Tag: Hasselblad 501 C

Before + Now: Salvator
“I liked seeing other people’s photos and hearing their opinions. Doing that, getting closer as a community, helps us to grow.”

Salvator is a forty-two year old coffee farmer from Gaharo hill in Burundi. He comes from a big family, and is a father to four young children- all of whom he dotes on. “Family is so important to me, especially children. Without them, you cannot be happy.”

During the week, Salvator is not just focused on farming. He is also a member of a Village Savings and Loan Association, the Red Cross, and a traditional brick-making association. It’s not uncommon for people to travel all the way from Bujumbura, the country’s capital city, to the northern province of Muramvya¹ to buy the bricks that are made in this region.

“One of the association’s laws is ‘ubuntu’ or humanity. It is important for me to have ubuntu where I live, in my community.”

To have “Ubuntu” is to respect, love and help each other so that we can grow together. ⁠In Kirundi (the local language spoken in Burundi) “Ubuntu” refers to the grace and humanity of each person that can be shown to other people. It is a complex term that comes from the Bantu languages mostly spoken in Sub-Saharan Africa. It has many interpretations and definitions, but is commonly translated as, “I am because we are.”

“My mom is on the right with my sister who was carrying a baby. They were preparing traditional banana wine that we were going to give as a gift to a relative who was having a party. This is important to me, because no one can manage to prepare a party alone without the help of family, neighbors, and friends. We also used to prepare the wine to drink at home but now there is a disease that attacks the bananas, turning the plant’s leaves yellow. When one banana is attacked, all the trees in the plantation are infected. I had 23 bananas trees but now I have only 5. This disease has particularly affected Munyinya² hill where you can only see a desert where there were once bananas plantations…”

“A salon that belongs to my brother-in-law. He promised to teach me how to style hair.”

“Our Village Savings and Loan Association of twenty members from the neighborhood. We meet twice a month, and everyone contributes the money he/she has. We use this money to give loans to the members and they reimburse with interest. After one year everyone receives the amount they contributed, and we share the interests from loans.”

“I am a member of an association called Dufyature turwanye nyakatsi (Kirundi: “Let’s make bricks and fight against houses made entirely of straw”). We make bricks to sell. This man was finalizing our kiln so that we could fire the bricks. After the sale, we keep the capital in the association’s fund, share the profits, and pay communal tax. We manufacture these bricks ourselves without outside labor and we sell them twice a year.”

“The man had just helped this woman putting the bricks down and she was happy because they were heavy and difficult to carry. The people who do this job have to climb over a mountain to carry the bricks from where they are made to the main road. It’s hard work that is done by poor people who don’t have another choice.”

Footnotes
1. Muramvya is a province in the central part of the country, and also Salvator’s home province.
2. Munyinya hill is a distinct geo-political region in the Muramvya Province.
“Before + Now” is dedicated to bringing the voices of marginalized coffee farmers into the field of vision of everyday coffee consumers. It includes a series of photographs made by coffee farmers in Burundi, East Africa as well as a large-format portrait of each farmer. This series makes it possible not only to see life in East Africa and the coffee process; but also to connect clearly with the dreams, fears, and hopes of coffee farmers. Read more about “Before + Now” here.
April 29, 2021
To my little champion of French,

You just spent a year in a French speaking school… and your home language is English. Do you understand how amazing that is? I swore that I would never be THAT MOM that uses her kid as a walking Google Translate, but I am. Because, well… you know more French than me now and you sound so much better speaking it. Also, I make any excuse I can to hear you speak… it gives life to my soul every time. I am proud of you. We have been here exactly one year… and you know what? The thing I most admire about our journey as a family is YOU.

There have been many moments when I didn’t think we could do it, or I second guessed our decision… usually moments when you were screaming at me or stomping off in the opposite direction madder than a hornet. There was a fine line between the guilt I felt at “dumping you” off into another language and culture and the total resolution I had that we were GIVING YOU A GIFT. The language gift. Now, I can finally see the gift beginning to emerge. You speak almost as easily in one language as the other… I wish that were true of myself. We gave you no choice but to learn, while giving ourselves a much easier road. While we are taking classes (and I find them gob-smackingly hard) YOU have had an emersion of the kind no one in this family has known. Your absolute bravery throughout it astounds me. The headmaster of your school mentioned it, too. As she handed you your diploma, she paused and said (my rough translation)…

You are like a knight. A champion. At the beginning of the year you couldn’t speak a word of French, but now you can defend yourself like a champion.

To your average American parent that might sound like we have raised one big bully, but I tell you what… I was GUSHING with pride that day. And my boy, we still are.

Love,

mom

Hasselblad 501 C, Canon EOS-3, Portra 400, Fuji 400.

July 4, 2012

Tag: Hasselblad 501 C

Before + Now: Salvator

“I liked seeing other people’s photos and hearing their opinions. Doing that, getting closer as a community, helps us to grow.”

“One of the association’s laws is ‘ubuntu’ or humanity. It is important for me to have ubuntu where I live, in my community.”

Footnotes

To my little champion of French,