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Looking back at 2018

We like to look back. When I photograph someone walking past me, I try to stay focused on them as they walk away. After a moment or two, most often they will turn and look back. Like this woman in a refugee camp in Maban, South Sudan, who I photographed in May. That look back is worth waiting for.

Women carry water in the Kaya Refugee Camp in Maban County, South Sudan. The camp shelters thousands of refugees from the Blue Nile region of Sudan, and Jesuit Refugee Service, with support from Misean Cara, provides educational and psycho-social services to both refugees and the host community. (Paul Jeffrey)

As 2018 comes to an end, let’s take a look back at some of where I’ve been this year, using images to trace my wanderings.

 

At the beginning of the year, I spent some time in the Philippines, documenting the work of people like Maria Jessica Cicillo.

Deaconess Maria Jessica Cicillo walks with a group of children in Mt. Heights, Philippines, where she works as a Christian educator for a nearby United Methodist Church. She is a graduate of Harris Memorial College. (Paul Jeffrey)

She’s a deaconess who works with children for a church in Mt. Heights. I visited her while documenting the work of graduates of Harris Memorial College, which is supported by United Methodist Women. It does an excellent job of turning out women who are committed to working for change in their communities. Women like Lodema Dela Cruz Doroteo, the first native teacher in her indigenous village of Santa Ines.

Teacher Lodema Dela Cruz Doroteo teaches children in a class in Santa Ines, an indigenous village in the Philippines. A graduate of Harris Memorial College, where she benefited from a scholarship from United Methodist Women, she is the first indigenous school teacher in her village. (Paul Jeffrey)

 

I also documented some of the work of the Kapatiran-Kaunlaran Foundation (thankfully also known simply as KKFI). It’s also supported by UMW. At a KKFI preschool in Pulilan, a village in Bulacan, a girl shows off her class work–the letter N covered with glued-on cotton balls.

A girl shows off her class work--the letter N covered with glued-on cotton balls--in a preschool sponsored by the Kapatiran-Kaunlaran Foundation (KKFI) in Pulilan, a village in Bulacan, Philippines. KKFI is supported by United Methodist Women. (Paul Jeffrey)

 

And here’s Larren Jo “LJ” Bacilio, a teacher in KKFI’s Alternative Learning System in the Tondo neighborhood of Manila, one of the sprawling city’s poorest neighborhoods. It’s a program for dropouts and other kids who just didn’t fit in the regular school system.

Larren Jo "LJ" Bacilio, a teacher in the Alternative Learning System of the Kapatiran-Kaunlaran Foundation (KKFI), walks with some of his students in the Tondo neighborhood of Manila, Philippines. KKFI is supported by United Methodist Women. (Paul Jeffrey)

At times I’ve been known to press that other button on my cameras, that one that records video, and while in Manila I did a short video around the visit of Harriet Olson, the CEO of United Methodist Women. It includes some footage from those two programs as well as a KKFI project with families that live in the Manila North Cemetery. 

 

United Methodist Women also supports the Mary Johnston Hospital in Manila, so I spent some time there, where nurse Jazmine Gino-Gino checks the flow on an IV she just inserted in the hand of ten-month old Johan in the emergency room. Holding the boy down is nurse Brian Grape Maningding, while his mother, Mirakel Guarin, provides comfort.

Nurse Jazmine Gino-Gino (right) checks the flow on an IV she just inserted in the hand of ten-month old Johan in the emergency room of the Mary Johnston Hospital in Manila, Philippines. Holding the boy down is Nurse Brian Grape Maningding. Johan's mother, Mirakel Guarin, comforts the boy. The hospital is supported by United Methodist Women. (Paul Jeffrey)

The hospital also has a nursing school, and the students spend several hours each week providing health education and wellness care in a poor neighborhood. Here’s nursing student Ella Manio helping Nelda Balaza care for her 1-year old son Ibo during a home visit. Five-year old Akim looks on.

