"I learn by going where I need to go." ~T. Roethke

Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga in Kibera today

Prime Minister Raila Odinga registered to vote at the District Commissioner's grounds in Makina Ward, Kibera, Nairobi among crowds of supporters of his party ODM (Orange Democratic Movement). All Kenyans of voting age must register anew this year via the new Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) system. Voter registration is organized by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).

Mariam and her dad Salim at home in Dandora, Nairobi

Tunis, outtakes. October 2011

"Even in Kyoto, when the cuckoo cries, I long for Kyoto" ~ Basho

There is truth in these intangible dreams.

Dream. You and I were sitting on bar stools drinking whiskey. We were laughing and high-fiving and you were wearing a black t-shirt. A man at the bar had a box of 100 white lilies. His lover rejected them so he handed them out to people at the bar. E was there too; the guy gave her a lily, leaned in close and started flirting. We toasted and said, We're not needed around here. My diamond earrings were in pieces on the bar top. I fixed them and put them into my ears and I could hear again. We tripped out the door and onto the shining wet streets with laughter in our throats. The last days.

Mombasa/Diani, June 2012

Repurposed. Esplanade du Parc de Belleville

Found Dream. On the Hackney Canals

The convergence of many loves: books, water, boats, blue nights, November.

Yellowjacket Trap: Once he gets syrup on his wings it's over

1 août 2012 

A drawing a day Day 17

Works in Process

10 August 2012. My boxes in a closet at my parents' house in Pennsylvania. I dream of them. In the dreams they are lost in the damp basement and I search for them while ghosts tug at my sleeves and I try to avoid the clump of darkness that sits in the corner. It is August in the leaf dark of Pennsylvania and the backyard is vined and snaked and patterned with green trees. The crickets in the locust trees saw their legs. The air is heavy with the rain that fell all last night and this morning. I bring the rain everywhere: in Northern Uganda, George named me Akot. My boxes are full of photographic paper, printed paper, bound and scuffed paper, painted-on, scribbled-on, drawn-on paper. These boxes are my identity--for now.  

Over the summer I unplugged from most digital communication and made a drawing a day. When it was going well, a veil descended and I shifted out of a restless mind frame and into a state of complete openness and receptivity, calm and silence. Some of the drawings were speedy outlines of whatever was next to my borrowed bed. And there were so many borrowed beds as I traveled/worked/visited family and friends in the UK, France and America. Sometimes I spent an evening on one page, as in the above drawing. I stayed at a friend's room in Montmartre with a sweeping view of the sky-washed city. I felt protected within the structure of my teaching schedule, which, though intense, left time for long quiet spaces in the evening. In Northern Europe, in the summer, the daylight stretches out until 10 o'clock at night. I finished this drawing and a sadness came over me, Paris, a place I lived for years, the calls of the swallows as they swooped over chimney pots a'flame in the setting sun. The unpacked suitcase and the hours.

360 degrees at City Park with monkeys

In May, I traveled to Garissa, in the arid Northeastern part of Kenya, to photograph pastoralists and Adeso's cash-for-work programs in the region.