There is huge positive energy in Vietnamese Agent Orange victims and their relatives, photojournalist Ed Kashi said after a visit to the country last month.
The American, who is renowned for his features depicting life before and after wars, visited Danang and Hanoi for the Vietnam Reporting Project, a UNDP-sponsored journalism fellowship program to produce multimedia news coverage on the enduring environmental and health consequences of Agent Orange contamination.
Kashi’s project focuses on two families in Danang to remind new generations in the US that the diabolic story of Agent Orange has yet to achieve closure since its legacy remains an ongoing medical, social, and political issue for Vietnamese.
He said: “Any time I can capture caregivers (in Vietnam) in action, which the Agent Orange project was all about in certain ways, I am inspired and moved.
“We are living at a time when it's so easy to be disconnected from the meaning as well as the act of caring for others, (but) watching the parents of these Agent Orange sufferers reminded me of the universality of taking care of a loved one.
“This act crosses national borders, cultural chasms, and generational divides.
“It's one of the purest forms of humanity one can witness and I am indebted for the intimacy and candor the families in Vietnam offered to me.”
The purpose of the project is to raise awareness in the Vietnamese communities in the United States, educate new generations to one of the many terrible legacies of that war, and keep this important issue alive by creating new reporting, he told Tuoi Tre.
The legacy of Agent Orange/dioxin, the main ingredient in defoliants the US military sprayed to destroy jungles in Vietnam decades ago, continues to date, damaging lives in the country due to the fact that it is passed down genetically, he said.
More than three million Vietnamese have been affected by this chemical agent, which results in health problems and offspring born with horrible deformities, disabilities, and physical and psychological problems.
He shot pictures of a little girl named Ly, nine, who was born with disabilities due to her grandfather's exposure to Agent Orange while fighting for North Vietnam. Her mother, Le Thi Thu, also suffers from similar health problems.
Ly was born with an enlarged head and face, protruding eyes, and a protruding chest that causes her breathing difficulty at times. She is often in and out of hospital.
But she is an active child who loves to sing and dance with her seven-year-old brother and cousins.
Kashi admitted that working on the project conjured up various feelings.
“Watching Ly go through her daily life, getting her medical checkups, and learning the particular details of her situation reminded me of the importance of reporting and providing useful information for the public to become enlightened... And just maybe provide more support for these subjects.”
The other family he called on has two boys suffering from serious brain damage and lacking communicative capacity.
“Watching the mother of the two boys massaging them so tenderly reminded me of the responsibility of what I do.”
The only hope is that over time the number of cases of Agent Orange will decline.
But given the nature of dioxin poisoning, it is hard to feel things are getting better, he admitted.
Thus, the only true hope is that there are solutions and people who deeply care about helping the sufferers, he said.
But for Kashi, the image of the two boys' mother massaging their bodies every morning and of Ly with the late afternoon sun on her face and the shadows on the wall behind her will be a lifelong memory.
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