Lamdon and Druk White Lotus School Visit

Yesterday, July 28, 2009, I made my first trek to the village of Shey to visit the two schools at which I will be instituting the Follow Your Art photo literacy program. Taking off from Leh, by bus, was a fairly easy task. The buses are not always on time, but there are many of them running and the bus station is relatively easy to reach on foot. About a half an hour after stepping onto the bus to Shey, we arrived. I thanked the driver, paid my 15 rupees (roughly 30 cents), and began to walk toward the main village. I passed an amazing monastery, built in the early 7th century, many rock carvings, the "holy fish pond" (an ecological preservation area), many chortans, and even more smiling Ladakhi faces. After 15 or 20 minutes my friend, Eric, and I made it to the first school: Druk White Lotus, or as the locals call it, "Druk Padma Karpo Institute". Eric, my tavelling buddy, is an old friend of mine, once my photography professor, then my teaching collegue, is a filmmaker and professor from Daytona State College in Daytona, Florida. The trek up to the school together was beautiful. Upon reaching the school, we encountered the head of the educational program, Prassad. He offered to give us a tour of the school grounds. The institution is nothing short of amazing. I have seen absolutely NOTHING like it in the states. Everything runs on solar energy. The buildings are all thermally heated by the sun and, through specially laid flooring, retain that heat through the cold, Himalayan winter. We visited many classrooms including the pre-k and elementary school area, the junior school (grades 2-4), middle school (5-7), and the soon to be built high school (8-12). The first students to ever attend the DWLS are currently in the 7th grade, and so the school is adding classrooms and grade levels as those original students ascend each year to the next stage. At every turn, I was shocked at the resourcefulness and "eye" of the architectural group building the institution. There is also a greenhouse in the works for next year where students will learn to plant, grow, and cultivate their own food. the classroom for the greenhouse is located directly in the middle section of the greenhouse, so the students will be learning in and amongst the growing plants. Simply wonderful. 

The school has also built four separate housing units for students living too far away to bus home each day. These 150 students live in the "hostels" at school, do their own laundry, and live with each other for the school year (becoming a kind of family for one another). As these students spend much time away from their families, I have a growing interest in working closely with them, hoping to utilize the cameras and writing as a way for them to connect with each other, the world around them, and to speak about the families back home which they are missing so much. Also, I will be working with the kindergarten students a lot, as some of these children are also living at the school. As four and five year olds, you can imagine how much they are missing their mothers and fathers. The projects will focus on self-awareness: "Who am I? What is my culture? What do I believe in? Who am I in my family? What will I be when I grow up? How do I hope to change the world", etc. 

There is also an expressed interest from the teachers that I enter into many different general education classes (i.e. science, math, health, etc.) and build projects that will reinforce what those teachers are hoping to get across to the students for that particular semester. I begin my work at Druk White Lotus School on August 4th and can't possibly express to you how excited I am to meet these kids and put cameras into their very capable hands!

After visiting Druk White Lotus, Eric and I walked a few feet down the only road running through Shey to the Lamdon School. There I met the principal, Lama Labzong. Lama Labzong is a monk from the Spituk monastery who has been working at Lamdon and acting as head principal for ten years. He was jovial, welcoming, and very excited about the prospect of the program being at Lamdon school. Lama Labzong offered Eric and I a wonderful meal at lunch time to share with him. We sat on the floor and talked about how the school came to be. Labzong told us of his many failed efforts to put successful roofing on one of the school's buildings (he put up roofing about five or six times, but the unforgiving winds blowing down from the Himalayas constantly thwarted his efforts). He is an amazing man. Because Lamdon school is on summer break, he invited me back on August 18th to discuss the program and fitting it into the students' schedule. 

I'm very happy and excited to be working with so many wonderful students and teachers at two very amazing schools here in Ladakh. I will be posting onto this blog and hope you can all keep up with the work Follow Your Art will be doing with these children.

Arrival into Ladakh

Julley! (Hello!) from the Indian Himalayas! I have officially arrived in Leh and will begin teaching the photo literacy program to students at Lamdon and Druk White Lotus Schools in August. I am currently taking it easy, trying to avoid altitude sickness, but will be updating you often with information on how the projects with the children are going.

