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Street Kids In Nairobi's Kibera Slum
When Victor "V'key" Ochieng Jumah was nine years old and living on the streets – a "garbage eater," as they are dubbed in local slang – he learned to mug and rob white foreigners, often scaring them first by smearing oil on his face and feces on his hands.
"Just seeing me like that, the
women would scream and hand over
whatever money they had," he said.
He also developed an easy intimacy
with bare ground for a bed, plastic
bags for a toilet, discarded food
scraps for meals, and a culture of
aggression that included drugs,
knives and, eventually, guns.
I didn't go to Kenya to interview street kids. I traveled there to finish researching an upcoming novel. But in the capital, I couldn't avoid seeing the homeless kids who roam Nairobi streets like watchful phantoms, feared as much as they are pitied and avoided more than they are helped.
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PUBLISHED BY THE MOTHERS MOVEMENT
When Victor "V'key" Ochieng Jumah was nine years old and living on the streets – a "garbage eater," as they are dubbed in local slang – he learned to mug and rob white foreigners, often scaring them first by smearing oil on his face and feces on his hands.
"Just seeing me like that, the
women would scream and hand over
whatever money they had," he said.
He also developed an easy intimacy
with bare ground for a bed, plastic
bags for a toilet, discarded food
scraps for meals, and a culture of
aggression that included drugs,
knives and, eventually, guns.I didn't go to Kenya to interview street kids. I traveled there to finish researching an upcoming novel. But in the capital, I couldn't avoid seeing the homeless kids who roam Nairobi streets like watchful phantoms, feared as much as they are pitied and avoided more than they are helped.
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Amina Ali: An Essay
So there I was, with my bottled water and organic dried fruits under the seat of the Land Rover, already dusty but expecting to get a shower at the hotel at day's end. And there she was under the unforgiving sun, prayer beads dangling around her neck, a flamboyant red dress hanging from her thin body, describing what it was like to go four days without food or water.
"Amina Ali," she said, pointing at herself.
Sometimes I think we don't understand a thing until it stares us straight in the face, until we can reach out and touch it. Before traveling to the isolated North East Province of Kenya, I'd read about this drought and famine. I'd read 3.5 million people affected in the northern reaches of sub-Saharan Kenya. "The world has not appreciated in last 60 days how serious this situation is. We are now in a crisis. We are in a life saving mode," World Food Program chief James Morris said this month.
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So there I was, with my bottled water and organic dried fruits under the seat of the Land Rover, already dusty but expecting to get a shower at the hotel at day's end. And there she was under the unforgiving sun, prayer beads dangling around her neck, a flamboyant red dress hanging from her thin body, describing what it was like to go four days without food or water.
Sometimes I think we don't understand a thing until it stares us straight in the face, until we can reach out and touch it. Before traveling to the isolated North East Province of Kenya, I'd read about this drought and famine. I'd read 3.5 million people affected in the northern reaches of sub-Saharan Kenya. "The world has not appreciated in last 60 days how serious this situation is. We are now in a crisis. We are in a life saving mode," World Food Program chief James Morris said this month.
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Afghanistan: An Essay
We were rattling across central Afghanistan, following some meager intimation of a road as the CD player blared a Pakistani love song, when three women appeared from nowhere. They rose out of the deserted valley in a loose group, their bodies and faces hidden within floating burqas. They looked like ethereal sky-blue apparitions – until, that is, they began frantically waving and running toward us, suddenly and desperately human.
My companion, Massoud Mayar, steered toward them, slowed and stopped. As they reached us, to my surprise, it was me in the passenger seat toward whom they dove, reaching through the open window, their voices rich like rain falling in the desert. They implored, barely pausing to breathe as they bent and swayed and pointed to their bellies, backs and chests with hands that moved like tiny wounded birds. I didn't know Pashto beyond a few cursory phrases. But even without the benefit of shared language, I knew what they were saying. Their hidden bodies were still bodies – female bodies that carted and carried and bled, that contained new life and then nurtured it or, too often, buried it. And now those bodies were failing them in some way – an odd bulge on a shoulder, an ache in a hip, a pain in a belly that would not cease.
