Letter to the Boy with a Barrow

Creative Non-Fiction by Elizabeth Bird

​I didn’t plan to take your photo, but you won me with your smile. Spotting my camera from across the street, you waved, set down your wheelbarrow, and posed. “Snap me, Ma!”  I pointed, clicked, and waved back, planning to show you the picture in my viewfinder. But you were gone, steering your barrow deftly through the people on the sidewalk, flip flops clicking behind you. You needed to be somewhere.

​I too went back to the task at hand. An anthropologist, I was on my third trip to the Niger river town of Asaba to interview witnesses of a mass killing decades before you were born. Guided by a local survivor, I was photographing outside a home where family members were slaughtered by soldiers in the bloody Nigerian civil war.  

My local friend shrugged when I asked if he knew you. “No idea – some kid on the street. Not important.” Certainly not relevant to the harrowing story he had recounted. 

Looking through the day’s photos that evening, you popped up. I’d taken just one shot. There you stand – a boy of maybe eleven or twelve. Head thrown back proudly, one hand on hip, the other holding your muddy wheelbarrow. The barrow contained a large yellow container for water or perhaps something else. You were wearing cut-off jeans and orange flip-flops; your grin was impish – confident. Behind you was a ragged barbed wire fence of the sort that guards the homes of better-off folk in Asaba. White and orange blossoms added a splash of color to the stained concrete. After a grim day of interviews, you brought a smile to my face. I hadn’t seen the words on your red tee-shirt until I blew up the photo on my lap-top: “I must be special because God made me.”  

Back in Florida, I sorted my photos as I did after every trip. You’d know these scenes of Nnebisi Road, as it teems with people going about their day. To get a feel for the town, I’d taken a lot of shots during the 10-day trip – painted trucks, keke cabs, motor bikes, random street views. Traders bustling by with impossible loads on their heads – everything from kitchen utensils to balloon animals and mattresses. Market stalls offering fruits, vegetables, and live chickens. Pupils in uniform, scurrying to school. Young boys like you, with wooden carts and wheelbarrows, crisscrossing the street on all manner of errands.

But apart from witnesses and friends, you were the only person looking directly at me from the screen. Much as I’d love to capture the dazzling variety of faces swirling around me, I avoid taking photos of people I don’t know. I’m painfully aware of our discipline’s history – books packed with photos of nameless “natives,” illustrating “types,” not individuals. Tourists can be equally predatory; people all over the world, tired of becoming exotic trophies, shy away from visitors with cameras or monetize the transaction, rightly claiming their agency. 

But your image speaks to me – I love your assertive, cheerful grin. I don’t know what you intended when you posed for me, but I think you were just having fun before being on your way. It felt like a gift.

My university was hosting an international photo contest, and on impulse, I entered your image in the portrait category. And won. Your photo was printed and framed in the international office and posted on the website. People loved it as much as I did. 

A couple of years later, I was taken aback when it appeared on the wall in my building – blown up to poster size – as part of an administrative spruce up of our bleak, white concrete hallways. I wasn’t sure how it got there, and I was unsettled. Would you have wanted that?  

Now, almost fifteen years since I snapped it on the dusty streets of Asaba, your photo is still on the wall. People still say it makes them smile. 

I’ve thought about your photo over the years. In classes and conversations, we anthropologists worry about the nuances of how we should interact with people we encounter – once called “subjects,” but now known as informants or collaborators.  When it comes to photography in the field, there’s much to consider. Did you give permission to take your photo? Undoubtedly. But would you have been happy to know it would appear on the walls of an American university? I’m not sure. Were you entitled to compensation?  Was I treating you the way anthropologists have long treated their anonymous “subjects?” Was I “exoticizing” you? 

I don’t have answers, really.  Reading your expression, I’ve imagined you’d love your image being enjoyed in America.  But was that my call to make? Sometimes I wish I’d gone after you, got your name, and sent you the photo -- though pursuit by a crazy white lady with a camera might not have gone well. And the moment passed so quickly. 

Books written and teaching days over, I’m settled in retirement. But Asaba is a vivid memory, and every day I see your photo on my home office wall. You must be grown now, perhaps with kids of your own. I wouldn’t recognize you if I saw you, and I doubt you remember that fleeting encounter. But there was something in the proud tilt of your head that stayed with me. I’ve always wondered who you were and who you grew to be. I still love your photo; I wanted you to know that. I’m grateful for the flash of sunlight you brought into a dour day – a reminder that while we honor the past, we must live for the present. I’m sorry if my use of your image was not what you would have wanted, or if I did not give you the respect you deserved. I hope that your confident grin has not faded, and that you still believe you’re special. And I wish I knew your name. 

Elizabeth Bird

​A retired Anthropology Professor, Elizabeth Bird turned to creative writing in 2022. Her essays appear in Under the Sun, Consequence, Cleaver, Summerset Review, Orange Blossom Review, and elsewhere. Her work has been recognized through three Pushcart nominations, a Best of the Net nomination, and a Notable in Best American Essays 2023. The photo referenced in this piece may be viewed at her website: www.lizbirdwrites.com.