Milk Powder

Instead of wasting time thinking about how ridiculous, limiting and controlled the media are in Rwanda, I’ve decided to simply start shooting everywhere and anywhere all the time.

Now that I’m at Newsline, I have more room to do my own work and pitch my own ideas. We are not a government owned and controlled paper here, as opposed to New Times.

I went downtown yesterday in depressed mood. Instead of heading home after leaving the newsroom, I walked around downtown with camera in hand. It’s been two months now and I feel perfectly comfortable around town, even with gear on me.

I spoke to locals for a couple hours. Got some great ideas for photo features and managed to grab some great frames.

All the signs in town are hand painted—the store signs, moto decals and billboards. I met some of the guys who paint for a living. The work on the tire flap (for the back of the moto) costs 2,000 Francs. For the huge NIDO billboard the artist made 150,000 Francs. On average, they make about 3,000 Francs/6 US dollars a day.