Project Sekong 2012: With children in tow, Lao women work hard and often set the pace.

Yesterday, this woman visited our camp to sell us freshly caught game. Today, I took advantage of our new friendship and asked permission to follow her as she simultaneously tended her children and cultivated her family's new rice field.

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I did a favor for a lady yesterday and today I collected payback.  Admittedly, my assistance didn’t amount to much: she came to our camp holding a wild chicken and a squirrel that her husband had shot or snared.  The guys all encouraged me to buy the chicken; no one was much interested in the squirrel.  But…when I read disappointment on the lady’s face, I took pity and bought the squirrel anyway.

Okay, so it wasn’t all that big a favor.  But, today I didn’t ask much in return.  What I wanted was the chance to photograph her working with her husband and other relatives turning soil in their expansion rice field.  You’ve no doubt met people who have two speeds: slow and stop?  Well…this lady’s gears are labeled “lets go!” and “get the hell out of my way!”  She sets an impressive pace that none of the men in her family seemed able to match.

Is a caption necessary? Certainly, the photo says it all!

I had two thoughts in mind.  First, I’ve written how families, eager to expand their cropland, follow in our wake and start stabbing at the earth with shovels and hoes as soon as we finish clearing it of old ordnance.  I reckoned that a photo of this lady and her family working just a few yards from our deminers would illustrate that point.

My second idea was to photograph her striking blow after blow with her heavy steel hoe, all the while carrying an infant on her back and tending to a toddler at her side.  I recently wrote about the role of women in a Lao community and how hard mothers work; a photograph of this lady, her child, and her hoe would be perfect confirmation.

So… I approached, pointed to my camera, affected a quizzical look intended to convey, “Will this be alright with you?”

She flashed a brief smile, possibly in appreciation of our bomb clearance work, possibly in recognition of my status as customer— just the encouragement I’d hoped for.  But then, as I was composing my photo, the toddler at her side burst into tears and began wailing, pleading, begging his mother to protect him from the immense, bald, toothy, hideously-pale, pointy-nosed creature that loomed above him.  Me.

Anybody but a Lao would have sent the paparazzi packing.  But, to the lady’s credit, she silently suffered my presence as I fired several ratcheting shots, reframed and shot again.

The result?  I’m pleased.  My photo captures the essence of her life as wife and mother.  There she stands: dead tired, sweltering under the mid-day sun, a heavy hoe in her hand, an infant on her back, a crying toddler at her side, politely tolerating the intrusive falang who has interrupted her work and frightened her child. (And people ask me, “What’s so special about the Lao?”)

Tonight, if mom shows up at camp peddling a bevy of chickens and a pack of dead squirrels, I’m in.