David Alan Harvey

Mark Leyes has served five U.S. presidencies and played 600 baseball games during his 18-year tenure as official U.S. Consul for Oaxaca, Mexico. His government role is supplemented by also teaching English at the local university, and his Mexican wife and two sons make their home on a hilltop outside of town.

“I got into both baseball and this job as U.S. Consul almost by accident. I came down to Mexico from California just on a whim. Never planned to live here. One day some guys asked me if I could play ball. I said yes. Another day somebody asked me if I would be interested in the U.S. Consul job. I said yes. So, there you have it.”

Mark started out by serving George Bush senior. Then two Clinton terms. Now two Bush terms. “I am ready for a big management change,” he says, without stating whom he will vote for. Mark specializes in educational counseling for the citizens of Oaxaca who may have some American connection. He is photographed here in the consul office with a woman from Juchitán, Elsa Gyves, who was there for education counseling. There are 19 indigenous groups in Oaxaca with as many languages beyond Spanish.

Leyes has also processed tens of thousands of certificates of Mexican citizenship for those children born in the U.S.A. whose parents were working in the U.S., but seek dual citizenship for their children. But as I was photographing Mark, his primary duty for the day was investigating the murder of an American woman. “I have to do all kinds of things in this job,” he says.

Taking care of American citizens is Mark’s job. Playing center field is Mark’s passion. As Mark so succinctly says: “There are a lot of balls up in the air in America these days. Like everyone else I worry. But I also hope for the best.”

Ask Yolanda Evens what she is most proud of and she will tell you two things.

First, her son is a star high school basketball player and may take over the family barbecue chicken restaurant someday, and second, she is so so proud that her restaurant, “Taste of Paradise” in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, was a voter registration point.

“We had folks jammed in there to register. Why, there were 15 people I met who told me they had never voted before in their lives. Old people. Yes, we feel hope. Obama hope. But most of us are afraid somebody will try to git him.”

There were only two other customers in Taste of Paradise when I chanced in for a late lunch of chicken wings and potatoes. The guy at the next table, Rory, asked me for the salt and pepper, and of course that is all it took for either one of us to start up a conversation. I had the feeling these folks didn’t see too many white dudes like me eating curried wings and with a camera on the table. Rory volunteered: “I don't care if a man is black, white or Chinese or green. I just want a MAN a real MAN in office.” I noticed the television was off. I had only seen Fox News almost everywhere else in Carolina.

Sitting next to the TV was a pretty young woman named Bridgette. She wants to be a model someday. Her mother laughed. I did not get anyone’s last name because I just do not like to ask any questions early on when I am working. Besides people just start talking when you listen.

I asked Bridgette if she was a regular customer. She said, “No, I work here. I am not working today, but I just hang here, and my mom is coming to pick me up. You take pictures of famous models?”

Rory and I agreed that Obama had brought black people and white people closer together. “For the first time, black folks know that not ALL white folks are racists. It is mostly white folks votin’ for Obama. We know that.”

I had to leave, I hated to leave. But I always like to make my “first visits” on a shoot brief anyway. Normally, I like to come back, maybe with a print to show, gain trust, and do my best work. But I will probably never be back in Rocky Mount in my life. So, since I cannot go back with a print for my new friends, I promised them that their pictures would be on InSight. Now I only took pictures of three people, so I will be asking my Magnum colleageus to please post all that I send.

After all, a promise is a promise.

Down here in the Outer Banks of North Carolina a cold wind blows. When the wind clocks around from the north, everyone here closes their shutters and prepares for the worst. 15-foot waves will pound the shoreline, and whoever built a summer cottage on the ocean front is at risk from the beach erosion which just goes with the territory. These barrier islands “move” with the wind and water and geologists say flat out that folks just aren’t supposed to live here.

Still, Nags Head, historic home of sea pirates and now fishermen and surfer boys, is home to 30,000 full-time residents. Many of these residents are war veterans since the Norfolk Navy base is only an hour to the north and Fort Bragg, the “come and go point” for ground troops in Iraq, is only two hours west. I spent two days photographing fishermen at the Nags Head fishing pier, a symbol of man’s willingness to put something out into the sea which cannot possibly last, and a combo of “food source” and sport for so many locals.

Diane Gimmer has tears in her eyes. She is a cook at the restaurant at the end of the pier and her husband is a Corporal on a U.S. Marine “quick response team” in Iraq. “He has not even met two of his grandchildren,” she says. “He has been in Iraq for 9 months and 3 weeks, and I worry about him 24 hours a day. It just isn’t fair. I want him home.”

North Carolinians know times are hard. Feeling the effects of war combined with a failing economy has taken an emotional toll. But several fishermen told me that when times get really tough, they can come down here to the pier and quite literally catch their dinner: “These seas are not as full of fish as they used to be, but there is still plenty of food in these waters.”

A raging sea has beauty. As I wandered up and down this pier, I felt these U.S. citizens were trying to get as far away from “reality” as possible. Folks who live down here generally feel “apart” from the “hustle and bustle” of mainstream America. Most came here to “get away.” The fishermen standing at the end of the Nags Head pier are surely as far away as they can get. “These storms bring in the big fish,” one told me. Yet just as he said that his line went taught, he set the hook, and he pulled in a little “spot fish.” “Too small to keep,” he said and threw it back into the sea. “I will wait for better times,” he said.

His father flew Navy fighter jets. His wife is an airline flight attendent. But U.S. Navy Captain Andrew Johnson rarely sees the blue sky. Challenged and fulfilled by his career in emergency medicine, his 16-year government service has been played out in the halogen light of Navy hospitals.

Melissa and Andrew live a life close to the beach, have a waterfront six-bedroom home, and raise three children, Gracie, 7, Cole, 10, and Critt, 12. Virginia Beach, Virginia, is home to many Navy families and is 15 minutes from the largest Navy base in the world in Norfolk. Alan B. Shepard, a Navy pilot and our first man in space, lived just a few doors down from the Johnsons at about the time both Andrew and Melissa were born.

Captain Johnson figures that being in the military definitely has its advantages. “I might make a little bit less than my civilian counterparts, but I can retire from the military in four years, have government retirement benefits, and then continue on with a civilian career. The Navy paid for my college and my medical school, so it seems like a pretty good deal to me.” Melissa who frowned a bit at this comment says “yes, but in a war time you could be away from home for 18 months.”

Andrew smiled and played backyard quaterback to his son Critt who was running across the yard and caught the pass.

Both Melissa and Andrew agreed that the economic troubles facing most of the nation have little affect on the Norfolk/Virginia Beach area. “We will not lose our jobs in the Navy,” Andrew says. Melissa chimed in, saying “the malls look pretty full to me.”

Highlands Ranch, Colorado - Jeff and Anne Babcock struggled in Sumatra, Indonesia, as Christian missionaries. After all, they were in a Muslim country with a message nobody wanted to hear.

“We realized we were not going to convert anyone. So we just tried to be helpful,” says Jeff.

Married now for 16 years and with four children, Jeff and Ann live within 20 miles of all of their relatives - on both sides.

Devoutly Protestant, both decided to be missionaries right after marriage. After a year in Indonesia, they returned to the U.S. and suburbia to raise their family.

“I do not read the newspapers or see the news,” says Anne. “I put all of my energy into raising my family. Jeff keeps me informed about what is going on in the world.”

Potentially hard economic times do not worry the Babcocks much. “God will show us the way,” Anne says.