The Look [Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala]

I suppose it is the fear of rejection and feelings of abandonment that have so plagued much of my adult life that draw me time and again to photos like this. Kids displaced, perhaps without parents, certainly with no home other than their tiny tent in a U.N. refugee camp. Bellies bloated, not from overeating, but undereating. Unkempt hair, dirty, dried mucous covered faces, and the look.

They look at nothing, their hollow eyes wide open pathways leading to empty, lonely places. They have so little. They know so little. Their lives are different than ours. Their’s are simpler.

They live in a small tent camp at the base of the mountains whose slopes yielded way to floods of mud that buried their home, destroyed their village, eternally covered many of their friends and family. They never had much. Now they have virtually nothing. They have memories, yet only those of the mudslide, all others buried along with everything else never to be seen again.

They were kids. Before the mudslides ended a few years had been added to their lives. They heard, saw, felt, smelled, touched, even tasted the muddy aging elixir. They are no longer young.

The look is one deprived of hope, subconsciously hardened by resignation. This is their lot, their feet held firmly in this place by the drying of the mud all around them. The look hasn’t changed much since the mud came down. The look won't change much for years to come, perhaps never.