Excited to share!

Okay, so this is pretty exciting for me...  My friend, Oddny Gumaer, has published her second book!  It's entitled, "Picking Flowers on Dusty Roads" and it's available through Partners and Amazon.  I just ordered several copies for my family and am excited to read it, as it was her other book, "Displaced Reflections ", which inspired my involvement with Partners and my trip this past Spring. 

Oddny has a very approachable writing style, which makes it feel like you are having a conversation with a friend.  Granted, I don't have a lot of friends who eagerly discuss the issues facing isolated ethnic groups in politically volatile Burma, but when she weaves her thoughts about being a mother, being a woman, being a Christian, and simply being human...it becomes easy to understand her compassion for these beautiful people.

As I said, I am really excited to receive my new book, I am really excited for my friend Oddny for completing her writing, and I am particularly excited about the publication because that beautiful image on the front cover is mine!  I snapped the shutter one time as this stunning young girl walked past us down the dry creek bank...and it is one of my very favorite images (an almost life-sized one in canvas in my dining room, that is how much she stayed with me, those eyes...).  Hauntingly beautiful...and very telling of the amazing people whose lives and futures Oddny tells us about in her book, "Picking Flowers on Dusty Roads."

 

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A voice for them.

Mike & I just returned from a long, fun weekend in Fairbanks, Alaska!  Among other highlights, my favorite one...we got to see Allison & Stephen (yaaaay!)!  And we got to hang out with some really fun people; our hosts, the Wall family (including it's newest member, handsome little Triston!), the Barney's, the Sanders' (including sweet baby Emmett), the Martin's and all the workings of Friends Community Church!  What nice people, all of them!  I got to fly in a two-seater Cub over the Alaskan countryside at sunset with a great pilot, thanks Jeff!  We also drove a swamp-buggy!  And, we sat in on an impressively energetic UAF Economics lecture thanks to professor Sherri!

But, the primary purpose of our trip to Fairbanks was to help raise money and awareness to the Friends of Partners cause.  If you have followed my blog at all, you will know that I recently went to Thailand and Burma with Partners, an organization whose mission is "free, full lives for the children of Burma."  If you are interested, here is my talk from Friday night's yummy banquet.  (I was the brief "opening act" for the impressively well-spoken, motivational, and lovely Oddny Gumaer!)

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My name is Kris Ryan and I thought I would take a few minutes to explain to you how it is that I came to be here, in front of you, in Fairbanks, Alaska and how it is that I came to take those images you saw displayed so beautifully as you came through here today.

I am a photographer and I live in Pocatello, Idaho.  Several years ago, when both of my beautiful daughters were in high school, I went back to school, to Idaho State University, to study the very lucrative subject of Philosophy!  I took a class entitled the Anthropology of SE Asia from a professor who has been doing research in Burma over the last decade and a half and has close connections to the Burmese people.  It was an eye-opening, compelling class that made me aware of a country I was not aware of, a culture I had not ever studied before, and a decades long conflict I couldn’t possibly begin to understand.  I began searching out news on Burma, of which there is very little.  I read books about the Burmese people, of which there are very few. 

A few semesters later, my daughter, Ashley, was in college and I recommended the class to her…and she loved it as well.  We began to care about people we had no immediate knowledge of, save that they were oppressed, abused and that it was heartbreaking. 

And then one day my daughter, Allison, starting dating this guy, Stephen Wall.  I noticed on Stephen's Facebook page that he "liked" an organization called "Free Burma Rangers."  So one day he told me about Fairbanks' connection to the Burmese people and their struggle.  He told me about Partners, and Steve (his namesake) and Oddny Gumaer and their dedication to helping the people of Burma.   For my birthday, a few months later, Stephen sent me the most wonderful, thoughtful gift…a book that Oddny had written about the people she had been working with and meeting and helping.  (The book is entitled "Displaced Reflections" and can be purchased through Partners' website.)

I loved the book, both the imagery and the stories.  And now I had this pulling connection to get involved.  I contacted Maureen, the U.S. Director for Partners, interested in hearing more about the art program that Partners had been doing with refugee children.  I wasn't able to make the trip that Maureen was planning, but I became fully invested in becoming involved…and through a series of phone calls and Skype conversations, to Terry & Jocelyn, here in Fairbanks, to Jeff Wall, to my agreeable and gracious husband who rarely says no to any of my crazy ideas, and lastly to Steve Gumaer…my daughter Ashley and I found ourselves, just a couple of months later, exhausted from a long trip, standing in the Chiang Mai, Thailand airport, at midnight, meeting Oddny Gumaer. 

