City Scenes

Welcome to Day 8. The day began at 4 a.m. with the sound of incredibly loud fireworks exploding over the roof. There was a celebration of some Saint’s birthday or something and it appears as if the folks were pretty excited about it. It was more than a bit surreal to lie in bed and listen to the sounds in the dark.

My shooting schedule began at 8:30 with a 3 hour shoot in downtown Antigua to get some cultural context pieces for the documentary. I love shooting in foreign cities and really absorbing the culture through the lens. It is impersonal in that I get to experience the lives of other without intruding into their personal space. As I have written several times before about this place, the rhythm of the people is incredible.

I broke my own rule of not filming some aspects of suffering but I trained my lens on a woman, obviously mentally ill, begging in the street. Actually, the lens was truly aimed at the numbers of people walking by and their reactions to her begging. It was an interesting bit of sociology being played out in the real. I wondered if her obvious insanity offered some buffer to her rejection.
I left the city and headed to back to the orphanage to interview the founder and director, Karen. I thought about what I would write about her and came up short. There is nothing I can say to describe her spirituality and the tangible, textural impression it made on me. I came away feeling very small and humble. What I know about Christ is empty in her shadow. I will meditate for months on things she said to me.

I ended the day by filling another card with images of children at play, mostly their faces. The depth of their eyes is a bit haunting. I find myself absorbed in the moments between them being themselves and realizing I am training a lens on them. I am not sure what to make of the shift. I think they have become, unfortunately comfortable with “smiling for the gringo with the camera.” I wonder if they understand the connection between their innocence, their suffering, and the attempts to help them by capturing them both simultaneously. I could live in a place like this.

I am tired, I smell bad, and my back hurts….oh yeah, and I am whining.
I almost forgot. I helped clean a room full of donations today. Literally, hundreds of garbage bags. Oddly, the bags were befitting. Let me complain once again. If it is garbage in our homes it is garbage in theirs. It is sickening to see the crap people have sent here: soiled clothes, broken toys, pieces of things we could not identify, and one bag that looked like someone emptied their kid’s junk drawer in it. I wonder what folks are thinking. Do people really buy the notion that, “they don’t know any difference down, over, under, there.” It really was disgusting…most of the stuff came from U.S. churches.