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May 27, 2008

I was directing a television commercial in Lesotho, Southern Africa a number of years ago. During my "down" time I photographed the scenery on remote mountain roads around where we were shooting the commercial.

Every time we stopped to take a picture local kids came rushing out of the scrub, yelling "Sweets, sweets."

On my outings I carried a big bag of goodies to hand out to the kids as a treat, including candy and fruit. I always took "stuff" to give the kids because they are so poor and impoverished and it just broke my heart to see their tear-stained little faces.

At one particular stop I photographed almost ten kids. They were from a small village nearby and had chased the car for a half a mile before I noticed them yelling and waving from the cloud of dust behind the vehicle.

After handing out a bunch of candy and some bread and fruit, (and most of the money I had on me, because I felt so bad for these little ones) I sat on the hood of the car and reloaded my camera with a new roll of film.

A movement from a huge thorn tree just off the road caught my eye.

I looked over and noticed a young girl peering out from behind the tree. When she realized I had spotted her, she quickly ducked back behind the tree.

"Tell her to come and get some goodies," I said to the guide who was driving me around.

He called her over, but she stayed behind the tree.

I held up the candy for her.

She didn't budge.

I slowly got off the hood of the car and walked over to the tree holding out the bag. The guide walked with me.

I extended my hand to the girl and she reached around the tree and without showing her face took a handful of sweets.

"Don't be afraid," I said.

The guide translated.

The girl spoke back from behind the tree.

"She says she is afraid you will be scared of her," said the guide.

"Why should I be scared of her?" I asked.

The guide relayed the question.

The girl answered.

"She says you will be afraid because she is ugly," replied the guide.

"That's ridiculous." I said. "Tell her I'll show her that she's not ugly."

The guide spoke to the girl and after a lot of banter and coaching her talked her out from behind the tree.

I caught my breath as the girl came into full view. I could not help staring at her.

She was beautiful.

She had the most amazing hazel eyes.

"Ah ha!" said the guide. "She is hiding because of her eyes. Very few African have those colors in their eyes. I'm sure the witch doctors think she is evil and will bring people bad luck. That's probably why she is not playing with the other kids."

The guide spoke to her again.

She replied without looking at him.

The elders have kicked her out of the village.," he said. "They won't let her come near the huts. She lives in the back where the chickens sleep," he said.

"That's so sad," I said.

"We are very superstitious people,' said the guide, grinning. "Things like that are considered a sign from the gods."

"Tell her I want to show her something beautiful," I said.

The guide passed on my words.

The girl looked over at me shyly. Then the guide said something and she smiled.

"What did you say to her?" I asked the guide.

"I told her you wanted to show her something beautiful." He replied. "Then I told her not to worry because the only ugly thing around here was you, not her, because you are so white."

The guide and I burst into laughter.

"Am I really ugly?" I asked him.

"A little," he replied.

We both laughed again and this seemed to put the girl at ease.

I took out my Polaroid camera and positioned myself in front of the girl.

She leaned forward and peered closely at the strange looking object in my hand.
I took the picture.

The Polaroid picture popped out of the camera and I waved it gently in the African heat to let it dry.

After it had developed fully, I showed it to the girl.

"You are beautiful," I said to her.

The guide translated.

I handed her the picture.

I will never forget the look on her face. She held the picture like it was the most delicate thing she had ever handled in her life.

She stared at if for the longest time.

"Is this me?" she asked the guide.

He nodded.

The little girl glanced up and said something.

The guide looked like he was about to cry.

"What did she say?"

"She said," he replied, softly. "You are right. I AM beautiful."

Posted by trevor at 04:22 PM | Comments (0)

May 20, 2008

Posted by trevor at 01:22 PM | Comments (0)

May 19, 2008

A while back I had the privilege of enjoying an inspiring dinner with Horton Foote. (Pulitzer prize winning playwright and two-time Oscar winning screenwriter and producer. He wrote screenplays for Tender Mercies, Driving Miss Daisy and To Kill A Mockingbird, among many others.)