We didn't know for sure what we had gotten ourselves into, it just felt like we had to go, that we needed to be a witness ourselves to the lives of these people we had come to care about.  So we went on an adventure, and the images in the foyer reflect some of the people we met along the way. 

I'd like to share with you just a couple of stories from our trip, and I am hoping that you will be able to find yourself there with us…as one of the most profound moments, for each of us, on our trip, was when we found "ourselves"  there, in the hills of Burma, in a hide site or a refugee camp… 

For Ashley, it was meeting and talking with one of the Karen soldiers who was with us on our trip…  We were all sitting together in one of the huts one evening; two American women, a Norwegian woman, Karen women and their children, and a few Karen soldiers…and we were talking about our home in Idaho when Ashley realized she had, in her backpack, her iPod, with a few images stored on it and enough of a battery left to turn it on and share them.  One of the soldiers, who had been silent our whole trip, was really curious and he came and sat next to her as she swiped through them…a couple of her wedding pictures, pictures of her friends being silly, pictures of her family…and he sat, mesmerized, and smiling…  He asked her, in English, "those your friends?  that your husband?  that your sister?  this your mom?" and smiled, as we all do when we look at a new friends pictures, or discover a new friends Facebook album!  "That America?" he asked.  And that is when it really struck her…he could be my friend if he lived in the states.  He was just one year older than she…  He could be my neighbor, my co-worker, my brother…she thought.  But here he is instead…this handsome, courteous, sweet young man, living his life running from an enemy…and it is all he has ever known.

For me, similarly, while sitting in a very surreal setting, still trying to grasp that I was actually in Burma, sitting in a bamboo hut, we listened as two women recounted their lives to us…running, fleeing death, starving, trying to create a life for their families, trying to survive…  And, oddly, unexpectedly, I began to recognize "myself" in one of the women…  She was close to my age (okay, I am a few years older, but who's counting!)…she had children whom she obviously adored, as do I…she liked to sew, she made the beautiful and intricate top she was wearing, and she liked to make things for her family.  She laughed when she admitted, through a translator, that she had never been this close to a white woman!  I laughed in return and said well, I've never been this close to a Karen woman!  She looked to me like a movie star, the incredibly strong, beautiful heroine in a great epic adventure…and she had similar thoughts, saying she had only seen a white woman on a movie screen when she was little.  Her name is Naw Mu Wah, her picture is featured in the front of the foyer with her little girl…and though I saw myself in her that day, it was clear to me that she was so much stronger than I, so much braver than I could ever be…and she is in my thoughts every single day.

I asked one of our guides why these women had trekked alone through the jungle for so many days, at such great risk, just to come and talk with us…and she replied…"they just want to be heard"…they just want to know that someone cares about them…that "they haven't been forgotten."  So, I am grateful for the experiences of our trip to meet the Karen people of Burma…and grateful that I can be a voice for them, so that they can be heard, cared about, and not forgotten.

I thank Oddny, for sharing this amazing experience with my daughter, Ashley, and I.  I thank Stephen, my new son-in-law, who linked my heart with these amazing people I was fortunate enough to meet.  Thank you to the Wall family, my daughter Allison's new second family, for their hearts and their hospitality.  And I thank you all for your hearts tonight…thank you for coming to hear their stories.

Alas!

Image by Ashley!

Alas!  I have finally managed to update both of our websites, Mike & Kris Ryan Photo and Heart & Soul Images, with a gallery of images from our trip to visit Burmese refugees.  Any and all of the images are available as prints, traditional or canvas (they look especially nice on canvas), as well as press-printed greeting cards.  All proceeds from any print sales will go directly to Partners to help them continue their amazing work with the Burmese people.  Please let me know if you'd like to purchase, or donate!
We are headed up to Fairbanks, Alaska this week, to attend their annual fundraiser for Partners, where Oddny will be speaking!  It will be good to see her again, this time absent the frizzy hair and mosquito netting!  And, we are excited to get to see Allison & Stephen (our daughter and son-in-law) too, along with much of the Wall family!
Then, I will actually be home for a bit, catching up with clients, trying to beat the winter weather that is surely going to find us soon!  Looking forward to a BSU tailgater with the Ryan clan next month, a grand-baby ultrasound (yay!), another trip to the beach, and getting ready for the holidays?!  Life is good and I am more and more grateful every day.

