A Photograph

I have covered my camera in paint while decorating water filters, allowed dust to collect on it while mud has been splattered on it by tires stuck on roads in the rainforest. I've gotten it wet in the morning dew and used it until the battery completely died. Not only to mention that I dropped it three days into the trip on a brick patio while getting off of a hamock. The lenscap and filter stuck together, not leaving each other's side until Jim used his can-do-anything leather man.

I have captured photos of the girls being themselves that will be put on Facebook. I have captured photos that will immediately go into the trash once on my computer. But I have also captured photos of the views and their amazment, the people and their beauty. I have even captured of photos that some say should be used in National Geographic.

But as many photos as I've taken (2575 on the eleventh day on a 4200 photo card) the beauty of all these things can not be captured, even with a high quality lens.

I would never be able to capture a photo of eight girls and children of all ages playing volleyball, not speaking the same language yet laughing at all the same jokes. I would never be able to capture of the fog moving over the foothills of the Andes in the morning. A smile from a toothless women when we came to fix her family's water filter. Drawing flowers and animals and houses with the children while lifting them up in the air and running around playing 'gato gato perro' (because none of us knew how to say 'duck' or 'goose' in Spanish). Dancing with the elders in San Jose. Hand prints of walls and pillers all around Rurre. Deep eyes watching us in wonder. Swinging on twisted vines in the rainforest. Playing volleyball with the local girls...and winning! Blue harrons and king vultures flying over our boats as we sped through the Tuichi river. War paint from orange fruit not only being applied to all of us, but our two guides.

All these things and so much more sit on my camera, but yet none of the were truly captured. In all these moments that I have lived, I have been trying to document so I can share with all my family and friends. But what I realized is even with all this amazing equipment, my photos don't express my experiences that I've had. They don't show the emotions, sounds, adventures, even tastes of my trip to Bolivia.

As detailed as they are, what I've experienced...what I am experiencing, can not be told in a photograph.