Photograph by Sebastiao Salgado
Joy!
Joy to me is the sun this week.
Joy is the rejuvinating feeling after a long run.
Joy is blasting Celine's music out the car windows.
Joy is being two days ahead of the homework schedule.
Joy is the smell of nailpolish in the summer breeze on the patio.
Joy is my twin sister and I laughing ourselves to sleep in our wooden bunkbeds.
Joy is my family.
This photograph expresses pure joy in itself. These weary refugees have been dropped off from a camp at Nyaminthuthin to go home. What is home? Many of these young children have grown up in refugee camps their entire lives. Home is that wonderful place mentioned in the stories of their parents. After this bus ride, many will continue their journey home by foot, trucks, and boat across the Zambeze River.
Mozambique is known for its "mobility." This country possesses more than 53 significant border posts linking many landlocked countries such as Zimbabwe and Zambia. This location creates an increasing flow of migration (IOM). The amount of displaced individuals and loneliness is very apparent in such a country as this one. However; some are lucky to experience the journey of traveling home to the joyful memories of the past. The bus ride is just the beginning.
You can never experience joy when you have not known sorrow. Refugees more than anyone know the true meaning of joy!
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I loved this post! Awesome job. I really love how optimistic it is. Most of the time our blogs, well at least mine, tend to be pretty depressing. Your post is a great reminder that despite what these people have been through, they are happy. They have families, homes, and lives, just like us, that they derive great joy from. Your focus on what brings you joy in the beginning also helps us relate to the refugees as people. The same things that bring us our deepest happiness also give them great joy. In some small way, we are all the same.
ReplyDeleteChelsea! Your post this week is so adorable and upbeat—I love it! I love how you focus on the positive; it makes me look at the photo in a different way, and it makes me happy for these refugees. After all they have suffered, they can finally return home to live in a familiar, safe place. I can imagine the joy and anticipation they must be feeling as they leave the refugee camps, which may be all they’ve ever known, and embark on this new adventure to live in a new home. I love how you close by saying you can’t experience joy without having felt sorrow. Certainly these refugees feel pure joy and gratitude now. Thank you Chelsea!
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