{"id":89,"date":"2010-06-15T19:35:46","date_gmt":"2010-06-16T02:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kairosphotos.com\/blog\/?p=89"},"modified":"2013-01-09T13:34:52","modified_gmt":"2013-01-09T20:34:52","slug":"zipping-through-the-arkansas-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kairosphotos.com\/blog\/zipping-through-the-arkansas-forest\/","title":{"rendered":"Zipping through the Arkansas forest"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m wrapping up two days of shooting in Arkansas, where the heat and humidity makes me wonder if people willingly choose to live here, or if they are forced to remain here by some ominous sub-plot of the infamous Whitewater conspiracy, serving as drones for the evil rulers of our dark age. I have no answer to that, but in a few hours I\u2019ll be back in Oregon, where you can move freely outdoors without sweating profusely. Of course, you\u2019ll get wet anyway from the rain, which itself is probably a neo-Malthusian plot by the environmental wackos. (I\u2019ve been watching Glenn Beck<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

While sweating in Arkansas, I was capturing images at Camp Aldersgate<\/a>, a camp for children with disabilities. This work will become an article for Response, the magazine of United Methodist Women, which owns the camp property.<\/p>\n

\"Counselor<\/a><\/p>\n

It was fascinating, humbling, and inspiring all at once. <\/p>\n

Barriers be gone. The camp tries to make summer camp for these kids as close to the summer camp experience of \u201cnormal\u201d children as possible. So they get to do all the cool stuff, from canoeing to shooting arrows to riding a zip line that have become the staple of summer camp culture across the United States. But for kids with serious disabilities, this \u201cnormal\u201d activity has huge implications.<\/p>\n

\"Counselor<\/a><\/p>\n

The camp\u2019s program director, Bill Faggard, told me: \u201cThey may be only kid in their school with spina bifida or in a wheel chair, so they\u2019ve always been \u2018that kid.\u2019 But when they come to camp here and they\u2019re with 40 other kids just like them, they\u2019re no longer \u2018that kid,\u2019 they\u2019re just one of many. And the barriers drop down. You see them flourish, being kids, having fun, joking, playing pranks. That\u2019s our goal here. With our staff it\u2019s important that they\u2019re always aware of the challenges and needs these kids have, but we do it in a unobtrusive way. It\u2019s not about the disability. It\u2019s no big deal. When the kids come here they come out of their shell. It\u2019s a magical place.\u201d<\/p>\n

To see a child whose body has been broken by disease be helped into a specially designed seat and hoisted into the forest canopy, and then slide screaming down a zip line through the trees . . . well, it\u2019s magic indeed. I\u2019m tempted to suggest it has a lot to do with faith\u2013resurrection comes to mind\u2013but I\u2019m sweating too much and in a hurry to find some air conditioning.<\/p>\n

\"Camper<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m wrapping up two days of shooting in Arkansas, where the heat and humidity makes me wonder if people willingly choose to live here, or if they are forced to remain here by some ominous sub-plot of the infamous Whitewater conspiracy, serving as drones for the evil rulers of our dark age. I have no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":90,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[41,34,46,48],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kairosphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kairosphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kairosphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kairosphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kairosphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"http:\/\/www.kairosphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1805,"href":"http:\/\/www.kairosphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions\/1805"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kairosphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kairosphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kairosphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kairosphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}