Photos of 5 Terre, Porto Venere and Bologna!

I haven't had a moment to blog about these trips yet.. but check out the Italia section of www.portiamills.com for the lasted posted photos of Bologna, 5 Terre and Porto Venere !

portiamills.com updates

For months, I completely shirked my blogging and website in lieu of other activities. Now that some of those obligations are behind me, I'm trying to make up for lost time. Please check out www.portiamills.com to see the latest updates. The newest sections are "families," "who's there," and "work and play."

In coming weeks, I hope to reorganize the site to post photographs from other locals and trips. Your feed back, thoughts and ideas are, as always, most welcome and appreciated!

Homecoming Weekend 2007, Cornell University - A Story in Photographs

Excuse the indulgent post...

Friends as good as family.

Ithaca's Farmers Market

Cayuga's Waters

A rare win for Cornell football

A jolly reunion at Stella's

"The aim of life is to live, and to live is to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware."

a reminder....

that life is wildly, fantastically and amazingly beautiful. Even on a foggy, Maine day, there is beauty. Some times, we need reminding.

Bebeto - laughing

in a glance

The southern region of Haiti is the lushest part of the country. The children at Pwoje Espwa eat 3 meals a day and attend school free of charge. Even the streets of Cayes are not completely filled with the sorts of deformed and crippled beggars and street kids that riddle descriptions of Graham Greene's Haiti (though, admittedly, most of Haiti has not improved since the penning of the Comedians).

Nonetheless, the poverty here disturbs. A visitor to our organization cried at the realities she encountered at Mother Theresa's home in downtown Cayes. She had been expecting Mexico-like conditions and instead encountered dejection, poverty and disease rivaled only in Bangladesh, Sudan, Somalia and the like. And yet, the Cayes area cannot compare to the Artibonite region and Gonaive.
The Espwa kids come to us from this reality. Though we cannot offer them everything, we can offer thousands of children a hope they might not otherwise know. We often kid about the face that might "make" Espwa's non-existent trust fund -- we want to do more for Haiti's future. So, we talk about the "honest-to-goodness fly-in-the-eye orphan." We know these exist and that this is no joke, but what we really mean to say is that we must capture that reality and bring it to the consciousness of those who might help.

Claudia's eyes may be bug-free and she may have parents (albeit, very poor ones who have trouble staying employed and can hardly even afford a one-room house in which to shelter their extended family of 7) but her eyes still have a look that one does not see in the developed world. Even with a smile on her face, her eyes have a nearly intangible, but certainly real, sad or wise look to them. What gives these children such a curiously deep glance at such a young age? Can they truly process an understanding of the unfair hand life has dealt them before they even reach the fabled age of reason?

Jackson - one of the coolest kids

Camp Perrin: Old lady with grandson

The Beaches at Port Salut

the parting of good friends

It is with a sad heart that I report the passing of my faithful Nikon D70.

It has been with me in Haiti these 6 months -- through thick and thin. We didn't hit it off immediately but given a few months, we were really meshing. When home, I rewarded it with a new lens. It was ecstatic. As a result, we produced some beautiful art together in North Carolina at the end of June.

Then it began to sputter, catch, click. I ignored the signs... not wanting to believe! Finally, it forced my hand, freezing just one too many times. I went to Ritz Camera.

"Sorry, lady. It's definitely not your new lens. It's your body. You're gonna hafta send it into Nikon for repairs."

"How long?"

"4-6 weeks."

"I have a day..."

"Well, you're outta luck then. Cross your fingers."

So I did. I crossed my fingers. As many as my limited dexterity would permit. And my Nikon and I traveled back to Haiti together to bravely document my remaining weeks.

Not a week into my return, I remove the faithful digital, single lens reflex from its bag. We're going to an orphanage run by a Haiti cop! What fun to capture the smiling faces of those 20 cherubs in sharp, perfect digital clarity.

SNAP.

((((((((((CLICK)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

The shutter stuck open. I reload the battery. Don't fret. Just try again.


SNAP.

((((((((((CLICK)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))


Sh*&.

I put the D70 back in its fancy black bag and resigned myself to documenting with a sorry, hand-held, happy snap camera.

happy as a fox in NC

an island of vacationers

Leisure time at sunset.

strange beach creatures

A storm brews around the shores of North Carolina's Bald Head Island (satellite image, Google Earth).Along the shore, riddled with rip currents, lie strange and displaced sea creatures.

pink dress & blue waves

bye bye bros... and stuff

Is it strange to have a "clique" of friends that consists primarily of family members? Faces and names in the periphery change slightly from year to year but the ever-constant, related core remains the same? Perhaps it's odd, un-American (I hear it's a more a Latin sort of thing), out of vogue or what have you. Cool or not, that's the way it is in my family...Though I feel I must return to Haiti - even WANT to return to Haiti (this shocks some people, I know) - I will desperately miss this trio. One brother will move to the Left Coast this August, another to Europe and, as I'm off to the Caribbean again, it's clear that we all must and will go our own ways. But still, it's too fun to pretend that if I stayed in the District, time would stand still and we'd continue our time together.
Thursday it's back to Haiti. No more salads, no more cool evenings, no more hanging with the brothers.

It's tragic, growing up.

Shazam!

"oh Io"

Haitian cows have just the right number of ribs showing and their shoulder blades tend to be quite pronounced. Their tales swish tirelessly as they stand in the relentless sun -- batting at tsetse flies or the Caribbean equivalent. Their horns grow up, out and back with age, curling into perfect halos.
They are quite like what my child's imagination envisioned the cows from Greek mythology to look like. Could a god, even the infamous Zeus, have found a beast like this attractive? This is my attempt at immortalizing (in "mosaic") one of the cows that hangs out beneath my window. She reminded me of Io.

some changes

On Thursday I'm heading home for a few weeks. Gotta go to a graduation and a wedding and see some friends and family. I'll be back here by mid-June though!

A volunteer and good friend, Nico, took off for a new job this afternoon. A diocese in Connecticut runs a mission house in Port-au-Prince. Nick landed the position of running this house and overseeing the mission's various projects throughout the city.The kids put on a show in his honor. Some of them sang a song they composed about how they will miss him and see him again one day. The talent show (called a spektak here) was the finest I've see yet. There was a comedy skit -- teenagers dressed up and acting like loud, angry old men. And there was a "remix" of Michael Jackson's "Thriller." Not too shabby.Nick lived in Cayes for two and a half years. He's "moving on" now but he's not moving far. We hope to and expect to see him from time to time -- because the bonds created here last a life time and, well, we'll miss him.

the little things in life

practicing flips