Real Live Cowgirl

  I am starting a new project showcasing “team roping”.  Team roping is a rodeo sport where two riders chase down a steer and one rider ropes the head of the steer and the other ropes the hind feet. With luck this all happens in a matter of 5 or 6 seconds.  It’s a tough competitive sport full of tough competitive cowboys and a few cowgirls. I’m going to be spending the next year following a pair of team ropers who are hoping to live the dream of competitive team ropers. Come by here to follow the success, heartbreaks and struggles of Jason and Miranda.

Here are a few photos from last week when I was in Montana and caught up with them and some friends practicing their skills.

Enjoy!

Real Live Cowgirl

  I am starting a new project showcasing “team roping”.  Team roping is a rodeo sport where two riders chase down a steer and one rider ropes the head of the steer and the other ropes the hind feet. With luck this all happens in a matter of 5 or 6 seconds.  It’s a tough competitive sport full of tough competitive cowboys and a few cowgirls. I’m going to be spending the next year following a pair of team ropers who are hoping to live the dream of competitive team ropers. Come by here to follow the success, heartbreaks and struggles of Jason and Miranda.

Here are a few photos from last week when I was in Montana and caught up with them and some friends practicing their skills.

Enjoy!

She Matters

 

Now that my kids have been back to school for a few weeks life is developing a rhythm. Get the kids out the door, make a latte, procrastinate reading emails- then finally settle down to some work. By late afternoon I am eager to see my kids and curious about their day. Today in a quiet moment I had time to wonder about a little girl named Tatu I met this summer in Tanzania,. I wonder if she’s attending school and wonder if anyone is there to greet her as I greet my children at the end of the day.

As some of you know I was in Tanzania this summer taking photos for a nonprofit called New Course (www.anewcourse.org). I was lucky enough to be able to travel to several remote villages in the Usambara Mountains where New Course is launching a new program. My job was to tell the story of life in the villages in images.  In the process of doing so and while trying to get acclimated to working in a very foreign environment I noticed Tatu.

Tatu is probably about six years old, shy but naturally curious – and once I started to notice her she seemed to be everywhere – peeking out from a doorway, or around the laundry hanging out to dry. Once she captured my attention, my heart followed quickly behind, and I found myself seeking her out, looking for her as I wandered the red dirt road of her village, hoping not to be disappointed, hoping she wouldn’t tire of our game and wander off.  She didn’t – becoming increasingly less shy she skipped and hid and ran, but always reappeared just as I feared that this time she wouldn’t.  In a laughing group of kids she would be in the back – questioning me with liquid brown eyes, ever alert and always engaging. Tatu seemed as curious about me as I was about her.

The village where Tatu lives in Tanzania is called Kazita. It is several days walk on a dirt road to the nearest town and it is miles, days, and centuries away from the modern world. The villagers of Kazita are primarily subsistence farmers – scraping a living from the hard land. There is no running water, no electricity, no plumbing, no cable tv, no doctor or dentist. What there is, is a landscape of incredible beauty, lush forests, diverse plant and animal life. What there is, is worth saving.

For the girls and women of Kazita, like rural women in developing countries worldwide, most hours of the day, every single day, are spent collecting water and firewood, farming, and preparing food – ensuring the survival of their families.  Nevertheless, with life as hard as it is, there is joy and laughter and the same desire for the things in life that we desire for ourselves, and our children. What is lacking is the opportunity for girls like Tatu to live life to their full potential.

So, that is what I was doing in Tanzania this summer. Using my camera to take photographs, to share stories, so that maybe there will be a face for you to attach to the news coming to you from so far away. Maybe this September, like me, you put your own kids on the bus to school, and you know what it is like to desperately want the very best for a child and to hope and dream their dreams along with them.

Tatu doesn’t have parents to send her off to school on the bus. She doesn’t have a mother waiting for her at the end of the day, or a father waving her down the road.  She has a grandmother doing the very best she can to keep food on the table for her grandkids while mourning the loss of her own daughter. Tatu doesn’t have a lunch box, new back to school clothes, or a Hello Kitty backpack. If she has a book to read at the end of the day she reads by the dim light of a small kerosene lantern.

The village of Kazita does have a school, and I’m working with New Course to see that girls like Tatu can stay in school, so they can get an education, postpone marriage and childbirth, and increase their choices in life.  I am working with New Course so that girls like Tatu will remain healthy enough to raise their own children to adulthood; so that families will have a choice as too how many, if and when to have children, and be better able to provide for those they do have.

Because what Tatu has, like all little girls everywhere, is a dream for her life.  I know I can’t simply make that dream come true, but I can share her story and let her know that her dream matters.  And that is what I was doing so far off the beaten path this summer in the Eastern Usambara Mountains of Tanzania, letting a six year old girl named Tatu know, that to me, she matters.

She Matters

 

Now that my kids have been back to school for a few weeks life is developing a rhythm. Get the kids out the door, make a latte, procrastinate reading emails- then finally settle down to some work. By late afternoon I am eager to see my kids and curious about their day. Today in a quiet moment I had time to wonder about a little girl named Tatu I met this summer in Tanzania,. I wonder if she’s attending school and wonder if anyone is there to greet her as I greet my children at the end of the day.

As some of you know I was in Tanzania this summer taking photos for a nonprofit called New Course (www.anewcourse.org). I was lucky enough to be able to travel to several remote villages in the Usambara Mountains where New Course is launching a new program. My job was to tell the story of life in the villages in images.  In the process of doing so and while trying to get acclimated to working in a very foreign environment I noticed Tatu.

