Sometimes, things are good. We have hot water and heat and everything else that keeps us comfortable. But other times, mama’s job cuts her hours, or my dad gets laid off and then they’re stuck choosing between what we need most.

Victor J. Blue is a New York based photojournalist whose work is most often concerned with the legacy of armed conflict, human rights and the protection of civilian populations, and unequal outcomes resulting from policy and politics.

Her mother was finally settling into her sixties. At least that is what Yemi told her over the phone. Either that, or she had given up and accepted the fact that she could no longer dance goombay for six straight hours at the hi-life dances anymore.

Kwame’s voice on the phone had been just as detached as Della’s was just now: Her mother was dead. It was sudden. He was sorry. The funeral was Saturday.

Lex got a few blocks before caving. She wasn’t about to go back to her sister’s. There was no facing family. She flipped a U, the smell of burning rubber filling the car, and headed to Jim’s gas station, sinking into the sweet fleeting feeling of giving in. 

I was barely twelve years old when Baba fell ill. We had been in Rameh for about a year with asbestos sheets and corrugated metal replacing our stone home in Farradiyya.