A few weeks ago, I was in Senegal. I was invited to participate in a reproductive health reporting project with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, in which three other American journalists, four accomplished reporters from Liberia, Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa, and I attended a family planning conference and talked about, among lots of things, men, women, and all the complicated side effects of sex in Africa.

Here are two dispatches from my time there: about a controversial H.I.V. and contraception study and about the roots of the resistance to abortion. Dakar is stunning, by the way. There is a stretch of highway in the city that is bordered by palm trees, the beach, and the ocean, and that literally looks like LA.

Photo by Jake Naughton

I wrote about an early black colony and a cool antiques shop in Brooklyn for The New York Times. The neighborhood of Bed-Stuy is a fascinating place.

Photo via The New York Times

James Barnor, who grew up in Accra and now lives in London, got his start photographing sports celebrities like Muhammad Ali, leaders of Ghana’s independence movement, and Africans living in England (his first camera was a plastic point-and-shoot). Though he temporarily returned to Ghana to establish the first color-processing photo lab there, he made his name doing glamorous fashion photography. Drum was the name of one of Africa’s most popular magazines in the 60′s, and Barnor regularly shot its covers, photos of black models in quintessential English scenes: in front of a red telephone box, exiting a tube station, or surrounded by pigeons in Trafalgar Square.

More than that, his photos are a fuzzily poignant time capsule: a polaroid of England as its different ethnic groups ebbed and flowed, mixed and crossed. The first comprehensive exhibition of his street and studio work, called Ever Young, runs until November 27 at Autograph ABP in London.

More of Barnor’s photos are here. Barnor’s own words on his work are here.

After leaving Bushwick at the end of last August, I moved into the neighborhood of Crown Heights, a place I had heard stories about (the violent riots of the 90′s), but had never visited. My apartment there would be a haven for the next six months: a convenient point to local salons and shops and restaurants run by Arabs and Jews and blacks who always recognized your face; a part of a building full of welcoming Haitian and Latino neighbors; and an overheated shelter from the cold outside. I wrote about the 20th anniversary of the Crown Heights riots here.

Photo via The New Yorker

- From this lyrical profile of Matthew Houck in The Oxford-American

Baloji was in New York the weekend of July 4th, and his performance in the garden of a Brooklyn community center was mesmerizing.

The Congolese rapper and musician was on a low and playful key as he rapped and horsed around with his band, unexpectedly bellowing into a megaphone sometimes, which made the music sound even more wild. He swayed his hips and grinded the stage horizontally to the screams of the audience. Near the end, he performed a slowed-down version of my favorite song of his, “Karibu ya bintou.” The song was unrecognizable at first, the bass at a relaxed gallop and the strings being gently stroked, until the familiar verses kicked in. The crowd didn’t stop dancing.

I wrote two dispatches for The New York Times on Staten Island’s Africans. The first was on the growing African communities on the island, and the second on the raucous Miss Africa New York pageant.

Photo by Glenna Gordon

Images from my first months in Uganda filled my head, too, of luscious coffee fields, generous strangers, and huge starchy meals. I didn’t know if I was ready to take a leap.

But I jumped. I screamed helplessly as I fell head first into the air at breakneck speed, the hillside and boulders flashing before my eyes as I bounced up and down, whirled around and around, coming impossibly close to the water before coming to a stop. I was out of breath, completely exhilarated and shocked. A bungee company employee, a frail, older Ugandan man, paddled over in a small boat to unhook me from the rope and pull me down. He smiled at my heavy breathing and disheveled clothes. Our eyes connected. It was time to go.

I’m hooked on this street/party style blog from South Africa called “Skattie What Are You Wearing?” There are candid photos of hipsters, scenesters, and fashionistas galore. I laughed when I saw a friend who lives in Cape Town captured in a photo. It’s winter in South Africa, and these people look good.

Photos via Skattie What Are You Wearing?

I wrote about the television show Treme and some of my memories of the South for This Recording.

Photo via This Recording