Refugee Health Crisis

In November I set o0ut to do a story tag-teaming with Fall '07 Monitor photographer Kari Collins on a family of Bhutanese refugees resettling in Concord. Jasoda Tamang, the wife and mother of the young family had some health issues that kept them from leaving Nepal with the rest of the extended family in the summer, but we didn't know it would get as life-changing as it did.

She was in and out of the hospital with her husband, Pema, by her side translating as best he could. In February she got an operation on her lungs and after 51 days, 35 of them in the ICU she got out. I finished shooting less than a week before publication date, but thankfully, the parts came together with Chelsea Conaboy's fantastic writing.

The Monitor gave it a special section and galleries are online.