Haystack Rock.

This is Haystack Rock.  No, not the one in Cannon Beach, Oregon, which is the only one I knew of until this year.  This is the one in Pacific City, Oregon, near Cape Kiwanda, and it is the world's fourth largest seastack!  It stands 327 feet tall (for comparison, the Haystack in Cannon Beach is 235 feet tall and is "intertidal", which means it can be reached by land) and I am determined to get a closer look one of these days, perhaps from a dory boat, or my kayak!  (I keep hearing the theme from Jaws in my head when I imagine myself paddling out there, but I am going to do it!)

In the meantime, I have enjoyed almost a week here in Pacific City with this monolith in the background...listening to the endless cycles of waves, enjoying the last bits of summer on the beach.  There are surfers here all the time, families, runners, lots of dog walkers, and even a few naked beach goers (pretty sure they were European)!  I have been carefully considering the talents of the stand-up paddleboarders who come and go from time to time...another thing on my to-do list.

It's lovely and I am so lucky to have such luxuries as down time in this incredible place. 

I've been working, a little bit (really hard with these distractions), on my Burma images...going to be auctioning some beautiful canvases in Fairbanks, Alaska at a Partners fund raiser at the end of this month.  And I am getting ready to launch a gallery on our webpages of the beautiful faces of the Karen people we met on our trip this past Spring, so stay tuned for that (something about Flash Player not working on a 64-bit IE format...?  Ugh, I have a love-hate relationship with technology, to be sure!)  All of the proceeds from any of my canvases, prints or cards will be sent directly to Partners to enable them to continue their amazing work with the people of Burma.  Perhaps you want to help?

I hope you are enjoying the last bits of your summer, wherever that may be...as for me, the beach is beckoning.



Faces.

I love these faces.  They make me happy.  And sad.  All at once.

I am planning to host a gallery of Images from Burma this Fall at the Art Walk...stay tuned!

Storms.

I had a restless night last night, listening to the winds howl and the rain collide against the bedroom windows. I keep checking the calendar, to see if it really is almost June...and yet there is snow in the forecast? Yikes!

And then I began thinking about the days and nights we spent with the Karen people. We were fortunate to be there in very mild weather. No rain. No winds. It was warm and mostly sunny, and our only concern was overheating a little bit on our short walks through the jungle. Even the nights were lovely. Cool, but calm and relatively quiet.

That isn't how it always is there for the people trying to live their lives there. They, too, have to deal with nights like last night, where the winds are whipping and the rains are beating down...only they do it in their modest huts, on their dirt hillsides... And I am certain they do it with the same admirable grace and humility that they manage in their everyday lives.



We brought a few little gifts along on our trip, mostly for the children; books and crayons, dolls and small toys…and we spent most of a day sitting with these two young girls, sisters, in their family's home. They sat quietly with us, all day, drawing pictures, getting their nails painted, and playing with a few little toys, all the while listening to all the talk around them about the enemy that threatens their very existence. How do those girls sleep at night? I stayed up last night, worried that my new planter wasn't going to survive the storm…and then worrying that these beautiful young girls won't survive the storm that surrounds them…

I am going to update our website soon, I promise…and I am going to include a gallery of images from our trip with Partners. All proceeds from any print orders in that gallery will go toward their goal of "free, full lives for the children of Burma."

This is the face I see in my dreams....

A few of the Karen children we met along the way...

I feel as if I have this burden and I don't really know what to do about it, or how to deal with it...not just yet anyway.  My burden is this...that I want you, because you are reading this, to care about these children as much as I have learned to care about them.  I want you to worry with me; about their health, their education, their families and their future.  I want you to see them as your own children, or grand-children, or nieces and nephews, and see that they deserve so much more than what they currently endure.  I want you to empathize with the life they are living; in such poverty it is almost unimaginable to those of us with full bellies and full closets, with the freedom to go to school and to go to the store and to sleep peacefully every night. 

And yet, I am without adequate words to explain to you what it was like to meet these children; to hear them sing and laugh, and to hear them speak in a language I didn't understand but yet could easily comprehend with their smiles and giggles.

It was heart-warming and heart-wrenching all in the same breath.

These are a few of the Karen children we met, living in refugee camps and hide sites along the Salween River...

Have I told you about the children?

