Market Day Portraits

Essay by Jeff James

High up in the mountainous rain forests of southwest Ethiopia is the town of Chiri, where Lalmba's Chiri Health Center is located. Under the backdrop of heavy, seasonal rains, ankle-deep mud and an array of ramshackle shops, the town can feel like the place that prosperity forgot.  It's true that there is extreme poverty here, but there is also a richness of spirit that inspires hope.

Twice each week, thousands of residents travel, sometimes for several hours, to congregate in Chiri town.  People don their best clothes, boys court girls, offering to carry their heavy bundles of vegetables and grains to and from market. Men sporting fine and feathered hats drink local brew out of colorful plastic cups, laughing, dancing, and listening to crackling music from warped tapes and blown-out speakers. Women socialize with other women while trading or selling whatever they are able to produce in a week. Children chase each other through the streets, kicking plastic-bag soccer balls, dodging goats, horses, donkeys, and cows tethered to stakes in the ground. Market day reveals a brighter and happier side of life.

I had photographed at the market many times, but the milieu of make-shift structures made it difficult for me to capture the dignity of the person through the starkness of the environment. My goal was to extract each person from the environment and photograph them on their finest day, in their finest clothes. To do this, I set up a photo booth in the middle of the market and made a portrait of any person who wanted their picture taken. The booth was mobbed that day. I photographed women in colorful dresses, goats and chickens, the town policeman, little boys imitating their favorite action hero, distinguished and wise old men and women (rarities in an area where the life expectancy is about 40), young girls in pretty dresses, and more. All told, I photographed nearly 700 people this day. The ones you see here are some of my favorite portraits. In them, I see strength born from hardship, and pride born from ancient traditions.  I see hope, perhaps not for earthly rewards, but a hope born of faith, faith in a God who promised that in the end, the last shall be first.

*

 "Is it True?"

by Hillary James

    Dedicated to Birhanu Asrat

Some of my best memories of our time in Chiri are the conversations I had with Birhanu, our gardener, who enjoyed a good laugh at life's dichotomies as much as I did.  He often asked me questions about things he'd heard about life in America.  His questions always began with "Is it true, Miss Hillary?" 

"Is it true, Miss Hillary?  Is it true that in America they have a machine that washes your clotheses for you?"

Birhanu just laughed and laughed when I told him yes.

"Is it true that in America some families have more than 1 car?"

"But why?" Birhanu asked.  He couldn't understand, in a world where his whole village shared one vehicle, which was Lalmba's, why a single family would have more than one. 

 

"Is it true, Miss Hillary?  Is it true that in America some people have a whole room just for their clothes and shoes?" 

When I explained about walk-in closets, he just laughed and laughed.  "But how many shoes can one person own?" he asked.  "They only have 2 feets!"

Once we got back  to the U.S., it was our friends and family here who asked "Is it true?" questions about the folks in Chiri.

"Is it true that some people in Chiri have never seen a mirror?"  I remember the time we were transporting a fistula patient in our car, and stopped at a hotel overnight.  She told me she just couldn't get comfortable in her room, and who was that other woman in there with her?

"Is it true that in Chiri, if people want to eat meat, they kill the animals themselves?"  One day Jeff and I had a hankering for the taste of chicken.  Birhanu assured us he could find us some, and came back from market with a live chicken under his arm, and handed her to us.  How he laughed when we said we didn't know what to do!  "But haven't you ever eaten chicken before?" 

"Is it true that in Chiri they had rats in their houses?"  I remember the day our translator, Tariku, came to work upset.  His most prized possession, his pocket English dictionary, had been shredded by rats as he slept.  "I tried to keep it in my hand so they wouldn't get to it," he said.  And then he showed me his thumb where one of the rats had bitten him for good measure. 

While the differences between our lives were certainly noteworthy,  my favorite moments were those when the divide wasn't evident at all.  Those moments came most often when Birhanu and I were squatting side by side weeding the garden, laughing about what a strange, funny world it is where some people have rooms for their clothes, and others know how to slaughter a chicken.