Here’s another dispatch from my work with Jina Moore:

World Vision: Many women and girls in Liberia suffer from rape and its aftermath, often while their rapists walk free. In Monrovia, judges and prosecutors are experimenting with a new court system that they hope will bring an end to impunity.

The parents of a young girl who was rape. They are trying to seek justice through the slow process of prosecution at Court E.

A young girl at an MSF clinic who is a rape survivor trying to seek prosecution through Court E.

Ester, a rape victim in Liberia, plays with a doll at the prosecutor’s office while waiting with her mother.

I’m feeling very protected right now.

Okay, I was so excited to see that Malick Sidibé  won that I put up a blog post about it instantly. Now, hours later as my internet struggles to keep up with my photo-looking-desires, I realize that there are a couple of great photos from Africa of the total non-poverty porn vien included in the winners this year. Check out Francesco Giusti’s pictures of the sappeurs society in Congo, and Joan Bardeletti’s photo of a picnic on the beach in Mozambique, an aerial shot of JR’s awesome installation in Kiberia, and Denis Rouvre’s images of Senegalese wrestlers. There’s also plenty of standard fare that I won’t spend time linking to here, but, I’m happy to see these four examples mixed in.

Maybe this will be a good year for media in and about Africa. I certainly hope so.

Some things change and others obviously don’t. The Liberian Development Bank has a new office in town on Tubman Boulevard, one of the main roads in Monrovia. But just behind the main road, this rusted and ominous sign tells a different story. See more photos from Drawings on the Walls here.

Congratulations to Malick Sidibé on the World Press photography prize! I really love his work so I’m very happy to see that he’s among the winners.  And it’s great to see photos that aren’t of poverty porn.

(Though the World Pressers awarded a fair share of that too.)

See a great review of his work here, and buy his book here. I ordered mine on Amazon.com a while back and the next time I head to the USA, I’ll pick it up from my parent’s house in California, where it waits for me along with all those notices about my high school reunion.

And every day, I want to go to Mali more and more… and my high school reunion less and less.

Must read hilarity from This is Africa:

Enter Rwandan President Paul KAGAME, Ugandan President Yoweri MUSEVENI, and Libyan President Muammar QADDAFI. A corpulent Kenyan President Mwai KIBAKI sits on the sofa, stuffing his face with sausage rolls and scanning hot celebrity pics in The Star. Angolan President Jose Eduardo DOS SANTOS sits under a pile of cobwebs in the corner, an oil drip connected to his arm. Nigerian President Umaru Musa YAR’ADUA is nowhere to be seen.

MUSEVENI: You fat Kikuyu, always hungry!

KIBAKI: It is my turn to eat, bwana.

MUSEVENI: If you only eat a little – slowly, slowly – no one will notice. I fleeced the West for years before they realized I was no better than all the other tyrants. Some still think I am an example of the New African Leader. Haha.

KAGAME: Haha.

MUSEVENI: Haha.

YAR’ADUA: …

KIBAKI: Ndiyo, you are right. If I am not careful, Ban Ki-Moon will tell me that I should be tried at a special tribunal in the Hague. Hahaha.

MUSEVENI: Hahaha.

KAGAME: Hahaha.

ALL: Hahaha.

[Cut to Ban KI-MOON, wearing a pink tutu and blushing in the corner.]

KIBAKI: We Kikuyu have a saying: grmphluggerblursplatughrump [words drowned out by digestive noises].

KAGAME: In the bush we survived on canniness and wiles. For three years I ate nothing but Human Rights Watch reports. [lifting shirt to reveal washboard abs] Yoweri, feel my stomach.

MUSEVENI: You fat Kenyans cannot even agree on how to misrule a country.

KIBAKI: Yes, now you are handing out leadership advice. Mr. I Can’t Even Control an Unruly Kingdom Within My Own Borders.

MUSEVENI: [makes a flummoxed face]

KIBAKI: Mr. Let Me Bend Over So the Western Oil Companies Can Stick It In.

MUSEVENI: [cartoon teapot steam spouting from ears] Oh, so says the great leader of the Grand Coalition Government. So says him who can’t even manage to steal an election without maybe half the Western world noticing.

In the 1970s and 1980s, so many promises were made to Liberia and by Liberians. All of them would be broken over the next two decades. As part of a long term project I’m beginning, I plan to document the spaces of these broken promises.

The photos below are of an unfinished building funded by the American government in the 1980s and promised to then President Samuel Doe as part of Cold War favor swapping. The building is still referred to as the Ministry of Defense, though it was never used as one. The war interrupted construction, and the building was never finished. It looms large over Congo Town in Monrovia, a skeletal reminder of all that was promised at that point in history.

You can see more from this series, and others, on www.glennagordon.com.

Afrikan Boy – Lagos Town from afrikanboy on Vimeo.  HT Africa is a Country.

I’ve never been to Nigeria, but with every single piece of Naija related media I see, I want to more and more.

Also on my list: Mauritania, Mali, Ivory Coast (trip planned for March!), Burundi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Namibia, Eritrea. Etc.

An image by an artist named Malodi, re-posted from the great blog Solo Kinshasa. If anyone has more information about him, please let me know!