Just got my copy of Beatrice's Dream in Dutch. Can't wait to read it ;-).Wendy Stone’s photo essay on life in an African slum is a heavyweight anchor of reality for American teenyboppers, often spoiled by iPods and designer jeans.
Kibera is the largest slum in Nairobi and the second largest in all of Africa. Census reports estimate the population to be somewhere between 170,000 and two million people.
In Kenya—on the surface between an impoverished and illiterate majority—emerges the dream of Beatrice, a 13 year-old orphan determined to carve her way out through higher education.
Corbis Contributor Wendy Stone and author, Karen Lynn Williams, provide us with a compelling set of pictures and words to balance a young girl’s account of living uncertain in Beatrice’s Dream: A Story of Kibera Slum. The powerful essay describes a young girl’s, “walk to school, the dust that blows between her teeth [and] her fear of being alone…”
The photography offers a wonderful contrast between hope and despair that Wendy captures well. Her images, so deeply rooted and honest, make obvious that Stone has lived in Nairobi for quite some time. In 30 years, familiarity appears to have bred anything but contempt. Bare witness to her self-realization, that despite being worlds’ apart we are all in this together.
Experience it for yourself.
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