Second Sight
Kirin Gupta
June 15, 2012
GCY fellowship is a perspective builder, like the best teachers, parents, and mentors. It is a year for each of us to take on that responsibility, individually, to expand our own worldviews and develop a second sight. The second sight of a student who has lived in a house without floors and eaten off of...
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Quinceañera
Kirin Gupta
April 24, 2012
“I know, I know she was gift.” “Love, then why do you not dress her? Why did you have trouble giving her your milk?” “She was a gift, but I did not ask for this.” Jeni sits across from me, eyes flicking from side to side, as though searching for an escape. “This is the...
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Diagnosis Inconclusive
Kirin Gupta
February 17, 2012
Elastic band on pastel green underskirt. Gnarled hands Torturing themselves with nerves. Shame flutters above the wrinkles ringing her eyes.
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A Day in the Life, Ecuador
Kirin Gupta
January 31, 2012
Only Human A short video to take a glance at a day in my life, here in the little town of Cotundo, working at a public health clinic in the Amazonian lowlands of Ecuador’s Napo Province.
Read MoreNew Renditions of Old Traditions
Kirin Gupta
January 9, 2012
Sharing the Celebration of the New Year Location: Riobamba, Province of Chimborazo, Ecuador My host brother Christopher, my host mother Nancy, and I, on New Year’s Eve, in the Park of Lights in the Center of Riobamba. A true Ecuadorian family, though Chris was surprised by the horrifying brightness of the camera’s flash here :). Before...
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When the Stars Spilled from the Sky
Kirin Gupta
December 22, 2011
I was running, chasing the elusive breeze. The greenery was thick on either side of the thin, winding road, and sharp rocks beneath my feet on the dirt path were painful through the thin soles of my shoes. A strange sight, the foreign girl running through the jungle at 4 in the morning, before the...
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The Eighth Daughter
Kirin Gupta
December 12, 2011
She lies flat as a board and is too skinny Her eyes The nurse has no words for them Buen expresivos, she settles on. Wide and bright They look as though They seek to be separate from her too-small face, Where her cheeks have sunken in, Already at age 7. And her lips are purple,...
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Definitions
Kirin Gupta
November 30, 2011
Sex: Female. Age: 29. Children: 3. Status: Married. Income: $600 per month. Primary/Subsequent: Primary. Diagnosis: Tentative. Breast Cancer, Stage 4. Recommendation: Immediate visit to oncologist, Hospital of Tena. Filling this chart leaves me empty. My pen drops. Because how much can you see in the statistics, even when the notes are well-enough detailed? How...
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Lessons in being human: The beautiful girl from Coca
Kirin Gupta
November 11, 2011
I knew Cynthia for twenty minutes. And that will be it. But it was enough. Swaying with inherent elegance at 5’9’’, thin as a rail, and darker than midnight, she was wearing lavender the night I saw her. She stepped into the seat next to me on a cramped Jumandy bus on my way home from classes...
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Two Machetes and an Axe: We Come in Peace
Kirin Gupta
November 7, 2011
Smoke curled under blackened plantains on a wood tray that hung above the open fire. Flames licked up from a pit sunken into the mud floor. It was my first Sunday in Cotundo, Ecuador and my host mom and I had hiked for miles to visit her mother’s farm – the epitome of a campo,...
Read MoreAnd so I went to teach
Kirin Gupta
July 28, 2011
An artist who bridged the distance from Nuku’alofa, Tonga to Washington, D.C. Having begun with Global Citizen Year, a new sort of awareness prompts me to take second glances in places where I would not customarily look carefully. It is something to be grateful for, I am sure, for beyond that understanding, once it can...
Read MoreBlack Beaches
Kirin Gupta
July 5, 2011
The beaches in Greece are not always perfect. The black bed of rock I stood on, years ago, was difficult to walk on, large round stones that were smooth individually, but a rough surface to maneuver all at once. The world often comes at you with all the appearance of something perfectly smooth, perfectly beautiful...
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