Ella Manio, a student in the Mary Johnston College of Nursing in Manila, helps Nelda Balaza care for her 1-year old son Ibo during a visit to the family's home in the Parola neighborhood of Manila's Tondo section. Five-year old Akim looks on. Manio and other nursing students regularly visit the neighborhood to do health education and monitor the health of residents. The students also run a feeding program for neighborhood children. The nursing school is supported by United Methodist Women. (Paul Jeffrey)

 

Another nursing student, Nirish Camporedondo, here helps 5-year old Jean Jamilla Tulauan (center) and her 4-year old sister Jewell Rae hear their heartbeats during a visit to the girls’ home.

Nirish Camporedondo, a student in the Mary Johnston College of Nursing in Manila, helps 5-year old Jean Jamilla Tulauan (center) and her 4-year old sister Jewell Rae hear their heartbeats during a visit to the girls' home in the Parola neighborhood of Manila's Tondo section. Camporedondo and other nursing students regularly visit the neighborhood to do health education and monitor the health of residents. The students also run a feeding program for neighborhood children. The nursing school is supported by United Methodist Women. (Paul Jeffrey)

 

The nursing school’s outreach program also includes a feeding program for neighborhood children. As the kids eat, the students talk with them and their parents about basic health care issues. Here’s 8-year old Lance Macapanas (right) teasing his 6-year old friend Luigi as they enjoy a meal. 

Eight-year old Lance Macapanas (right) teases his 6-year old friend Luigi as they enjoy a meal in the United Methodist Church in the Parola neighborhood of Tondo, a poor section of Maniila, Philippines. Nursing students from the Mary Johnston College of Nursing regularly visit the neighborhood to do health education and monitor the health of residents, at the same time running a feeding program for neighborhood children. The nursing school is supported by United Methodist Women. (Paul Jeffrey)

 

During 2018 I photographed several demonstrations back in the U.S. I was in San Francisco in March, for example, when tens of thousands of people filled the streets to demand sensible gun safety regulations in the March For Our Lives, including this woman, whose sign presages what came to pass eight months later when gun safety advocates fared well in national midterm elections.

A woman demonstrates against gun violence in the March For Our Lives in San Francisco, California, March 24, 2018. (Paul Jeffrey)

 

There were also demonstrations against the Trump administration’s racist and xenophobic immigration policies, such as this one outside a federal detention center in Sheridan, Oregon.

Children participate in a rally outside a federal detention center in Sheridan, Oregon. Participants protested the Trump administration's policy of separating parents from their children at the U.S.-Mexico border. (Paul Jeffrey)

 

Among those leading the demonstration was an old friend from when I lived in Honduras. Jorge Rodriguez is now a United Methodist pastor outside Portland.

The Rev. Jorge Rodriguez, a United Methodist pastor, leads participants in song at a rally outside a federal detention center in Sheridan, Oregon. Participants protested the Trump administration's policy of separating parents from their children at the U.S.-Mexico border. (Paul Jeffrey)

 

Similar protests took place outside the federal detention center in Seatac, just south of Seattle. Here’s a photo of my friend Mary Kohlstaedt Huycke, a United Methodist district superintendent, praying so hard she seems to be bending the fence around the prison.

The Rev. Mary Kohlstaedt Huycke prays at the fence surrounding the Federal Detention Center in Seatac, Washington, during a June 24 prayer vigil in support of immigrant parents inside the prison who've been separated from their children. Huycke is district superintendent of the Seven Rivers District of the United Methodist Church. (Paul Jeffrey)

 

And here’s Mona Rentz of Beaverton, Oregon, waving at passing cars as she holds a sign outside the field office of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Portland. The office was blockaded by protestors for several days, successfully closing the office for a while until the feds moved in to tear down the barricades and arrest a bunch of people.

Portland, Oregon, USA. 21 June, 2018. Mona Rentz of Beaverton, Oregon, holds a sign outside the field office of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Portland, Oregon. The office was blockaded by protestors for several days before stopping operations on June 20. Protestors are objecting to the separation of families detained while seeking asylum on the U.S.-Mexico border. (Paul Jeffrey)

 

I also photographed the International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam, a massive gathering that attracts almost 20,000 people from around the globe. Sandwiched between countless academic presentations about arcane aspects of the virus were scores of protests. One of my favorite was a group of Taiwanese sex workers who dressed as police officers and patrolled the Global Village area of the conference asking people if they had a condom. If they did, they placed them temporarily “under arrest.” (If they didn’t have a condom the women gave them one from a big bag marked “evidence.”) The women said Taiwan’s police will use such a thin pretext as possession of a condom to charge women with a crime. It’s typical, they say, of the criminalization of sex work around the world, something that’s complicating the struggle against HIV and AIDS.

