Alexander died yesterday, just before I came to leave the pictures for this project. I have known him for almost twenty years, since he was a little kid. He drank himself to death. It is common here in the Benfica suburb. Alexander has been sitting on the doorstep of my baracka for years. I know his parents and all his brothers and sisters and sometimes I gave him soup to eat. But he drank more and more of that strong and cheap alcohol, the Telecao.
When I took this picture he was rarely awake, he refused to eat. he didn´t do anything. He was married once but they broke up. His parents took him to hospital and they told him to stop drinking. But he did not want to. His parents could not save him, nobody could.
I would have wanted to include a picture of his bottle. His poison. But I never took it. I want to tell everybody about Alexander and what happened to him so that others can stay away from the alcohol. It destroys our lives. It kills so many.
Photograph and story by Palmira Chilaule, cross border trader in Maputo, Mozambique
Experience of this border
Location of border
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Maputo, Maputo City, Mozambique