Martha Zinger

mercycorps:

The Top 10 Mercy Corps Photos of 2011

We asked Phil, keeper of the Mercy Corps photo library, to compile his 10 favorite photos of 2011. Covering the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan, historic drought and famine in the Horn of Africa, and ongoing conflict in many parts of the world, these images are an inspiring reminder of how much ground we’ve covered this year, and why we’re so passionate about the work we do. See more.

Loved working on this. As a relative newbie to Mercy Corps, it’s amazing to see the scope and impact of our work.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret.

When people think of Oregon, they often picture this. And with good reason - most of the state’s population lives on the west side, where all of the clouds dump their rain before cruising over the Cascades. But all that space on the other side of those pointy mountains, is dry. And sunny! On Friday after driving only 3 hours from Portland it felt like we were on the other side of the country. The trees (and people) slowly disappeared, and in exchange we got a good dose of solitude, blue (!!!) skies and some stunning geography. When it’s the middle of May, and temperatures are below normal and rainfall is above, there’s no better therapy than a couple days spent kicking up dust in the John Day Fossil Beds.