2022 Feature

Drug users detained during a Taliban raid wait to be shaved after arriving at Avicenna Medical Hospital for Drug Treatment in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Oct. 1, 2021. In the hospital, patients, totalling 700, float around the halls like ghosts. Some say they aren’t being fed enough. Doctors said hunger is part of the withdrawal process.

A miner starts his day by having his hair cut by another miner, who earns additional income as a barber. ——— Several years ago, gold was discovered deep within the Sahara desert in the West African nation of Niger. Tens of thousand of people have made the trek across vast distances of sand and stone, eager to find fortune. The miners are joined by water sellers, mechanics, merchants, and more - all exclusively men. The name of this place is Tagharaba. The total absence of women, as well as the dangerous nature of working in the mines, have earned Tagharaba the moniker "where people die but are not born".

Javier Anto, 90, and his wife Carmen Panzano, 92, blow one another kisses through the window separating the nursing home from the street in Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, April 21, 2021. Since the pandemic struck, a glass pane has separated _ and united _ Javier and Carmen for the first prolonged period of their six-decade marriage. Anto has made coming to the street-level window that looks into the nursing home where his wife, since it was closed to visits when COVID-19 struck Spain last spring.

Seconds after delivering Indigo Amani Cavil, Ashanique Nelson-Cavil holds her with husband William Iman Cavil at Kindred Space LA on May 28, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. “One day she will know she was caught by Black hands,” Ashanique said. The oft-used phrase “Have Black hands catch your baby” reflects the midwives’ protective value of Black sisterhood and the comfort of feeling understood.