I was in Cambridge, MA last year applying for a position to guide a group of students from an affluent Boston suburb into eastern Afrika for month or so.   After the interview I stopped to grab a bite to eat and found myself in a food court catering primarily to MIT and Harvard students, professors and affiliates and I got to thinking, here is a collection of brilliant minds of all shapes and sizes, sexes and colors, and generally, they are doing the same thing… sitting with friends or colleagues, breaking bread, socializing, sharing ideas, speculating about the future and reflecting on the past.  I then began to think about the setting, a food court, and the logical extrapolation that there are countless food courts around this world where the exact same thing is happening… humans are sitting, taking sustenance, socializing, praying, laughing, thinking, and all the rest, and though the subject matter from a food court in Cambridge differs from a food court in Algiers, or Bangkok, the core remains that in each there are individuals taking a few minutes out of their day to satiate a base set of needs we as humans have in common, the need for energy, socialization, a break from the labors of the day…

I then began to realize that despite differences in creed, color, language, shape, beliefs or what is on our plates that which we as humans have in common is so much greater than that which makes us different.  With that in mind I’ve collected some photos that I’ve been fortunate enough to take over the last few years and gathered them in various media to offer to my friends of the global community.  Feel free to peruse, laugh, remember, plan, and of course, order a few, but if one of these shots brings you to a good place, then it’s done it’s job.
be well,
-brendan maguire
Ashburnham, MA 1/2007