Abandoned by Missionaries

These two girls live deep in a city of the Jungle of Chiriqui Province, western Panama - I was there in 2005, and they thought I was a missionary and were extremely hostile to me for the first few days. It seems that they had been touched by a group of "gringos" who taught them about God, but the gringos never helped them with any of their daily tasks like fetching water, repairing roofs, or even cook. This village is full of people who share everything: food, parenting responsibilities, soccer balls, etc. and it was off-putting to them that the missionaries didn't even bother to learn about them. "How could they say we were wrong without even finding out what we believed first?" said one of the villagers.

These two girls live in a house that was at one point, converted into a church. But after the missionaries had left, it was turned back into their house. The girls don't understand why their house had to become the church, and their parents were not available to answer the question.

(As a side note... this deep in the jungle, most of the people do not speak Spanish. So our photography team worked with one translator who translated to Spanish, and that guy then translated into the indigenous language.)

This photographer has no inclination for or against church missions and is simply reporting the events as they were presented by the people who were available to tell the story.

 

Dear America: Learn Spanish!

All of my Republican friends are now angry at me, but my reason for saying this is not politically motivated at all. I am indifferent about such things.

What I hope to change about my country is that we are at times ferociously-hostile toward other people who speak in other languages, and I do not understand why this is. I can understand the country desiring people who work in the USA to speak English. Our laws are in English, and it is the language that most people in our country speak, so I can definitely understand Americans wanting people to be able to communicate in English.

What bothers me is that Americans go to OTHER PLACES and then get angry when people don’t speak English there. A photographer and a supermodel both went to Venice to model and photograph the beautiful Italian city. For some reason, they EXPECTED all the Italians they encountered to know English. Why is this? When people tour America we are extremely hostile toward them if they don’t know English? What is with the double-standard? When we as photographers get a job in Italy we should at least make an attempt to learn Italian - just like we would expect them to do.

My first entry? Here you go: If you go to Panama, you will save time by being able to ask directions IN SPANISH.

Por favor, ¿dónde está el Canal de Panamá? Me gustaría tomar una fotografía de ella para una revista de viajes de Norteamérica.

Not everyone can easily learn multiple languages, but everyone should be able to learn ONE other language or at least how to carry out a simple conversation. After all, that is what we are expecting from the rest of the world. Historically America has always sought to the the absolute best at everything, and this motivation has created a great country. Why should we not be the best at communicating as well?

I am going to start a long-term photography project that is intended to illustrate why it is paramount for Americans to learn another language. This is a project that will be very near and dear to me as a photographer and linguist. I will be posting photographs advocating this on my website and on Google Plus.

There you go, my friends. You now know where I am coming from.