Begging for rain

Photographer

Category

Editorial Photography - Photojournalism

Company

João Coelho

Submission Group

Amateur

Year

2024

Country / Region:

Portugal

He lost an arm to gangrene that could have been avoided if the wound had been properly treated. The disability threw him into a dump on the outskirts of town, where he has lived for more than 10 years. Life here is a challenge of daily survival. He never knows when he will be able to sell the scraps of metal, glass, and aluminum he collects from the garbage mounds, and he can no longer count on the small plot of land he cultivated next to the shack to feed his family. The prolonged drought has exhausted the land, now turned to dust. Every day he looks up to the sky, scrutinizing the clouds and begging a God who has ignored him until now for the longed-for rain.