Last week I stopped by my friend Cora Taylor’s place to pick up a couple of dolls as gifts and say some goodbyes. Cora, aka Miz Koko, is still making dolls, earrings, music, and more. The always lovely lady gave me one doll as a parting gift, and I bought a couple more for a friend of mine who requested three. While Cora doesn’t have an online shop yet (as soon as she does, I’ll put up a link in this space), you can call or email her anytime to purchase a doll. She’s willing to mail them to the USA and other places too. Her email is cora2taylor at yahoo dot com and her number is +231 6539128.

Read more about Miz Koko and how she makes the dolls here, and note that their eyes are no longer blue!

One of my favorite occasional job perks is getting to fly on small planes and in helicopters.

Because the first time I learned about the concept of positive deviance was on a Blood and Milk post about child nutrition, I can’t think about child nutrition without thinking about postivie deviance. Here’s what Alanna has to say:

In every village, there is at least one woman (usually a few) whose children are healthier than the rest. For whatever reason, that woman is better at navigating the complexities of village life and child nutrition. That woman has knowledge and skills which can be taught. You find her, you learn from her, you support her to teach her peers. That is positive deviance. Find the people who deviate from the norm by being more successful. Learn from them.

A couple of weeks ago, I visited the pediatric malnutrition ward of Phebe Hospital in Bong County for UNICEF. In my book, there’s pretty much nothing sadder than visiting a pediatric malnutrition ward, and while my hardened heart can take in many a story of suffering without being visibly effected (though always being effected in other ways), I have trouble with these kinds of places. Needless to say, I was not looking forward to the visit.

But then, while I was at Phebe, I saw the cutest, smiliest little boy ever.

This is Dollo Menu, a one year old boy from central Liberia. He’d been at the ward for a couple of weeks and was already out of the woods and on his way to healthy. He was laughing and smiling, and loved it when I tickled his feet.

Other kids in the ward weren’t doing as well. This is Kemyembolo, age three, visiting the ward with his mother Garmai Mulbah. This was the second time the two of them had come to Phebe for treatment. Garmai has ten children, eight living and two passed away. The nurses told me her husband beats her and doesn’t provide for their family. Kemyembolo had been at the ward for three times as long as Dollo, and was improving, but doing so very slowly.

And when I saw Dollo’s mother playing with her almost-healthy son, I thought about how different the two women’s lives must be.

A couple of weeks ago I went to Ghana for the Bill & Melinda Gated Foundation. I’m thrilled to see that one of my photos (or, more accurately, a portion of one of my photos) made the website and cover of the hard copy of the 2009 Annual Report. See the whole thing here, and more photos from Ghana below.

Restaurant in Buchanan, Liberia. February 2010.

The only thing better than Finbar O’Rielly’s photos of Congolese hair styles is these ones, via the New Yorker’s photo blog.

My final trip to Harper was bittersweet. Little has changed in the two years I’ve been visiting the remote outpost. I spent a lot of time thinking about what draws me to this strange place, and how to best put that pull into words, and to edit these photos into a narrative. I’m still working on both parts of that and don’t think I’ll have reached something akin to a final edit for a bit of time (and hopefully with opinions from photographers, friends, and readers – if you’re reading this and have any thoughts, please do share them). Until I’ve got a final product, here are drafts of both.

There is no small or remote town in Africa that looks like Harper. Many peripheral outposts resemble each other – general store, cluster of homes, a couple of eateries, a school, a clinic, a football field. But Harper’s roads were paved with folly and excess. Former Liberian President William Tumban, at one point arguably the most powerful black man in the world, called Harper home. He built a mansion there to match his reputation, and ordered the roads tarmaced and the city planned, as if to fortify his intention. But the folly of empire is that money in the pocket doesn’t necessarily guarantee longevity, and Harper is a town of forgotten promises, false ideals, and abandoned grandeur. The freed American slaves who founded the modern state of Liberia, and made Harper what it once was, are also responsible for the ghost town it is now.