For my last Salgado photo post, I chose a picture of three
women walking through the Lar do Cangalo refugee camp with pots of water on
their heads. It’s a seemingly normal
photograph, except for one thing. All of
the women are walking on their knees, each of them having lost at least one leg
in a landmine explosion. These women are
“misplaced persons” from Angola, they aren’t officially considered refugees
because they haven’t left their home country.
This lesser status certainly doesn’t do justice to all that they have
endured. For one thing, the countless
number of landmines that were placed throughout the country have left thousands
of people crippled and in desperate need of help.
Yet despite all of these hardships, the human spirit finds a
way to carry on. That’s the message that
I took from this picture, you have to carry on no matter what. Salgado’s photographs don’t just expose the
plights of refugees, it shows us how strong the human spirit is and how much it
can endure. Humans are a deeply flawed
species and there are so many horrible mistakes that we have made. But there is hope for our future, if we just
push forward with loving hearts and open minds.
Sources:
Salgado, Sebastiao. Migrations. pg. 226 Paris:
AMAZONAS, 2000.
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