Article December 14, 2009 Issue

FINDING FAMILY RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE

BY STEPHANIE JOHNSON

Some years ago a friend of mine, working as a photo-journalist, traveled for a year throughout Africa photographing the children of that vast continent.

As Christmas Eve approached, he entered a humble village, where he was placed with a family of five children for the night. He was told that these children had lost their parents that year to complications from AIDS. It would have been easy to expect the mood to be somber, but a tape recording of the evening, which my friend later shared with me, revealed quite the opposite. There was the wondrous ring of spontaneous childlike singing and laughter, both from my friend and the children.

After listening to that recording, I found that the sound of the unrestrained joy stayed with me for many days. I kept wondering how children in those circumstances could be so brilliantly lighthearted. They clearly felt a joy that resonated so vibrantly that I could feel it on the other side of the globe.