Teacher Johnson Goes to School

It is the last day before everyone leaves.  The internet lab--the first of its kind in Arusha and maybe even Tanzania--is humming as the kids type their tweets back and forth to one another and then their new counterparts around the world.  Teacher Johnson, handsome as always in his dress shirt and freshly polished shoes, logs on--could it be?--on the last day, for the first time?

Teacher Johnson!  You don't have any followers!  Where are all your tweets?  I don't know what he'll do on Monday when everyone is gone.  Did you go to the class for the teachers?  He feels my panic and flashes me that sheepish, worried smile. We both know how hard the volunteers worked; how insistent they were this could happen, that it would be easy, even if we both had our secret, silent doubts.

I'll get it.  I'm getting it, he says, as he hunts and pecks his way forward into his new responsibility as internet advocate + classroom teacher extraordinaire. 

This is how it is when we bring new things halfway around the world.  We have no idea how foreign things  feel.  We glide right over how strange it is to trust that we'll still be together when we've always been so far apart.  We have no comprehension of what it means to be over and over again left behind and then in one instant, forever included.

I promise to retweet him religiously.  To help him get the most followers of any tweeter in the school.  His eyes flash with the spark of competition.  His fingers move a little faster as we joke and smile.  He is deciding to believe it might stay, this tiny thread connecting divergent worlds.  He is deciding to put a sliver of hope in it.  He is deciding to try.

You can follow Teacher Johnson's clever quotes and honest questions at @teacherjohnson1 on Twitter.

The first time we met she had welcomed me like a long lost daughter, the child she never knew.  I went to her arms as if I had always belonged there and then sat back to hear the stories--how she had been dreaming of me for thirty years, how she had been waiting, how relieved she was I brought the lights.

This visit she confesses the dream was not an easy one, that she had seen a white woman coming into her house with torches, how she feared that the house would go up in flames, how it disturbed her so much she told her two closest sons and her daughter, my good friend, years before we met.  She tells me, only now, that all her dreams had come true, only none of it happened the way she imagined.

The house would be a new one.  The light would be her eyes shining at the thought that she had ever been afraid.  The fire would be the love that ignited when we all gathered in the same place, equally enchanted by the other.  The torches would be a bagful of headlamps that made her laugh and laugh to see the light shining from her head as she made her way across the room.

I ask her what she's dreaming now as she holds my hand, the one with the gold ring she gave me, the ring that is turning my finger green and making me happy.  Everything will happen in its own time, she tells me, not willing to give away any more secrets.

Besides.  What could we dream that could be any better than this--to be together, body, mind and spirit?  What could we imagine that could give us any more comfort?  What could possibly give us any more hope?

What Else

They haven't seen their mother in almost four years, and I'm not sure if anyone remembers to tell them when this official document or that one means they're one step closer to being with her once and for all.

Still, without encouragement or the facts, they hold on. To each other, to the future, to the sound of her laughter echoing on the phone, a continent and ocean now removed.

And why not hold on? Stephanie and I say to each other as we begin to piece together the stories of their ancestors. These girls come from a long line of women who trust in the future, who believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's worth it to hold out for the life you were meant for, no matter how far away it feels or how preposterous it sounds.

What else could you possibly hope for?

Hope Sees with the Heart

Boys playing in an open field, running to greet the girl and me as we sit quietly together under the tree. They eye me first and then the camera.

Do you want to see? I hold the camera out as an offering.

We have no language to share except a common lens. I slip the Rebel around the first boy's neck and then the next until they each get a turn to fill the frame with whatever they deem. The boys laugh, they shine, they sing, joyful in their freedom, unfettered in their delight.  With each shot they relax a little bit more until I begin to really see.

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye. This is what the Little Prince said to the man stranded in the desert.  This is what I say to myself as my notions of rich and poor, happy or deprived, melt at what they make of the lens, at how they view one another, when I give up my place, stop working for the shot and let everybody be.

Picture Hope launches in two short weeks.  More news to follow.

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Jen and Stephanie will be in The Shutter Suite sharing details on Picture Hope and signing books at our Picture Hope / Blurb reception, Friday June 24th from 4-5:30 in the Suite. Come celebrate Hope with us! Let us know you're coming by RSVPing to our facebook page.

Hope Has You Covered

First, there was a nest and an egg.  And then these two amazing little creatures.

I don't know what makes me more hopeful--the way that these tiny birds continue to thrive each day or the fact that they have each other for this delicate part of the journey.

Who's got you covered as you gain the strength and confidence you need to believe you can fly?  Who's there for you with just what you need when you need it the most?  Show us your portraits of kindness and courage today.  Let's remind each other we're not in this alone.