Franklin.

The play ground was situated to the right of the orphanage, immediately as we pulled through the gate. The children waited for us, their faces pressed against a rod iron door at the end of a hallway splitting the living quarters into two sections. The sun, bright over head, poured out it’s heat beamed delightfully off the children’s cheeks.

The littlest, 18 month old Israel, spoke broken spanish and shoved his finger at me to show that it had been smashed in a door or something similar. I kissed it. He did this every time I saw him, as if the hurt of it could not be shaken or forgotten.

After a while, we began to photograph all of the children. Eric placed them against different backdrops, or caught them during play, in an effort to capture their smiles and age. For the past 5 times he’s photographed different aspects of Nicaragua and these trips. However, in the last few years, he’s begun a project of tracking these kids through photographs as they grow up.

 Franklin, 8 years old, crouched by the shed, plucking the seeds from green pods that had fallen from the tree. He was one of the last of the younger kids that Eric needed to photograph, and he wasn’t in the mood to have his picture taken.

We walked over, I -holding the flash, and crouched in front of him.

“Como te llamas?” I said softly.

The guard at the gate replied, “Franklin,” and made the ‘crazy’ sign and mouthed loco.

Eric snapped away, and I kept trying to get his attention. He finally looked up, and we got a photo. But, Franklin began to cry and ran behind the shed. Eric followed quickly and apologized, and showed him the photograph. Franklin stood there for awhile, and Eric left to finish up the kids. 

I walked back around the shed and gathered up some pods, and brought them back to him. I held my hand in front of his face for a minute, open, showing all of the pods we could collects and split open to gather the seeds. He looked up at me, grabbed my hand, and we walked back over to the tree.

We collected as many pods as we could, and after a few minutes, the rest of the boys came over and started collecting pods and tossing them into Franklin’s basket. He smiled a lot after that, and Eric was able to take many photographs of him.