Food and Supplies on the Mountain

During COVID we took food and daily supplies up to children in the mountains, when the usual routes got quieter and a hot meal stopped being something you could assume. The pavilion was open on the sides. Trees pressed in. A corrugated roof. A long white table.

I stood in a striped shirt and a mask, setting bowls down the line. Kids in cartoon shirts waited with both hands on the table. Behind us, people in aprons kept the food coming. Fried chicken, rice, a plastic cup of iced drink. Nothing fancy. Everything needed.

Relief work photographs can look ordinary. That is the honest part. No stage. No lighting plot. Just a child who did not have to skip lunch that day, and a group of us who could still drive the road when others could not. I put this next to the singing work on purpose. Same person. Different room. Same reason I show up.