Slow Photography #85 Waka Waka and Slow Photos Connect with Kids

"How to show the picture?” she asked. 

I pointed at the play button on the back of the camera. At 15, she was living in a home for orphaned kids on a Caribbean island. She quickly found the button, played back the video she'd taken of her housemates singing a popular song, and they looked on. Dressed in white t-shirts and blue shorts, the 12 kids from the Children's Home made a goodbye video for the friends that were leaving the island; a volunteer American couple who got close with the kids over several years of working at the home. 

These kids were curious, and the small camera was twisted, grabbed but not dropped. The youngest was an intense three-year-old who snapped image after image while talking non-stop about what he saw: the sky, the church, the grass, the pavement. Selfies were also a popular subject matter. 

These children are Black, from the Haiti and the Caribbean. I am white and about four times their age. Living in a home, coming from difficult circumstances, they have very good reasons to protect themselves and to be extra cautious around adults who are strange to them.  

Fortunately, for this trip I joined my friend D, a theater and performance instructor. She knew the kids. We drove to the Children's Home in the afternoon when the kids had free time. She came prepared, inviting these kids to make up a goodbye and thank you card for their friends, the couple that was leaving. D also brought music along on her laptop. She let the kids pick out a song from the selections in the computer. Soon we were all dancing to singer Shakira's number "Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)", a song the pop singer performed in 2010 for her World Cup debut in Soweto, South Africa. 

That is... the kids were dancing. I was mostly flailing, watching their practiced gyrations, trying to get a feel for the steps and words of the song: “If you get down, get up, when you get down, get up.” Smiling my way, the fifteen-year-old girl said "Jim move like this. " I fumbled. The kids laughed. Gradually, they let down some of their guard.

I explained how the camera worked. It was a good size for teaching kids and they experimented with stills and video. We looked at the video the teen girls made, sand about getting back up after being down, and came away knowing a little more about each other. 

I learned that Slow Photography can bridge gaps and that small tough cameras are a good way for kids to learn digital. When I returned later with prints, I was reminded, by the expressions on the kids faces, of the power of printed images. At any age, we all love to relive moments we've forgotten. 

And all ages were dancing, some gracefully and some not, as Waka Waka filled the room with music, and a little Slow Photography in the mix broke through some barriers that Spring afternoon.