Life’s best moments often seem to be tucked deep inside the ordinary ho-hum minutes of our days. On Tuesday, the boys and I gave our turtle Popcorn a bath. His name alone makes me smile- one day Ben went out looking for some popcorn (which he couldn’t find anywhere in town) and came back with …
Have you tasted your coffee before? “Yes. It’s disgusting. It tastes like medicine!” What do you hope for your children? “That someday they will have a life outside of poverty.” It’s time for a woman’s voice to echo through this portrait series again. Elizabeth is one of the first farmers I remember meeting. She was …
Development begins by picking up a hoe. Without working these fields, we will never move forward. What has made you the happiest in this life? Being taught by my father how to farm. It is what has sustained me. Who is your role model in life? My grandfather. When he left this earth he …
Have you ever tasted coffee? “Today was the first time.” What did you think? “It is very bitter- but I’m glad you see the value in it!” -Evariste During harvest, Evariste walks his coffee cherries 5 kilometers from his home on Musumba hill to our washing station. It’s a long uphill walk to the station. We …
“I tell my children to work hard because it is how we will fight the poverty. My children bring me the most happiness- I have seven of them and they are all farmers too.” Ninasi’s role model is the person who taught him how to farm. In Burundi, subsistence farming is how most of the …
Growing Coffee is like raising a child. You have to wash them, nurture them, and look after them. We spent part of a Saturday at Dorothy’s house on Gaharo hill. The minute she saw our baby Ari she scooped her up and led our whole family into her home. The dirt floors were cleanly swept …
War continues to pulse it’s reaching veins through lives and lands long after the guns stop ringing. For Espéciose, that means being the sole provider for her 6 children in one of the most poverty stricken nations on earth. Her husband was killed in the Burundian civil war that ended in 2006 and she has …
CHARLES Gahaga Hill Charles asked us what all the fuss what about, “Why is the white lady (muzungu) here with all her cameras?” he said. I told him the pictures were for me. A project I could not stop shooting, a thing I could not stop doing. Telling his story, I told him, was important …
When Tharcis (Tar-cease) Ntahonkuriye wandered into my makeshift studio space in the coffee hills, this 76 year old mostly toothless coffee farmer won me over instantly.
This is Rosato and he’s a Burundi coffee farmer…When he looked into my camera lens, I felt like I saw his entire soul just hanging out in the open. Like many Burundians, Rosato is not sure how old he is. He thinks that he might be 85. Rosato is one of the founding members of …
