Dim Sum

• Field Notes

Dim Sum

Access to Life

Eight noted photographers traveled to nine countries to document the life-changing effects of AIDS in the photography exhibit, Access to Life, a collaboration between The Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria and Magnum Photos. In India, Haiti, Mali, Peru, Russia, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland and Vietnam the photographers detailed the lives of 34 AIDS patients and their families through their first four months of anti-retroviral treatment. View the exhibit online.  

    - Morgan Roth

The Translator

I am the translator who has taken journalists into dangerous Darfur. It is my intention now to take you there in this book, if you have the courage to come with me.

From the opening paragraph of The Translator (Random House), Daoud Hari skillfully realizes his promise of bringing the reader along on a fascinating, often heartbreaking, account of the brutal genocide in Darfur.

Born to the Zaghawa tribe in Darfur, Hari demonstrated a gift for languages and a love of the written word from an early age, losing himself in English classics like Cry the Beloved Country and Jane Eyre. After completing his studies, Hari traveled through northern Africa and Israel, but the heart of The Translator lies in what he saw when he returned to Sudan in 2003 after “seeing the world.”

Crossing back into Darfur from Chad, he arrived home to escalating and increasingly brutal violence between rebel groups and the Sudanese army, aided by the Janjaweed armed gunmen. Shortly after reuniting with his family, the Janjaweed attacked his village, and Hari and his family fled to refugee camps in Chad.

While many of his childhood friends quickly took up arms, Hari decided to use his “English instead of a gun,” and became a translator for international aid groups and journalists. Risking his life to bring the world’s attention to the horrific genocide, The Translator quickly unfolds into a poignant, engaging and sometimes funny, account of Hari’s travels with prominent Western news media including British journalist Philip Cox and Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times.

In his acknowledgements, Hari implores the reader to move beyond his life story, and those of the people of Darfur, and act on their behalf:

As you read this, people are still being killed in Darfur, and people are still suffering in these camps. The leaders of the world can solve this problem, and the people of Darfur can go home, if the leaders see that people everywhere care deeply enough to talk to them about this. So, if you have time, perhaps you can do so. For it has no meaning to take risks for news stories unless the people who read them will act.

The Translator, widely available in hardcover and paperback, was written with Dennis Burke and Megan McKenna, who met Hari while working in the field.
    - Kelly Castagnaro

Journey of a Red Fridge

Journey of A Red Fridge explores child labor in Nepal through the gentle narrative of 17-year-old porter Hari Rai. The teenager, like many of his peers, transports goods – most notably, a red Coca-Cola fridge – across the country to pay for his education. We travel with Rai on his long journey and we listen intently to his quiet, yet determined story.

We listen to his footsteps across the terrain, we listen to his insightful outlook, and we hear the challenges of 60,000 Nepalese child porters his story represents.

Interlude conversations between Rai and local residents at rest stops along the trek highlight deeper social issues: rampant child labor, lack of access to health care and education, and gender inequality.

Beautifully shot, the dramatic Himalayan landscape accompanies Rai’s deep determination to finish his education and aspirations for the future, “My dream is to construct a hospital in my village. I am very determined about the idea.”

His skillful navigation of the dangerous terrain and his confident, compassionate interactions along the way with curious innkeepers, flirting village girls, and dependent elders, makes us believe he will.

The film is produced by LUNAM DOCS with support from The Global Fund for Children. Be sure to visit its website to learn more about the children featured in the film, child labor in Nepal.       
    - Megan Galbraith

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