I probably took about 12 shots of this guy. call it exploitation.
you can probably tell that it was backintheday when I wasn’t obsessed with 16:9 ratio.
this was my first evening in Jakarta.
my friend Courtney and I had decided to jump on a flight back in February of ’07 and help out in any way we could.
we didn’t know what we were doing, and had I been writing like I should have, it would have made an amazing tale.
[edited version]
we buy supplies in Malaysia.
we get on a plane to Indonesia.
we arrive in Jakarta, having no idea where we were allowed to go. the 2 Americans in line behind us turn around and ask if I was on ‘ChinesePod’. they took us into the town proper and in their amazingly fluent bahasa, asked around for us [I would later find out that it is the easiest language in the world to pick up as a native English speaker]. we woke up the next morning for our first ‘kopi’ and opened up the paper. there on the 4th page was a small article, no more than 500 words, talking about a small village that had yet to receive any aid. we ran out of the cafe, probably forgetting to pay and negotiated a taxi to take us there.
3 hours and a police escort later [that in itself is another story], we get to this village were we meet with the entire police squad, who then form a barrier between our ramen noodles and the locals. it wasn’t the flurry of hands that made it through those who were protecting us that had us both in tears, it was…well, I don’t know what it was.
it was them.
sure, they wanted the pitifully small amounts of things we brought, but it was their candor. their…-ness. they smiled and showed us around. they invited us into their homes for another cuppa made with the water we brought them.
they fucking got on with it.
some still with wet couches.
I snapped away with whatever the function was on my camera that took multiple quick shots and edited a few of those yesterday, the day I found them on a hard drive. a day long past remembering all the details I should have.
they wouldn’t upload to flickr, so all I could offer was a screenshot of a few:
I’ll try and print them – don’t know what I’ll do after that.
wait, this sounds masturbatory.
it ain’t.
it was a selfish act, at least on my part.
call it the hedonism that Shanghai was.
call it the mistakes that can’t be paid for.
or those hurt.
we got on a comfortable plane and bought enough things to make us feel better, but enough left over for a nice holiday on a nice Malaysian island.
and we deserved it after doing this.
so don’t take this as anything other than what it is.
which is.
well.
fuck.
I don’t know.
do something?
Sometimes I want to be you or Taylor Swift when I grow up…
It is easy to become sarcastic and jaded in an environment where it seems that everyone is looking for an angle or opportunity for self-aggrandizement. Anyone who has been paying attention to your work knows this is not the case with you. You are completely authentic.
I remember the first time you posted this story. You held the photos back not wanting to exploit the victims or the situation. I would love to see these photos. It would also be very interesting if you were to re-visit this village in future to document the changes that have taken place. I’ll bet these people still remember your visit and are grateful for the time you took to help them.