Young Girl + Student, In the Kitchen, Banganga, Rajasthan, India, November 20, 2009

She is taking the place of her mother in the kitchen and preparing a meal for her family at the end of the day. Her village has adopted a solar lantern project in cooperation with Humana People to People India and Lighting a Billion Lives (LaBL). Rather than perform her duties in the dark or next to a kerosene lantern, she does so with the efficiency and safety of this solar lantern.

Over four years I have visited this village, and perhaps four to five times during each of those years. Sometimes we would visit just to enjoy time with the families, and sometimes to make portraits. During my last visit it was possible to document more so their lives, and this gives me great inspiration to do much more of the same later this year.

This young girl lives with her family next to her aunt's house, and shares a substantial plot of farming land with her cousins. Sometimes it is hard to tell them apart, and to differentiate to which family each girl belongs. They act with such love towards each other that at least to me it is one large, extended family. She is the shyest of her sisters, and speaks mostly with smiles as in the picture above.

Over the years I have written much about this village, and a quick search above will lead the reader to other stories and images from Banganga, Rajasthan. It is one of my favorite places in the world and a place to which I will return year after year until my legs are unable to carry me. 

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Halim Ina Photography