1 Adventure

Gypsy Girl

First off, I didn't want to imply anything derogatory about the girl in the picture by using the term gypsy. I am using it as it was how the locals and everyone else referred to the people that begged for money in Fatima. This girl and a friend of hers of about the same age walked around in front of the cathedral in Fatima asking for money. Many times they know people will be extra giving in these areas and they do take advantage of that. From the way she is dressed, I don't believe she was homeless but I can not know that for sure.

I watched these girls for a few minutes and after awhile realized a photo opportunity develop. I approached the girl and asked to take her picture (gesturing like a retard to my camera), she shook her head no until I offered up 1 euro. She thought for a second, look around for no reason, and said yes or something like yes. Just as I was about to take the picture, her friend ran over and told her not to do the photo. She shouted something in Portuguese and then the girl starting waving her hand in front of my camera laughing and I snapped this shot. I immediately walked away not knowing if they were going to chase me to delete the photo. They keep looking at me as I walked away and then quickly went back to begging from the religious pilgrims. I think she didn't want her picture taken in order to protect her identity. Fortunately for her I don't know her name or where she was from. For 1 euro, it was a decent shot and some fun.

Most all religious sites I have visited in other countries other than the US have this type of begging. It is mentioned in the bible many many times about beggars and people on the fringe. This is one picture from Spain of a beggar in front of church. This picture here is of a homeless man in Mexico I took a while back. Remarkably quite a few people have emailed and asked me to use this image in a very positive way. One person used it to draw attention to the needs of the homeless people by making a poster out of it, 2 bands have used it for the front of their CD cover, a Icelandic government organization used it on their website to for a social work program about homelessness, and finally an umpteen number of myspace kids have used it on there page for one reason or another (popular with the emo kids somewhat I think as it invokes some emotions). For these things I have happy to let people use these photos for free for their projects.