Camp Minny

My good friend, Minny and her husband Jimmy hosted a party for all of us ICP PJ kids from last year at their home in New Jersey.   Kind of looks like we don't get out of the city much. 

Superfund 2 - More photos from the neighborhood of Well Quarters in Columbia, Mississippi. See story below.

Jingling Creek, where Reichhold chemical workers say they were instructed to dump chemical waste; located near the entrance of Well Quarters

A friend checks on Lutie the morning after he'd gotten into a fight

Treadmill in Juanita's kitchen

Regina with her daughter, Briana.  Regina has breast cancer and they've also found pre-cancerous cells on one of her kidneys.

Juanita's tree

Fred and Georgia, Juanita's aunt and uncle who lived in the same house she lives in now.  Fred died of lung cancer at age 61, Georgia died of complications of diabetes at age 51.

Juanita gets some fresh air

Juanita walks down the road to the stop sign with help from her cousins, Bo and Charlotte.

Gladis in the yard next to her HUD apartment.  On the other side of the wooden fence is the abandoned chemical facility.  The apartments were built in 1995, five years before the EPA declared the site remediated.  Gladis had breast cancer in the 1990s.

An abandoned church near the entrance of Well Quarters.

Juanita, Columbia, Mississippi

I'm working on a new project about a small neighborhood in Columbia, Mississippi.  The neighborhood abuts a former Superfund site where most of the residents are experiencing health problems more than 10 years after the site was remediated by the EPA.  Knock on any door in the neighborhood and at least one occupant will have an illness; everything from cancer to cardiac disease to strange purple-ish rashes that itch and burn.  The site was a wood treatment plant in the 50s, and in the 70s a company called Reichhold Inc. was using every sort of chemical imaginable, including all the chemicals used in Agent Orange.  The plant was abandoned and shut down after an explosion in 1977, but not before chemicals leaked into the groundwater and a creek than runs alongside the small neighborhood.  Many of the residents received settlements in class action lawsuits, but for paltry amounts considering the destruction of their quality of living.  They will never be able to sell their homes, and will in all likelihood develop major health problems or even die from the exposure.  One woman received a settlement of $169, then died of cancer two years later.  Above is Juanita who is in the final stages of ovarian cancer.  She is 50 and has lived in this neighborhood since the plant explosion in 1977.  Her cousin, Charlotte, is a Pentacostal pastor and was praying for her.  

(Most of the work is in film, so I won't be posting additional photos for another week or so.)

Jack and Alice Frances

Halfway, Missouri

oklahoma wildfires

The last three photos are the Stafford family in Choctaw, Oklahoma.   Flames were 20 feet high and winds were over 60mph.  Neighbors were calling the father, Mark, a hero.  His own house in danger, he went door to door making sure everyone was out of their homes, helping people pull pets out of their houses, even spraying down an elderly woman's home with a hose before finally leaving himself.   His family's home, save for a couple of forks and a wooden swing set out front, was completely destroyed.

Lincoln Memorial, D.C.

Inauguration, D.C.

Portraits of people on the Mall, watching Obama make his first speech as President.

More Mathare pictures

Still scanning negatives from last summer...

These first few are in front of Jen's house in Mathare.  She supports herself and her two children, Mary and Simon, by selling Chaang'a, a local illegal brew, out of her home.  She rents two 15x15 ft spaces made of corrugated aluminum.  One space is the bar where men and sometimes women drink Chaang'a for $.05 a glass, the other space is where she and her children sleep and eat.  Mary is 6, Simon is 16.  I probably spent the most time with this family in Mathare.  Simon was one of my students in The Tiziano Project and we became very close.  I hesitate to tell the story of how Jen and her family came to Mathare because I don't like to perpetuate the stereotype that the entire continent of Africa is a horrible place where only heartbreaking things happen to people, but I also think it's important for people to understand how families end up living in slums, and how mothers end up turning their homes into bars. Jen's husband owned Matatus in Nairobi.  Matatus are the buses that everyone uses to get around in Nairobi.  They're like public transportation but privately owned and it can be a very lucrative business.  One night Simon's father was killed in a highway robbery.  Shortly thereafter, Jen's mother-in-law kicked them out of the house, keeping the house, the business, and all of their possessions.  Jen, Simon, and Mary went to live with Jen's mother, who died shortly thereafter of AIDS.  The only place they could afford to live was Mathare.  Their situation is an extreme example, but by no means unusual. 

The last two pictures were the very start of the series on soccer in Mathare. 

Mary and a friend 

Jen, Simon and Mary's mother

A bar customer

Mary and her friend, again

Simon, crossing JuJa Road into Mathare

Watching Soccer at the JuJa Road fields