I first came across Paul Sika’s photos on the blog Africa is a Country and was immediately transfixed by how he transformed scenes that seemed so familiar to me into something brilliantly technicolor and radiant. I emailed him last week and asked a few questions and he was kind enough to fill me in with a little bit of information about his work for Context Africa.

Context Africa is new series on this blog that highlights projects that go above and beyond daily content making to tell a story of a place in its context. I also hope create an ongoing dialogue about what it means to tell contextual stories in Africa. There’s a lot of daily news out there that is factually incorrect, slanted, or stereotyped. But, there are also a lot of journalists committed to telling a different kind of story.

See previous Context Africa entries:

• Andrew Rice on memory, murder and Idi Amin
• Tim Hetherington on the culmination of ten years of taking pictures in Liberia
• Rob Crilly on how to write about a place as contentious as Darfur
• Nicholai Lidow on post-conflict surfing
• Jina Moore’s Q and A about forgiveness in Rwanda

How did you get started as a photographer and how did you look evolve into what it is now?

In 2003 when I was studying English in London in order to start my studies in Software Engineering, I happened to realize I was in love with cinema. Indeed I was walking down Tottenham Court Road on my way home when I got mesmerized by the Matrix Reloaded trailer that was playing in the window. Right there on the spot, when seeing that Agent, in the famous Highway scene, jumping from one car and landcrashing another, I realized I wanted to make movies. I thought to myself “is it this type of imagination that is required to make movies? Because if it is then I think I am well equipped.” I then started to think about my past, how I was very attracted to video games which I was playing nearly all the time.

I love storytelling too. I remembered that once I was the Game Master at some voice Role Playing Game, and I would create the story and narrate live. I even managed to convey fear to the players in bright daylight. It was an amazing experience. So from that life changing moment, I wanted to enter a filmmaking school instead of Software Engineering. The ones I had discovered were too expensive for me and I entered Westminster University for the S.E. course. After a year I wanted to drop out. But in the end I did not and finished with Distinction. Still very much interested in cinema, but not wanting to jeopardize my studies I bought a still camera with it in mind that I would explore the still image as it is the unit of the moving picture and when I am done with S.E. I would get into some film school.

On the technical side of things, can you tell me a bit about how you create the sort of Technicolor dream space that your photos occupy? How much of the work happens during the snapping and how much during postproduction?

Well I am a digital technology advocate. In fact when I was considering starting photography, I investigated the type of technology around and trust me if digital did not exist, I would not have entered the field. I wanted quick and accurate results. I love immediate feedback so I can orientate my choices. I love to move at the speed of thought.

I use Photoshop, one of my favorite ever tools and the main one anyway. I over saturate my colors. I also paint over them. In a way it is not easy to describe the process because it is to me so instinctive. When I am in postproduction, most of the time I don’t realize I am thinking because it is going so fast.

The characters you see on the photos are all present at the time of shooting. I do not add any person in post, at least for the moment – that is because I am a director. I am a Film Director using a still photo camera.

Do you consider your work editorial or creative? Or some kind of hybrid?

I do not see Editorial and Creative separately. I am pushing for more creative editorials.
I think it is time we open the door for more daring, creative, researched, accomplished editorials. Some have started to do so but I do not feel it is widespread enough. We must surpass ourselves and create imagery we will remember for a long time. I am in fact thinking of doing some photo essays with my style of photography.

You’re currently based in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. How did you end up there? Where are you from?

Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire is the place I saw my first sun rays back in 1985.
But you know what, I do not see myself as limited by borders and frontiers.
I am Global. That is my nationality: Global. My other nationality: Entrepreneur. My third nationality: Creative.

Can you describe the different phases of your work?

Overlapping one another a little bit, the three main categories on my web site are Photomaking, Illustrations and Monochrome, which more or less represent the 3 great periods of my photography.

As a complete beginner I was doing a lot of monochrome, yet very much interested in colors. And if you take a good look at the monochrome pics, you will see that they are photos of life happenings, events/things/people you could meet/live/encounter yourself. In that period I was a witness of my surroundings. Not really putting my own judgment/vision I was a complete receiver.

Then if you look at the Illustrations, the images are getting some scrambling treatment. They are mixes of several photos, of different kinds of subjects: people, nature, objects, animals…. some start to have a surrealist/fantastic feel to them. At this stage, I started to insert/inject my vision.

