Behind a dimly lit bar in Malawi’s capital, Ben Manda rubbed his tired eyes and poured a customer a drink. He had been working for 36 hours straight, packing in back-to-back shifts to feed his family of four.
“I haven’t been home in three days,” said the 32-year-old barman in a run-down club in Mtandire, one of Lilongwe’s largest and most crowded informal settlements. “Times are tough.”
Manda is a casualty of Malawi’s economic struggles, his livelihood hanging by a thread as foreign aid cuts and mounting national debt tighten their grip on his destitute African country.
A small television above the bar…
