Author
Samantha Reinders
Samantha Reinders (samreinders.com; @samreinders) is an award-winning photographer, book editor, multimedia producer and workshop leader based in Cape Town, South Africa. She holds a master’s degree in visual communication from Ohio University, and her work has been published in Time, Vogue, The New York Times and more.
Articles by this author
Going Pirogue, the Boats Feeding a Nation
Arts & Culture
People
As long as a minibus and as thin as a canoe, curved like a banana and painted a rainbow of hues, the handbuilt wooden pirogue remains the watercraft of choice among half a million people who support the artisanal fishing industry along the coast of Senegal in West Africa. Pirogues were originally designed narrow for easier paddling, and their long, curved keels help them glide into surf and swell, where every morning hundreds of crews cast nets with the hopes of a good day's catch.
Is the Sky the Limit for The Gambia's Groundnuts?
Food
Arts & Culture
From co-op farms and export-driven factories to market stalls run by young entrepreneurs, continental Africa's smallest country is adapting its globally popular crop of groundnuts peanuts to changing climate, changing markets and rising aspirations.
The Handwritten Heritage of South Africa’s Kitabs
History
Arts & Culture
One heirloom connects Muslim families of Cape Town to heritage more than any other: a kitab. Historians and linguists value them, too, as some preserve the first written form of the Afrikaans language, which was in Arabic script.
Kanga’s Woven Voices
Skirt, scarf, or both; sling for a child, basket for shopping, or both; bought to honor a special occasion, to give as a gift, or just to feel good tomorrow; its distinctive, one-line jina a proverb, a plea, a proclamation or a sunny burst of whimsy; above all, a social statement on a colorful cotton cloth. From rural villages to city streets, women and girls along East Africa’s coast do more than wear the popular rectangular kanga: They weave it into life, from birth to death, a “social medium” worn, traded and treasured, for designs, messages and memories.