Jun 20
2011
10:51 AM
We are defined by our choices. As a photographer, every choice I make documents someone else’s choices.
No one at the Bahn Refugee Camp had been lead there by easy choices. Post-election violence in Ivory Coast caused over 100,000 people to flee their homes to neighboring Liberia. And in documenting that reality, I too had choices to make. The day the camp opened in February, I woke at 5 am and drove from a guest house in Saniquelle to a border town called Kissiplay. A couple of hundred refugees who had been relying on host villages for support were being transported to Bahn. The morning was subdued . People accepted their fate as they left the border, where they could easily head home should things get better. They headed 50 kilometers away to Bahn. This meant accepting that things were probably not going to get better soon.
After hours in trucks on dusty roads, we arrived at Bahn. Everyone was exhausted, myself included. The mayor of Bahn town came out to greet the refugees. Staff from UNHCR and other orgs blared out instructions on megaphones as people lined up to be registered and given ID cards.
I saw a moment: a young girl, covered in dust from the journey, crying. As a photographer, I knew it was a moment that would resonate visually. But I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable, making this young girl’s moment a public document.
I took the photo. I justified it to myself many ways: that’s what I was there to do; I would talk with her and her family later and hear their story; that this moment was an important record of a difficult day and of choices she and her family were forced to make.
I took a couple of frames and stepped back.
Later, I made sure to get to know her and her family. The young girl is named Grace Geue. When her mother, Elise, started crying, Grace did do. And then, Elise told me later, Grace crying made Elise cry more. Elise cried when she thought of all the relatives she had left behind in Ivory Coast, of the school where her husband Philipe was a teacher, of their new life at the camp, and because she made her daughter cry.
Now that the political situation in Ivory Coast has stabilized somewhat, I wonder about Elise, Grace and Philipe. Are they still at Bahn? Have they began the long walk home?
I don’t regret taking the photo of Grace crying. It wasn’t an easy decision, and I hope it was the right one. Now Grace is part of UNHCR’s World Refugee Day campaign and her image is being used as an advocacy tool.
I hope that Grace thinks I made the right decision too.
Grace with the High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres and head of UNMIL Ellen Margrethe Løj, March 2011. No tears.