Then Photomaking was the last/latest stage where I am without mercy projecting my own vision onto the photo especially, with the latest photo series such as At The Heart
Of Me with Murielle Nanie (Miss Cote d’Ivoire 2008). The set was our most ambitious one. We built the wall, carved out the heart, painted on the walls.

People around me were telling me I was putting too much money into the production of just a photo. I didn’t follow what they said.

I wouldn’t presume to say what Ugandans will learn from the book. I think that most of what it says are things they already know. The one thing that I think it might do–that I sincerely hope it will do–is encourage Ugandans who lost someone to think that the past is retrievable. I know that Duncan Laki’s story has already had that effect on many Ugandans. As for Americans, I hope they read this book and realize there is something more to Africa than elephants and tribal dancing and civil wars. As I said, the book is really about the Uganda of the present–a profoundly flawed country, but miraculously stable and politically vibrant and gloriously argumentative one. Maybe it takes the cartoonish figure of Idi Amin to get readers interested in learning about such a place, but I hope that by the end of the book they realize that there’s something far more ambiguous and multifaceted–more interesting–going on now than simple brutality.

Andrew Rice has written about Africa for The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, and The Economist, among other publications. His article “The Book of Wilson,” published in The Paris Review, received a Pushcart Prize. Between 2002 and 2004, he lived in Uganda as a fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs, an American nonprofit foundation. Prior to that, he worked for several newspapers, including the Philadelphia Inquirer and the New York Observer. A native of Columbia, South Carolina and a graduate of Georgetown University, he currently lives in Brooklyn.

(Photo of Duncan Laki courtesy of Vanessa Vick)

This week’s installment of Context Africa focuses on the work of documentary photographer and filmmaker Tim Hetherington. For nearly ten years, Tim lived and worked in Liberia covering the war and its aftermath. He made the film An Uncivil War, which he loves seeing pirated on the streets of Monrovia. Now, has a new book of photos out. His work is internationally acclaimed and an important addition to understanding what happened in Liberia. I got a sneak peak at his new photo book Long Story, Bit by Bit when we had coffee at the Mamba Point Hotel last week.

In his own words,

There are two Liberias, two worlds that are far apart but that sometimes intersect. One is the world of Liberians and reflects their individual struggle with history and circumstance. The other is the world of the international community, led by events and the preoccupations and agendas of organizations like the United Nations and international NGOs. The international media often portrays Liberia as a place of abstract violence and faceless individuals. As the only photographer to live with the rebels during the war, I was granted a unique perspective. My evolving work is an attempt to describe how the events of war intersect with personal lives. I want my images to evoke the contrast between inside and outside, the personal and the historical, and the individual and the event.

Context Africa is new series on this blog that highlights projects that go above and beyond daily news to tell a story of a place in its context. I also hope create an ongoing dialogue about what it means to tell contextual stories in Africa. There’s a lot of daily news out there that is factually incorrect, slanted, or stereotyped. But, there are also a lot of journalists committed to telling a different kind of story.

See previous Context Africa entries: Jina Moore’s Q and A about forgiveness in Rwanda, Nicholai Lidow on post-conflict surfing, and Rob Crilly on how to write about a place as contentious as Darfur.

Tim Hetherington work can also be seen here, on his homepage.

How did this book come to be?

I didn’t think about a book for quite a long time. I was making work in West Africa for general dissemination. I wasn’t thinking, “you make a project and then you make a book,” but it seemed obvious in 2006 that I’d make a book. Then, you spend a couple of years thinking, “What was the book about, what was the project about?” The book is the final project that crystallizes what I was doing. I only finally understood what I was doing when the book was completed and making it was an exercise in figuring that out.

How did you end up in Liberia?

By chance, like so many things in life. I was working in the UK and I found out about a Liberian football team that was coming to the UK. And I thought sports was an interesting way to connect Liberia to the UK. I approached the organizers of the tour and said I wanted to be on the coach when the kids come around. They saw my work and said they were looking for someone to come out and film. They asked if I wanted to go to Liberia. I said, “Sure, where is it?” I first came here in May, 1999.

I remember the first scene that grabbed me. I was walking down Tubman Boulevard and everyone stopped and stood still. They said, “Taylor is coming, Taylor is coming.” He had summoned all the ministers to come to meet him at the airport after a trip abroad. He had a massive convoy of 100 vehicles going full speed down a two-lane street, along with armed vehicles and guys with RPGs and wrap around sunglasses. It was a caricature of Africa. A woman was jumping up and down and saying “Taylor is our lord, Taylor is our lord!” It was the end of one part of the war, but the buildings were dilapidated and broken down. It blew my mind. How can this reality possibly exist in the same world that I exist in?

