Location: Clinton Park // Lawrence, Kansas
Last May, I spent eight of my most favorite days in central Guatemala. Days filled with experiences & friends & places & emotions that I surely will never forget. Five close friends, my then-girlfriend (now fiance), & I made the venture to start new projects & finish old ones. This was my third trip; it was others’ first, and yet others’ twelfth.
In years past, our focus had been construction & manual labor, which always seemed a tiny bit awkward to me since neither are my particular forte here at home. Nevertheless, we had always gone with great plans and left with big accomplishments. But this time, our focus would be slightly different. Clean water.
Clean water. In other words, something that’s been on my radar for the better part of four years now thanks to a project-turned-organization a dear friend of mine put together called River to Well. Something that truly is meaningful to me & something for which I have no trouble going full-steam-ahead.
In Guatemala, there are a couple problems that are noteworthy here. One: the vast majority of folks don't understand that there’s actually a problem with the water they’re drinking. Water isn’t scarce there; but the water sources… they’re heavily — and unknowingly — polluted by those who then rely on them for useable water. Two: of the folks who understand the problem, very few have the means necessary to fix it. Boiling water takes time and resources, and wells are expensive and rather inconceivable. And, just imagine having to radically change your lifestyle to compensate for something that you might not even consider to be a problem. See, folks there can tolerate the unhealthy water to a point, at least in the short term; they may get sick as a result here and there, but such is life, and thus, a change in the way of doing things simply isn’t warranted in their eyes. So, at the end of the day, the issue of clean water has just as much to do with education as it does with efforts to actually make the water cleaner & healthier.
So here we are. Our job? It was to install fifty-some portable water filters in three rural schools. But just as important, to teach the students and faculty why we were there in the first place, and then instill in them the importance of using & caring for their new filters correctly. We prefaced all of this by visiting the factory responsible for constructing the filters — called Ecofiltro — and talking with several of the folks behind its operations. The actual filters were small — about the size of a medium flower pot — and made out of clay & wood chips. They fit perfectly inside a variety of housings, from five gallon buckets to nicer ceramic containers. We chose the more economical of the different containers — the five gallon buckets — and planned to give them new homes in the aforementioned schools in the coming days.
I should mention that the organization which helped us plan our mission — Salud y Paz — had reached an agreement with these three schools to ensure the filters are properly cleaned and replaced for the foreseeable future. I should also mention that this project was the first of its kind; not only was our team straying away from its tried-and-true construction roots, but Salud y Paz was also treading unfamiliar waters in coordinating such a deal.
We spent the following days assembling filters, preaching about dirty & clean water, playing soccer, sitting with new friends, giving instructions, seeing hillsides and villages, listening to stories, snapping photos, and doing our best to love folks. We were welcomed with open arms. We were given wonderful lunches and all-school assemblies, complete with native dances & music. And we were awed in knowing that this was exactly where we needed to be, and exactly what we needed to be doing.
Aside from all this, we also spent a morning with Nehemiah, who we met in 2011. If you follow this blog, my Twitter feed, or my Facebook, you’re well aware of this guy. (And if not? Nehemiah is six. He was born with cerebral palsy and was unable to walk. Since meeting him, we’ve supported his family financially, he’s been allowed into a private school, and we’ve grown awfully fond of him.) There are a couple photos below of him and his parents, but the short of it is that he’s better; he’s walking more, he looks happier & healthier, and he’s the brand new owner of a slick yellow three-wheeler.
This trip meant more to me personally than any other trip I’ve taken. It was much more of a seed-planting trip than any other. We opened a lot of doors. There wasn’t a big sense of completion. And I like that. For certain, a decent-sized part of my heart is in Guatemala, and I’m so excited to see how that continues to build. I’m excited to hear stories about our water filters. I’m excited to visit our three schools again. I’m excited to see Nehemiah once more as soon as possible. And the list goes on…
It seems a bit backward for a blog that otherwise focuses primarily on photographs to have so many words, especially crammed into the top of one post. But, when it all shakes out, there’s a reason I take photos. I love the idea of my camera serving as a catalyst to hopefully build relationships and be of some kind of help to folks here and there. I’m grateful to have a job that not only allows me to spend time in Guatemala each year, but also pushes me to tell stories. Stories not only about weddings & people, but about every-day life in another country, where seemingly huge and overbearing problems might not be so huge and overbearing afterall, if we just make plans and go do things to make them better.
