spoiled

Photos: st george cathedral . Tallest wooden structure. blow up photo and find man . Steel drums. Friends I ran into at the peace fest.

Spoiled
What do usa’ers feel when they walk down a street and see people sleeping in the dirt with sores on their arms , legs and no shoes . Yesterday I saw a rasta , fairly clean looking kneeling in burnt garbage eating rice he had found .. Disgusted? I do not know . I feel uncomfortable. Last night I stayed in the shit hole hotel. I used the excuse that at 11 p.m.they permanently locked their gates for the night and I had 2 parties to go to which lasted all night . I did not want to be locked out on the street till morning so I checked into a fairly nice hotel and even got the apartment room .. It’s been since Haiti that I laughed in the shower. The miracle of hot water coming out of the wall is an incredible feeling after stepping into the real world even for a night. 90% of the world has never seen a shower. It made me feel sadder for the street people. I have lots of reasons for being here but inside I know fate brought me here and until I open something within me I will not be sure why I am here. So relax, turn off and float downstream . That you might hear the meaning of within.
Photographed a businessman for the unions nightclub. Its been years since I was around union organizers. He ask me to shoot the club and then just listened till I did what he wanted. Very few words. I told him that doing bar shots was not what I do and his drinks were too expensive thinking he would give me a tab, he just looked at me a little more sternly , so I said excuse me your drinks are very reasonable…….. He had a steel drum band. Got to tell you how they work. The steel head of the drum is deeply concave and they have put about 10 dents in the top. Each dent is outlined with a deeper dent or weld or even holes drilled. When ever the soft head of the drum stick hit’s a dent a smooth rich sound emerges. Each dents a different tone. The band sounds like it has an organ, xylophone and more.. Very rich soft sound.. It was truly amazing sound . Larry , my cabbie says there are players who can make them talk . He also told me steel drrums were east Indian.
Went back to the peace festival late last night . Stomach is turning , so I came home early . The same cop recognized me and again insisted if I needed any help getting a cab or anything to let them know. There are almost no police here. They have to work together and they do . So much politeness and kindness. They glow when I tell them they are richer than the usa. One of the bands at the peace festival open up with gargantuan words, “ there is a black man in the white house”. Even here the blacks are belwo in the indentured servant called east Indians. I swelled at bit when he said that .been a real long time since I was proud of my country .

direction

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I once spent time in the square of Oaxaca, Mexico . I try to find places off the beaten path yet realized quickly the tourist relaxing in the square were of the same cut as I . They had flown in from around the world and were taking buses and trains and even hitchhiking Mexico. Our conversations were not of fancy drinks , beaches or souvenir shops but of people and life. It was the only place in my life I have ever sat at a table and knew I was going to enjoy the company of the next person.
Why are some drawn so far away from home, not to climb a mountain or swim in coral reefs but to experience life. Are we , the carriers of the capitalistic torch , so in tune with life that the only thing left to experience or conquer is reefs, rivers and mountains?
I have spent a lot of time in back roads of 3rd worlds. I have seen children beg for water and mothers offer their starving child yet I did not learn from that . I only felt guilty . I have given everything in my suitcase and every thing I could part with in my car to these people , yet again I only felt guilty . I then realized a secret . Give them my alpha. They envision us almost as gods. We have everything and surely lack nothing , yet when you peel an apple for grandpa or play jacks with rocks with the children they begin seeing the common ground. If you can then give them alpha and they accept letting your sorry ass in the building you will start to see magic.
The safer we are and the more we have, the more we live in the future instead of the moment . The United States is a country which lives in the future sense. We give up here and now for what we expect to have in the future. Those with nothing and empty bellies do not have this luxury and live in the moment.. There is nothing more magical than living in the moment .. A very simple example is tell someone they had a very pretty dress on last week at dinner and they will feel warmth . Tell them they have a very pretty dress on and their soul will purrr. The moment is the art of life . The past and future tense is a description of it .
I am leaving for Guyana in a few days. I chose it because it was the lowest standard of living country which spoke English. My suitcase is packed with photography equipment and mother Peep and 10 boxes of pink and yellow marshmallow peeps. Using peeps in photography is like walking a beach with a cute puppy . It disarms.
Stay tuned , I would enjoy sharing this experience with you .