At the 2018 International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam, a group of Taiwanese sex workers, dressed as police officers, patrols the Global Village asking people if they have a condom. If they do, they place them temporarily “under arrest.” (If they don’t have a condom they’ll give you one from a big bag marked “evidence.”) The women say that Taiwan’s police will use such a thin pretext as possession of a condom to charge women with a crime. It’s typical, they say, of the criminalization of sex work around the world, something that’s complicating the struggle against HIV and AIDS. (Paul Jeffrey)

 

Early in the year I spent a week in Hong Kong to report on the situation of some 370,000 foreign domestic worker, almost all women. Mostly from the Philippines and Indonesia, the workers make up five percent of Hong Kong’s population yet often face harrowing working conditions and outright violations of their basic rights as human beings. Here’s a worker from the Philippines praying by an outdoor altar at St Joseph’s Catholic Church in Hong Kong. 

A migrant domestic worker from the Philippines prays by an outdoor altar at St Joseph's Catholic Church in Hong Kong. Some 370,000 foreign domestic workers live in Hong Kong, about five percent of the population. Most are women from the Philippines and Indonesia. (Paul Jeffrey)

 

Workers aren’t just praying, however. They’re fighting back against abuse and injustice. I wrote about their struggles for an article soon to be published in response, the magazine of United Methodist Women, which has long supported a couple of key Hong Kong organizations that support the women with advocacy and emergency shelter. While the stories of mistreatment are heart-rending (I had a box of tissues beside me whenever I interviewed women in a shelter), there’s also a feisty spirit that inspires the workers’ efforts to organize to defend their rights, something that takes many forms, including dance. Here are Filipina domestic workers dancing on Chater Road, where tens of thousands of them gather every Sunday, their only day off. Much of the dancing is in support of One Billion Rising, a global campaign against violence against women.

Filipina domestic workers in Hong Kong dance on Chater Road, where tens of thousands of them gather every Sunday, their only day off. Much of the dancing is in support of One Billion Rising, a global campaign against violence against women. Some 370,000 foreign domestic workers live in Hong Kong, about five percent of the population. Most are women from the Philippines and Indonesia. (Paul Jeffrey)

 

I should note that in almost all of my work, I can only tell the story if I can get to the story, and that usually means someone on the ground who helps me understand what’s happening, and who introduces me to whoever I need to meet. On this trip that role was filled aptly by Sushi Au, a United Methodist Global Mission Fellow in Hong Kong. Here she is in her role as a teacher at Bethune House, a shelter for workers who have been abused by their employers.

Sushi Au, a United Methodist Global Mission Fellow who works with migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong, teaches English to women staying in Bethune House, a shelter for workers who have been abused by their employers. Some 370,000 foreign domestic workers live in Hong Kong, about five percent of the population. Most are women from the Philippines and Indonesia. (Paul Jeffrey)

For the record, Sushi has since moved to San Francisco where she works at the Waller Center, following Maggie Lohmeyer, a global mission fellow who I also visited this year in order to shoot some video footage. It’s one of two short videos about GMFs where I provided the raw material. Here’s the one about Maggie. And here’s another one about Micah Pascual, a Filipina serving in Uruguay.

 

Once again I spent several weeks this year in troubled South Sudan, documenting a bit of what the church is doing in that war-torn country. About one-third of the country’s population is displaced, including Rene Abdallah (left) and Anjima Fahal who here struggle to keep water out of their shelter during a heavy rainstorm in a displaced persons camp at the Holy Family Catholic Church in Wau. The church has provided food, shelter material, and health care, and the presence of clergy and religious has fostered a sense of relative safety for the families who first occupied these church grounds when fighting enveloped the city in 2016.

