27 July 2020
Dearest Fazal,
Marabou stork flying above Gabbra tribal matriarch with women and children, Ethiopian Refugee Camp, Walda, Kenya, 1993
Sometimes, my friend, your captions reach me as poems. This is one of them. Imagine a stork, this large gangly prehistoric-speaking bird, rendered as the tiniest of dots above the matriarch who sits front and center in the body of the triptych. Had it not been for you mentioning the marabou stork, I never would have seen the “Mother-Bird” that brings forth babies. Sixty-four women and children appear in the wings of the triptych on either side of the center panel, beautiful manifestations of Gabbra lineage and legacy.
Imagine.
I can’t help but recall these words: “Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.”
What does celebrated mean in the faces of women in a refugee camp?
What does celebrated mean within the ranks of the poor?
What does celebrated mean in times of famine and thirst?
To be celebrated means to be acknowledged and honored. This gathering of women and children tied to the matrilineal cord of the Gabbra is both an acknowledgement and honoring that they live, they belong, and they will continue. You made a picture, and in so doing, the Gabbra matriarch and her progeny are celebrated, remembered, not forgotten—seen.
One of the things Rwandan women, Kenyan women, and Ethiopian women have shown me is how to celebrate in the midst of the struggles. To dance, to sing, to hear the ululations of women when someone has died or when a mother and her newborn return home is a moment celebrated in the cycle of life. In these moments when feet meet the earth and the voices of women touch stars the universe is realigned through the lament and laughter of women—even as they mourn, even as they grieve, even as the strength of their character carries the community forward.
This full range of experience born out of their bodies does not lie. You see it in their eyes, their faces, how some faces tilt to the side, some stare straight ahead, other faces are hidden, but what is never hidden is the nobility of survival. You can see the power of their arms olded or hands clasped, or arms and hands brought down to their sides; the way they hold their babies on their hips or wrapped around them, front and back. You see the toll and toil of their lives, alongside their dignity earned that is theirs alone.
Even though this photograph is black and white, Fazal, the vibrancy of colors amid the bold patterns and forms reflected in each woman’s chosen kitanga registers as a rainbow spanning across these panels. Each woven shawl is an embrace of necessity and beauty.
From afar, I cannot distinguish birdsong from women’s songs rising from the generations like heat waves shimmering in the desert.
What does celebrated mean in a global pandemic?
I think of the widows and mothers and daughters and sisters and lovers mourning their dead, their beloveds, taken during this planetary plight of sickness. Perhaps what we need to properly acknowledge and honor the 665,581 individuals who have died from Covid-19 is a unified ululation of women wailing and howling together, a collective keening that will travel on the winds and be heard around the world.
Love,
Terry