Horton Foote is one of the most poised, calm, warm and gentle people I have ever met. For a man of his stature, he is so down-to-earth and real. You would never know that he is one of the most respected playwright’s in the world. He counts people like the late Arthur Miller, Athol Fugard, Gregory Peck and Bruce Beresford as close friends. He travels in circles very few people in this world will ever travel, yet he had the time to ask me about my writing. At one stage he put his arm around me (see picture) and told me that he was inspired by what I was doing. (I just about had a thrombosis on the spot.)

After dinner I sat with Mr. Foote and we had a wonderful chat about inspiration and courting muses. I asked if I could flirt with his muse and he patted me gently on the hand and said “I don’t think that’s possible, she’s a one man woman."

The host of the dinner has a delightful eight –year-old daughter. The young girl came over and sat with us. I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. “I want to be like you.” She said. I was flattered.

Horton Foote smiled and asked me the same question. “I want to be like you Mr. Foote,” I said to him. He nodded.

“What do you want to be?” I asked, winking at him. He looked over at the girl and pointed.

“I want to be like her,” he said, smiling.

Posted by trevor at 02:53 PM | Comments (1)

May 16, 2008

The plea was very simple. Please could people send food to the community center in Alexandria Township just north of Johannesburg.

"Many, many African children are hungry and because of the pass laws, thousands of black people cannot go into white areas to get work," said the speaker, a priest, who was addressing the Junior Rotary. (Of which I was a member during high school.) "Because there is no work, well, the kids are hungry, and that is so sad. It is sad because just down the road from starving kids, fortunate people are eating huge meals and leaving food on their plates which is then thrown away."

The priest, an old African man with watery eyes, tried to smile as he looked out at us with hurt in his heart.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Please help." He said softly. He humbly dropped his head and clasped his hands together in the traditional African way.

I felt his pain. It really resonated in my soul.

I was about fourteen at the time and felt compelled to help.

The next weekend I gathered some friends together including Janet, Katherine and Pat Campbell, who lived down the road.

We walked the street of Orange Grove, Linksfield and Mountain View, going house-to-house collecting canned food. I was surprised at how generous many of the people were.

Not everyone greeted us with enthusiasm though. Some people told us to go away, that they had their own problems. One Afrikaans man told me to get the hell off his property and to mind my own bloody business. "You Englishmen will be sorry," he said. "Feeding black kids is like feeding pit bulls. They are going to rip you throat out when they get big enough to attack you. We need to keep their numbers down man. Now "&$#@ off Englishman."

"Your arse in a glass," I yelled as I backed away from his front door.

"He's ignorant," said Janet Campbell, always the peacemaker in our neighborhood, pushing me back down the drive toward the street. "Leave him to live in his own sad little world." (Janet was the youngest in our group and could easily have been related to Mother Theresa.)

We put the food in boxes and the next weekend my dad took us down to the outskirts of Alexandra Township.

Alexandra, described by Nelson Mandela as "exhilarating and precarious", is a sprawling ghetto some 12km north-east of Johannesburg. Today 170 000 people live in this ghetto, in an area of approximately two square kilometers. This incredibly poor shantytown is totally surrounded by wealthy suburbs.

During the height of apartheid, white, predominately Afrikaans policemen, patrolled all roads leading in to Alexandra. Their orders where to keep the "subversive' whites out and the blacks in.

In those days, black people had to carry papers to allow them into white areas after dark and were often rounded up in raids on white areas after sunset, and either jailed or beaten for disobeying the brutal 'Pass' laws.

We were given directions to a small church-run community center on the outskirts of Alex, where we were asked to deliver the food. The center was not in Alex proper, so my father felt it would be pretty safe to go there. (The government controlled media constantly spewed out warnings that blacks had to be 'contained' because they were about to rebel and kill white people.)

We all chatted excitedly when we saw the ramshackle church and community center but before we reached it, we were stopped by two white policemen sitting in a van on top of the road leading down to the church.

"What are you doing here?" asked one of the policemen, leaning into our car window.