Rene Abdallah (left) and Anjima Fahal struggle to keep water out of their shelter during a heavy rainstorm in a displaced persons camp at the Holy Family Catholic Church in Wau, South Sudan. The church has provided food, shelter material, and health care, and the presence of clergy and religious has fostered a sense of relative safety for the families who first occupied the church grounds when fighting enveloped the city in 2016. (Paul Jeffrey)

 

The violence has spread into corners of the country not affected by earlier fighting, such as the Equatoria region, where 2-year old Abrahim Lino carries mangoes in a camp for the displaced that has formed around the Our Lady of Assumption Catholic Church in Riimenze. The boy’s father, who worked on a church-run farm, was detained, beaten and burned to death by soldiers in late 2016.

Abrahim Lino, a 2-year old boy displaced by armed conflict, carries mangoes in a camp for the displaced that has formed around the Our Lady of Assumption Catholic Church in Riimenze, South Sudan. The boy's father, who worked on a church-run farm, was detained, beaten and burned to death by soldiers in late 2016. (Paul Jeffrey)

 

At a church-run school outside Rumbek, kids from the neighborhood left hungry by a pernicious double whammy of conflict and climate change benefit from a feeding program.

A child eats in an emergency feeding program for malnourished children at the Loreto Girls School in Rumbek, South Sudan. The school, run by the Institute for the Blessed Virgin Mary--the Loreto Sisters--of Ireland, has opened its compound to hundreds of nearby villagers facing hunger because of ongoing conflict and climate change. (Paul Jeffrey)

 

It would be inaccurate to suggest that hunger and suffering are the only images that represent South Sudan today. It’s also important to show how ordinary people work hard to keep it all together, to maintain some semblance of normalcy in an often abnormal world. For example, here are girls coming to that same school, getting a last minute uniform adjustment from their mother. I like this photo precisely because of how universally ordinary it is.

A mother gets her daughters ready in the morning to go to the Loreto Primary School in Rumbek, South Sudan. While focused on educating girls from throughout the war-torn country, the school, run by the Institute for the Blessed Virgin Mary--the Loreto Sisters--of Ireland, also educates children from nearby communities. (Paul Jeffrey)

 

Despite it’s own woes, South Sudan ironically hosts refugees from other countries, such as these two girls in a school in Maban, where more than 130,000 refugees from armed conflict in the Blue Nile region of neighboring Sudan have found a temporary home in four camps.

Girls laugh as they hold chalkboard tablets in a primary school in Bunj, South Sudan, sponsored by Jesuit Relief Service. The community is host to more than 130,000 refugees from the Blue Nile region of Sudan, and JRS provides educational and psycho-social services to both refugees and the host community. (Paul Jeffrey)

During my visit to the refugee camps at Maban, I was hosted by Jesuit Refugee Service, which carries out a variety of work there. Some video that I shot of their work was edited into a promotional video by an Irish agency that funds their work in Maban.

 

I also spent ten days on that trip visiting the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. It wasn’t easy to get there. After two years of negotiations, I flew on a United Nations plane from Juba, the capital of South Sudan, to the refugee camp at Yida, a horrifically hot and dusty settlement on the border between South Sudan and Sudan. From there it’s a buttocks-numbing eight-hour ride through the bush along a corridor that rebels patrol to prevent attacks by the Sudanese military. In lieu of a visa, I had a travel permit from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army-North. Although technically I was inside Sudan, I had no permission from the central government in Khartoum, which has refused to issue me another visa since I last covered their war in Darfur in 2007.

Children walking in Kauda, a village in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. The area is controlled by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North, and frequently attacked by the military of Sudan. The Catholic Church sponsors schools and health care facilities throughout the war-torn region. (Paul Jeffrey)

 

It’s difficult to find a more isolated region than the Nuba Montains, where culturally African people essentially live under siege by the culturally Arab government in Khartoum. Although the bombings that characterized life in the Nuba for years have temporarily halted, this scene I found in the Mother of Mercy Hospital in Gidel, the only major hospital in the region, hints at the legacy of those bombings.

