the world’s poorest countries. Sparsely populated, its 12 million residents are quartered mainly in and around its capital Lusaka and in the Copperbelt region to the North. HIV/AIDS has had a devastating effect on Zambia’s population and economy. Today, nearly 17% of the country’s citizens are living with the disease, causing the average life expectancy here to sink to just 38 years. Above, the main thoroughfare runs through the town of Mumbwa in Central Province.

With such overwhelming statistics, HIV/AIDS has had an effect on nearly every family we visited, including the Kalusa family. When we visited them in a village outside Mumbwa, Mr. Kalusa was away attending the funeral of a relative. His wife Bess Mutelo is 38 years old, and together they have nine children. As if nine weren’t enough to provide for, the Kalusas have also taken in Bess’ mother Olipa, as well as seven other children – relatives whose parents have died. Below, the Kalusa children bring water from a well dug by HPI in the village of Mika, near Mumbwa. Well installations are not something that Heifer is particularly known for. However, when it became apparent that a great need for them existed in rural Zambia, the NGO stepped in.

In addition to a nearby well, the Kalusa family has received goats and draft cattle from Heifer. The goats provide meat and milk for the family. The draft cattle provide milk as well but are mainly used for plowing fields. With sixteen children in the house ranging from 8 months to 24 years, there is no shortage of hands to work the field. However, in years past, providing enough food to go around was a problem. The use of manure as fertilzer and the cattle’s plowing abilites have a significant effect on crop yields. Remarking on successes of the project, the oldest son, Loswell Mutelo says, “The biggest impact I have seen is that we produce more food than before. We are a big family but we are able to feed ourselves.”

In light of the recent spike in global food prices, especially in the developing world, the fact that this family of 19 is able to raise enough food to provide for themselves is remarkable. In fact, they produce more than enough milk and vegetables to feed themselves; they are able to take some to the market, thus earning an income. The excess produce is reflected in one of the houses on the Kalusa’s compound, where Bess Mutelo, the family’s matriarch, displays her collection of fine dishes.

Is the Kalusa family rich now? Not by our standards they aren’t. But like many farmers that are Heifer participants, they are past the point of worrying whether or not they will find enough food and are putting priority on things like education and caring for those in their community and family that are in need. In more ways than one, they are passing on the gift.

Our journey ended in the town of Livingstone, near the Zambia/Zimbabwe border, where a different attraction is drawing large numbers of tourists. A massive gorge of the Zambezi River, Victoria Falls stretches 1.7 kilometers from end to end with a height of 108 meters. Though the falls can be viewed from Zimbabwe as well, sightseers have all but given up venturing into its political instability. They come from all around the world in droves to lay eyes on the falls and don rain ponchos to protect from the endless spray emanating from the rushing of water into the deep basin below.

More refreshing than the cool water of the Zambezi, however, was to be outnumbered by the hundreds of middle class Zambian tourists who came to glimpse the falls at the same time as I did. Only then could I begin to visualize an Africa where its citizens had not only attained the necessities of life, but also the luxuries of leisure.

-Jake Lyell travels regularly with freelance writer Christian DeVries to document the work of Heifer International. The quotes in this post were provided by Mr. DeVries.-

Above and Beyond: witnessing aid in Tanzania

Jake — Thu, 01 May 2008 10:10:08 +0000

For the better part of the year I have been in East Africa. Tanzania became my refuge back in December when my mom’s voice (“Promise me you’ll always do the smart thing”) rang in my head to leave the Kenyan city of Kisumu following the outbreak of some brutal post-election violence. Kenya has settled down now and I hope to return later this year.

Tanzania is a country with which I am well acquainted. Eight years ago, my first foray into the developing world was to Tanzania where I taught in a summer ESL program in a primary school in Moshi, at the base of Kilimanjaro. The country was to prove quite captivating; this March marked my fifth journey there. Experiences in Tanzania in years past have shaped me as a person and influenced the career path I’ve taken. Returning at the beginning of this year for the first time since I’ve considered myself an established photographer, I was eager to try a more mature eye on the country.

In Tanzania I was able to document the work of two NGOs: Heifer International and Light in Africa (LIA). The two organizations, which are unaffiliated, operate in some of the same areas of Tanzania but differ greatly in size, scope and organization. Heifer and LIA have vastly different goals; Heifer is a development organization whereas LIA can be loosely defined as a relief organization. The humanitarian work of these groups meets different needs of those they serve. Large and small, the work is from the heart and is changing the lives of some of the most vulnerable Tanzanians. This post will focus on LIA’s work in Tanzania. I’ll focus on Heifer’s work in the area in a later post.

It seems odd to call Light in Africa an organization or an NGO. Yes there’s an office and staff, and a even a company letterhead but it operates almost like a big family. Lynn Elliot, “Mama Lynn,” is the matriarch, the founder and CEO. She came from England in 2000 on what she calls direct assignment from the Holy Spirit to “deliver these children safely into My arms.” She founded a children’s home in the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro but moved down to the town of Boma Ng’ombe on the Arusha-Moshi highway in 2003.

Since 2003, Mama Lynn’s ministry has expanded from raising some 40 orphaned or abandoned children to around 150. Many of the children she cares for are afflicted with HIV/AIDS. See my PEPFAR post for more on this subject. Far more than a children’s home, now operations include a food kitchen in the desperate town of Mirereni (shown above), medical dispensaries in several remote villages, and housing and hospice care for many elderly and disabled people. However, this is by far not an exhaustive list of LIA’s current and ever-expanding duties. “Whatever God puts in our path, we will care for,” Mama Lynn says. Below, she slaps fives with children waiting for a meal at Mirerani food kitchen.

This Whatever God puts in our path policy keeps Mama Lynn in a mode of constant ministry and her house full of guests. She has very little personal time, save for prayer in the morning. At the time I visited, Mama Lynn had been spending an increasing amount of time in the aforementioned mining town of Mirereni. In addition to operating a children’s home there, she established a food kitchen there the previous year. Below, children in LIA’s Mirereni Fleeze House.

The kitchen now serves over 400 hungry adults and children a day. Many who attend are children of Tanzanite miners whose parents work in deplorable conditions for extremely low pay. Mama Lynn is fortunate to have a partner in the work in Mirereni, the American NGO Kids Against Hunger. KAH supplies most of the food that is served here. The food kitchen serves not only to fill hungry stomachs but also to keep a pulse on the community, identifying other needs as they arise.

Take for instance Anna Mapena. Shown above with her baby boy of nine months, Taigo, she is 40 years old and lives in Mirereni. Mama Lynn and I first met her lying on the doorstep of the town’s only medical dispensary (built by LIA volunteers). The doctor there could not do anything for her condition, which was later thought to be Nephrogenic systemic fibrosis. I was unable to photograph her in the state in which I first saw her: sick and in pain, lacking dignity. I couldn’t do it without first gaining her trust and letting her know my intentions; so I didn’t even ask. That week, Mama Lynn brought Anna along with her husband, Sakita, back to LIA in order to begin treatment for her skin condition at KCMC hospital in Moshi. It was there that I shot the above picture.

Paulo Nangu (above) is a man who slipped through the cracks of Africa’s traditional gerocentric society. Husbands and wives sometimes have children numbering in the double digits to insure that they are cared for in their last years. Paulo and his wife, who died many years ago, were never able to have any. A migrant worker, he ended up in the town of Magadini. There he developed a tumor in his leg and became too ill to work. Villagers there would trade off providing what they could in the way of food, shelter and clothing. On a trip home to Magadini, a LIA staff member heard of his plight and brought Paulo back to live at the guest house.

Paulo (above center) receives food, clothing and a place to live at LIA’s guest house. “Here I am happy because I never sleep hungry, but there I went to bed with no food,” he says, looking back to his former life. He considers Mama Lynn’s charity an answered prayer. Mama Elihuruma (below) expresses similar thanks for the help she’s received. To her, LIA is “a close friend you can run to for help.” LIA stepped in as she was being driven off the land she was renting while caring for her severely disabled child, Elihuruma. Light in Africa volunteers pitched in to buy her a plot of land and build a house for her and her family. LIA still funds and facilitates physical therapy for Elihuruma.

Operating on the examples of Jesus laid out in the gospels by providing for those in need, Mama Lynn is unabashedly outspoken in her Christian faith. Rising early in the morning for prayers and continuing her heavenly dialog throughout the day, she often fasts meals. “I was anointed by God to come out here and do the work,” she says. “I could not do it any other way… I rely totally on the Holy Spirit.”

However, Mama Lynn has refused to identify with any particular Christian sect or denomination, preferring her autonomy. She remains accepting of volunteers at LIA of any faith or no faith at all. She keeps in close contact with the Hindu community in nearby Moshi, who have dubbed her the Angel of Kilimanjaro. Furthermore, she receives food donations from Muslim merchants in town.

Brushing aside the inevitable comparisons to Mother Theresa, Mama Lynn humbly states, “I’m not a holy person, I’m a social worker,” thus recalling her former occupation in the UK that has given her much needed experience in the care of the vulnerable and disenfranchised. Mama Lynn’s daughter, Laura Cox, was an integral pillar of LIA before returning to England last year to better educate her children. Laura (below) still makes occasional visits and eventually plans to resume her full time role at LIA.