Tatu is probably about six years old, shy but naturally curious – and once I started to notice her she seemed to be everywhere – peeking out from a doorway, or around the laundry hanging out to dry. Once she captured my attention, my heart followed quickly behind, and I found myself seeking her out, looking for her as I wandered the red dirt road of her village, hoping not to be disappointed, hoping she wouldn’t tire of our game and wander off.  She didn’t – becoming increasingly less shy she skipped and hid and ran, but always reappeared just as I feared that this time she wouldn’t.  In a laughing group of kids she would be in the back – questioning me with liquid brown eyes, ever alert and always engaging. Tatu seemed as curious about me as I was about her.

The village where Tatu lives in Tanzania is called Kazita. It is several days walk on a dirt road to the nearest town and it is miles, days, and centuries away from the modern world. The villagers of Kazita are primarily subsistence farmers – scraping a living from the hard land. There is no running water, no electricity, no plumbing, no cable tv, no doctor or dentist. What there is, is a landscape of incredible beauty, lush forests, diverse plant and animal life. What there is, is worth saving.

For the girls and women of Kazita, like rural women in developing countries worldwide, most hours of the day, every single day, are spent collecting water and firewood, farming, and preparing food – ensuring the survival of their families.  Nevertheless, with life as hard as it is, there is joy and laughter and the same desire for the things in life that we desire for ourselves, and our children. What is lacking is the opportunity for girls like Tatu to live life to their full potential.

So, that is what I was doing in Tanzania this summer. Using my camera to take photographs, to share stories, so that maybe there will be a face for you to attach to the news coming to you from so far away. Maybe this September, like me, you put your own kids on the bus to school, and you know what it is like to desperately want the very best for a child and to hope and dream their dreams along with them.

Tatu doesn’t have parents to send her off to school on the bus. She doesn’t have a mother waiting for her at the end of the day, or a father waving her down the road.  She has a grandmother doing the very best she can to keep food on the table for her grandkids while mourning the loss of her own daughter. Tatu doesn’t have a lunch box, new back to school clothes, or a Hello Kitty backpack. If she has a book to read at the end of the day she reads by the dim light of a small kerosene lantern.

The village of Kazita does have a school, and I’m working with New Course to see that girls like Tatu can stay in school, so they can get an education, postpone marriage and childbirth, and increase their choices in life.  I am working with New Course so that girls like Tatu will remain healthy enough to raise their own children to adulthood; so that families will have a choice as too how many, if and when to have children, and be better able to provide for those they do have.

Because what Tatu has, like all little girls everywhere, is a dream for her life.  I know I can’t simply make that dream come true, but I can share her story and let her know that her dream matters.  And that is what I was doing so far off the beaten path this summer in the Eastern Usambara Mountains of Tanzania, letting a six year old girl named Tatu know, that to me, she matters.

Back to School

My kids have to go back to school this week, and no matter what I say about it publicly, like mothers everywhere, I am celebrating. Celebrating because I have lived through another cruel season of torture known as the last two weeks of summer.  The season when my kids get bored and whiny and pick at each other constantly and leave some kind of sticky film on every surface whether it is vertical or horizontal.

I could be waxing sentimental about the bittersweet nature of sending my kids back out into the world and the pang I get seeing them walk down the road to the bus, when in reality I am thinking, “ Jesus, so glad I didn’t kill the little monsters.” Ok, it’s not nice to call your offspring monsters. It is too harsh for any grandmother’s eyes, but for another mom or dad who has had- it- up- to- here, “little monsters” is the nicest term I could think of.

The other thing I am thinking is, “ you’d damn well better run and catch that bus because I am soooo not driving you to school just because you needed to straighten your hair and your annoying sister was in the bathroom and your little brother is creepy and I didn’t wake you up on time and where are my shoes and I just don’t understand anything!”

What I do understand all too well is the particular insanity of having children you love more than your life, but that you want to throttle daily. I understand what it is like to live in a house of people for whom you are a life support system, a nudge, a failed disciplinarian and a constant embarrassment.  I understand what it is like not to be able to accomplish the simplest of tasks because someone was making a sandwich but dropped the strawberry jam and the jar shattered and now the dog is eating it, or someone “copied me”, or someone needs a ride somewhere  and why can’t we go right now and you are so unfair!!! God knows why I even try to string two sentences together; as for sorting through the 1200 images I took in Tanzania? It’s as hopeless as matching up the single socks left in the bottom of the laundry basket.

The school bus waits at the end of the road, a yellow beacon of sanity, letting me know that at last I might be able to cross off one or two things from the list of goals that I threw in the garbage mid July. The sound of the air brakes gives me chills as consider the possibility that I might be able to read and absorb the written word again, I might find my creative juices flowing again, I might even have the energy to exercise if only those kids of mine would just run down the road and squeeze those backpack laden butts onto the bus already so that from 7:54am until 3:16 pm the day is mine to seize or squander as I see fit.

“Oh crap! Wait! Wait! Come back….wait!!!!!”

“What mom? We have to go!”

“You forgot to kiss me goodbye! I love you. Wait, do you have your lunch?”

“Yes mom, we have to go, the bus is here!”

“Do you have your soccer cleats? Wait, give me a hug, and please stop shoving your sister!”

“She shoved me first! Ouch! You always blame me! You are so unfair!”

“For God’s sake, just knock it off will you, please? And hey, have a great day at school, hurry up and don’t miss the bus!”

“ Yeah mom, we know mom…we have to go…. goodbye mom!”

“…bye…

.…wait…

..I love you…….”