Legs in the prosthetics department of the Mother of Mercy Hospital in Gidel, a village in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. The area is controlled by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North, and frequently attacked by the military of Sudan. The Catholic hospital is the only referral hospital in the war-torn area, and has dealt with many amputations of people injured by bombs, artillery, and gunshot wounds. (Paul Jeffrey)

 

The Nuba have long suffered from political neglect by the international community. United Nations agencies, ultimately responsible to national governments, stay away, fearing the wrath of Omar al-Bashir, the indicted war criminal who heads the Islamist government in Khartoum. Most aid groups won’t enter, at least not publicly, afraid that if they upset Khartoum they’ll get kicked out of Darfur, where their presence keeps people alive who’ve been displaced for well over a decade. So the Nuba are on their own.

Except for the church. During the last three decades of war, the church has maintained its presence in the Nuba Mountains, providing pastoral accompaniment, education, and health care, encouraging hope while the rest of the world looked away. I wrote seven articles about the church’s role amid the many challenges faced by the Nuba. You can find links to them in a blog post that I wrote about the visit.

Here’s a girl in a church-run school in Lugi, celebrating the letter G.

A girl holds a sign for the letter "G" during a class in the Catholic Church-sponsored St. Daniel Comboni Primary School in Lugi, a village in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. The area is controlled by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North, and frequently attacked by the military of Sudan. The church has sponsored schools and health care facilities throughout the war-torn region. (Paul Jeffrey)

And here’s nurse Isaac Langurry with a young girl wrestling with partial blindness in the pediatric ward of the Mother of Mercy Hospital, which, not surprisingly given its name, is also church-sponsored. Isaac is a graduate of the Catholic Health Training Institute in Wau, South Sudan, which is run by Solidarity with South Sudan.

Nurse Isaac Langurry interacts with a young girl wrestling with blindness in the pediatric ward of the Mother of Mercy Hospital in Gidel, a village in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. The area is controlled by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North, and frequently attacked by the military of Sudan. The Catholic hospital is the only referral hospital in the war-torn area. Langurry is a 2017 graduate of the Catholic Health Training Institute, a school in Wau, South Sudan, sponsored by Solidarity with South Sudan. (Paul Jeffrey)

 

Getting toward the end of the year, I traveled to Sri Lanka, where I met people like Annaletchumi Velayutham and her husband Velayutham Sinnaih. They were displaced during Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war, and when they moved back home to their village of Karadianaru after the war, a church group loaned them two goats. Three years later, they have over 30, and they’ve sold several goats to finance the expansion of their simple house and buy better seeds for their farm fields. They’ve also paid the loan off. Here they are now with two of their youngins.

 

And here’s Thillaiaml Nallaperumal, another war survivor, grinning after getting a microcredit loan from a church group for the equivalent of $500. She’s going to use it to grow peanuts this coming season.

 

I’m still editing material from the trip, part of which focused on work with war widows supported by United Methodist Women.

 

From Sri Lanka I went to India, where I worked on several projects, including some documentation at Isabela Thoburn College in Lucknow, where I captured these two students in a chemistry class.

 

Late in November I traveled to Rome for a couple of days, where I shared a visual presentation for the tenth anniversary of Solidarity with South Sudan, an international network of Catholic groups providing training of teachers, health workers and pastoral agents in the African nation.

 

From there I went to Iraq for a few days. Turns out I didn’t have the right visa to go where I needed to go (that’s a long story), but I found a very capable fixer who schmoozed her way through government and militia checkpoints in order to get me places, notwithstanding one unpleasant experience when we were detained for a while at a checkpoint run by a particularly recalcitrant faction of the Shia militias that control much of the area around Mosul.

I was last in Mosul at the beginning of 2017, when the Iraqi military captured the eastern part of the city from ISIS. (See my annual review from a year ago.) Since then, months of ground combat and airstrikes succeeded in driving ISIS from the west of the city, but at a terrible cost.

Here’s Qasim Yahia Ali walking along a rainy street in the old city of Mosul on the way to the ruins of his house, where he showed me the leg of an ISIS fighter whose body is still trapped in the rubble. Qasim was quite a character. During control of Mosul by the Islamic State, he earned money as a bootlegger–a vocation heavily punished by the jihadis. In the wake of the war, the 75-year old man has moved back into the ruins of the old city.