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PUBLISHED IN THE ANTHOLOGY FOR KEEPS
We were rattling across central Afghanistan, following some meager intimation of a road as the CD player blared a Pakistani love song, when three women appeared from nowhere. They rose out of the deserted valley in a loose group, their bodies and faces hidden within floating burqas. They looked like ethereal sky-blue apparitions – until, that is, they began frantically waving and running toward us, suddenly and desperately human. My companion, Massoud Mayar, steered toward them, slowed and stopped. As they reached us, to my surprise, it was me in the passenger seat toward whom they dove, reaching through the open window, their voices rich like rain falling in the desert. They implored, barely pausing to breathe as they bent and swayed and pointed to their bellies, backs and chests with hands that moved like tiny wounded birds. I didn't know Pashto beyond a few cursory phrases. But even without the benefit of shared language, I knew what they were saying. Their hidden bodies were still bodies – female bodies that carted and carried and bled, that contained new life and then nurtured it or, too often, buried it. And now those bodies were failing them in some way – an odd bulge on a shoulder, an ache in a hip, a pain in a belly that would not cease.
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Kenya's Drought Victims
BORALGY, Kenya – Amina Ali gestured at the cloudless sky, her voice rising in anger as she recalled how the region's worst drought in a generation wiped out her entire herd of 40 goats, leaving her to face her final years with no milk, no meat, no means of support.
"We are forgotten people," she said,
sitting on the dusty ground beneath
a searing sun in Kenya's remote
North East Province, a string of
prayer beads around her neck.
"I am 80 years old. I had nine
children. Now what can I do?
Sometimes food aid arrives, but the
young people grab it first.
So I go hungry, often for days."
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PUBLISHED BY WOMEN'S eNEWS
BORALGY, Kenya – Amina Ali gestured at the cloudless sky, her voice rising in anger as she recalled how the region's worst drought in a generation wiped out her entire herd of 40 goats, leaving her to face her final years with no milk, no meat, no means of support.
"We are forgotten people," she said,
sitting on the dusty ground beneath
a searing sun in Kenya's remote
North East Province, a string of
prayer beads around her neck.
"I am 80 years old. I had nine
children. Now what can I do?
Sometimes food aid arrives, but the
young people grab it first.
So I go hungry, often for days."
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It Always Does: A Short Story
He brought her stories, long and intricate narratives that he laid at her feet like a dog with a bone. She would have preferred love, or at least more of his wild, open-hearted sex, but that was complicated; after all, he lived in another time zone and the divorce, far beyond messy, had left him in debt. For weeks, he'd camped out in his friend's van - demoralizing for a middle-aged man. He had an apartment now, on the third floor in a rough neighborhood. He had a son also, and that's where his energy needed to go. Stories were what he could manage for her.
So she took them, silently, knowing that
one day they would fade away too. It is
what it is what it is, she told herself, a
mantra. And sometimes she reminded
herself it was best this way, that her
own life was nowhere near as chaotic
as his, was in fact relatively serene,
and that's how she liked it.
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He brought her stories, long and intricate narratives that he laid at her feet like a dog with a bone. She would have preferred love, or at least more of his wild, open-hearted sex, but that was complicated; after all, he lived in another time zone and the divorce, far beyond messy, had left him in debt. For weeks, he'd camped out in his friend's van - demoralizing for a middle-aged man. He had an apartment now, on the third floor in a rough neighborhood. He had a son also, and that's where his energy needed to go. Stories were what he could manage for her.
"Baby with Eggshell Coat"
painting by Erica Harris
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Women In Jail
Women still face obstacles in a country where their voices are ignored and the law is stacked against them.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan –
Musliba leans forward, holding
her white scarf so that only her
dark eyes are visible, and makes
an open-handed gesture.
She wants to explain to the
foreign visitor why she's been
in jail for the last two months,
but at age 12, she doesn't
quite understand herself.
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PUBLISHED BY WOMEN'S eNEWS
Women still face obstacles in a country where their voices are ignored and the law is stacked against them.
A woman in the Kabul Women's Prison.
Courtesy of Rosemary Stasek.
Courtesy of Rosemary Stasek.
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Fear in Kandahar
Without authentic human connections, our alliances can be neither genuine nor lasting.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – The engineer from Florida seemed the perfect seatmate on that eight-seater Cessna flight from Kabul to Kandahar over the rugged reaches of Afghanistan. It was my first visit, and he'd already been living six months in the former Taliban stronghold, overseeing the construction of highways and schools as part of the effort to rebuild the war-shattered country that America bombed in response to Sept. 11.
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PUBLISHED BY COUNTERPUNCH
Without authentic human connections, our alliances can be neither genuine nor lasting.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – The engineer from Florida seemed the perfect seatmate on that eight-seater Cessna flight from Kabul to Kandahar over the rugged reaches of Afghanistan. It was my first visit, and he'd already been living six months in the former Taliban stronghold, overseeing the construction of highways and schools as part of the effort to rebuild the war-shattered country that America bombed in response to Sept. 11.
