Your Very Flesh Shall Be A Great Poem

A young boy sells Nutti oil, apparently the second pressing of an oil producing plant, that requires an experienced constitution to enjoy. When I asked if I could try it, I was waved off and told it wasn't for me.

A Mayan girl and her dog regard me with suspicion as I visit her small and very rural village.

A Mayan woman returns to her rural village after undergoing free gallbladder surgery offered by a North American NGO. She had traveled a long day that included a six hour bus ride and then this final half hour walk through her corn fields. Having been away from home a total of five days, she moved with a pained but eager stride, anxious to be with her family in a familiar environment and to return to the work that had gone undone in her absence.

Despite all she'd been through and her obvious exhaustion, she insisted on serving me a chicken stew and a thick, bitter hot chocolate in her one room home with freshly swept dirt floors and shuttered windows.

This gentleman is originally from Lebanon but has lived in Sierra Leone for most of his adult life and runs a small restaurant with his family. Despite his rather humble circumstances he possessed an elegant and calm manner and was a pleasure to talk to.

The remarkable faces and poise of Mayan men waiting to see doctors from a North American NGO.

I'd been told that they would be shy and, indeed, found that they refused when I asked to take their pictures. But at one point I sat talking with our translator, having given up on getting photos, when an old man in a pristine cowboy hat tapped me on the shoulder and indicated that I should photograph him, and before I was done with him there was a line of other men asking to be next. Some would bring a best friend, a father or mother, a wife, and they would stand without affectation or discomfort.

Balinese life is full of many intricate rituals, as one might imagine with a culture based on Hindu and Animist beliefs. I had the opportunity to attend a fairly rare ceremony, the ritual cleansing of a local temple that occurs every twenty years or so, and did my best to follow along.

In this photograph you can see the intense concentration as the child follows the lead of his father through the days long ceremony where every nuance is symbolic and meaningful.

I never got to like the shouts of "Abruni!" (white man) everywhere I went in Ghana, even when I realized it wasn't meant with malice- I knew I stood out and didn't like having it broadcast everywhere I went. Keep my head down and blend in? Not a chance!

The exception was moments like this when I would be mobbed by children who wanted to experience a foreigner and would breakout in jubilant laughter, shouts, dance and the most peculiar poses inspired, I assumed, by local music videos. Absolute and sincere excitement and joy!