HAIR
Rose
Rose runs a hair salon in a small room on a rundown street in Rangel - one of Luanda’s ghettos. She began her tiny shop together with her sister and sister-in-law a couple of years ago. In the face of a severe lack of jobs, especially for women, they decided to go for it.
We came to Rose's hair saloon with Kuduro artist Gata Agressiva, and ended up shooting a vivid and vibrant girl talk about womanhood. Why do 50% of women in Angola drop out of school? Why doesn’t anyone use contraception? Why does everyone get pregnant but no one get married? What about HIV?
Gata told us that most women share their man, and most men have children from lots of different women. “That’s just the way it is”, said one girl.
During the conversation, Rose had been hanging in the background doing her own thing. She has a wise face and calm energy: although she said nothing, you could see she was thinking something. Once we focused the lens on her, she stole the show. Unlike most people, she didn’t even blink when I directed questions at her: "Its not the way it is, it’s the way we’ve become….” She feels the girls, but finds them loud and clueless. "Something needs to change for young women in this neighborhood, we need to talk to them; we need to talk, talk, talk. Even here when I do their hair and I hear them talk about these situations I try to interfere in their conversations and ask them why - try make them aware."