Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 333

"We had our first day of kindergarten yesterday, and I’m...

"We had our first day of kindergarten yesterday, and I’m already starting to mentally prepare myself for the first boyfriend."

(Kiev, Ukraine)

Seen in Bila Tserkva, Ukraine.

Seen in Bila Tserkva, Ukraine.

"What has been your greatest accomplishment in life?""When I was...

"What has been your greatest accomplishment in life?"
"When I was young, my best friend and I were taking an exam to qualify for pilot school. I knew all the answers so I raced through the exam, but my best friend was struggling with the math. So I leaned over and tried to help him, but we both got caught and were automatically failed. I didn’t get to be a pilot, but I’ve always felt good about trying to help my friend become one."

(Korzhi, Ukraine)

"We just woke up from our nap. It’s an emotional...

"We just woke up from our nap. It’s an emotional time."

(Korzhi, Ukraine)

Today in microfashion…(Kiev, Ukraine)

Today in microfashion…

(Kiev, Ukraine)

"What’s your greatest struggle right now?""I adopted a son...

"What’s your greatest struggle right now?"
"I adopted a son about six months ago. He’s 3.5 years old, and we’ve been having difficulty with his behavior. If he was here right now, he’d be running around, pulling up plants, and hitting things with sticks. He’s spent all his life in an orphanage, and was deprived of adult attention. The psychologist tells us that’s the reason he’s acting out."
"What’s been your happiest moment with your son?"
"One morning I was standing in the kitchen, and he hugged me without me asking."

(Korzhi, Ukraine)

I got into Ukraine late in the evening after 30 hours of travel...

I got into Ukraine late in the evening after 30 hours of travel and about 2 hours of sleep. I was looking forward to sleeping most of the day, but woke up early to a text from my translator: “School begins today. So if you can find a school by 9 AM, you’ll find Ukrainian children with flowers in their hair.”

(Kiev, Ukraine)

I found her crushing up rocks and loading them onto the back of...

I found her crushing up rocks and loading them onto the back of a truck, for which she got paid just a few dollars a day. But she also told me she was enrolled in school, and had high ambitions. “Maybe I’ll be President,” she said, laughing.
"What would you do if you were?" I asked.
"I’d take all the children off the street, bring them somewhere, and teach them," she said. Afterwards, she wrote down her name and email, so I could send her the picture. 
Her name was ‘Innocent Gift.’

(Juba, South Sudan)

"When he first came to us, he wasn’t talking. He was about...

"When he first came to us, he wasn’t talking. He was about four years old, but we knew nothing else about him. Occasionally, he’d imitate the other children, but he’d express no thoughts of his own. He couldn’t tell us anything about his home, his family, or where he came from. To make matters worse, aid workers had further confused him by suggesting hometowns to him— which he had readily agreed to. So we started with a completely blank slate. We drew a house on a piece of paper, and we said: ‘Is this your home?’ And he said: ‘No! You forgot the gate!’ So we drew a gate. And he said: ‘But you forgot the tree!’ So we drew a tree.

Piece by piece, day by day, we filled in a picture of his home. He was still very reserved and traumatized, so the process took over a month. But we met in the safety of my office every day, and we figured it out. It was like putting together a puzzle. The saddest moment was when we drew his father. ‘You have to draw him laying down,’ the boy said. ‘I tried to get him to come with me, but he wouldn’t.’

When we eventually used the drawings to identify the boy’s hometown and find his mother, she confirmed our fears. The boy had disappeared after seeing his father get shot.”

(Juba, South Sudan)

When violence broke out in Sudan last December, Michael was shot...

When violence broke out in Sudan last December, Michael was shot twice in the leg while he was walking home from school. Michael is a member of the Nuer tribe, and his shooting was a hate crime committed against him by members of the Dinka tribe. I sat down to talk with him at the Confident Children out of Conflict (CCC) Center, in the presence of Cathy, the center’s director. Before we even broached the subject of the shooting, Cathy spoke with Michael for several minutes. In a particularly beautiful moment, Cathy had Michael list all the members of the Dinka tribe who had helped in his recovery. Eventually, Cathy asked Michael if he wanted to talk about the shooting. He shook his head ‘no.’ Not wanting to push the issue, I quickly changed the topic. I pulled out my iPhone, and began to show Michael pictures of Susie The Dog. He took the phone from me, and spent several minutes scrolling through all my photos. Later that night, after I returned to the hotel, I found an unexpected new picture on my phone.

(Juba, South Sudan)