I discovered this Facebook page last year, and I'm in love with it. This page draws me in with its realism. The basic concept: a man walks around New York and asks people if he can take a picture and asks a few questions. He leaves us with a photo and a quote. Sometimes it's heartbreaking. Sometimes it's joyful. There are love stories interwoven with tales of crime, abuse, and heartache. There is diversity. There are celebrations, personalities, and a hundred million stories waiting to be told.
Here is a random selection of some of my favorites. (The photographer traveled abroad earlier this year. Some of my favorites are from that adventure.) (And sorry about the inconsistent fonts in this post. I couldn't figure out how to standardize them! Aiiii!)
“I want to be a hematologist. That’s
a blood doctor. Well not a blood doctor, exactly. But a doctor that finds cures
for blood diseases.”
“How’d you decide on that?”
“We were dissecting frogs in class and learning about
how the blood flows through the body. And I went home that night and wrote an
essay. And it wasn’t like any other essay I’d ever done. Normally when I write
essays, it takes me a long time, but this was the fastest essay I ever wrote.
So the next day I was asking the teacher mad questions, and she was like, ‘You
know you can get a job in this.’ And she pulled it up on the internet, and was
showing me all about hematologists.”
“I was the youngest in the family. I
went to Israel first, and the rest of the family was supposed to join me.
Nobody made it. We sent letters to each other for the first few years. The last
letter I got from Poland came in 1941. It was from my mother. It asked me to
send food. Then the letters stopped. I knew that the Germans had occupied Poland,
and I heard rumors about the things that were happening. I never learned the
specifics of what happened to my family. I never wanted to.”
(Jerusalem)
“My
father came from Nicaragua and got a job as a construction worker. My mother
immigrated from Puerto Rico and got a job as a cleaning woman. One day he was
working high up on some scaffolding at an office building, and he saw her
cleaning inside, so he knocked on the window. And here I am.”
"After they beat me, I heard
shots. And I walked to the shop next door, and found my neighbor dead on the
floor. He was one of the nicest men in the town. Every day he would put out
food for the cats. I would tell him: 'You must stop feeding the cats, they are
overrunning my shop.' But he would never stop feeding them. He would tell me:
'I have to feed them. Or they will die.'"
(Zaatari Refugee Camp, Jordan)
“It’s tough to take the right steps
when you grow up in this neighborhood. It’s hard to get up and go to school
everyday because you see so many other kids who are dropping out, and they
still figure out a way to handle their business. A lot of kids around here
don’t get any support from their family. So everything is on them. If you have
a backbone of support, it’s easy to take your time and go from A to B to C to
D. But when you’re looking out for yourself, you’re in a hurry. You’re looking
for a way to get from A to D.”
“I’m trying to raise my daughter with
the same values that I learned in Jamaica, but it can be hard to instill
gratitude and appreciation when we are surrounded by such abundance. When I was
growing up in Jamaica, every time I wanted something, my grandmother made me go
through the same list of questions: ‘Why do you want it?’ ‘How much will it
cost?’ ‘Is it going to make your life better?’ There wasn't enough money for
things we didn't need, so we were always forced to ask those questions-- even
for simple things like a new pair of shoes. The necessity of that ritual really
helped create a deep appreciation for the things we had.’"
"Do you remember the happiest
moment of your life?"
"One day, I was sent home from my final exams
because my mother had not been able to pay the registration fees. On the way
home, a man came up to me and asked what was wrong. 'Nothing,' I told him. He
asked me again. So I told him that I'd been sent home from school. He then gave
me the money I needed to take my exams. I'd never seen him before, and I've
never seen him again."
(Entebbe, Uganda)
“What’s surprised you most about being
a parent?”
“The feeling of being called ‘Dad.’ It’s the best
feeling on earth. The first time my daughter called me ‘Dad,’ we were playing
hide and go seek. I was pretending that I couldn’t find her, and I kept
searching and searching, until finally she screamed: ‘Dad!’ It almost made me
cry. It made me feel like Superman.’”
