Photo essay 1: IDPs of a certain age



"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art....
It has no survival value;
rather it is one of those things that give value to survival." 
~C.S. Lewis

"Travelers who put their homesickness behind them, who explore a place thoroughly, may find upon returning home that they experience a new kind of homesickness, a benign kind, that which comes only to those who travel well: homesickness for a place once visited, even if only briefly -- the sense that only in the western Highlands of Scotland, the beaches of the Lesser Antilles, the markets of Marrakesh, did some deep and very real part of their soul feel completely and exhilaratingly at home." W. D. Wetherell
A friend of mine recently posted this quote on her blog, and I think that it perfectly sums up something the Germans call, "fernweh". That is the oppowite of homesickess, its yearning for the far away. I suspect that when I'm an old lady, I will sometimes look up from what I'm doing and see these people again in my mind. I will have a longing to be at home with them once more. The following blog posts include photos taken at a seed fair for Internally Displaced People (IDPs) who have had to flee their homes, land and livelihoods to get away from the LRA.   

A single conversation with a wise man
is better than ten years of study. 
~Chinese Proverb

 

Adopt the pace of nature: 
her secret is patience. 
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

 


It takes a long time to become young.  ~Pablo Picasso

 

  



Some people, no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty
- they merely move it from their faces into their hearts. 
~Martin Buxbaum

  

"The age of a woman doesn't mean anything.
The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson



In the central place of every heart there is a recording chamber.  So long as it receives a message of beauty, hope, cheer, and courage - so long are you young.  When the wires are all down and our heart is covered with the snow of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and only then, are you grown old.  ~Douglas MacArthur