"We brought some food for the kids," said my dad. "We're taking it just down there to the community center. We won't be long. The kids here collected the food. Just want to drop it off you know." He pointed at the center not five hundred yards down the street.

"Ja, but that's a bloody black church, you know?" Said the policeman.

"Yes," said my father. "I know."

"You can't just go into Alexandra," said the cop, stretching to his full height. Those houties (derogatory term for blacks) will kill you, man. No whites allowed in there. It's for your own safety meneer. (Sir.) They'll kill you just like that. Life means nothing to them."

"But we brought the food," I chimed in from the back seat.

"Ja, no problem. Just leave it here," said the policeman. "I'll have one of the boys (black policeman, who had no rank, were called boys by white cops) take it down there."

We unloaded the boxes at the policeman's feet and got back into the car.

As we were backing away I saw the policeman, reach into the box and take out a jar of fruit. I saw him open the lid and pour the contents down his throat, most of it spilling onto the road. He took a box of crackers and tore it open.

"Dad, stop the car." I yelled.

My father pulled up and, as he did, I jumped out of the car.

"Get back in here," yelled my dad.

"But he's eating the food." I said.

I rushed over to the cop with my father and the other kids in tow.

"It's not for you!" I said, bending down and picking up one of the boxes.

"What's the problem?" said the cop, wiping his mouth.

"No problem," said my father, stepping between the policeman and me. "This food was promised to someone else. I think we'll take it with us and figure something out."

"I can't believe he ate some of it." I said.

"Ja. You are just bloody lucky I didn't eat YOU," said the cop, laughing toward the second policeman who was leaning against the van smoking a cigarette.

I was about to explode when my father gently placed his palm across my mouth. I wanted to yell and scream at the cop. I wanted to tell him I hated him and his laws and his absolute disregard for hungry African kids. And how we had damn-well walked miles and friggin' miles collecting the food. And how hard it was to knock on people's doors and beg for donations. I wanted to tell him I hoped he would starve to death one day. The blood was boiling in my fourteen year-old body.

"It's okay, whispered my father. "It's okay."

My dad ruffled my hair.

"Go to the car," he said to all of us. "C'mon."

I turned and took the box back to the car. I think Kathy Campbell picked up the other box while my father shepherded us back to the vehicle.

"You'll be thankful for us one day," spat the policeman. "We'll save your blerrie (bloody) lives."

We drove back to our neighborhood in silence.

The following day we took the food to a church in our neighborhood, who in turn took the food to the community center we were unable to visit. For some reason, the police allowed clergy to enter Alexandra Township. (Excuse the pun but thank God for that.)

We went to a lot of trouble for those two simple cardboard boxes of food, half eaten by the damn policeman, but that was all forgotten when the letter arrived. The 'thank you' note (sent from the community center in Alexandra Township) said the food and our kindness was received and much appreciated.

And, even though we said we weren't going to collect food again.

We did it again the next month.

And the month after.

Although, thanks to Nelson Mandela, the pass laws are gone and Africans enjoy equal rights, there is still an incredible amount of work to do to dismantle the hatred and poverty that grew and festered in South Africa all those years ago.

Posted by trevor at 04:13 PM | Comments (0)

May 12, 2008

I travel a lot and most of my trips blend into each other. I’ll never forget a trip I took to a small town in Ohio, though, to say farewell to a fourteen-year old boy named Tylor Lauck who was dying of cancer. (Tylor and I wrote a book together about life and how to live it to the full.)

Tylor was fading fast and spent most of the time sleeping on the couch.

On my last evening up there, family and friends sat around a huge bonfire outside Tylor’s house.

I was mesmerized by the flames. Sparks floated above the fire and drifted ever upward becoming indistinguishable from the stars in the clear night sky.

None of us said very much. We just stared at the flames and prayed silently for Tylor as he lay inside the house preparing for his final journey.

Suddenly someone looked over at me and said. “Can I ask you an honest question?”

“Sure,” I said.

