Shot this picture minutes before I left the dump and the families on the morning of March 18th. The light was blindingly coming right into the camera lens, the man was in deep shadow. With the Blad digital camera I was able to draw things out. This is from a copy jpeg file, the raw file should be better.
This man (have his name written down, forget it now) became a new friend. The first day I gave his home (behind him to the right) a bag of food, everyday after that he greeted with a smile and a "min-ga-la-bah" (hello in Burmese). He had a wonderful partly toothless smile and a whispey beard. I think he was in his 60s (have that written down as wells in my notepad).
I might use this photo in my new PowerPoint artist talk. It will be near the end when I speak of what the dump and families life is like now. You can see the new barb wire fence being built behind him and the 2 year old dump fence to his left side, with security guard shack (the garbage is guarded on 3 sides). About 2 years ago the families were denied access to scavenge in the garbage. It was the main way the made money and prospered. I came to learn the dump was a good thing for them as it provided a way to work. Now many families have no money or live off the $8-$10 CAD a day some can make farming on Thai farmland. Burmese cannot own land in Thailand as they do not have Thai citizenship (the families are Burmese refugees living in the dump). They struggle to survive on a daily basis. It is still better than going back to Burma to face war, Covid and even more extreme poverty.
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| Old man smoking a pipe on the edge of the dump homes, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot, Thailand, 2022 |