We have raised over $3,500 USD for digital cameras for the children. A huge thank you to everyone who has contributed and to those of you who will be inspired to donate in the future after seeing the program in action!

Everybody Keeps Asking Me Why...

My first tattoo was a butterfly on my wrist. I had just turned 18 and couldn't think of a better means through which to commemorate the change, growth, metamorphosis that I hoped was on its way. As I blazed my trail, days passed, and I became acutely aware of butterflies: Butterflies in the garden, in the street, outside my window, all around me, everywhere. They became this kind of gracious omen, a message that I was in the exact right place at that moment of my life. After a year or so with this tattoo, I came to realize that I didn't really want the butterfly on my wrist. I didn't regret it, I just didn't need it anymore. I came to understand that we are all butterflies, constantly changing, becoming someone better, someone more. Something inside me needed that ink on my skin to be more meaningful - to be less about what I thought I wanted or needed to be and more about something bigger than myself. 

Then, I left for Cambodia. It was an adventure the likes of which I had never experienced before. I began working at a children's hospital there, making art with the young patients resigned to their beds. There were many children in that hospital who taught me new things every day - new things about life, about myself, about the human spirit. The truly important things in life were no longer about making the rent payment on time or how much money I had in the bank. No. The important things?...rubbing someone's belly when he didn't have the strength to do it for himself, smiling at someone, making new friends, building things together, laughing. One of the most shocking lessons I learned - the real gravity of a photograph. This is something that, as a photographer, I was stunned to learn I never knew.

There was a young girl at the hospital, no more than ten years old. Every day she would smile at me as we folded origami birds together to hang above her mattress-less bed. You would never have guessed by looking at her, that she was, with every passing day, battling an aggressive enemy: AIDS. Her family outfitted her bed with every toy they could gather the change to buy. She was very clearly loved. She always wore two plastic, gold bracelets around her left wrist. Finally, after working with her for a few weeks, I felt both she and her family had warmed up to me enough to trust me to make an honest photograph of her. I brought in my camera on a Thursday and made a single photograph. When I returned on Friday with the 4x6 print fresh off the local fuji print shop presses, her bed was empty. Her family was gone. I was told by a nurse that she had died. I felt numb. I handed the nurse the photograph of the young girl taken just one day earlier, and he promised me he would get the picture to her family. When I returned to work at the hospital on Monday morning, the nurse came to find me. He told me he had given the image of the little girl to her family and that their response was an emotional one. After spending ten years on this earth, this child's family hadn't the means or the inclination to ever have a single photograph made of her. 

That was the day I was taught about the power and meaning a photograph can bring to someone's life. It wasn't a lesson I learned in some university by some wonderful professor. It wasn't something I could've ever taught myself. This was a lesson that could only have come to me through this particular child, at this particular moment in my life. Was I meant to go to Cambodia? Absolutely. Was I meant to meet this little girl? Without a doubt. Do I believe she was put into my life to teach me about living, about dying, about being present in every moment? Do I believe that? With every breath I've yet to take.

The butterfly tattoo is gone. In it's place?: two gold colored rings around my left wrist, joined together by a heart. Growing, changing, metamorphosis - it's all about learning, about letting go of the need to be in control of what comes into and exits out of your life. Letting go, it frees you. It allows for an unexpected communion between souls. It is there that the real lessons are learned. It's in that place where you discover yourself. 

I see butterflies, almost every day. They remind me of that little girl, of why I do the things I do and make the choices that I make. They remind me that life is fragile, and without notice, the smallest gust of wind can change the direction of one or many lives, entirely. Life is fluid, like the pull of the tides. It can't be controlled or stuffed into a box. The best any of us can ever hope to do is to find a solid board, paddle out, charge some waves, coast over others, and, forgive the cliche, but, enjoy the ride.

I started Follow Your Art because that little girl changed me forever. I want to live my life with her memory on my heart. I do this because she made me believe that one person can powerfully affect another. That young girl stared her fears in the face, without hesitation, with a smile. I owe her at least this - much in the same way many of us feel we owe it to our greatest teachers to respect the lessons they taught us through living them each day. I am in a great debt of gratitude toward her for what she has taught me. It is my true privilege to honor her in this way, through creating this program. And that is my answer to the why.