LIA receives no regular funding from any religious, government or charitable institutions nor do they hold fund-raising campaigns. Mama Lynn operates solely on what is given to her by passing volunteers or those that choose to arbitrarily deposit money into her Paypal account. “We pray for people to be inspired to help with God’s mission.” This way, she says, she is more clearly able to discern God’s will and the purposes of her ministry; if she is to help someone or begin a new work, the funding will become available.

Her living-by-faith financial strategy is rare for NGOs and unheard of to many Tanzanians and government officials, who from their view perceive all westerners as having no bottom to their bank accounts. Charitable work is seen as big business in Africa and for some NGOs it is. For Mama Lynn, who refuses to pay bribes, the resulting lack of cooperation from local government has been exhausting. Things are improving of late however, since the election of President Jakaya Kikwete. His anti-corruption and NGO-empowering policies have yet to fully filter down through the ranks of the old guards still occupying positions of power.

Recently, recognition of her work has been on a national level. Mama Lynn was last year an honored guest at a luncheon hosted by President Kikwete. Mama Salma Kikwete, the Tanzanian first lady, has twice made visits to Light in Africa.

Driving the dusty, bumpy, ever-shifting route to Mirereni, Mama Lynn comes to a new fork in the road. “Which way do you think Jake?” she asks. “I say right, but you can always go ahead and forge your own path,” I wittily respond. It wouldn’t have been out of character. “I’ve tread enough new ground by now thank you” she laughs. But somehow, I think there’s more yet to come.

Copyright 2008 Jake Lyell. With thanks to Laura Sechu.

Saving Lives – Africa, PEPFAR and the Bush Legacy

Jake — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 13:20:00 +0000

The President is just back from a whirlwind tour of Africa. He swept across the continent in 6 days, leapfrogging to friendly and peaceful countries while dispatching Secretary Rice to areas that need a little work (see my Kenya post). While much of the headlines these days deal with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush administration has been waging a more silent war against AIDS in the developing world.

I’ve spent the last month in Northern Tanzania, observing the work of an NGO called Light in Africa. Light in Africa, or LIA, began as a children’s home on the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro. Since work began in 2000, founder Lynn Elliot (aka Mama Lynn) has gradually expanded its ministries to include food, nutrition and medical programs to the surrounding areas. The operation has since moved off the mountain to be mainly concentrated in the village of Boma N’gombe. LIA now raises some 150 children, around 40 of whom are living with HIV/AIDS. Below, children at Light in Africa’s Pilgrim House for boys.

A marked change has come since former visits I’ve made to LIA in 2002 and again in 2004: all the children who previously lived (or sadly, died) from day to day with the effects of HIV now have access to antiretroviral drugs without cost. Furthermore, the children receive regular checkups from doctors and nurses. Thus, children whose quality of life was once severely diminished can now live a relatively normal life compared to their peers who are not infected with HIV. Below, Omega and Felix are two of about 40 children at Light in Africa with HIV.

Antiretroviral drugs suppress the replication of the HIV virus in the body, allowing more T-cells to grow. T-cells are needed for a strong immune system in order for the body to fight off diseases and viruses. Such drugs are expensive. The majority of people around the world infected with HIV lack access to them either financially or geographically. It is little known that George W. Bush has made it a goal of his administration to change this. Below, Sonya lacked antiretroviral treatment from an early age. Her condition is now moving from HIV into AIDS.

Doctors recommend beginning antiretroviral therapy when one’s T-cell count falls below 350 and surely when reaching dangerous levels below 200. When word of Phineus reached Light in Africa, their social worker, Samueli was sure he could not be saved. Samueli had been dispatched by Mama Lynn to bring the child, whose parents had both died of AIDS, under her care. Phineus was langushing at home in bed, nursed by his grandmother with what doctors would later find to be a T-cell count of 6. Upon seeing his condition, Samueli returned to LIA without the child. By now accustomed to miracles, Mama Lynn insisted Samueli bring Phineus to live at LIA.

Two years later, Phineus (shown above on a recent checkup) is now healthy and lives once again with his grandmother. He receives antiretroviral drugs and health screenings from nurses and doctors at a local hospital or LIA’s clinic. The medication and care he receives are made possible with funds from PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief.

Passed by Congress in 2003, the Global AIDS Act that authorized PEPFAR was first touted in Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address. The program has continued to be funded each year since and was greatly expanded in 2006. The funding is distributed both to trustworthy local governments as well as to aid-groups and hospitals in the field. PEPFAR is currently working in 13 “focus” countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, in addition to Vietnam and Guyana.

In addition to structured prevention, care and treatment programs for AIDS, the act also authorized funds for the prevention and treatment of malaria and tuberculosis. Despite the relative lack of publicity, malaria is the continent’s most deadly disease, though AIDS can be more debilitating for a longer period of time. The incidence of co-infection of HIV/malaria and HIV/tuberculosis is also common. As of 2005, an estimated 24.5 million people in sparsely populated Sub-Saharan Africa were suffering with HIV. Though the area accounts for just 12% of the world population, it contains a disproportionate 60% of the world’s total AIDS population.

Two hours from Moshi by dusty, bumpy, almost-undriveable road to the dry Tanzanite mining town of Mererani, nurses from KCMC hospital in Moshi have come (thanks to a lift from Mama Lynn) to conduct HIV tests. Enough funding for the program exists for the hospital to regularly distribute antiretroviral medications to the village should enough people be found to have the virus. Word spreads quickly of the nurses’ presence and within a few minutes there is a line of twenty or so people waiting to be tested.

Sun pours in an otherwise dark room where tests are being conducted. The atmoshphere is tense. One man, after waiting all morning for the nurses’ arrival, is overcome with the anxiety of knowing his diagnosis. He removes the tourniquet from his arm before nurses can take a blood sample. After a few minutes he again consents to the test which later comes back positive. It seems that many who enter already know their fate and request antiretrovirals before the test is even administered. After the first 90 minutes, all but one of the villagers tested is HIV positive.

Assuming that KCMC approves the outreach to Mererani, the HIV+ villagers there are more fortunate than most. Even though antiretrovirals are freely administered in hospitals, they are far out of reach for people in remote areas like Mererani. The drugs may be free, but getting to and from the hospital requires bus fair, meals and a day or more away from the shamba, or field, where most people earn a living. Furthermore, queuing at a hospital in Sub-Saharan Africa is often a multi-day ordeal.

This is where PEPFAR’s work is most effective. By bringing the medicines as well as medical workers out into the bush, PEPFAR is sustaining the lives of many who would otherwise have stayed home.

“I know it is about life, and it is! But what do they do out in Checkireni (another remote region of Tanzania) when they don’t have the money to feed their kids and have to come up with 10,000 shillings to get to KCMC?” says Laura Cox, Mama Lynn’s daughter and fellow worker at LIA. Sadly, for most, there is no answer.

We return to Light in Africa later that evening to find that social services has delivered two more children to the orphanage: Hasani, a boy aged four, and his sister Azziza, aged 2. The pair look as if they have come from a famine-stricken refugee camp; Hasani weighs about 16 pounds and his sister not quite 10. They suffer from AIDS and Tuberculosis. The two however, did not come from a refugee camp, but from a mother who is dying of AIDS in a hospital bed at KCMC; they are despairingly inconsolable and in tears at being separated from her. Above and below, Mama Lynn and Laura administer antiretrovirals to Hasani and Azziza.

Within a few weeks in Light in Africa’s care, Hasani has shown improvement and is able to walk while holding someone’s hand. Azziza (below) does not fair so well and is checked into the hospital with pneumonia.

Despite its generous and far-reaching effects, PEPFAR is not without its critics. One third of the program’s prevention budget, or 6.6% of the overall budget, is spent on abstinence-only programs, to the chagrin of some public health experts who are concerned that Christian or moral agendas, rather than those of public health or human rights are PEPFAR’s motivating factors. Certain restrictions for funding are also placed on organizations working with prostitutes.

Whatever the motivations, according to PEPFAR’s reports, the program has administered antiretroviral therapy to some 1.4 million people. Though a tremendous amount of work remains, the results are significant. As the program expands, people are healthier and living longer, economies are strengthened because of a greater workforce, and HIV infection rates are decreased giving greater hope to the next generation. Time will tell whether or not these achievements will be overshadowed by the administration’s foreign policy failures elsewhere in the world. But one thing is sure, as the President leaves office next year, he leaves Africa in much better shape than when his two terms began.

Turning Blue: Virginia’s Democratic Fever

Jake — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:13:40 +0000

Momentum can be a dangerous force. Just ask former Senator George Allen, whose political career as a darling of the Republican Party was brought down by the momentum of the Macaca incident in 2006. Were it not for such a slip (and the hoopla that followed), Barack Obama could well be riding his current wave of momentum to a race in November against Allen, who was a very early GOP front-runner for the nomination. While Virginia won’t be selecting a nominee from its native sons or daughters this time around, it will certainly play a more crucial role in the nomination process than in the past.

Obama swept Democratic primaries and caucuses held across the country Saturday and Sunday, and poles have suggested that he will continue to fair well on Tuesday’s primaries in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC. That Obama momentum was felt by thousands of people inside and outside of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Siegel Center on Saturday night in Richmond, where the Democratic Party of Virginia hosted its annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner. Below, a police officer works to keep Hillary and Obama fans from spilling into the street.