From there, the project turned out into an inquiry into power. It’s about how young men and women are used politically, and what happens to them and their lives.

My recent work follows similar themes. I did a project in Afghanistan, and it’s about young men and power – how young American men and violence and power come together and how they’re used politically.

How has Liberia changed since you first came here, ten years ago?

Now, Liberia is in a better place. There’s security here, some economic progress, some investment, some political stability, some improvement in some people’s lives, and a great deal of freedom of speech. There’s a desire by the political powers to resurrect justice and democracy. You can see that visually. It’s changing, but it’s too early to say what’s going to happen. You can’t make that call now. Things are still very fragile, the process is going to take ten or fifteen years.

One of the things that I love about this book is that it isn’t just straight war reporting. You include landscapes, portraits, even still life images. Can you tell me a bit about that decision?

I’ve never seen myself as a war photographer. This is about narrative. I’m very open to any visual conceits and any possibilities at my disposal to better explain to people the ideas I’m exploring. I like art photography, I like still life, I like war photography. I like to include everything to weave a tapestry to explain to someone, “What happened?”

A lot of the pictures are metaphorical, and the combination of pictures is metaphorical. This piece of work is almost like a novel. I use narrative book techniques, and I think they’re a more powerful approach than having a lot of war photography. The other thing is I’m working in square format, and that’s a signature of the Liberia work. Working with film slows down your process and makes it more contemplative. I can do square work and it’s fast moving, but I can take a slower photo of an orange, and it becomes something.

(Note: Tim uses a medium format film Hasselblad for almost all of his work.)

What do you hope will come from this book?

For me what happened was that unlike the other people that covered the war, I actually lived with the [LURD] rebels during the war. That was a privileged experience. And I felt the importance of making that public record, and that’s what the book is and why it comes out. And that’s why Uncivil War is so popular here. It’s not just the government, but it’s what people here saw.

The book and photos will tour around galleries and colleges, and I want to create awareness of America’s involvement in Liberia up to a present date. People in America should understand that. Liberia is still like an antebellum plantation system and that needs to be understood.

In the book, I name people and show people who they were. A lot of warlords were using America as a base. The LURD came out of Guinea, but the MODEL came out of America. That’s something that needs to be spoken about. America can have a very destabilizing effect on Liberia.

No one in Liberia will pay $30 for this book. They don’t need to be reminded of what this book contains. They know it. In a few years, I want to make a low cost copy of this book that can be sold here. Something soft copy, printed in China, and then disseminate it here for $2 so people can show their children what happened. But not now. Liberia needs to focus on rebuilding, not what happened. But this generation’s children will need to see it and their children’s children will need to see it.

Buy the book on Amazon, which will be released on June 1, 2009, and see Umbrage Press for more information.

This is the third installation of Context Africa, a new series that will highlight projects that go above and beyond daily news to tell a story of a place in its context and create an ongoing dialogue about what it means to tell contextual stories in Africa. See also, Jina Moore’s Q and A about forgivness in Rwanda from last week, and Nicholai Lidow on Sliding Liberia.

Rob Crilly is working on a new book project on the always contentious topic of Darfur. Rob’s a stellar journalist whose live tweets during Bashir’s indictment justify the service’s existence. He strives to understand the place, its context, history and future in more than soundbites, more than 600 words, more than angry internet comment forums.

When not riding donkeys across vast stretches of Jebel Mara, he can be found at Java’s in Nairobi filing for the Times, Christian Science Monitor, and other sundry outlets.

His book, tentatively titled “Saving Darfur,” will be published this November.

Interviewing an SLA commander, Ibrahim Abdullah al “Hello”, in En Siro, north Darfur

When and why did you start going to Darfur?

My first trip was in late 2005 after a year trying to get a visa. I’d started the application in November 2004, which was a few months after the world had woken up to what was happening. Sudan had reacted by closing down and most of the reporting was coming from the camps in Chad. None of the Nairobi press pack was getting visas.

How has it changed between then and now?

Everything has changed and nothing. Then the war could broadly be characterized as rebels against government. A poorly equipped African Union force was struggling to protect itself, much less civilians. And I met thousands of new arrivals in the sprawling aid camps.

