Two Weeks in Photos
Over the past two weeks, our bloggers have explored the legal drug markets of Nairobi, sampled the jolly food trucks of Manila and journeyed to the electronics graveyards of Accra. Here are a few of their photos.
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Customers at the Polvos Azules shopping center in Lima search for deals. While the mall has formalized in appearance over the years, nearly all of its merchandise remains illegal.
A worker bicycles through Agogbloshie, a slum in Accra and one of the world’s leading destinations for electronic waste. That flip phone you tossed a few years ago may well have ended up here.
The informal auto-repair shops of downtown Nairobi spill into the streets. As the city’s large corporations have relocated to the suburbs, informal workers have flowed into the central business district.
Jolly jeep staffers prepare food for the office workers of Makati City in Metro Manila. Once a food desert, the neighborhood has been transformed into snack-attack heaven by the mobile street-cuisine units.
Members of a credit and savings association Accra attend a weekly meeting. The organization began as a way to help slum dwellers save money, and has since become a bulwark against government aggression.
Clothes await customers on mannequins in Gamarra, Lima’s bustling textile district. The neighborhood is an intricately woven informal factory system that produces garments by the ton.
A transporter in Nairobi’s “Tsunami” market carries in miraa from the Kenyan countryside. The plant-based stimulant is legal and an important horticultural export for the country.