The raucous crowd inside, overwhelmingly in support of Obama, often became vocally impatient for their candidate to take the stage. Addressing the crowd early in the evening, Clinton had a bit of a disconnect with her audience when compared to Obama, who would speak over two hours later. Her supporters were out-shown and out-shouted by those of her rival.
In a broad attempt to combat perceptions of un-humanness, Hillary Clinton continued a recent trend of laughing and smiling incessantly on the campaign trail and at the podium. Noting primary and caucus victories on days subsequent to performing the stunt, political strategist and pundit Ross Catrow predicts that Hillary will have a tearful moment before the cameras on Monday, ahead of key primaries in the Mid-Atlantic.

The event was also a rock-star rally of sorts for local Virginia Democratic politics, which up until a few years ago, would usually have hosted its annual dinner at the back room of a Ruby Tuesday’s. A man named Mark Warner changed the Party’s prospects, however. Taking the governorship after Republican Jim Gilmore’s reckless term came to an end in 2001, Warner showed Virginia how to run a fiscally sound government while maintaining important social and education programs. Warner’s policies helped Virginia steer around many of the economic problems facing other states in post-911 America. Below, the Virginia Governors from left to right: current Governor Tim Kaine, Mayor of Richmond and former Governor L. Douglas Wilder, former governor Mark Warner.

“Remember when I was governor that year?” the Democratic heavyweights schmoozy it up backstage.
While Wilder and Kaine have both endorsed Obama, Mark Warner does not plan to endorse a candidate until the nomination is sealed up. Anticipating a seat in the Senate next January, Warner wants to ensure a smooth working relationship with whoever occupies the Oval Office. As the Democratic candidate for Senator, the popular Warner should win handily against the current GOP front-runner, the aforementioned Gilmore. With Jim Webb already in office, Virginia will have two Democratic Senators and a Democratic governor for the first time since the Norman conquest of 1066. Okay, so if it’s happened before, it was probably back in the 30′s.

The big question is… can Virginia bare to vote Democrat in the general election? Could it be turning into a blue state? If Clinton were the nominee in November, I dare say Virginia would tip McCain. However, Obama is a much easier shoe for Virginians to slip on. Obama’s record (or at least rhetoric) of reaching across the isle to get things done is a strategy that has proven effective for Virginia Democrats like Kaine and Warner. Below, Obama and Kaine wave to a sold-out crowd on Saturday evening.

Obama has proven he can gain support among independents and moderates. He is a once-in-a-lifetime candidate able to attract young and old with his compassion, wit and charisma. The Superdelegates who may decide this race for the nomination would be wise to keep that in mind. Meanwhile, as McCain tries to beef up his conservative credentials, he will likely alienate independents who supported him. That makes for an easier race in the general election for Obama. But with the delegate race in a dead heat, let us not look solely at Obama’s current momentum to sum up the outcome; look at the numbers. Hillary has long-sought the nomination, and to think she would give up before it got into overtime would be what Bill Clinton would describe as a “fairy tale.”

Words and Photos – Copyright 2008 Jake Lyell

“No Raila, No Peace.” Kenya’s Bloody Tribal Unrest.

Jake — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:38:57 +0000

No one predicted what has come over Kenya in the last month since its disputed presidential elections. But since then, the country has fallen from the grace of being one of the most-stable countries on the African Continent to being the host of machete wielding street mobs of young, angry, disenfranchised men. Tourists and ex-patriots have largely left the country as security and the economy have plunged amid the unrest.

In all likelihood, Orange-Democratic Movement leader, Raila Odinga, won Kenya’s presidential election against incumbent Mwai Kibaki on December 27th. Raila, an ethnic Luo, widely led in opinion polls up until the election, accusing Kibaki, a Kikuyu, that he had not done enough to tackle corruption. Kenya’s other various minority tribes have long been hungry for a more prominent role in government. With the slow and non-transparent way the votes were counted in the days following the election, many were convinced fraud had taken place.

I knew something strange had come over the city on December 29th when I took an early morning stroll on the shores of Lake Victoria in the Western city of Kisumu, the hometown of opposition candidate Raila Odinga. The election results had not yet been released but tension was in the air because the results had been delayed for a second day. I was followed down a dirt road by two men, when one, bearing a machete, announced somewhat casually that, “We are going to kill you.” It was a little too casually in fact, for he was not convincing enough for me to readily cede my camera.

Nevertheless I began to scream for help as I was hit twice in the arm with his (luckily dull) machete and knocked to the ground. I screamed as loud as I could as the two men tugged on my camera bag while I took a few kicks. I could not physically let it go. It was impossible. I had come to Kenya to work, and work was now my life. Within a minute, several dockworkers heard my cries from inside the port and came running, sending the thieves to scurry off down some nearby railroad tracks.

I was left only with bruises, scrapes and a small laceration where the machete had hit. Thanking my helpers profusely, I marched on to my hotel in order to wash up before going to the police station to report the incident. The police were surprised that this would happen in a normally safe and peaceful town. However, within the hour the city descended into chaos as a shocked police force stood in passive observance of mobs looting shops and burning the houses of anyone not of the Luo tribe.

The fact that I had just walked away from a machete attack camera in hand may have given me an air of invincibility, but I began to photograph the mayhem as it unfolded on Kisumu’s streets. In a tense moment of being surrounded by a crowd, a man named Joseph stepped out and began to mediate between me and the mob, demanding they go about their business and let me do my job.

Joseph stayed with me like a guardian angel for the next several hours as the rioters looted and burned every shop in town and did the same to the houses of rival tribesmen. Even the livestock were not spared. Goats and cows were savagely torn apart, their limbs paraded around like trophies. All the while chanting “No Raila, no peace!,” the rioters seemed indifferent that I was documenting their actions.

This phenomenon was to last only a short while however, and after a few attempts at my camera and a few more close calls with machetes, shooting became impossible. Joseph and I holed up in my hotel room and prayed for peace to come over the city.

Calm came to the city that night after the Kenyan army marched in, firing tear gas and rubber bullets at anyone left on the streets. But the quiet was to be only temporary. On the following evening, the Kenyan Electoral Commission announced the results in Kibaki’s favor and swore him in within 30 minutes of doing so, prompting new and increased outbreaks of violence.

Unable to get food or water and out of cash, by this time I was waiting at the airport for the next flight to Nairobi. After waiting 12 hours for the flight, it was canceled due to security concerns. I was able to make it on a later flight with a different airline that evening. The riots that had taken place the previous day in Kisumu were no longer just an affair of Western Kenya, where I was, but had now spread throughout the country. As our plane flew out of town I could see the flames engulfing the streets and buildings below.

The violent aftermath that has engulfed Kenya has not subsided in the past month. It has begun to take on an eerie resemblance to Rwanda in 1994, whose genocide occurred under similar post-election tribal strains that descended into civil war. Mediators including former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, have failed to nip the problem in the bud. Last evening, Mugabe Were, an Orange-Democratic Movement MP elected on December 27th, was killed outside his home in Nairobi. Officials have stopped short of calling it an assassination.

Since its independence in 1963 Kenya has been ruled by only three presidents: Kenyatta, Moi and currently Kibaki. All men have followed the pattern of being ever-reluctant to relinquish their presidential powers. Despite his failure to implicate corrupt government officials as promised before winning his first term, Kibaki is most remembered for making primary education universal for all children in the country.

After years of peace and functioning democracy, Kenya’s brutal tribal tensions have come to a rolling boil and are now exposed to the rest of the world. But before too much sympathy is given to Odinga and his supporters, there isn’t much evidence to show he would have acted any differently as an incumbent. While most likely the true victor, Odinga and his ODM party is also the likely perpetrator of electoral irregularities according to the New York Times. Let us also remember that Kibaki, the current incumbent, himself came to power in 2002 as the opposition candidate of change, vowing to rid the country of corruption but keeping many of the crooks from the Moi administration in office. At the center of the problem is a nasty tribalist mentality that will continue to draw blood and tear apart the country unless ordinary citizens can look past tribe and see one another as united Kenyans.

With thanks to Joseph Otieno.

Haiti: Taking the Pulse

Jake — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 13:53:51 +0000

Heavy, loud, and concentrated. These are words I use to describe Haiti’s assault on the American senses. But its more than the intense atmosphere and lack of polish that keeps westerners away. People from developed countries are a rare sight in Haiti due to its poor security and lack of infrastructure. Those that come remain sealed off in walled compounds and are sped away in the relative safety of a tinted-window, 4-wheel-drive rent-a-car. The warnings of violent crime issued from behind the desks of those at the US embassy in Port-au-Prince are not unwarranted; kidnappings, robberies and murders of the wealthy do occur. But the situation here is one that requires vigilance and common sense, not paranoia and seclusion. For those of us who step beyond the boundaries of our comfort zone, the rewards seem endless. Investing in a good insurance policy is also recommended.

700 miles to the South-East of Florida, Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world. Occupying the western third of the Island of Hispaniola, it is a microcosm of the world’s humanitarian problems: unclean water, lack of health care, environmental degradation and an economy in shambles. These problems are interdependent and where solutions are brought about, new troubles emerge. As the nation’s fragile new government slowly takes hold and security improves across the country, Haiti is opening a new chapter in its restless history.

