Africa Is a Country

Nairobi in April

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

Nairobi in April

By
Sean Jacobs

Writer Mike Pflanz and photographer Brendan Bannon’s new site Daily Dispatches: Nairobi “… is an innovative exploration through photojournalism of a fast-evolving 21st-century African city, unfolding day by day in real time.” Pflanz, a Brit, and Bannon, an American, “will spend each day of April searching out stories from all corners of Kenya’s capital, stories which will paint a compelling, informative and surprising portrait of the city, and the lives lived by those who call it home. Each day, we will send our images and reports back to a series of US universities and colleges we’re working with, who will in turn print them and mount them in an exhibition which grows day by day.”

These are images from their day at the races.


Further Reading

After the uprising

Years into Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict, the rebellion faces internal fractures, waning support, and military pressure—raising the question of what future, if any, lies ahead for Ambazonian aspirations.

In search of Saadia

Who was Saadia, and why has she been forgotten? A search for one woman’s story opens up bigger questions about race, migration, belonging, and the gaps history leaves behind.

Binti, revisited

More than two decades after its release, Lady Jaydee’s debut album still resonates—offering a window into Tanzanian pop, gender politics, and the sound of a generation coming into its own.

The bones beneath our feet

A powerful new documentary follows Evelyn Wanjugu Kimathi’s personal and political journey to recover her father’s remains—and to reckon with Kenya’s unfinished struggle for land, justice, and historical memory.

What comes after liberation?

In this wide-ranging conversation, the freedom fighter and former Constitutional Court justice Albie Sachs reflects on law, liberation, and the unfinished work of building a just South Africa.

The cost of care

In Africa’s migration economy, women’s labor fuels households abroad while their own needs are sidelined at home. What does freedom look like when care itself becomes a form of exile?

The memory keepers

A new documentary follows two women’s mission to decolonize Nairobi’s libraries, revealing how good intentions collide with bureaucracy, donor politics, and the ghosts of colonialism.

Making films against amnesia

The director of the Oscar-nominated film ‘Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat’ reflects on imperial violence, corporate warfare, and how cinema can disrupt the official record—and help us remember differently.