Right in front of your eyes

Claudio Silva emailed fellow Angolan, photographer Rui Sérgio Afonso, to tell us about his favorite images.

All images by Rui Sérgio Afonso.

Saying that these are my five favorite photographs would be an injustice to all the others I have taken. Perhaps these five all have different reasons to be included here, like the one above with the children and their improvised sailboats that remind me of the imports that my country is subject to, and that I call “import-export Lebanon China,” the two groups of foreigners that are most common in Angola. The former with their warehouses that supply us with our basic needs such as beans and fuba (ground manioc), and the latter, the new foreigners, that I believe are here to stay, our new colonizers from the Far East.

From the echo the stone makes as it strikes the mabanga (a type of shellfish) that sustains the fishermen of this metropolis that grows right in front of your eyes …to the relative calm of the fisherman’s boat ready for another day at sea.

From the remnants of humanitarian aid that we are subject to every year, so apparent on the improvised boats of Tômbua village in Namibe…

…to the joy of our children as the rains arrive.

They’re all moments that carry me to my childhood where everything was more fun, more honest, realer — that time where they taught us that socialism was the path to follow for the good of our people, the people that I love so much.

Further Reading

Kagame’s hidden war

Rwanda’s military deployments in Mozambique and its shadowy ties to M23 rebels in eastern Congo are not isolated interventions, rather part of a broader geopolitical strategy to expand its regional influence.

After the coups

Without institutional foundations or credible partners, the Alliance of Sahel States risks becoming the latest failed experiment in regional integration.

Whose game is remembered?

The Women’s Africa Cup of Nations opens in Morocco amid growing calls to preserve the stories, players, and legacy of the women who built the game—before they’re lost to erasure and algorithm alike.

Sovereignty or supremacy?

As far-right politics gain traction across the globe, some South Africans are embracing Trumpism not out of policy conviction but out of a deeper, more troubling identification.

From Cape To Cairo

When two Africans—one from the south, the other from the north—set out to cross the continent, they raised the question: how easy is it for an African to move in their own land?