Some of my favorite pictures are never published. They aren’t part of an assignment or a narrative, but they’re what happens while I’m waiting for the assignment or the narrative. There’s a lot of waiting involved in working as a journalist in Africa. Having a camera keeps it interesting. It’s an excuse to wander around the periphery and peek into people’s homes and people’s lives. There’s so much I don’t understand – what’s being said, what is meant, what is wanted, what is next. But somehow, making an image of these things allows for a vague recognition of the limitations of comprehension. When I ask people for permission to take a photograph, I hope I might somehow understand more than if I hadn’t taken a picture.

It’s a nod of appreciation to a vast landscape I’ll never traverse, peppers too hot for me to eat all at once, more fabric than I can ever wear, and the juxtaposition of all these things among the random quiet of rural waiting.