Many of my friends and family have called or sent me emails about these posts, "what an experience", "how can I help", "I didn't know...", and I am so glad if my posts have touched you in some way.  Please don't hesitate to ask me questions, give me a call or email me, and please let me know if you are interested in helping these beautiful people in some way.  Please also check out Partners website where there is lots of information and a really great, easy way to donate online.

If photos affect you, pull at your heartstrings, as they do me...well, brace yourself. 

In the next week or so, I will be sharing a few photos of the children we met on our visit to the IDP sites and refugee camps.  These are children who have only known a life of fear, of running from a monstrous enemy.  These children have lost grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings and/or friends in this "conflict", and every one of them still has a child's spirit alive inside of them. 

They love to play and learn and be silly!  They love to be held and appreciated and valued.  They love to sing and dance!  They love to feel handsome and beautiful.  They love candy and surprises!  They giggle when they see themselves in pictures!  They squirm when they are tickled!  They say please and thank you (dah bloo) and have beautiful smiles.

They deserve a healthy childhood of peace and security.  Don't you agree? 

Home.

We woke up in the morning to the sounds of the jungle waking up; roosters crowing, babies crying, fires crackling and Tokay's calling for their mates (a large gecko!).  We had a cup of hot Birdy coffee, rolled up our bed mats and mosquito nets, and then the hut started to fill...with newcomers... 

New to the camp, these people had recently found themselves, once again, fleeing from the Burma Army.  They ended up here, at this camp, with their families...trying to make a life, starting over, with nothing...trying to survive.

This woman had traveled with and was caring for her nephew, who had lost both of his parents and his sister, due to the Burma Army's activities.  I wondered what she was thinking about, staring out that doorway...

Oddny was "interviewing" these newcomers to the camp.  Where did they come from?  Do they have families?  Were they run out of their village?  How many times?  When?  Did they lose people in the attacks on their village?  The stories were painful, repetitive, heartbreakingly sad.  To imagine the life they have been living...well, it's unimaginable really. 

She was also inquiring as to their needs, to see what void Partners can help to fill.  Do they need clothing, tarps for shelter, food, medicines, school supplies, training...yes, to all of the above, especially to food.  Many of these newcomers to this camp came because their families were starving, trying to sustain themselves in the jungle.

Appreciative, they were all so appreciative of even the smallest things we could offer. 

And then Oddny asked this man, the one with his face resting in his hand, what he wanted, what he needed.  His answer was heartbreaking...and telling. 

"We just want to be able to go home," he replied. 

I don't know what the future holds for these people, displaced from their homes and their livelihoods.  I wish I could assure them that change will come, in their lifetime, that the oppressive government currently ruling their country would step down or some other entity would step in and stop these human rights abuses...but I can't.  I cannot assure them that they will ever be able to go home.  But what I can do is write these stories, publish these images, talk to people, write to people in power, raise money to help them feed their children, and I can educate people, make them aware of what is going on in Burma.  I can speak up for these oppressed people.  I don't want them to feel forgotten.  I want them to be able to go home.

Hungry.

We arrived in one of the camps in the evening. One of the camp leaders came to speak with us, a soft-spoken, lean man. When asked what the biggest need was for his village his answer was surprising. He said, “our people here are poor and we don’t have enough to eat, but we will make it. There are some other people, however, that I want to tell you about.” He went on to tell us about 11 villages in the surrounding areas, just over 1000 people. Their rice crops had failed last year, or were destroyed.

These Internally Displaced People (IDP's) come into his camp to ask for food and, he says, "in our camp, we want to help, but we don’t even have enough to feed ourselves.”

A side note, something to keep in mind…  Rice is essential. It is what they survive on. It is not a side dish, slathered with butter and seasonings, or a filler for their meals...it is what sustains them. They do not eat three times a day, oftentimes not even two, and now these villages were running out of this staple entirely.

You could feel this man's pain, having to turn people away…

If you have read this blog thus far and are motivated to help these wonderful, deserving people…this is their immediate need…RICE! Please follow this link to find out more…and this link to donate. Your donation will go directly to these 1000 villagers who are facing at least 6 months (until the next rice harvest) of starvation. A generous donor has agreed to match any donations from the U.S., so you can double your money…and help to feed these families.

Oddny (that is who we were traveling with, Oddny Gumaer, co-founder of Partners, she is pretty amazing) asked the camp leader if we could meet some of the newest people in his camp, so that we could hear their stories, find out where they came from and learn more about what the situation was in the jungle of Burma. The next morning, our shelter was full of newcomers who shared with us their stories…

Tragic.