I left Port-au-Prince with my interpreter Romel the day after I touched ground, though I would return later to spend several days there. My thinking was that as the capital is the most unstable part of the country, and I had a greater risk of having my camera stolen there, I would prefer to have that happen after I had at least a week’s worth of images safe and backed up. Riding the crowded tap-tap (public bus) to the North, our destination was the city of Gonaives. Despite Haiti’s small size, (its area is comparable to that of the State of Maryland) traveling from one end to the other by tap-tap can take an arduous 48 hours. I decided to break the journey to Gonaives in the valley town of Mirebalais. Click the map below to trace the route of my journey.

We were fortunate to arrive in Mirebalais on market day, when people come from the town and surrounding countryside to sell or trade their goods while stocking up on needed supplies. Despite its bustling streets, people in Mirebalais like Etide Francois (shown below in her sewing shop) complained of low wages and not being able to make ends meet. Madame Francois’ story echoes national statistics. Over two-thirds of people in Haiti are unemployed or underemployed. Most people in Haiti have jobs, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that income is being generated. Therefore, the term underemployment has come to best describe the economic disposition facing the majority. Many days may pass without a sale made or a service rendered. While more than 80% of Haitians live below the poverty line, I seldom encountered beggars on the streets.

Below, a woman named Yvette makes cornmeal near the market with the help of her daughters.

Though it was hard to judge at the time, the outlook in Mirebalais was brighter than in other parts of the country I was to visit. It seemed most people had electricity in their homes because of the town’s proximity to the same hydro-electric dam that supplies power to Port-au-Prince. Consequently, Mirebalais’ streets and shops remained busy well into the night. While most did not not have running water, communal water stations like the one seen below piped in fresh spring water from the surrounding countryside.

We were hard-pressed to find affordable lodging in town that did not double as a brothel. Luckily, a woman named Dada offered to put us up for the night in her home. That evening as I was editing photos in my room, much of the neighborhood came by to watch the town light up on my laptop’s screen. Some curious residents are shown posing below. We departed early the next morning for Gonaives.

Haiti was pounded by Hurricane Jeanne in September 2004. The damage was particularly severe in the port city of Gonaives. Rushing water from the passing hurricane emptied off the mountainsides surrounding flood-prone Gonaives killing over 3,000 of the city’s residents. The flood damaged every building in the town and left 250,000 people homeless.

Charles Luders, shown above, lives with his wife and seven children in the mountains that surround Gonaives. From his house you can see the entire town: the dusty hills that ring the city, the winding avenues that lead you through the cauldron of downtown until you reach the shoreline. Charles and his wife moved to the hillside 11 years ago. Moving to the outskirts of the city was the only way that they could afford a home and education for their children. “I have struggled a lot to provide a better life for my children than I have had” says Luders, who has made education a priority for his children. “With education you can make a life for yourself and earn a living.” Luckily, their move up the hill also allowed the Luders family to escape the destruction of Hurricane Jeanne. While they experienced mudslides and minor flooding in their home, the heavy rains had a far-worse impact on the downtown area.

Like the rest of Haiti’s countryside, the hills surrounding Gonaives have been stripped of the trees that once enlivened them. In fact, 98% of Haiti’s original tree cover has been lost due to the common practice of harvesting trees for lumber and charcoal. Neighboring Dominican Republic passed laws back in the 60′s outlawing commercial logging. Haiti followed suit by outlawing logging by unauthorized individuals but was never able to enforce such measures. Today, Haiti’s lumber regulation consists only of educational programs and minor replanting efforts instituted by the Ministry of Environment. Knowing the lack of trees in his neighborhood causes increased soil erosion and exacerbates flooding downtown, Luders and his neighbors have made an effort to plant trees throughout the neighborhood.

Although the residents on Gonaives’ hillsides have managed to escape the worst of the city’s flooding problems, the outlook for some appears no less bleak. Sylvia Hertel sells vegetables in the market while her husband is a tap-tap driver. She is shown above with three of her children (youngest to oldest: Wilson, Kenkenn and Dieukinet). Her and her husband’s combined income is not enough to send their four boys to school and two of them have had to stay home this year.

During my interview with Sylvia Hertel I noticed one of her boys, Dieukinet, had a nagging cough. Sylvia, rather gaunt herself, explained that two of her sons, Dieukinet (above) and Kenkenn are kept up in the night with coughing, fever and sweats. My interpreter Romel, himself a medical student, suspected the children of having Tuberculosis when Sylvia stated that they have been coughing up blood. Even though Haiti lacks universal health care, government hospitals will treat anyone diagnosed with TB without cost. Stressing the urgent need for care, Romel and I made arrangements to meet the family the next morning in order to accompany them to the hospital and cover and any fees that are incurred. (They didn’t show.)

Down at the waterside, Goniaves’ port is bustling as a handful of rusty freight liners and a shell of an American school bus lie grounded along the shore. It seems only the old wooden sail boats, some propelled by motors, continue to traverse the waters. The boats bring in goods from around the country and some goods from afar. As workers unload large oblong bags of charcoal from ships by the hundreds, buyers come to haggle with the managers. The charcoal sold here comes from the North-West province – places like Bombadopolis and Anse Rouge. As in much of the developing world, in Haiti charcoal is made from wood and is used for cooking in every household, street-side eatery and many restaurants. Imitating a practice begun by European colonists for the expansion of agriculture, residents obliterated Gonaives’ surrounding forests long ago. As demand for charcoal and lumber continues, new sources must be found further afield.

Above center, Tifamm Val, 30, has sold charcoal in the market since she was ten years old. Below, lumber vendors await a sale in Gonaives’ market district. With the exception of a couple of small protected (not necessarily enforced) areas, wood is free game in Haiti.

50 kilometers north-west of Gonaives, the town of Marmalade is the hometown of Haiti’s president, Rene Preval. Surrounded by brown, barren hills, Marmalade is an oasis of waterfalls and shade below towering trees from the blistering sun . Lush as it may be, Marmalade is the origin of the charcoal sold by an old woman on the street just outside my hotel in Gonaives. As Marmalade was only two hours away, I decided to make a day trip of it.

There I encountered what I had set out to find; though they weren’t the ruthless tree-choppers with gnashing teeth that I had expected. Charcoal makers worked all over the hills surrounding Marmalade, most of them on their family’s plot of land. Like other poor farmers in the area, Fritznel Silvain, harvests trees from his land, buries them under limbs and brush to keep the air out, and sets the mound to smolder. The process is a tricky one and if any oxygen gets inside, the batch is lost. Mr. Silvain has made a business out of selling charcoal to restaurants in Gonaives for the past two years. Between his charcoal business and growing bananas, he is able to provide for his family of five, as well as the two children (shown below) of his deceased brother and sister-in-law.

It should be mentioned that the FAO, (Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations) has a small office in Marmalade. They are responsible for environmental education and replanting efforts in the area. Despite their presence, Mr. Silvain, shown below, has never been contacted by anyone from the FAO or the Haitian government concerning his charcoal business.

Back in Gonaives, UN soldiers patrol the dusty streets where revolution flows in the blood of the city. It was here that Haiti declared independence from France in 1804. Exactly 200 years later, gangs opposed to the authority of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide began an uprising that led to the leader’s ouster. Gonaives has seen a return to near-complete calm in recent years and appears at peace with the Preval administration.

It seemed like the Haitian government was taking a proactive step in preventing another Jeanne-like catastrophe. In February of 2006, private contractors commissioned by officials in Port-au-Prince began to construct a series of gutters and canals throughout Gonaives to channel floodwaters pouring from off the surrounding mountainsides. Entire roads were shut down and bulldozed to make way for these massive canals. Somewhere along the way, officials forgot to finish the project; or perhaps more likely, used the funds for personal expenses.

Begun nearly two years ago, today these would-be canals dotted throughout the city are giant cesspools where people throw their waste and where mosquitoes breed. They stand as giant pools of filth and stench. Unconnected to any drainage network, the pools stand idle, save for the occasional passer-by falling in.

The canal that runs down what was once Vernet Street seems the most egregious of them all. Vernet Street borders Gonaives’ central market to the north. The Vernet canal bisects the former roadway leaving a small sidewalk on each side for the busy market traffic to negotiate. On the south side of the canal, waters run nearly to the doorsteps of houses and shops, climbing into the dwellings during the rain. Harold Previse, 31, who sells mattresses on the south side of the canal is especially incensed over its presence. Up until 2006 he owned a shop on one Gonaives’ busiest streets. Now he sits within two feet of the rank sewer and business is no longer booming: “My business has decreased since this was installed. No foot traffic, no tap-tap, no cars. So no one can see my business.”

Along the same block, a group of bored Haitian youth hang out on their doorsteps, most sporting white t-shirts. Among them is Desmite (above left), whose front doorstep faces the canal. Asked how life has changed since the building of the canal, he complains of flooding in his home and subsequent health problems for him and his family: fever and diarrhea and other digestive problems. Desmite goes on to tell that he sees people fall in the canal daily, especially at night as there are no streetlights to illuminate the area. As the canal is over 8 feet deep, several have even lost their lives doing so.

It seems officials have already forgotten about the destruction of hurricane Jeanne. Gonaives’ drainage system has remained incomplete for nearly the past two years and is now a ticking time bomb waiting to unleash squalor and sickness throughout the city at the next passing hurricane.

At the port, the bawdy seafaring mob continues on as it has for centuries past. The women smoke tobacco pipes as the dockworkers load sugar cane into old sail boats. An itinerant preacher bathes along the shore while calling out to the indifferent crowd for repentance. After washing his hands of them he moves along. I left Gonaives with a feeling that a force majeure more imminent than the Judgment was at hand.

