One face

You go to Africa and images are burned into your mind. These are things you can't erase, no matter how uncomfortable, no matter the effort. Like the disabled man crawling on his hands and knees through a street choked with garbage, dust and goat dung in a Tanzanian village. No one looked at him, much less helped. That is part of the beauty and heartache of Africa. You see life as it is. There are no filters. No places to hide. Reality is thrust at you. You can either leave or deal with it. There is no middle ground.

But for every moment of heartache, there is one of beauty. Like this child in the foothills of Mount Meru on a day of brilliant sunshine with looks you'd see on the face of any child around the world. There are also questions, not written on the child's face, but rather floating through my mind when I look at the photos. What do the next 10 or 20 years hold for the child, growing up in one of the poorest areas of one of the world's poorest countries? What reality will be thrust the child's way? Could I look at this one face in 10 or 20 years and see beauty or be overwhelmed by heartache?