Since then the dynamic of the conflict has shifted several times over. The worst of the fighting this year has been within and between tribes. The monthly death toll is much, much lower. The peacekeepers are wearing the blue hats of the UN. But in some ways nothing has changed. Thousands of people are still on the move and millions are living in miserable aid camps. The peacekeepers may have changed their hats but there is still insufficient security for people to go home.
How can you as a journalist add complexity, nuance, and context to this over simplified conflcit without losing readers? Or maybe you’re okay with losing readers?

As a journalist it is very difficult to convey the sort of complexity I’ve seen in a 600-word story. There is just not the space. Putting it down in a book is my way of trying to open a discussion about what the conflict – or rather conflicts – are all about.

As far as I am concerned, there would be no point in writing a complicated book about Darfur’s complexities. I don’t want just Africa watchers or Sudan scholars, who already understand its problems, to read it. OK, I’m not going to kid myself that it will top the bestseller charts, but if I can just get a few of the people who listen to George Clooney or who have read Nick Kristof to pick it up, then I’ll be pleased.

The idea is to recount some of my journeys through the region, and keep it as a fast-paced journalist’s eyewitness account. The nuances will come through people I meet and things I have seen – the Arabs living in aid camps or fighting alongside the rebels, the peacekeepers sent on a doomed mission, Chadian rebels in Sudanese towns. Through them I can go beyond the simple black and white analysis of popular perception.

There will be more academic and exhaustive accounts of whether this is genocide, the role of the International Criminal Court, humanitarian interventions and so on. But I hope mine will explore the impact of all these things on the people that matter – the people of Darfur.

United Nations human rights investigators collect account of recent government bombing in the rebel held town of Madu, north Darfur

Can you tell me about your publisher, Reportage Press?

Reportage Press is a newish publisher that specializes in books by journalists. Now is not a good time to be trying to get a deal to write a non-fiction book but Reportage has a real commitment to publishing books that might not get a look-in elsewhere. Yet another book on Darfur, and one that sets out to explore some of its complexity, might struggle to find a home but it’s great that publishers like Reportage are putting this stuff out there. It’s also run by a former journalist and has tight turnaround times, which makes it the right sort of atmosphere for me.

One incredibly contentious issue is how to report the death toll in Darfur and which numbers should journalists trust. Any thoughts on that?

Journalists are in a tough position when it comes to conflict death tolls. We are expected to offer certainty in a situation where there is usually little agreement. For most of us the fallback position is to quote a respected authority, in this case the UN which uses 300,000 as the death toll. This is probably at the upper end of accepted estimates.

Similarly in trying to write about Darfur, it is difficult to get accurate and informed information – especially when writing stories from outside. Aid agencies and the UN cannot say much publicly (for fear of being expelled – although that strategy has clearly failed) and the Save Darfur Coalition has sometimes been caught out exaggerating death tolls and incidents of government violence.

Often though our job is to simplify the incomprehensible into themes that readers can understand: to go from the specific to the general. In the case of Darfur, this has often meant that we have picked up the Save Darfur analysis – Blacks or Africans against Arabs – as our narrative.

So I don’t agree with everything Mamdani says but on the other hand I agree that the broad Save Darfur movement has had a huge impact on the way journalists cover the story. Their advocates are often the only one who can be reached for a comment, for example. And who’s going to turn down an interview with George Clooney? We should have been a little more skeptical of the analysis we were being fed.

Given that a lot of the book will be about your travels, can you give us a preview or a juice anecdote or two about traveling and working in Darfur?

The most dramatic occasion was sitting in a government office in El Fasher as Janjaweed gunmen attacked the town’s market all around us. The man I was meeting raced to the door to escape, stopping only to remove his tie and leaving me sitting at his desk. It took me a moment to realize that not many Sudanese men wore ties. It would have marked him out as a government official, making him a target. A second later it dawned on me that his office was probably not the healthiest place for me to be either.

Al Siir and his taxi. Together we have been in dozens of scrapes, two accidents and one hole.

If what’s happening isn’t bringing us any closer to a solution, is there something that would?

A lot of the pressure for change is coming from outside, from a Save Darfur movement that has polarized the debate. The first step has to be taking some of the heat out of that debate to make it easier to engage with Sudan and also the Arab world, which has largely kept quiet so far. Then the next step is looking for solutions from inside Sudan, in building bridges between the tribes which have become caught up in the conflict. Some of this work is already happening but gets overshadowed in the rush to vilify Khartoum. Then the top tier is to improve relations between Chad and Sudan, another key driver of conflict.