Busy, chaotic Port-au-Prince has one foot in the door of progress. The other one will take a while to catch up. Take for instance trash cans. More than just a novelty here, they actually exist on street corners for people to dispose of their garbage. Furthermore, they are collected regularly. But that’s only for some neighborhoods. The automatic weapon-toting police presence on the street is also a sign that Port-au-Prince is entering a new era, however sluggish. Though many officers are more interested in flirting with women or trying on sunglasses than walking the beat, their actual presence on the street is something not seen a year ago. Even once impenetrable neighborhoods like Cite Soleil have shown improvements in security. This week Doctors Without Borders announced it was turning over operations in the dangerous seaside slum to the Haitian Ministry of Health due to the improving situation there. However, the announcement came back to back with a plea from President Preval to gang members that they may release child hostages and cease abductions in the city. Violent crime, while still rife in the capital, has decreased significantly in the last year.

Like many capitals in the developing world, Port-au-Prince has seen an influx of migrants from around the country, drawn by its wealth and infrastructure. Makenson Pierre (below left) is known by his peers as Baby. He left his home near the market in Gonaives several months ago to come live on the streets, taking his place along side what UNICEF counts as 7,000 other street children in Port-au-Prince. Baby looks to be around 9 or 10 years old, but he doesn’t know for sure how old he is; he’s never been in school or celebrated a birthday. The street kids always travel in numbers here for protection. Older boys often prowl the streets looking for kids to beat up just because they can get away with it. Baby admits that life in Gonaives was much happier for him, but he won’t return: “I won’t go back home because my mother cannot help me.”

A middle class was ubiquitously evident for the first time in Port-au-Prince. In Plaza Champ de Mars, just a block from the presidential palace, primary school children in uniform play on the steps while couples clad in business attire take an evening stroll. Men gather every evening under the shade of a large oak tree and form several circles debating politics. Listening in on their conversation, they are infuriated by the state of their country and the corrupt practices in the government ranks. Below, a man known as Petit Marx (hat) who spent several years in Cuba, argues the advantages of a communist system.

Port-au-Prince seems stricken with an identity crises. It is the most economically prosperous and at the same time the most crime-ridden place in the country, home to a large middle class but also home to one of the largest slums in the hemisphere. Yet as I watched the men debating politics in the park, or the youth painting a street mural on the eve of World Aids Day (see below), I encountered a spirit that I had not witnessed in other places in Haiti: an unyielding passion for change and the dedication to make it a reality.

…with thanks to Guillet Adolphe.

China’s Shifting Demographics

Jake — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 22:15:59 +0000

Sitting in an internet cafe in the steamy Amazon port city of Iquitos in North-Eastern Peru, I began to get a glimpse of what my life could be like if I continued to work hard… a nomad or a bedouin of sorts, but less romantic, with a hotel for a home and Sky Chef as my most-frequented restaurant. It was in Iquitos that with a bit of trepidation and negotiation I received my China assignment with Heifer International. There I was, halfway through my stint in Peru knowing that the second I got back to the states I had just over two weeks to submit my work, get a visa from the Chinese embassy and send my passport off to Philadelphia. Additional pages needed to be added to make room for the official stamps given at each border I might cross for the next few years.
I’d have no idea what was waiting for me on the other side of the immigration gate in Beijing. To begin with, my 13.5 hour flight direct from Washington was delayed for a bit, allotting me just two hours to pass through customs and immigration. After getting through what seemed more like a Russian bread line, I had twenty minutes to check in and make my flight. I resigned myself to the fact that if I made it, my luggage would not.
I sprinted to the Air China check-in, but after pulling out my passport and itinerary the two guys at the desk just kept scratching their heads at the screen in front of them. Finally they handed them back and said “ticket office” – never a good sign. I went to every Air China office I could find but no one seemed to know anything, and no one spoke English. Two hours later I was still frantically running around the airport, now with two hawks (whose aid I had not requested) carrying my bags while demanding in a primitive international sign language that I go to the nearest ATM to take out money for their services. I finally got to a small Air China desk that seemed to know perfectly well what had happened, promptly printing me a boarding pass on the next flight to Chendgu, (above) the hub of South Central China. I never found out what the problem was until meeting up the next day in Chengdu with Christian DeVries, a freelance writer with whom I’d be collaborating over the next two weeks. In an effort to cut air pollution ahead of next summer’s Olympic Games, the Chinese government had canceled a number of domestic flights and barred half the cars in the capital from driving on the roadways for the day. I wonder if mandatory conversational English crash-courses for all airport personnel are not somewhere in the list of all the draconian measures Beijing’s officials are enacting.

The day after my arrival in Chengdu, a city of five million, I was immediatlely catapulted off to a world I never knew existed. We headed south near the Tibetan border to the cool mountains of the Sechuan region. There Christian and I were to meet the Yi people, an ethnic minority whose way of life carries on much the same as it has for centuries past, in stark contrast to the bustling, westernized streets of cities like Chengdu. The Yi people are well known for their ornate traditional dress, still worn by most women and some men, but less known for their habit of sitting and even lying on the roadways during their down time. This can make for an interesting drive through the region’s winding mountain roads. The ease with which I could photograph people was somewhat hampered by the necessity to use two translators (English to Mandarin to Yi) to get my words across.

If you’re unfamiliar with Heifer International (HI), take a brief look at my Ukraine post from June or their website. Of the many development organizations working in poverty-stricken areas around the world, I have become partial to Heifer’s model of self-sustainability, having witnessed its effects first-hand. Heifer works mainly in rural areas, where China’s poorest live. It’s hard for us to imagine how a cow or a few goats can transform the life of a family, but as in most pastoral societies, wealth is measured by the amount of livestock one owns.

The Jieshuo family (shown above) has moved out of extreme poverty since receiving their 15 or so goats from Heifer. The goats provide meat for the family, and offspring are sold or bartered for additional food supplies: “Our children live better and better as the years go by. Before the project we only had potatoes to eat. Now we have rice, more meat, and eggs for the children,” says Chuomu Aniu, the wife and mother of three (above, far left). In addition to their three children, Chuomu Aniu and her husband Jieshuo Er’ri are able to care for their nieces and nephews, whose parents are deceased.

Within the Yi prefecture and to a greater extent in other areas of China, the young are fleeing the countryside and their agrarian culture to make new lives in the cities. Urban life offers higher wages, and for some, the chance to earn an income for the first time. However, this phenomenon creates problems on both sides: a lack of workforce and production in rural areas and overpopulation and unemployment in the cities. Above, Jiese Wujia (68, left) and her husband Mose Youha (71, right) will retire when their bodies do. Below, a man passes a sleeping street-child in early morning Chengdu.

I’m fortunate to have navigated the ropes of many developing countries with minimal physical wear and tear throughout the last few years. However, I wasn’t so lucky in rural China. On the third day of the trip, I asked our driver to stop so I could photograph a herd of water buffalo that was approaching our vehicle on the road. As I was shooting, I backed up straight into the vicinity of a dog chained on the side of the road who wasn’t so happy that I entered his territory. I ran back to the car pulling up the torn leg of my jeans, dismayed to see that his bite had caused some bleeding. Bei, our coordinator and Christian’s translator, was on the phone immediately as we drove back to town. Joy, my translator, offered endless condolences. The rabies vaccination was not available in our area but was to be delivered to the hotel later that night. The five-part vaccination required me to stop into the clinic two additional times while in China. Furthermore, since the vaccinations in China and the US differ, I had to bring the last two doses back with me on the plane in an ice-packed thermos. I just received my last dose this week. Below, I receive complementary medical care from The People’s nationalized health system.

The second half of our journey took us north of Chengdu to Nanbu County and east to the municipality of Chungqing. In this swelteringly hot region of the country where temperatures reached well over the hundred degree mark, villagers were harvesting their rice fields. Below, farmer Zhang Weishu separates rice grains from cut grass. Heifer donated pigs to his family, but also set him up with a bio-gas unit for his kitchen. Bio-gas is a method of cooking where manure from animals is placed in a pit outside the house. The methane that the manure gives off is transported to the kitchen’s cooking range just like natural gas or propane; with no observable odor. “Using bio-gas has saved resources; it is clean and saves time,” says Mr. Zhang.

Zhang Weishu’s neighbors, Zhang Weiping and his wife Xie Shutang (shown respectively in the following two photographs), are also Heifer project participants. In fact, most everyone in this village has been helped out by Heifer. (The name of the village is Village #12, can you get more Marxist than that?!) Residents say their village was all but forgotten by the government until Heifer started working here and began bringing families out of poverty. Only then did the government build a road through the village.

Not only has the Chinese government kicked in to help out where it previously hadn’t, but it has also mimicked the Heifer model of livestock distribution to needy families in places in China where Heifer is not already working. Below, Wen Yongqing and her husband Wu Yuantian sort silkworms given to them by HI. “Before I was not so hard working and my wife was always angry with me. Now she doesn’t get mad so easily because I am working hard,” says Mr. Yuantian. (We all know his wife is probably just too demanding.)

