Four years after a popular uprising fueled hopes for change and real democracy, the country’s government is using vaguely defined statutes to round up hundreds.

Couto’s language is enriched by his country’s idioms, voices — and possibilities. “We are still in the process of creating one nation,” he said, made of “different languages, different beliefs.”

After $580,000 was stolen from a sofa of President Cyril Ramaphosa, his head of security skirted regulations, but the president did not, according to a preliminary report by a corruption watchdog.