The United States as seen by its residents

In Athens County, Ohio, a family sits in the bus where they live. They're the subjects of a multimedia story by Meg Roussos, a student at Ohio University. Upon discovering her work, courtesy of photographer Jonathan Adams, I was thrilled: it's exactly the sort of photography that What America Looks Like seeks to highlight. Today, we'll look at several more of her photos, and some of her reporting on this family.

And throughout this week, I'll highlight other exceptional work from the project Soul of Athens, where numerous visual communication students are trying to examine "the changing American dream." Now let's return to that bus in the woods, as captured by Meg Roussos, who created all the words and images that follow:

The school bus is small for five people. Shelves are stacked to the ceiling, filled with clothes and food. Headlamps hang from a bungee cord. There are touches of home, like a bookcase Smiles built. They improvise solutions to simple problems that do not exist in traditional houses.The kids warm bricks on the wood-burning stove and place them at their feet to keep warm during winter. Eli pulls out a roll-away bed every night, and Forest sleeps on the couch. There is no running water. They compost their waste. They have to start a generator in order to charge their cell phones.



Simon steps through the kitchen, as Space's home made apple pies wait to be baked in the oven. "It is such a blessing to have this oven in here, I am able to bake a lot of homemade things," she says.









Eli reads comic books to Smiles sitting nearby as his brothers look over his shoulder at the pictures. The boys place their feet on a warmed brick from the stove.