Driving around Chengdu at night with the windows down, Christian and I marveled at glitzy neon streets and the abundance of advertising billboards that often stretch across the width of entire skyscrapers. Western brands are popular here, from the ubiquitous Starbucks and KFCs to high end fashion like Louis Vuitton and Hugo Boss, while BBC and CNN are banned. Homesick for American radio, Christian and I would often sing the songs of our homeland during long drives, perhaps sometimes to the chagrin of those in our entourage. That night we began to sing “Sounds of Silence” when after the first line, our driver, who spoke no English, immediately perked up and began fumbling through the glove box. He found a CD and slid it in. We waited to hear what it was: “Hello darkness my old friend…”
We almost lost it. Christian and I started laughing hysterically while Bei and Joy were perplexed. By the second line we were belting out the words right along with Paul and Art. Unable to discuss politics or religion or media coverage openly, it was as if we were sending out all that we meant to express in code: “Hear my words that I might teach you, take my arms that I might reach you.”

As China’s economy continues to open and grow, more and more people continue to climb out of poverty. In fact, if the UN reaches its Millenium Development Goal of cutting global poverty in half by the year 2015, it will be because of promising statistics coming out of China and India. Around 10% of the Chinese population is living below the poverty line. That sounds like a pretty good statistic until you figure that 10% of the population equals 130 million people, more than the entire population of Japan.

Cities continue to expand and quality of life there is, for the most part, better. But change is slow to reach the countryside where education is not yet a universal affair and where power lines and water pipes don’t always stretch.

Heifer.org

Words by Jake Lyell. Quotes provided by Christian DeVries. All images Copyright Heifer International 2007. Thanks to Christian, Bei and Joy.

Houses on the Sand: photographs from Lima’s Pueblos Jovenes

Jake — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 11:55:32 +0000

Situated on an oasis along the Pacific Ocean, Lima is surrounded by desert dunes and dozens of ancient archaeological sites. Streams of settlers from the countryside come to Lima to make their homes on the miles of sandy bluffs that surround the city. They build them with whatever materials are available: cardboard, straw, tin sheets, driftwood. Such settlements are known in kind terms as pueblos jovenes, young villages. Other times they are called invasiones, invasions.

I’d seen pictures of these “young villages” during my research of Peru and was fascinated at the initial sight of them: row after row, mile after mile of makeshift housing perched on sandy hillsides and rough desert terrain attesting to the pioneering spirit of these settlers. I had to visit them for myself to find out if the transition to Lima was worth it for these immigrants.

One of the first people I encountered was Artemio Godoy, (shown above with his son Raul). His family lives near a district of Lima called the Villa el Salvador. Senor Godoy and his family are sqatting on land along the Pacific. Their yard is encircled with trash and debris, as well as herds of chickens and dogs that coexist remarkably well without the use of fences or chains. Senor Godoy was reluctant to talk to me. It seems another western journalist had come along earlier that year asking questions and photographing. “He promised that things would change…,” Artemio said, referring to his lack of water and electricity.

Undeterred by a colleague’s ethical breach, I persuaded Senor Godoy to let me take some photographs outside his home. I assured him that nothing was likely to change as a result of my reporting. (Shown above outside her home along the Pacific, Elizabeth Godoy, 17, Artemio’s daughter.)

Oscar Rojas (above), age 40, came to the Villa el Salvador from the countryside with his family when he was 6 years old. His family was one of the original settlers of the area. When he began to build his own farm and house seven years ago, the surrounding land was nothing but sand. Now the houses and farms stretch for miles in either direction.

Farmers, however, are limited to raising animals like chickens and pigs. Due to small plots of land and sandy soil, crops cannot grow and no pastures exist for animals to graze. Despite Rojas’ animal wealth (which includes his 70 pigs, several chickens, three sheep and a goat) he and his family still live in makeshift housing without water or electricity. The Rojas’ water is trucked in a couple times a week and sold to them in large buckets.

Despite these difficulties, Rojas still considers himself lucky to have land and be able to provide for his family. Shown above with a neighbor, Victor Rojas, age 20, and their station wagon (yes, it still runs).

Many make a daily commute into Lima’s more central areas to find work in construction, house-keeping or restaurants. Above, Josephina Cori and her son Wimer clean houses in Lima and live in the pueblo joven of Churias.

Lima’s wealthy suburbs stand in stark contrast to the villages that surround them. Note the tennis court, bottom right. Tales of such wealth reach the poorest villages in the Peruvian countryside and still spark mass migration to the city.

Building houses on the dunes creates a variety of infrastructure problems. It is likely that most houses built on those dunes closest to the ocean will never get plumbing. Above, neighbors pitch in to build a stone wall hoping to keep the houses above from sliding further down the hill.

Above, Anna Medina Valdez (left) and Geonila Rodriquez (right) knit sweaters for a living. They are squatters in an invasion in the Villa el Salvador; however, if they stay on the land long enough they’ll own it someday. Anna Valdez, 30, much prefers her life in Lima to working the cornfields in the mountains of Cusco. She’s lived here for ten years and while life is hard, she is glad she came: “I came to Lima because I didn’t go to school as a child and have an education. Now my daughters have the opportunity to go to school here in Lima.”

Trash disposal methods in the pueblos jovenes consist of community dumps in open areas that are sometimes collected by government contractors. Since many residents are without sewage utilities, these grounds often double as toilets .

Isabel Ramos del Valle, 18, is the only person I met who regrets her move to Lima. Shown above, she came to the area with her boyfriend from the South when she was sixteen years old. Securing employment in town as a maid, she was soon fired after she became pregnant. She hasn’t been able to find work since.

Isabel lives with her now husband and their daughter Liz (right) on the steep slopes of the pueblo joven of San Juan de Miraflores where the altitude is higher, the climate cooler and the hills steeper. Most homes including hers lack water or electrical connection. Water is delivered, at a cost, down on the roads running through the valleys of San Juan de Miraflores where communal clothes washing stations form.

Isabel’s neighbor Gallardo Toledo, 36, is happier to be in Lima, where she came to live at the age of fifteen. It took her years to save up enough to build a house, having had to return to home Piura (535 miles north) once for lack of funds. Having been through a few relationships in the last twenty years she now has three children. The oldest just started college; the youngest is four. The four of them share this room and bed. Toledo is proud that her children are able to receive a good education by living in Lima.

Children, Incorporated is a non-governmental organization (NGO) working in the areas around Lima by helping to fund children’s education and supporting schools that share their vision. I was privileged to be able to provide their photographic library with an update while in the pueblos. (Above) Gelson Mendoza’s school uniforms, lunches and tuition are covered by CI.

CI works all over the world, but doesn’t forget about their immediate area either, having similar programs in our shared hometown of Richmond, VA. Above, children receive a mid-morning snack at Nuestra Senora de la Misericordia, a school in the peublo joven of Ventanilla run by some wonderfully hospitable and generous nuns, and supported by CI.

The simple lives and constant struggle of the people of the pueblos jovenes draws my admiration. They are people that spend a lifetime trying to replace their cardboard walls with those of brick; people that, like machines, have little idle time. While I have no aspirations for such as house or lifestyle, seeing the pueblos jovenes of Lima and the slums of other parts of the world has narrowed my definition of necessity, while broadening what is luxury. Experiences such as these continue to impact my way of life back home, where I am learning the rewards of a strong work ethic and the meager value in the accumulation of things.

For the majority of people I encountered, it seems the move to the big city was beneficial. However, as Lima continues to increase in size, so do the headaches of a city that can’t cope with all its inhabitants: mind-numbing traffic jams, spiraling crime rates and pollution that makes LA seem like a Lysol commercial. Consistently ranked among the very largest urban population centers in the world, Lima would do better in the long run to go outside its boundaries to address conditions that generate such places as the pueblos jovenes.

Waterborne poverty: stories from the Peruvian Amazon Basin

Jake — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 11:37:26 +0000

The sun rises in Belen, and the dock workers prepare to go home for the day. They’ve been working all night to carry in the day’s produce, charcoal, iron, petroleum, you name it, in time for the 7AM customer rush. “Dock” should be thought of in loose terms. It really means where the water meets the shore at any given time of the year. Banana carriers have to be the most skilled of all the laborers. Balancing the bunches on their backs, sometimes three at a time, they transport them past the muddy riverbanks, up the hills of Belen and through the busy market alleyways, doing their best to evade the children who sneak up to pilfer the fruit from the stems.

As the Nile was and is to Egyptian civilization, the Amazon and its many tributaries are the lifeblood to the communities it penetrates, beginning in Peru at the Pacific Ocean and through Columbia and Brazil to the Atlantic. Iquitos, the largest city in the world unreachable by road, is situated between three rivers: the Amazon, the Itaya and the Nanay. The “island” within is only accessible by air or water. While wealthy residents pay to have their cars shipped in, the predominant method of transportation in town is the motocar, a hybrid of the rickshaw and the motorcycle. Beyond the rivers lies the Selva, the thick jungles and rain forests that are the source of fruit, vegetables, lumber, coal and many other resources that keep this city of over half a million almost literally afloat.

Puerto Belen, a neighborhood in Iquitos, is a suburb of +/- 25,000. Sprawled out along the Itaya River just before it intersects the Amazon, Iquitos residents refer to Belen as the Venice of Peru, due to the heavy boat traffic along its shores that during the rainy season moves up around the thatched-roof shacks, making the neighborhood a floating marketplace. The slum is a series of twisted alleyways and market stalls that begin in South Iquitos at 104m above sea level and wind down a hill to the stilt-elevated shantytown that straddles the riverfront. Bursting with energy, the largest market in Iquitos makes up the central-most blocks of the barrio. Anything can be purchased in Belen, from sex (legally), to pet sloths and tropical birds (illegally) to drugs (both kinds).

