Re-Introductions- II

The next time I went, I decided to call the owner, David. He told me that they were at the farm with the red barns (didn’t both of the farms have red barns? This was a detail I missed.).

Driving up to the farm, I noticed that the field to my left had recently been harvested. Stray leaves were strewn on the ground, some half buried in the mud. Up on a hill I saw an open tobacco barn. I could hear the distant humming of the tractor motors, as they stewed exhaust into the air. From outside the barn, I heard the muffled talk of the Jamaicans as they lifted lattice after lattice of tobacco into the barn rafters.

Getting out of the car, I could feel an iron knot sink to the pit of my stomach. What if the workers didn’t remember me? Walking into an open side door of the barn, I first saw Alvin (the other workers call him Preacher). Enthusiastically I said hello. To my surprise (why should it have surprised me?) all of the workers remembered me. Delroy called to me from the rafters. One of the first things he asked was if I brought him something. I hadn’t. He said after all this time you have nothing to give me, which made me feel guilty. Clearly they are giving me something, they are allowing me to photograph them, and yet what do I give these workers in exchange? I feel like we have an uneven relationship where I take and they give.