Measles Project

I have been working all Summer on a project for the Measles and Rubella Initiative; a series of illustrations based on my trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo earlier in the year. The illustrations are for posters which will hopefully help the movement to eliminate measles worldwide by 2020. It has been wonderful working on these paintings and rather strange to emerge back in the world... my head has been filled with the Congo for months, with images of mothers and babies waiting in long, snaking lines outside tiny huts where health workers vaccinate one child at a time. Images of long, hollowed out canoes delivering the vaccine up the river to remote villages. Images of children holding up their purple-dyed pinky fingers to show they've been vaccinated and are safe from measles.
The project will be launched next week at the Red Cross headquarters in Washington DC. After which I look forward to sharing it all with you.

Day 3 in Bas Congo, Part 2

 

 The thrift store t-shirts we saw on children were often oddly ironic. I saw one man up a tree gathering coconuts, with a t-shirt advertising a Connecticut landscaping company.

 

We watched men playing checkers with bottle caps.

 

I bought some boxes of matches here with Congolese butterflies on them.

 

After lunch we returned to the village from yesterday to see a measles vaccination take place. I can't tell you how hot it was in this crowded blue room; I was curious that the mothers kept their babies bundled up. Everyone was very patient and quiet until the Governor came in and there was a sudden burst of singing.

It was difficult to watch this girl have an IV put in and her little arm bound with packing tape to a splintery piece of wood.

The nurse had her own baby strapped to her back

 In the afternoon we visited other families in Mbanza-Ngungu. The health centers use hand drawn maps to navigate the paths between houses in the clay villages.