(Nairobi, Kenya)
"I was going to one of my first
exams, and suddenly there was a bombing. In downtown Damascus! I couldn't
believe it! I didn't think this was possible. Windows were broken everywhere,
and there were people on the ground, and the sounds of ambulances. Then over
the next few weeks, everything changed. The taxis in the streets were replaced
by tanks. You no longer knew who was your friend and who was your enemy.
Suddenly you could be killed, and nobody would ask why. Before war, you have
rights. People will ask why you were killed. When war comes, nobody asks why
you were killed anymore." (Erbil, Iraq)
"I'd been studying German for a
few years, and I met this woman who gave me the opportunity to go to Germany
for a full year. The brochure looked very nice. The program included hikes,
volunteer work, singing in church. It was very expensive, but my family thought
it would be a great experience for me, so all my relatives chipped in to pay
the program fee. I was so excited for months. On the day that I was supposed to
leave, I went to the airport, and waited in line to check my baggage. When I
got to the front of the line, they told me that my ticket was a forgery. When I
tried to call the woman's phone, it had been disconnected."
(Nairobi, Kenya)
"They sometimes ask me about
their grandmother, and I only tell them about the good times. I don't want to
worry them with all the things my mother and I had to go through when I was
growing up."
"What's your fondest memory of your mother?"
"We were so poor that every day she'd have to go
out and try to find us some food. And on the days when she came home empty
handed, she'd help us forget our hunger by putting on music and dancing for
us."
(Jinja, Uganda)
"I'm bringing leaves to my
friend!"
"When I was thirteen years old,
government troops passed through our town when they were fleeing the rebels. At
first I heard the gunfire, and then they came into our house and took
everything they could. I was hiding under the bed. I heard them say they were
going to kill my mother. One of them took off all my sister's clothes. But at
the last moment he was pulled away, because the other soldiers told him there
wasn't time for that."
(Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo)
"I'm coming up on five years of
never missing a Sunday."
"How have you changed during those five
years?"
"Before I met my creator, all I did was smoke and
drink and party. Then five years ago, my aunt dragged me to church with her. I
started following God, got off the streets, and stopped hanging out with my old
friends. Church helped me to surround myself with people who were committed to
changing themselves."
"He's only five years old, but
he acts like an old man. Just now, he was just telling us that he was tired of
our immature jokes. He doesn't even like to play. After school, he usually
comes straight home and reads."
(Nairobi, Kenya)
"I'm losing my eyesight. It's a
condition called retinitis pigmentosa. It starts with your peripheral vision
and moves inward. It's not too bad for me yet. Sometimes I don't notice when
somebody is trying to shake my hand. And sometimes it can be hard for me to
keep track of what line I'm reading. But I got the disease from my father, and
he went completely blind in his 40's. So I try to spend as much time as
possible looking at things like the colors of the leaves and cool cloud formations."
"My happiest moments were when
my mom was still alive."
"What's your fondest memory of your mother?"
"One time when I was six years old, we went to pick
up my father at the airport. On the way, my mother explained to me the concept
of boarding a plane and taking a trip. And then while we waited for my father,
we sat in a nearby restaurant, and we planned out all the imaginary trips that
I wanted to go on."
(Nairobi, Kenya)
"If I'm ever arguing with her
mom, I just look down and remind myself that this beautiful woman gave me this
beautiful child. And this child doesn't care who's right or who's wrong, all
she cares about is that mommy and daddy are there."
"She shares her yogurt with
me."
(Nairobi, Kenya)
“One time we were spinning with
blankets on our heads and we spun into the TV!”
"What's your largest goal in
life?"
"To find my children. They are five and seven. I
told them I was taking a short trip to Juba, and I'd be back in a couple days,
but then I got stranded by the fighting. They were crying so loud about my
leaving, I had to sneak away while one was playing and one was sleeping. That
was almost a year ago. I haven't even been able to hear how they are doing."