When I was a kid, those choose-your-own-adventure books were my favorite. Remember those? And speaking of adventure, 2012 was a year that contained plenty, of which I'll always have fond memories. I could write endlessly about them, but these words are not intended to be about all those things; this one’s about my grandma, and its about a personal project I gave myself at the very beginning of the year.
Growing up, Gram lived just up the road from my folks. I’m an only child — and so is my mom — so we were all quite close. When I was in grade school, Gram and I would spend Friday evenings watching TGIF on one of the local television channels. We’d order sausage pizza from Pizza Hut and make forts in her living room. She always cooked up some of the best breakfast, and she would have those choose-your-own-adventure books.
Thanksgiving and Christmas time was just about the best one-month stretch of the year, as both her and my mom enjoyed baking and being together. It was always just the four of us, my dad included; pretty low-key and always enjoyable. My fondest memories will always be of holiday time at home.
Several years ago when I was still in college and living with my folks, Gram moved in with us. She was convinced that I needed a meal in front of me all twenty-four hours of the day, and she was likewise convinced that I always had laundry that needed to be folded. Nearly all of the time, she was correct. And then after college, I moved out of my folks’ house and Gram went to live in a couple different assisted-living homes in Lawrence and Baldwin.
As mentioned, at the beginning of 2012 I made it a goal of mine to go spend some time with her each Wednesday morning. A few minutes past nine o’clock I’d always be able to find her waiting stoically for me just inside the front door. “I wanted to make myself visible, just in case you might miss me,” she’d say, as if there were a serious possibility that I’d turn around and leave if I didn’t see her the split-second I walked through the door. I made sure to always take my camera, as well as a pencil, to keep track of the funny things she'd do and say. She nearly always had some kind of mildly offensive comment about an innocent passer-by; or an off-the-cuff, matter-of-fact piece of advice about my weight or haircut. Which I appreciated most of the time.
We talked about the weather in Arkansas. We sat outside watching the flag fly. We listened to the neighbors make small talk. We chatted about the latest technology – her pondering what “they” were going to “come up with next." We did word-searches and pieced together jigsaw puzzles. We looked at the pictures on my cell phone. We ate Cheetos and peppermint patties. We counted down the days until Thanksgiving. And more often than not, we just sat together.
So after a full year of Wednesday mornings with Gram, these photos below are just a small handful of the personality, teaching, opinion and character that Gram left on me.
Gram eventually found her way to a nursing home in Wellsville, Kansas — a thirty minute drive down a rural road that seemed to have a personality of its own — where she played Wacky Ball and nickel Bingo, and was the in-house cat’s favorite resident. She turned ninety-two on October 2. Then, on December 1, she picked her own next adventure and went to be with Jesus.
It’s funny how much a person can teach you without using many words at all, from a wheelchair, with not much physical ability. Funny how you slow down to just the right speed after driving through the country and sitting down for two hours with someone whose only concerns are the weather and whether or not her wristwatch is working correctly. Funny how I’m still learning from her, remembering just now all the little things she did and said in given situations over the years. And funny how, without harping or preaching, she somehow encouraged me to repeatedly choose my own adventure.
I can guarantee that Gram is shaking her head right now, downright disgusted that I’m putting her pictures where strangers can see them. To be candid, while I’m terribly compelled to put these words and pictures in public's view, I can’t explain exactly why. Perhaps it's simply reemphasized the power of a photograph to me. Or maybe it’s just showed me, again, the power of relationships and the power of stories. More than anything, I’m grateful to have had lots of time with Gram. This project and the resulting stories developed into something so dear to me that I’m unable to really comprehend it. Something that I most certainly wouldn’t trade for anything.
To relate it a bit, the fact that I get to capture emotions, and document stories, similar in fashion to this one, for families and couples year in and year out... that's really, really cool to me. And I get a kick out of how photos only gain potency over time.
Choose your own adventure. Find your path and blaze it. Make memories and tell stories.