“I hope you don’t take this wrong, but why would you choose to spend time with a dying child? What’s in it for you? What do you get out of it? I mean, forgive me, but it seems rather strange. These kids are not kin to you. Why subject yourself to all of this pain and sadness if you don’t have to? Haven’t you got better things to do?”

I thought about the question for a long time.

“That’s a good question,” I replied. “And I’ve asked myself that same question a thousands times.”

I stared at the fire again. The crackle of the flames added a comforting soundtrack to the night insects’ symphony playing in the background.

“I guess kids with cancer have made me realize how great life is,” I said. “They’ve shown me how lucky I am to be part of an incredibly vibrant and wonderful existence. This might sound totally absurd, but I really feel great, almost elated, when I can make a sick kid laugh or when I’m able to comfort a hurting child, sometimes when nobody else can. It sounds crazy, but I have found very few things in the world that make me feel so worthwhile and fulfilled. I’ll be honest with you. I get back way more that I ever give.”

A gentle murmur and some slow, smiling nods affirmed my sentiment.

Again we all stared at the fire without a word.

There was nothing more to say.

Except to listen to the hiss and crackle of the fire and the internal whispering of our own prayers echoing deep within our souls.

I got up and went inside to where Tylor’s mom and dad were sitting alongside him as he lay on the couch.

He had been lying there, unconscious, most of the day.

“Hey T. Your buddy Trevor’s here,” said his mom, leaning over him and rubbing his head affectionately.

Tylor’s eyes fluttered open. Closed. Then opened again.

With a trembling palm he reached out and patted my hand. Then he mumbled something I couldn’t quite understand.

I put my ear to his mouth.

“Love yhh,” he said and closed his eyes again.

My heart felt like it wanted to burst with compassion for this great kid whose life was dangling on a flimsy thread.

I leaned over and whispered in his ear, “I love you too you one-legged maniac.”

“That’s me,” he said. “And don’t you forget it.”

He mumbled something else then drifted off to sleep.

Tylor passed away two days later.

Often when I close my eyes I see Tylor, in slow motion, patting my hand and I see his lips mouthing the words, “Love yhh.”

I feel both comfort and joy from having chosen to share many a laugh and a tear with Tylor Lauck.

May the little delinquent rest in peace.

Posted by trevor at 02:53 PM | Comments (1)

May 09, 2008

Posted by trevor at 02:47 PM | Comments (0)

May 08, 2008

A pot of boiling enthusiasm cannot continue to simmer without a constant flame. My mother is that flame. When my father lost his job around my 12th birthday I had just discovered the art of photography. I was so passionate about taking pictures that I could hardly sleep at night.

Because there was no discretionary money after my dad was retrenched, I was unable to buy film or chemicals for developing my photographs. I was heartbroken but understood the circumstances, so I hid my disappointment to save my parents from feeling any worse than they already did.

There were absolutely no jobs to be had for kids my age so there was no way for me to get money to buy film for myself.

My parents struggled financially for a number of years and during that time my mom began making little felt-stuffed dolls called Gonks. They were round, red little characters with Beatle haircuts. One morning I overheard my mom on the phone. She was in tears and talking to her friend Millicent. I put my ear to the door like any twelve year old eaves-dropper would do. Between her sniffles I heard my mom tell her friend that she only needed to sell a few more Gonks to have enough money to buy film and chemicals for me. I heard her say, “He is so passionate about photography. You should see his eyes when he talks about it. It breaks my heart because I know he is dying to take pictures.”

Two weeks later my mom called me into my room and shut the door. She handed me a roll of film, some photographic paper and chemicals. She asked me not say anything to anyone about it, especially my dad, because the money was needed elsewhere.

I hugged my mom and thanked her profusely. I was so excited I just wanted to burst.

“I’ll take great pictures for you, I promise” I said.

“Don’t worry about taking great pictures for me.” she said. “Just have fun.”

As she walked out of the door I noticed she was crying. “Mom,” why are you crying?” I asked.

“Because I just love you so much.” She said, ruffling my mop of curly hair.

Posted by trevor at 02:36 PM | Comments (1)