The Pueblos Jovenes are complex places. Looking the bleak surroundings and hearing about the grave struggles that these communities on a daily basis, it can be easy to see nothing but hardship, misery, and hard living conditions. But the Pueblos Jovenes are full of people living their lives as best they can much like anywhere else, encompassing a range of human experience. The juxtapositions I see in this collection of photos reminds me of that.
Two children play on a wooden beam outside their house while a nurse inspects her mother’s tumor, seemingly blissfully unaware of what we are doing there.
A MEDLIFE patient and her daughter on our nurse’s first visit.
A 16 year old MEDLIFE patient named Dixon who suffers from severe rheumatoid arthritis, with his mom and sister outside of their home. Since his arthritis has left him unable to walk, Dixon´s father often carries him down the steep hillside on his shoulders.
A MEDLIFE patient and her children along with MEDLIFE nurse Janet look at a litter of puppies living outside their home.
A pile of rubbish next to a group of houses and a community meeting area. There simply isn’t space here to seperate these things.
A patient takes a break for picking apart the corncobs she cooks and sells to sit with her baby and talk with us.
A community meeting space.
The hills look dramatically different on a sunny day; you can see the lack of city planning and infrastructure clearly in this photo.