Despite the wealth of resources available from the various rivers and the surrounding Selva, life is desperate for many of those living in Belen. Because Belen is the hub of prostitution, drunkenness and gang life in Iquitos, local authorities and their contractors have long refused to expend resources to provide water, sewage or electric utilities to its citizens. It’s estimated that about 75% of people are living without running water in their homes, and many more go without electricity.

Above: Standard Belenese overindulgence.

The most common occupation for those living in Belen is that of the fisherman. The Itaya and the Amazon are home to massive river turtles and snails, sturgeon, piranha, tiger catfish, sting ray, cayman and alligator, all of which show up in the market stalls in mass quantities early each morning. But the chances of these showing up in a fisherman’s net are just about as likely as pulling up the rubbish thrown overboard by a passing steam ship or by Belen’s residents themselves. Venturing beyond the immediate vicinity of Iquitos is increasingly more fruitful for these fisherman.

Thick piles of garbage line the shores and alleyways of Belen and the riverbeds of the Itaya, as well as parts of the nearby Amazon. Trenches transport raw sewage from the farther areas of Belen into the river, though it shows up in the street sometimes as well. During five months of the year most of Belen is not accessible by motor car or foot, and canoe is the only transportation method around the palm-thatched shacks and market stalls. However, many dwellings line the riverfront and are floating houseboats all year long. Outhouses are built alongside or in back of the raft houses, emptying directly into the Itaya or into the trenches leading to it. Sailing along the river houses, one hears the sounds emanating from the enclosed rafts within. It is the river’s chaotic soundtrack: babies crying, pigs squealing and chickens clucking – all of which harmonize with the radio chatter blaring downriver from the central market.

Given the conditions, it’s inevitable that many of the residents here deal with constant health problems. Among the most common are parasites, dysentery, venereal diseases, tooth decay (soda is cheaper than water) and dengue fever. (Pictured above with her baby brother) Kelley Yahuaecannih’s parents are fishermen. Working seven days a week, together they earn 64 Soles ($20.24) on the average per month from selling their catch in the market. Unable to afford bottled water and with no access to running water, Kelly’s family’s situation is not uncommon in Belen; they drink from the river, bathe in the river, eat from the river, put their waste back in the river. Lora (Kelly’s mother) says that diarrhea is an ongoing sickness for her entire family. Of her household of six, two or three are usually sick and taking anti-diarrhea medication at any given time. Costing anywhere between 1.10 – 5 Soles (35 cents to $1.58) for a pack of ten pills, such medication is available in the market but eats up a significant income portion of any family living in the area.

Those that do have running water in the poorest areas often make a business of selling it to neighbors. Supplies are limited, however, as the water only runs in Belen for four hours or so each morning. Dora, 40, shown above with her youngest son Jackson, 2, lives in Belen and sells charcoal along with her husband. She has seven children, but only three are still living at home. She has no water or electricity at home but does not draw her drinking water from the river, figuring it is well worth it to buy water from a neighbor rather than keep stock of pills.

Above, an open sewer near Belen’s central plaza. Health problems are more widespread during the rainy season (Dec – May), when the sewers overflow and the water rises up to eight feet above street level.

Antibiotics, malaria medications, antidiarrheals and pain relievers are all available without prescription in Belen. However, without the advice of a pharmacist, medication is sometimes mis-prescribed and misused.

Above left, drug seller Cesar Garcia explains the different remedies available to a passing customer. Making an average of $240 per month, he makes a decent salary and lives outside of Belen.

Far from the river’s banks and back up the hill is a row of stalls of traditional medicine sellers. (Pictured above) One can find a cure for anything here from chuchuhuasa for dysentery (but also for arthritis when mixed with rum) to yellow boa oil for bronchitis. Some locals swear by these long-used potions while others prefer to buy pills, despite the greater expense. Other traditional healing methods that don’t usually require commercial exchange involve waving an egg over, or blowing smoke in the face of the infirm.

While sickness is prevalent in Belen, let’s not get the idea that the whole town is ailing at home in bed. Indeed, these people have strong stomachs and are hard working. I asked my boat driver if he knew anyone with Malaria and one man came to mind. But when he took me to his house, the man was out in the market working. It seems the people of Belen do not have the choice of not working if they’re to make ends meet.

Alicia Vela, shown above with her grandson Francesco, discusses her ailments in a port-side food stall while waiting for some customers. She has headaches every day and her husband, an alcoholic, deals with severe abdominal pains.

Leovina Perez is a college student in Iquitos studying child psychology. She grew up in Belen in a house with her mother Mercedes (shown above), father and Grandmother. Mercedes sells candy and the family is well off when compared to others that live closer to the river; they have running water and a toilet in the house. Ironically, they have no electricity despite Senor Perez’s status as a career electrician. When Leovina’s grandmother bought the house several years ago she discovered that the previous owner owed back-bills on the utilities and they wouldn’t be turned on until paid. The family scraped up enough to pay the water bills but never could manage to cover the former owner’s electric debt.

Leovina (above) now lives in housing outside of Belen provided by the People of Peru Project, a Humanitarian NGO (Non-Governmental Organization, a.k.a. charity) founded by American Paul Opp. It works specifically in the Iquitos area in a number of ways including health care projects, vocational training, educational sponsorship and child mentoring. POPP is also paying for Leovina to attend university, and in return for the housing and education she receives, she works as translator for volunteers that come to work with the NGO.

Only about 20% of the People of Peru Project’s work is done in Belen. They have outreach projects in other areas of Iquitos as well as in the jungle. “We focus on specific individuals, specific families and specific communities, because if you go around dropping good works everywhere, you’re spitting in the wind.” says Opp, referring to the “volunteer” teams that come down to Belen for a couple hours to hand out toys and (of all things) candy, or to put on a drama act for a couple hours before retreating back to their air-conditioned hotel rooms.

Belen is certainly a tough egg to crack because the poverty runs so deep, and people are often unwilling to change their habits. So the People of Peru Project takes it one or two families at a time. A good example of this is their transitional housing program. They own a two-story house in central Belen in which certain families live that need a boost to get going. Families, up to two, stay at the house and pay less rent than a house of its size would normally cost. POPP saves half the money they pay and when the family is ready to move on, applies it to the purchase of their own home. “If we didn’t help them buy a house, in the end we’d be just another landlord, and we’re not in that business,” says Opp. Families are held to certain standards when living in the house. Alcohol and drugs are forbidden, and children are not permitted to beg on the streets. Again, Paul Opp: “We have to hold people’s feet to the fire sometimes. If they don’t want our help they’re free to leave. People have turned down transitional housing because they would not give up their abuse of alcohol.”

When I visited the POPP’s house in Belen the Maitahuari family (above) had moved in two days before. “We are happy because we have more space, and living in the room was tiny.” says father Victor Maitahauri, 39. The family of six previously lived in one small room in an apartment with seven or eight other families, everyone sharing a communal kitchen and bathroom. You can bet living in their new home is a breath of fresh air and a step in the right direction toward a transition out of poverty.

Above, Nolberta Maitahuari leans out of the window of her new home in Belen.

Above left to right: Marjorie, Thalia, Zully and Luz Maitahuari hanging out on their front porch.

Officially a Humanitarian Organization, the PPOP is Christian-motivated and faith-based. Teams from around the world come into Belen regularly to run Bible schools for children. In addition to learning about the Bible, children are taught proper health and sanitation practices and Christian values to help them navigate the seedy and dangerous streets. Serving both Christian and non-Christian people in and around Iquitos, the POPP is able to learn through these school programs what kids are in abusive situations and what families are in crisis. Several girls from Belen have gone to live in a crisis center run by the POPP that houses girls that have come from abusive situations. Once girls at the center have finished their schooling, the POPP provides vocational training. The People of Peru Project are more than just a band-aid agency. Their operations address crises at hand as well as work through education to grow a better future.

Walking along Belen’s streets, Paul is warmly greeted by the passers-by. It’s obvious that his organization has a strong presence in the neighborhood. Paul used to own a logging business in Washington State but sold it in 2003 to found the POPP with his wife Sandi, who was in the US at the time I visited Iquitos. When I asked him why he chose this path, he responded “The first answer is feeding hungry kids, relieving human suffering, clothing the naked and taking care of orphaned children is just the right thing to do. But as a Christian I believe it’s the right thing to do because it’s what God instructed us to do. The people that have accepted the Christian lifestyle have done so because of our example and not our pressure. We don’t dangle the Gospel out there along with the medical help,” Opp says, referring to the NGO’s medical programs around Iquitos.

Last year over 400 volunteers came to work with the POPP from around the world. Many volunteers are doctors and nurses who establish mobile clinics, providing medical care and even performing surgery on patients in Belen when needed. Furthermore, they know what help (however little) is available to the poor from the Peruvian government and help navigate patients through the bureaucratic process of getting heath care.

Above, Paul Opp with members of the Maitahuari family.

The People of Peru Project’s ministries have grown significantly since its founding in 2003. The organization, a non-profit both in Peru and the US, now has a full-time staff of 20 Peruvians including two nurses. In addition to working in Belen they have outreaches in the Santo Thomas area of Iquitos as well as in the jungle community of San Jose Village, 50 miles by boat from Iquitos.

