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somewhere over the rainbow (and other stories)

  Exactly two years ago I found myself flying through a corner of a rainbow, and landed in Oaxaca, Mexico. It was the last film festival I traveled to, a brutal and sweet experience in the harshest of realities, trying to wrap my arms around the slipperiest industry and failing magnificently. Surrounded by fresh faces and eager eyes I ran from the rooms and into the street time and again, wandering off with the camera in my bag as a companion. I took pictures of a blind man that sang on the same corner every day, of wedding parades, of an old woman waiting to see the dentist.  Literally somewhere over the rainbow, I met the ugliest answers to questions I had been dragging my feet towards for years. Cramming the most delicious food into my mouth, joking at the nightly rooftop cocktail parties, grinning like the Cheshire Cat it was all coming to an end. Actually, it had ended before it even started though - and on the plane back to New York and finally Moscow the bone-crunching undertow
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not even a whisper

A parent/teacher meeting was announced at E's school. At 6:30 on a cold Friday night, we ducked into the building. The hallways were empty. The rows of lockers stood silent. She told me how many flights it was to her classroom as we climbed the stairs, our footsteps echoing. 

Out of twenty five children, only six other parents were there. They huddled around the teacher's desk, sweaters wrapped tight around them. I needed E to translate for me, so we made our way to the back of the room, hoping our whispers would not disturb anyone. We yanked our hats off, and settled in. I smelled ammonia and cheap perfume.

The teacher had a constant sigh stretched across her face. Her blonde hair hung limp against her ears. She stopped the joking chatter and cleared her throat. She talked about the boy that died, and how two weeks of investigation had uncovered the fact that he took some gum from a stranger on the school playground and there were narcotics in it. Nothing more. There was some additional warnings explained. The faces nodded, hands folded carefully over each other.
There were no questions.

The conversation turned quickly to the errors happening on the school website when grades are posted there. There were constant complaints from the mothers about homework assignments, about harsh grading from one teacher, then another teacher. The room filled with people talking over each other about math homework, a cacophony of pleas and examples raised. But for that 15 year old boy, not even a whisper.






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