Liberia, photographs from West Point.

French version here

West Point is a shantytown, population: 100000. According to Cyrus, near of 20% of girls aged between 13 and 15 years old are involved in prostitution to get some money, food or even a shelter for the night. In addition, kids have to work helping their parents when they come back from school.

Saturday, 9am, a new staff arrived and we decide to show him West Point by car. We go down a street through a dense crowd of people using preventive horn for tuktuks. All around, people are selling what they can: clothes, soap, toothbrush, bread etc. We come across others cars and the operation is delicate. Population is a little bit less dense and we arrive in the center of West Point where we park the car on a field scattered with holes it’s actually a football field with goals and bleachers.

We start to sink into the meanders of the slum. I take some pictures. People are generally smiling and as usual, the children have fun when they are seeing us. It’s not so dirty. The colors are bright and the streets are alive. We pass by a maze of corridors before stopping at different people places. Some people stop me to be photographed, others to delete the pictures I’ve taken…

We arrive on the beach. Many rubbish litter the ground and people are undoing their nets.

We pass by the main street. We stop, a family wants to be photographed. I did so, we say goodbye but I am asked for “financial support”. I can not give everybody ma’am, sorry.

Wednesday; i’ll go to West Point by night. It seems that its more animated.