There are other stories…

In a nearby village, near the same time and place, a woman was walking on a path carrying her baby and holding the hand of her 5 year old daughter. She ran into soldiers from the Burma Army. She ran. They shot her 5 year old as she scooped her up and tried to carry her, but she was already dead. She had to leave her on the trail in order to keep running. They shot at her and her baby…but she kept running. She made it back to her village with a gunshot wound on her side, but the shot had gone into her baby, he died later.

In another village, just a couple of hours' walk away, the woman in this photo, her family, and the rest of her villagers were hiding in a hide site in the jungle when an attack came. The Burma Army soldiers found them and they ran. Her husband stayed behind so that he could get on the radio and warn the neighboring villages, to give them time to run. As he was sending a message on the radio the soldiers came and shot him. He died heroically, selflessly, to be certain, as did the other woman's husband, but what a tragic death in a senseless war.

I saw pictures of their bodies. I saw pictures of their destroyed villages.

The Burma Army is ruthless. After they have run everyone off or killed them, they burn everything in the village and poke holes into their cooking pots so that there is truly nothing for them to return to. They defecate and urinate in their rice storages, and, oftentimes plant land mines around the perimeter, so that if they try to return, they risk having legs blown up, or worse.

Such evil exists, I kept wondering? It was so hard to believe, but it was so real, sitting there with them on that bamboo floor, listening…feeling their heartache.

They each survived those attacks. Their children survived. But now what. They start over, once again, with nothing. They have been living this life; hungry, fighting for a voice, for freedom to raise their families, for peace…for nearly their entire lives. And they continue to endure.

I am not as strong as these women.

Westerners say "why don't they leave?"

Where would they go? Where can they go? They have no country to call home except for the one they are fighting for their lives in. So they can only survive. Not knowing where they will get food for their children. Not knowing where they will lay their head to rest. Not knowing when or if they will ever know peace.

Why is this going on, you ask? Well, I am afraid I cannot answer that, save evil, perhaps, and tyrannical control. There is no way to justify this internal war between the Burma Army and its own people. It is beyond reason. There are many articles you can find on the internet if you search simply "Burma conflict" but none that will validate this horror. Partners is a great place to start learning about this conflict as they have been actively aiding these people and fighting for human rights for over 15 years. They are also great resource for more information about the conflict.

Please, bear with me, as I tell you other stories, and share other pictures…it is important to understand…we are all interconnected on this planet…and all deserve for our voices to be heard.

And, if these stories or images move you to act…please let me know and I will be happy to tell you how and where to contribute.

Overwhelmed. Part 3.

Just over a year ago, the second week of January in 2010, the Burma Army invaded her village.

She was with her children when she first heard mortar fire, in the distance, coming from a neighboring village.  Soon afterward she began to hear people in her village yelling "Run!"  She didn't know where her husband was, he had been on patrol, looking out for the Burma Army.  She told us she wasn't ready to run, nothing in her home was ready…but she heard people in her village yelling and saw them running….and then she heard him, her husband, yelling also, "Run! Run! Run!"

And so she, and all of the villagers, ran, in different directions, with whatever they could grab and carry on their backs.  Women, children, men...all ran into the jungle to flee the Burma Army who were firing into their village.  She ran with 5 of her children.  She didn't know where her husband was, or one of her daughters, and she was very worried, she told us "she felt very empty," but she ran...and kept running until they couldn't run anymore.

It was quite awhile before they got word, the Burma Army had shot her husband. 

He had been in the jungle when he saw them coming and he tried to fire a shot into the air but his gun had jammed (they are using antiquated WWII weapons, if they have any at all). A neighboring village heard him and sent up the mortar fire to alert the other village. He ran back to his village, grabbed his wife's sewing machine and hid it, to try to save it from the incoming raid, and then ran back for rice. They killed him as he was trying to get to the rice storage. One of his daughters was with him, but they missed her as she ran into the jungle and found her mother.

She survived.  You can see that in her face, she is a survivor.  She has survived attacks like this since she was a little girl, in this nameless, unspoken war...just like her beautiful little daughter who she carried with her to see us. 

She wonders, I am sure, will my daughter live this war?  Will this be her whole life, running, being afraid?  I hope not.  And I hope to give her a voice.

There is more to say...