I bought 4 small bags of rice at a small local store here, the cost was 50 cents a kilo and 65 cents a kilo, I ended up getting 4 kilos. One of the tricks the drug using young men I have been photographing use is they constantly ask for money to buy rice (we do not have enough to eat!!). I had been putting them off with the photos and with one 50 rupee bill (50 cents USD) but the begging keeps happening so I decided to try actually giving them rice, to make sure they do not use the money for drugs (unless they resell the rice!). I gave out one bag of rice to them 2 days ago and today I gave out 2 bags of rice to the poor landless people along the river. I have 1 bag of rice left in my room. I will probably hand that out in 2 days to the young drug users again. I will probably not have any film left to shoot when I return to where the boys family live (dirt covered public area) but I made them a promise so will keep it. I will print out the color photos I took last time and deliver it to them with this last bag of rice as promised, it is important to keep your promises.
Down by the river today with the landless people I got lots and lots of requests for money, some people said no to photos as well for the most part about 90% of the time people did not object to being photographed. When I can speak to the people I usually have near a 100% photo access rate but here in Nepal I am limited to smiles and a few words like (hello and thank you). When the families can speak English things go well, I got invited into one family yard today and given tea after having a nice chat with the father of the home who is a former policeman (now unemployed). In the same area I also got invited into Anjana's family home which was quite wonderful, they also gave me a fried egg, milk tea and some water.
Down by the river today with the landless people I got lots and lots of requests for money, some people said no to photos as well for the most part about 90% of the time people did not object to being photographed. When I can speak to the people I usually have near a 100% photo access rate but here in Nepal I am limited to smiles and a few words like (hello and thank you). When the families can speak English things go well, I got invited into one family yard today and given tea after having a nice chat with the father of the home who is a former policeman (now unemployed). In the same area I also got invited into Anjana's family home which was quite wonderful, they also gave me a fried egg, milk tea and some water.
