Copious Notes

"Unicoi County" by Mike Smith. It will be featured in an exhibit of his work at the Art Museum at the University of Kentucky.

"Milkless" (2004) -- Jahi Chikwendiu encountered this young mother in the Ouri Cassoni refugee camp just outside Baha'i, Chad. He recalls: "She's holding this baby under her veil. And through the veil, I can see the silhouette of her nursing the baby. So, I took a lot of photos before I approached her. But I'm sure she saw me taking pictures, she just went about her business. Then, when I finally approached her, she started to talk about her and her baby and nursing. That's when she tells me that she's nursing but she has no milk. And she thinks that she doesn't have any milk because of the trauma she experienced. Having her whole village bombed in the middle of the night. And having so many people killed in front of her face and having to scatter from her village." Descriptions and images courtesy of The Art Museum at the University of Kentucky. All images copyright The Washington Post.

"Sally Sami, a blogger who left her home country of Egypt (reflected)" (2007) -- Digital print Courtesy of the artist and The Washington Post In Egypt, there are growing restrictions on bloggers who receive threats of arrest for expressing and publishing what are considered anti-government and/or anti-Islam views. Another Egyptian blogger, Karim Amer, was jailed by an Egyptian court for four years for “insulting Islam.”

"Wall of Thorns" (2004) -- Hawa Oosman Adam rests in her temporary home of thorns and twigs where IDP's (internally displaced people) have made an impromptu camp on the outskirts of Nera, Sudan. Some families, including Hawa's, have had to move six times during the course of this 20-month-old conflict where African settlements are being attacked by the government with the help of militias known as the janjaweed.

"Darfur Sandstorm" (2004) -- On his first day in a vast refugee camp in Darfur, Chikwendiu was standing on a water truck at the edge of the camp to survey the scene when a dust storm rolled up. He recalls: "I started noticing people's attention go to an area behind the camp ... I didn't even know what it was. So maybe within a few minutes I figured I'd better get off of this truck. I take off running, and within seconds, wham! I just get hit by this wall of wind, and the sand is moving so hard that it's kind of slicing against you.I just remember looking for shelter. I saw these guys walking and I saw them jump in a tent. So I just jumped in the tent with them. They seemed OK with my being there, because we started giving each other the thumbs up.I was just sitting there waiting for ... hoping, praying that I wouldn't be impaled by something flying. So then, I got myself together. I had a few handkerchiefs that I wrapped around my camera and my face. I fashioned a camera hood out of my handkerchiefs. I started walking around, looking through my camera. Not even taking pictures. Because it was the only way that I could see. The sand was just slicing at my eyes. So, for a while after that, my vision was blurry where the sand had just scarred my eye lenses."