There are no silver bullets. And many of the right processes are in place. The problem is that pressure is too often focused in the wrong places – getting peacekeepers in, the ICC – so that the international community expends all its energy, and political capital at the Security Council, on things that won’t end the conflict.

Last week Context Africa was all about responsible tourism, post conflict, and surfing in Liberia, the week before about reconciliation in Rwanda after horrendous crimes.

This afternoon, I’ll post an interview with Rob Crilly about his new book project on the always contentious topic of Darfur. Rob’s a stellar journalist whose live tweets during Bashir’s indictment justify the service’s existence. He strives to understand the place, its context, history and future in more than soundbites, more than 600 words, more than angry internet comment forums.

When not riding donkeys across vast stretches of Jebel Mara, he can be found at Java’s in Nairobi filing for the Times, Christian Science Monitor, and other sundry outlets.

This is the second installation of Context Africa, a new series that will highlight projects that go above and beyond daily news to tell a story of a place in its context and create an ongoing dialogue about what it means to tell contextual stories in Africa. See also, Jina Moore’s Q and A about forgivness in Rwanda from last week.

This Q and A is with Nicholai Lidow, who did a summer internship at a peacebuilding organization in Ghana, where he lived with a group of Liberian refugees. After graduating from college, Nicholai traveled to Liberia to meet up with these friends, who had just returned to their country after 14 years of exile. The people he met on this journey and the incredible waves at Robertsport changed Nicholai’s life. To tell those stories, Nicholai teamed up with his friends back home—a small group of filmmakers and surfers—to make the the movie.

Sliding Liberia follows Nicholai and his friends to Liberia in search of more than perfect waves. Risking everything to explore the West African country devastated by decades of war, they record the stories of people they meet—people like Alfred, who became Liberia’s first surfer after finding a bodyboard while fleeing from rebels. Besides rediscovering a break that could be the best-kept secret in the surfing world, they find something more important—a way to travel responsibly in the 21st century.

One of the things I like about Sliding Liberia is that is neither just the story of you and your friends surfing nor the story of Liberia’s recently ended war. How did you work to achieve that balance?

Surfers have the opportunity to travel to some of the most interesting and amazing places in the world in search of waves—El Salvador, Indonesia, the Philippines. But a generation of surfers have grown up with surf media that show image after image of perfect waves, with little concern for the people who live on land. The goal of Sliding Liberia is to combine the journey towards perfect waves with a more in-depth look at the people and places encountered along the way.
Striking a balance between surfing and a documentary-style look at Liberia’s current situation was the biggest challenge of the film. Britton Caillouette and I tried to be very careful to preserve Sliding Liberia as a surf film—something that would be entertaining to watch—while also presenting an accurate, informative picture of Liberia today. During the editing process we went back and forth—cutting some surfing, adding some interviews, and vice versa— until the balance seemed right.

What kind of feedback has the film gotten?

The response to the film—from the surfing community, the general public, and people in Liberia—has been overwhelming. When Britt and I first thought up the idea for the film in 2005, we had no experience and no connections in the surfing world. Our idea was simply to buy a couple of camcorders and see what happens. Early on in the project we met with the Malloy brothers (a legendary trio of surfer/filmmakers) and pitched them our idea. The Malloy brothers were incredibly supportive and within a week we had a top cinematographer (Dave Homcy) a brilliant photographer (Ted Grambeau) and multiple feature articles lined up.

Even more surprising was the positive response from film festivals and the general public. Sliding Liberia has screened more than 60 times on 6 continents and won more than a dozen awards at international film festivals. I think part of the reason for this reception is that the film strikes a balance between the beauty and optimism of Liberia on one hand, and the serious legacy of violence and poverty on the other (plus the soundtrack is catchy).

My biggest joy from the film, however, has been screening it in Liberia. Over the last two years we’ve organized a few free screenings in Monrovia and Robertsport, for both NGO workers and Liberians. I was terrified how these groups of people—people with experience in Liberia—would judge the film. The feedback has been very positive, and it has been great seeing my friends who appeared in the film transform into local celebrities.

How have things changed at Roberstport, where you filmed most of the surfing, and in Liberia, in the years you’ve been visiting?

