The Nyatapola Guest House has a home stay feel with its six well-furnished rooms an upstairs kitchen where you can find the family cooking and eating and a rooftop terrace where you can catch local families living out their lives and see snow-caped mountains on a clear day. Two room sizes are available: single - which offers room for three people in a double and single bed, and double - a larger sized room fit for two couples in two double beds.
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I met him, dressed in white from head to toe, sitting inside the single-roomed, street-side tea shop of his son, the chaiwala, Parvej. There is a profound calm to him, a stark contrast to the hellishly-hectic market street just outside the shop.
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Often times you don't know that someone has touched you until the moment you tell them goodbye. For the few days I knew them, Parvej was my chaiwala, his father, my stoop companion. We had but few words we could say to each other, but with hand gestures and head wobbles we understood each other.
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I was recently moved by someone to get a painting of Ganesh the elephant-headed Hindu god; immediately, I knew who I had to go to. Pyreula is a laundry man by trade, but has been doing water-colors for the last 17 years.
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I suppose sometimes, with the challenges you face in volunteer work, you have to swallow your priorities and adjust yourself even more in order to make the best of the situation at hand. Isn't that after all why we travel abroad?
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The ASHA program offers a lot in the way of empowering women and gives many opportunities to village women, but I think it is valuable to note that although the program offers prestige in the larger community, it may not always translate to empowerment in the home.
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This young girl, aged 22, is pregnant with her first child and is answering questions posed to her by the local ASHA as well as by CommCare, a health care questionnaire given through a mobile phone.
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Benares (Varanasi) was not a disappointment. It justified its reputation as a curiosity. It is on high ground, and overhangs a grand curve in the Ganges. It is a vast mass of building, compactly crusting a hill, and is cloven in all directions by an intricate confusion of cracks which stand for streets. Tall, slim minarets and beflagged temple-spires rise out of it and give it a picturesqueness, viewed from the river.
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I'm finally doing work in the field, albeit slowly and with waning patience; Manjhanpur, in contrast to Varanasi, is split 40/60 between Muslims and Hindus. It's fascinating to be in a place where both exist seamlessly. Internet is horrendously slow, so I'm only able to offer one image; enjoy.
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Sitting in the Varanasi Open Hand Cafe, indulging in espresso and creamy cheesecake one might very easily imagine himself somewhere in Europe or the west village of New York. The pastries are fresh, the coffee comes in a large mug and the clientelle are nearly all european. However, the blaring midday sun and noise from honking horns pour in over the second floor balcony as a reminder that this is indeed India. Rhyne de Bruin, a South African native, runs one of Varanasi's premier cafes on Assi Ghat which boasts not only a wide selection of barista quality coffees but artisanal handcrafts from Varanasi locals.
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My first post from India, yes I am indeed alive after a brief battle with heat exhaustion; now I'm finally up and running, fully recharged with plenty of electrolytes and ready to start photographing the sites around me. I decided one morning to take an early (5 a.m.) boat ride to see Varanasi from the River Ganges along with an Israeli documentary film maker I had met the day before.
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This year, I'll be spending two months in the northern province of Uttar Pradesh, specifically the city of Varanasi, documenting the Indian healthcare system.
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A few weeks ago, he sent me an email with the wonderful news that a date had been set for his sister's wedding in Mexico; so, since it had been almost a year and a half since I had last visited, I decided to spend my weekend with his family. I had shot a Mexican wedding before, but it took place in America; so this time I was wondering what would be different about a real Mexican wedding. Since the Mexican are devoutly Catholic, the ceremony didn't deviate much from what I had already experienced, the only exception was the wearing of a giant rosary around the shoulders of the couple.
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My little brother turned me onto a Facebook contest that the logistics company, CSX, was organizing; the theme of which was to represent nature in all its beauty. Naturally, I chose the photo below, a 3 shot HDR panorama I created while living in Mexico; the exact location is named Hierve El Agua, which is Spanish for boiling water. It’s a unique place in the...
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Going through some of my old photos, I realized that I never posted any from my visit in Doel, Belgium with my cousin Wouter. Doel, is located very close to the behemoth port of Antwerp. This port apparently isn’t big enough as the Belgian Government told all the residents of Doel to evacuate the city to make room for the enlargement of the port. However, the...
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I traveled to Canada this past weekend to see a close friend; inevitably I had time to kill while waiting in the airport. Related postsNo related posts...
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In the 1880′s, Nicaragua was the first country in Central American to begin producing centrifugal sugar; today it is estimated that Nicaragua will produce 542,000 metric tons (MT) of sugar, about 0.4% of production worldwide. Of the total sugar produced in Nicaragua, 25.6% of it is exported and 14.6% is destined for the US. Furthermore, among the top sugar...
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Having spent several weeks with the people of the La Isla community, I thought I had a good impression of what it meant to be poor. Within this community, over 90% of the families live off of less than 1USD a day, there is no running water, and the water being drawn from each home’s well is questionable at best. However, when a friend of mine, working for...
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I lay, face up, in my bed listening to my host family noisily and lovingly get ready for bed in the room next to mine. There is a hole in my mosquito net the size of an orange, my only defense against the raiders of the night which will, the following morning, have left their mark of visit over most of my body. I’m staying with a mother and the five children of...
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Now that I’m back home, I’m able to put together the 9 shot HDR images I took on my first weekend in León; enjoy the photos! Related postsNo related posts...
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Welcome! I've had the immense opportunity of living in several countries throughout the world and to see the beauty that it offers in both its people and its everyday sights. I hope my photography captures some of that beauty and I hope you enjoy seeing the world through my lens.
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