The Man with a Camera

by Michael Schroeder

In June he was traveling on a train in Kenya, carrying a camera from his mother, to photograph his uncle’s wedding. The barefoot children at the station laughed and pointed at him, running with the train until they could run no faster and then they would stop. He took their pictures from an open window. He was friendly and not too young and his uncle sat in the compartment, reading a book. His father looked out the window. The sun was going down and he photographed the Rift valley, flat and spread out below the ridge, where cactus trees and acacias grew in bunches.