Another local I entrusted with a camera to photograph his life, or simply whatever he felt like showing a mzungu, was Ali. He wasn’t Maasai but Swahili. He was a fundi, a skilled builder who fired bricks and worked on construction sites. He worked from morning till night, every day except Friday, because he was Muslim. He didn’t drink alcohol at all. His house stood on Renča’s land, because he had built Renča’s entire house.
He belonged to the local avant-garde – his house had a window and a metal roof. While I was in Tanzania, he decided to become independent, buy his own plot of land, and build a house on it. The whole project cost him about 150 euros. When I heard that number, I decided not to tell him how much the shoes I was wearing had cost. If I hadn’t bought them, he could have had a house for the same money.
Besides giving him the camera to photograph his life, I decided to photograph him as well – in his new house, which he was in the middle of building. I had a clear idea: stand in the hallway, then in the living room, then the kitchen, then the children’s room – and I’d take a photo of him in each one. Just look at how that turned out.
When it was his turn to take photos, he wasn’t in any hurry. It took him about a week to return the phone. And when he finally did, it was full of suspicious software and games.Here are Ali’s photos straight from the phone, unedited. The greasy lens is part of the package.