Robertsport has experienced some changes since the film was shot in 2006, although the people still face the same daily struggles. When we made the film, Alfred was the only local with any experience surfing. Now there are at least a dozen kids out in the water, and four of them are becoming very, very good. The kids now have access to about a dozen surfboards that visitors have been kind enough to leave, and surfing is continuing to grow. The biggest change, of course, has been the opening of “Nana’s Camp,” a luxury lodge right on the beach. Now surfers and aid workers can stay at Robertsport in comfort, without having to build a camp on the beach.

At least a dozen surfers have made the journey to Liberia solely to experience the waves at Robertsport (most of them because they’ve seen Sliding Liberia!). Hopefully as these numbers grow, the opportunities for employment and development in Robertsport will increase.
Unfortunately the people of Robertsport continue to face difficulties. Although most of the community relies on fishing, the long distance to Monrovia means that there are no markets to sell their fish. Very few jobs exist in Robertsport (although Nana’s Camp now employs about 20 local staff), and access to electricity or running water is very limited. Alfred’s mother, for example, has had to leave her family and move to Kakata to pursue a job in teaching because she could not find any source of income in Robertsport.

You’ve come back to Liberia this time around to work on doctoral research. How is your academic work informed by your time in Liberia hanging out and surfing?

My research focuses on post-conflict reconstruction and on the organization of rebel groups. My academic work has benefited tremendously from my early experiences in Liberia. I first came to Liberia to visit friends that I had met in Ghana in 2003 while they were Liberian refugees. When I graduated from college I traveled to Liberia with the simple goal of visiting these friends and tagging along with them while they tracked down their families and reconnected with a country they hadn’t seen in 14 years.

Seeing Liberia from their perspective sparked a connection with Liberia that I have never felt anywhere else. But aside from this personal connection, my network of friends have proven invaluable resources when it comes to explaining the nuances of Liberian politics or tracking down elusive contacts.

I really love the music you guys used in the film. Can you tell me a bit about that?

Britton Caillouette, my partner on the film, was the driving force behind the soundtrack. Our goal was to create a bridge between the Western music that typically appears in surf films and the West African music that is a more authentic backdrop to the scenery and stories on the screen. Britt listened to thousands of songs to pick the ones that worked— I think he did an amazing job. We also teamed up with Todd Hannigan and Jesse Siebenberg to compose an original score that captured the complicated emotions present in the film.

$1 from each DVD sold on the website is donated to NGOs and local organizations working in Liberia. The film is also available at Amazon.com or on Netflicks.

After last week’s somber and thoughtful installment of Context Africa with Jina Moore, this week I’ll feature another project with a similar amount of commitment and equally difficult themes, but a lighter throughline: surfing.

I’d heard of Sliding Liberia before I got here, but I didn’t watch it until one quiet Saturday night a few months ago. What immediately appealed to me about the film was that it didn’t try to be about The War (capital T, capital H), but about a group of friends surfing and the context in which that takes place.

Tomorrow, I’ll post a Q and A with Nicholai Lidow, one of the driving forces behind the film. Stay tuned for more information and some amazing pictures Nicholai has been kind enough to share.

This is the first installation of Context Africa, a new series that will highlight projects that go above and beyond daily news to tell a story of a place in its context and create an ongoing dialogue about what it means to tell contextual stories in Africa.

“No Small Mercy” is the story of Alice and Emanuel. Years after the genocide, Emmanuel meets Alice, the woman whose hand he hacked off with a panga. He asks for her forgiveness. Alice is hesitant but ultimately forgives him.

Journalist Jina Moore, who has worked extensively in Rwanda and the Great Lakes, tells an insightful story that doesn’t gloss over what happened but also doesn’t focus on April 1994 exclusively. She gives the history context and the individuals identity. She took a few minutes to answer questions about working on the piece.

It’s hard to understand a lot about a place in 600 words – the length of the average news article. It’s hard for a journalist to explain them, and it’s hard for a reader to comprehend them. While longer form journalism about Africa is much more infrequent than, say, longer forms of journalism about Washington DC politics, there are a few stellar journalists working on books, magazine articles, documentaries, and photo essays scattered across this diverse continent.

I’m starting a new series on this blog: Context Africa. The idea is to highlight projects that go above and beyond daily news to tell a story of a place in its context ,as well as to create an ongoing dialogue about what it means to tell contextual stories in Africa.

Coming tomorrow will be a Q and A with friend, sometimes collaborator, and stellar writer Jina Moore. She just finished a piece for the Walrus Magazine, “No Small Mercy.”

Stay tuned.