Outside Belen, the busy streets of Iquitos are dotted with billboards: the best Peruvian beer, the clearest mobile phone signal, the biggest bank in Peru. “Estamos Trabajando,” reads one of them, “We’re Working.” The advertisement, repeated several times all over town, is a horn-tooting PR campaign by Sedaloreto, a private company contracted by the Peruvian government to supply water to Iquitos. “Water in houses for all” it says, going on to list different neighborhoods in Iquitos, including Belen. The ad, complete with a happy girl being drenched with crystal clear water implies that it is a complementary service of Sedaloreto to provide water to all. However, the majority of Belen’s residents are without water, not because it is not available, but because it is unaffordable. A water connection is available to all who can pay, except those whose homes float on the river all year long. But as Paul Opp can attest, the process is expensive and sometimes mind-numbing. When connecting water to the POPP’s transitional house, they were forced to pay the connection charges twice because Sedaloreto at first mistakenly connected the house’s piping to a line that carried no water. Double charges are easy for an NGO to pay but crippling to a family living on $6 a week. Water from the tap is always hands-down preferable to river water. But Paul Opp, on visiting the Sedaloreto water treatment plant observed that the water of Iquitos is at times questionable: “When these companies are short on staff or supplies, the water sometimes goes untreated.”

Despite paying 15% of their income of $81/month to taxes, Sedaloreto is not working at all for the Natorce family. Jaimes, 32, (shown above with his son Andy, 18 months) works every morning from 3AM until 8AM unloading petrol and iron from ships in the port and carrying them on his back into the market, while Eloise (below, left) watches their three children. Unable to afford a water line and the subsequent monthly bills, Jaimes and Eloise buy their water from a neighbor when they can. They both know that the water in the river is dirty and shouldn’t be drunk, but they have several times resorted to doing so because supplies were limited or the line was cut off for maintenance. “My children have parasites,” says Eloise. The medicine she recently purchased in the market was ineffective and all the children have diarrhea. It appears that what Eloise purchased was a drug to temporarily stop the diarrhea but not kill the parasites.

Once in the past, Eloise took her children to see a doctor from the Peruvian NGO, CARITAS. The charity is funded by the Catholic Church in Peru and provides medical help and medicine to the poorest of the poor. The charity is most likely more cash-strapped than the Peruvian government however, and in that instance it did not provide free medication.

When Eloise (above) was asked what she would change about her life if she could, she began to cry. “I worry about my kids’ illnesses… I worry about food, my kids…” The interview became too difficult for her to continue.

With so little humanitarian assistance in Belen (I could only find the two companies I mentioned) the large-scale problems don’t seem as if they’ll improve any time soon. Organizations like the People of Peru Project are in need of funds to expand their services. Other organizations that are experienced at tackling deep-seated issues like those found in Belen must move in alongside them. We’re now seven years into the eight promises known as the Millennium Development Goals, made by the UN community and led by the world’s richest governments. Among them are to halve the number of people living in extreme poverty and halve the number of people without access to safe drinking water by the year 2015. However, it seems our leaders are more adept at making promises than keeping them as funding goals continue to fall short every year.

I’m sure if the folks in Belen were even privy to the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, they would certainly like to be included somewhere in all that halving. People like Eloise and her family who are struggling financially, physically and emotionally every day appear to be among the very last in line to catch a break. For them, 2015 won’t come fast enough.

Visit the People of Peru Project website.

Assignment: Ukraine

Jake — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 03:11:01 +0000

I’ve been going non-stop for the past nine days and my shutter has fired more times than I can recall in my comparatively young days as a photographer (I’m 26). Batteries constantly charging and files downloading, it’s good to have a rest. This time I’ve been in Ukraine, a country that for most part is off the beaten track, that is unless you happen to be a Mongol or Viking invader. As history has it, Ukraine is actually a much-traversed land situated in North-East Europe. I’ve been photographing for Heifer International in Western Ukraine, which was at various times in the past 500 years part of Poland, Austria, and the USSR, and has seen occupation from the likes of the Mongols in the 13th century to the Nazis in the 20th.

Of course, upon arriving my luggage was MIA. A message (that looked like it’d been sent via telegraph) had been delivered to the airport that said my bag had wound up in Orlando for some reason and may take a couple days to arrive. I had to leave the very next morning to travel South so I would have to go without. I always travel with my camera gear on board in case something happens and this time it was lucky I did. I didn’t collect my bag until four days later. By that time the clothes I had been wearing all along had traveled through four days of cow pastures, barns, hay fields and a rain storm. The writer I traveled with, Christian DeVries and I were up at 6 most mornings and worked until 11 or 12 at night. Ukraine is so far north that in the summer the sun rises around 4:30am and doesn’t completely get dark until after 11. Lots of time for pictures, not a whole lot of time for sleep. The cuisine was great, though marked by an uncanny knack to put excessive amounts of dill on EVERYTHING.

In case you’re not up to speed on your NGOs and development organizations, Heifer works in rural areas of developing countries providing needy people with what they can use most: livestock. Most of us live in the cities or suburbs, so it’s hard to imagine just how valuable livestock is to the rural family. With a cow or a few hens, a family can help provide for itself with milk and eggs and trade any excess products for goods or sell them for cash. This enables families who would otherwise live in absolute poverty to become self-sufficient. Furthermore, every participant agrees to “pass on” the first of their animal’s offspring to another needy family in the area. My primary assignment in Ukraine was to photograph the people and communities Heifer International has affected. Those we visited were hospitable, strong, proud and most of all, hardworking. They were bee-keepers, sheep-farmers, gardeners, parents and grandparents, and children (who especially love to goof-off of the camera).

Heifer’s system of passing on the gift transforms communities living in poverty, as I’ve recently seen first hand. Communities become self-sufficient over time and no longer require aid from other development organizations. Heifer is not a relief but a development organization. It can take years for the pay-off to happen and decades for communities to be transformed. But lasting change is not made overnight. They work at the community level, with local staff to monitor the progress of the community and provide initial training and veterinary services to farmers. Agencies like the Red Cross and UNICEF work to solve immediate needs. Heifer works over time to develop communities. Both long-term and immediate strategies are essential to bring up struggling nations.

Why is Ukraine a struggling nation? Why does 29% of the population live below the poverty line? Its harried past has a lot to do with it. Fiercely nationalistic, Ukraine has resisted rule by other countries for the past thousand years. When it resisted Stalin’s takeover in the 1920s, he inflicted famine upon the land by systematically locking the people’s wheat and grain in government storehouses, thus starving the population into submission. Over 5 million Ukrainians died during this starving, and over 13 million died throughout the greater Soviet Union. This genocide has never been formally recognized by the West.
In 1986, the Chernobyl incident, and Moscow’s subsequent cover-up and mishandling renewed nationalist fervor, spawned mass street protests and set the spark that led to the country’s independence in 1991.
Since then, Ukraine has struggled greatly in its transition to democracy. In 2000 it was rated the third most corrupt government in the world by the independent watchdog group Transparency International. The silver lining could be in Ukraine’s current President, Viktor Yushchenko, elected in 2004 amid a fury of pro-western style democracy fever known as the Orange Revolution. Yushchenko promised an era of new government with an end to corruption. The country’s standing on the corruption list has improved in recent years, but that’s not saying much. The average person on the street will say that nothing has changed since the 2004 election. People are still working for unbelievably low wages while the country’s wealthy are getting richer. However, Ukraine has seen the transition to a free press. Whereas during the last decade 13 journalists were murdered and a number of papers shut down for criticizing the government, today the press is free to chime in with its own opinion of how the things are being run. This is not quite the case in neighboring Russia, where Vladimir Putin has tightened the reigns on the media.

Putting strain on this uneasy transition, Ukraine also struggles to find its identity between Europe and its sister country Russia. Central and Western Ukraine are strong backers of the pro-west Yushchenko, whereas the East backs Prime Minister Yanukovych, Yushchenko’s rival in the 2004 election. Believe it or not, some people still long for that old-time, hard-line autocracy of yesteryear and wish to be part of Russia.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has made several pleas to join the European Union but has now set 2015 as a target deadline to meet the EU’s lofty standards. There’s certainly a lot of catching up to do during that time. While life in most cities is improving, rural areas of Ukraine often function with the technology and health services available 100 years ago.

Though notorious for his religious persecutions, Stalin didn’t destroy too many of the country’s ornate churches during his rein and the land is still dotted with many beautiful steeples. The culture has also witnessed a revival of Christian traditions and the reemergence of the Orthodox church. Churches are again are filled with devoted worshipers and the smell of incense as they were during the country’s founding in the 11th century.

However jaded Ukrainians are about their political system, they compensate for it in their love of friends, their vigor of life and yes, their passion for vodka. ‘Wherever there are friends, there is vodka’ seems to be the motto people live by. It’s dangerous to accept a shot. In accepting the first you open yourself up to being playfully prodded into the next, and the next, etc…. (which is not pretty when you’re trying to take pictures). The hospitality warmth of the people I encountered and photographed was overwhelming and won’t be forgotten.

You can buy an animal for someone in Ukraine. Visit heifer.org

Words and photos by Jake Lyell.
All images Copyright 2007 Heifer Project International.