Qasim Yahia Ali, 75, walks along a rainy street in the old city of Mosul, Iraq. His house was destroyed during the 2017 Battle of Mosul, which led to the defeat of the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS. During control of the city by the Islamic State, he earned money by making clandestine liquor. In the wake of the war, he has moved back into the old city and lives in the ruins. (Paul Jeffrey)

 

Thousands of people have not moved back to Mosul and remain living in diplaced camps or with relatives, simply because they have nothing to move back to. But those who have returned are working hard at reestablishing normalcy, as reflected by these girls on their way to school.

Girls navigate a muddy street as they make their way to school amid the rubble of the Old City of Mosul, Iraq, which was devastated during the 2017 Battle of Mosul, which led to the defeat of the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS. During control of the city by the Islamic State, most children didn't attend school. (Paul Jeffrey)

 

For many of the Yazidis who suffered the worst of the ISIS campaign, there’s no going home. Although ISIS was militarily defeated in 2017, Yazidis who escaped the attempt at genocide in Sinjar say it’s still not safe to return home. Nor do they have sufficient resources to rebuild their homes. So they linger in displacement camps. Here are girls in a school inside a camp for 600 displaced Yazidi families at Dawodiya in Iraq’s Kurdistan region. 

Yazidi girls in school in a camp for internally displaced persons at Dawodiya in Iraq's Kurdistan region. More than 600 Yazidi families living in the camp escaped from their communities in the Sinjar region during the attempted genocide by the Islamic State group. Although ISIS was militarily defeated in 2017, camp residents say it's still not safe to return home, nor do they have sufficient resources to rebuild their homes. The Lutheran World Federation, a member of the ACT Alliance, provides water, sanitation, garbage collection, and psycho-social support for the families in the camp. (Paul Jeffrey)

 

In Dawodiya, as everywhere I encounter the suffering poor, I was welcomed with smiles and open arms. If I asked to interview someone, they would often accept only if I first agreed to come in for tea. Here’s Gole Yaqoub making tea for me while her mother-in-law, Adlane Saido, holds Yaqoub’s 9-months old child Zylan in their small shelter. The poor turn genuine hospitality into a gift I receive with awe and gratitude.

Gole Yaqoub makes tea while her mother-in-law, Adlane Saido, holds Yaqoub's 9-months old child Zylan in a camp for internally displaced Yazidis at Dawodiya in Iraq's Kurdistan region. More than 600 Yazidi families living in the camp escaped from their communities in the Sinjar region during the attempted genocide by the Islamic State group. Although ISIS was militarily defeated in 2017, camp residents say it's still not safe for them to return home, nor do they have sufficient resources to rebuild their homes. The Lutheran World Federation, a member of the ACT Alliance, provides water, sanitation, garbage collection, and psycho-social support for the families in the camp. (Paul Jeffrey)

 

As we end the year celebrating the Christmas season, I’m reminded once again of how Jesus was born into just such a setting. As Thomas Merton wrote in Raids on the Unspeakable, “Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ has come uninvited. But because he cannot be at home in it, because he is out of place in it, and yet he must be in it, his place is with those others who do not belong, who are rejected by power, because they are regarded as weak, those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, tortured, exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world.”

Those words take flesh today in so many places around the world, including among the Yazidi families living in the Dawodiya camp, where Selvana Mahmad holds her son Ajan Amjad, born this November. May this coming year be a time for us to practice better hospitality, opening our homes and lives to those born and living in exile and at the margins of our community, those for whom there is no room.

Selvana Mahmad holds her son Ajan Amjad in a clinic in a camp for internally displaced persons at Dawodiya in Iraq's Kurdistan region. More than 600 Yazidi families living in the camp escaped from their communities in the Sinjar region during the attempted genocide by the Islamic State group. Although ISIS was militarily defeated in 2017, camp residents say it's still not safe to return home, nor do they have sufficient resources to rebuild their homes. The clinic is run by Saint Elizabeth University's Project for Iraq in Need (STEP-IN), a Slovakia-based organization supported by Caritas and other groups. Caritas agencies help provide health care and other services in the camp. (Paul Jeffrey)

 

 

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