Journalist Sheilah Bright
As we followed the elephants searching for water and watched giraffes rubberneck their way into trees, I scoured the tawny landscape for the flick of a brown tail in the sparse grass. I strained to hear a bellow beyond the snorts of the donkeys drinking river water caught in the footprints of the elephants. I came up empty-hearted.
Something about the barren land felt familiar although sand dunes replaced rolling hills and lions not coyotes shadowed the livestock. When the desert wind kicked up a funnel of sand, the Himba children watched it skip across the dry terrain until it dissolved. It was then that I knew we shared more than a moment in the... Continue Reading →
Swirls of alabaster dust puffed through the crowd and settled like confectioner's sugar onto Kyauk Sit Tan, Mandalay's famous stone-cutting lane where Burmese workers have chiseled, sanded and polished stone into sculptures for more than 150 years. Here among the whitewashed crowd of Buddha builders and tourists, a woman smeared with soot sat on her haunches and scooped handfuls of black hope... Continue Reading →
On the banks of the Chindwin River deep in Myanmar, I watch mysteries glide through the gossamer curtain fringed with the dew beads of early morning and wonder if this is how it feels to be inside a snow globe. The landscape swirls with every strong puff of wind or when sunlight splinters through the heavy gray blanket swaddling the... Continue Reading →
The children wanted to show me the school in Kazat, a Burmese village of less than 200 where one truck a year is built in the local factory. I followed the stream of students through the field and up the path where a building of faded colors seemed to sit patiently as children ran across... Continue Reading →
Near a bend in Myanmar's Chindwin River, the 180 villagers of Kazat watch progress lumber by on the backs of weathered cargo boats loaded with shiny factory-made vehicles and heavy equipment. The midday sun sometimes reflects off the chrome and casts a silver wink up the path leading to Kazat's truck factory. Here in... Continue Reading →
What draws us into some faces more than others? Is it the smile or the frown or the wrinkles or the eyes that magnetize our attention and forge a memory with a longer shelf life. I realize now that I have long been a collector of faces. The beauty of a distant land or my... Continue Reading →
The bride sought the shadows of the long afternoon as the bridegroom's village filled with strangers anxious to see who would marry a favorite son. For hours, the Bengli villagers in China's Guizhou Province had chopped, sizzled and stirred every part of a slaughtered pig and all the vegetables they could find. It was a... Continue Reading →
He enjoyed the songs of early morning when the hua mei showed off for the sun. He loved the songs of late afternoon when the winds tickled the branches and rocked the song thrush's cage as it hung over his garden of tender greens in the Chinese village of Shui Dian. When the tawny bird... Continue Reading →
The boys took turns staring at the restless ponies pulling at the damp grass and the impatient girls hiding from the cold rain. The air smelled of wet earth, cotton candy and fried pork. Children laughed and jumped in the inflatable tent, and the adults lifted their voices in warning only when a water buffalo... Continue Reading →
The girl flinched as her mother lifted the silver headdress on to the dish towel wrapped tight around her head as protection from rough edges. Dressing daughters requires delicate negotiation and creative fortitude for mothers of the Miao minority groups in southwestern China. Wedged into a tiny space under a village school's stairwell, Clear Water... Continue Reading →
She didn't want to come down the stairs for the first few moments. Perched on a shaky bannister, she peered down on a pack of photographers focusing on the graceful curve of a staircase leading to rundown apartments on a backstreet in Cuba. I could feel her watching and then saw her duck into the... Continue Reading →
The men were building something important. You could see it in the firm conviction pounding each fresh-cut board into place. There were no women around so when a sweat-drenched trail wench in a lopsided cowboy hat rounded the corner, the men held the tools in the humid air and stared as if a Yeti had... Continue Reading →
The first time I ran away to a foreign land I was about 6 years old. A mystical destination whispered to me through the windows of my tiny two-bedroom house so I waited until my mother was loading the washing machine before I slipped out the storm door and set sail. I chose a dependable... Continue Reading →
You can see the worried look on a man’s face more easily when you are entrusting him with your life. You recognize the extra wrinkle, the furrowed brow, the look of concern. When he walks away with his hand upon a knife, you trust his judgement. You must. We started our two-day 4,715 ascent... Continue Reading →
If you travel with an open heart as I think one must, you will find yourself here in a moment like this one - unscripted by itinerary and shaded by something so universally important that long after the seasons change and the years pile on, you will remember the days when kindness mattered.
It's unsettling as the dry Panhandle wind when after years of writing the news, you become it. A project - a town, really - captured my heart in 2011. It held on tight, wouldn't give up on me or my documentary partner, Ezra Gentle, as we struggled to see how we could bend a few... Continue Reading →
I fell in love with a town in 2011, wrote a long story about it (The Last of Kenton) and co-wrote/co-directed my first documentary. It premieres Saturday at the deadCENTER Film Festival in Oklahoma City. Here is preview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weBJSjvqQEM