"Some people still prefer the
arranged marriage, especially in the countryside where tradition is still
strong. The thought is that your parents know you very well, and will make the
decision based on experience and not emotion. The divorce rate with arranged
marriages is lower, because both families are heavily involved and there are
many people committed to making the match work. But the tradition is on the way out. It used to be that you didn't
even see your wife until your wedding day, and you fell in love after your
wedding, as you learned to support and care for each other. But today there's
Whatsapp and Facebook, so keeping two people apart is almost impossible. 'Love
marriages' are becoming much more popular than arranged marriages, and even
arranged marriages involve much more interaction than they used to. Many
families still choose to uphold the appearance of an arrangement. Their
children will come to them and say: 'I fell in love.' And they'll say: 'OK, let
us arrange it.'"
(Jammu, India)
"I can't see, so he guides me.
Whenever I make a sound, he will come running. He reads to me. He cooks for me.
And he got the second highest ranking in his 6th grade class."
(Nurpur, India)
"He found me and my son on New
Year's Eve, sleeping in a construction site. We'd been forced out on the street
after my husband abandoned us. He said: 'You shouldn't live like this, come
home with me.' He let us live with him for months, and he never asked me for a
thing, and he very good to my son. Sometimes I'd come home and find him
carrying my son on his shoulders. After a few months, we developed romantic
feelings for each other."
"When I was fourteen, I had a
friend over to my house and we were sitting on the floor of my closet making
jewelry. My mom poked her head in the room and asked us what movie we wanted to
see that night, and we said 'Brokeback Mountain.' She said we were a little too
young for that, and suggested an animated movie instead. My friend started
laughing at my mom and calling her lame. I joined in, even though I actually
really liked animated movies. When my mom came back with the showtimes for
Brokeback Mountain, I noticed that she was sniffling and her eyes were red. We
saw Brokeback Mountain that night, but I've never wanted to watch it again."
"When I was fifteen, I was raped
by three boys while competing at a gymnastics tournament. I was so ashamed,
that I stood on a train track, and waited for the train to come. At the last
moment, I tried to jump away. I woke up after a month. It was the middle of the
night, and I could immediately tell that something was missing. I started
feeling all over my body, and that's when I realized that I'd lost my arm. Now
I counsel teenagers who have been diagnosed with HIV. I'm normally the first to
meet with them after they get their results. I try to explain to them that
there's a way out of even the most impossible situations."
(Odessa, Ukraine)
“I grew up on an island off the coast
of Honduras, and I came to America on a banana boat when I was very young. I’m
the superintendent for some of the apartment buildings around here. I always
try to collect the clothing and junk that the tenants throw away, and every
couple of months, I pack it into barrels and send it back to Honduras. I especially
try to find medical equipment. If a crippled man in Honduras has nothing but a
stick, a crutch will change his life.”
“I met my dad for the first time when
I was fifteen. I visited him in Trinidad for two months during the summer. He
met me at the airport and acted like he missed me more than anything else in
the world. He ran up to me and lifted me in the air and started kissing me and
saying how much he missed me. He carried all my luggage, and gave me money, and
stopped by the supermarket on the way home to
buy me all this food. He was introducing me to his friends like he was so proud
of me. He’d say: ‘Look at my beautiful daughter,’ and things like that. It
actually got me imagining how nice it would be to have a dad. Then at the end
of the day, he dropped me off at my grandmother’s house, and I only saw him two
or three times for the rest of the summer. The last night I was with him, he
got really drunk, and he told me that I’d been a mistake. He was laughing when
he said it, like it was a joke, and I should think it was funny. I pretended
like it didn’t bother me, but it did. I thought: ‘So is that why you never
wanted to visit or talk to me all these years?’”
We're all a bit too caught up in the idea of *modesty.* If the reason behind modesty is to keep people's mind's pure, you're never going to win. Back in the day, showing your ankles was forbidden. Then it was your bellybutton. In some places currently, a woman's hair must be covered for fear of lust. In temperate coastal places, people hardly wear anything, and it's normal and fine. So clearly there's no universal line to cross with women's clothing that makes something inherently inappropriate. There are cultural expectations, but those are prone to change.
