Mary makes a living off selling empty bottles. She gets 1
Kwatcha for 2 bottles. She is a single mum and has 1 girl and 2 boys. She is living with her mother. She finds rent and electricity payments very expensive. She
would like to move away to a plot near Great East Road where rent is cheaper. She would like to sell live chickens.
Margret Mulenga is 23 and has lived in Kalingalinga for 15 years. She was in school for 9 years. She had a son who passed away. She is selling Chitenge cloth for a living. She finds life in Kalingaling too difficult. “Here is
nothing I can do to help myself”. She would like to have a wholesale business for Chitenge
materials.
Kalingalinga is rapidly changing on the edges with modern
buildings sprawling along the main road, but behind the scenes, the same people
still live in makeshift buildings. Kalingalinga is an illegal settlement in the
middle of town and provides much of the workforce that drives Lusaka’s
development. Amongst the settlers are many who survive day by day with odd
jobs, as permanent jobs are hard to come by. The land that their homes are
built on is often owned by landowners, who live in other parts of town and are
making a tidy profit of the land. Rents are high, and wages are low.
Many of the women I photographed dream of moving away, to a
place where they can afford life a little bit more easily. But being in the
middle of town is also attractive to others, who see the opportunities that the
new development brings.
I photographed a series of women who will have to make a decision
soon, on what turn their life will take. I will be back to see what life has
in stall for them.