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Kandahar, Afghanistan, in the optimistic period of 2004
Unemployed In Burquas Turn,
Reluctantly, To Their Children
Women Are Heads Of Households, But Still Unemployed, In Afghanistan
KABUL – As evening approached
in one of west Kabul's poorest
neighborhoods, Parwin sat outside
in the waning light, trying to mend one
of her daughter's dresses with a
precious bit of thread a neighbor
gave her. She didn't worry about stopping
to prepare dinner. There would be no
dinner that night.
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Reluctantly, To Their Children
PUBLISHED BY WOMEN'S eNEWS
Women Are Heads Of Households, But Still Unemployed, In Afghanistan
An Afghan mother and her child at a malnutrition clinic.
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A Mother's Trip To Afghanistan
Some risks, once measured, are worth taking.
"My desire to go to Afghanistan was fueled by a longing to know, as much as possible, what it means to be an Afghan woman today . . . Occasionally I felt a jolt of fear as I prepared for the journey. So much was unknown, and so much of the news from there was bad."
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PUBLISHED BY THE MOTHERS MOVEMENT
Some risks, once measured, are worth taking.
"My desire to go to Afghanistan was fueled by a longing to know, as much as possible, what it means to be an Afghan woman today . . . Occasionally I felt a jolt of fear as I prepared for the journey. So much was unknown, and so much of the news from there was bad."
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The Sound of Music
After the silence of the Taliban years, Afghanistan is beginning to hum again.
KABUL – In a small room snuggled into the war-damaged buildings of Kharabat Street, Zahed Nodar sits cross-legged on a maroon carpet, inhales deeply and closes his eyes as if to shut out the blare of car horns, the shouts of men pulling wooden carts, the scent of wood smoke and rotting fruit, his own years spent fleeing the fighting.
Then he nods to his fellow band
members, leans over his armonia
and begins to play with a passion
that makes his rich, lined face look
far younger and the audience feel
larger than four.
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PUBLISHED BY MIAMI HERALD
After the silence of the Taliban years, Afghanistan is beginning to hum again.
KABUL – In a small room snuggled into the war-damaged buildings of Kharabat Street, Zahed Nodar sits cross-legged on a maroon carpet, inhales deeply and closes his eyes as if to shut out the blare of car horns, the shouts of men pulling wooden carts, the scent of wood smoke and rotting fruit, his own years spent fleeing the fighting.
Then he nods to his fellow band
members, leans over his armonia
and begins to play with a passion
that makes his rich, lined face look
far younger and the audience feel
larger than four.
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Season of Anger
Sounds of gunfire and prayer mix in the West Bank
JERUSALEM – The golden hills
of the West Bank are filled with
families working in the shade
of silver-leafed trees, their arms
moving with the rhythm of a
conductor's baton. Sometimes
they sing or trade jokes,
cheerful with thoughts of the
money their labor will bring.
But often they are quiet, the sway of branches the only sound. It is the season of olive picking in ancient Judea and Samaria.
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PUBLISHED BY ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Sounds of gunfire and prayer mix in the West Bank
JERUSALEM – The golden hills
of the West Bank are filled with
families working in the shade
of silver-leafed trees, their arms
moving with the rhythm of a
conductor's baton. Sometimes
they sing or trade jokes,
cheerful with thoughts of the
money their labor will bring.
But often they are quiet, the sway of branches the only sound. It is the season of olive picking in ancient Judea and Samaria.
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Snippets of Postcards from Moscow
MOSCOW – Valia brought over her special mushroom-shaped glass jars the other day. I watched while she wrapped the end of a pencil in a vodka-soaked cotton ball and set it afire. She held the burning stick inside each container for a minute, pulled it out and slapped the hot jars, one by one, down on my bare back.
As I lay there on my stomach, she
brought a mirror so I could see red
welts of my skin being sucked
inside the jars. This was not a
comforting sight.
"But it will warm your lungs and pull that cough right out," she assured me.
Ask a Russian, any Russian, about folk medicine and the result is something like lifting the floodgates on a rushing river. Enthusiastic belief in these remedies seems to unite all strata of society. A member of the intelligentsia here launched into a discussion that stretched into two hours when I asked her about home remedies. Another acquaintance, an elderly retiree, responded with equal eagerness and returned the next day bearing a homemade version of something like Crisco. She promised that regularly eating as much of it as I could stand would keep my system "clean."
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PUBLISHED BY LOS ANGELES TIMES
MOSCOW – Valia brought over her special mushroom-shaped glass jars the other day. I watched while she wrapped the end of a pencil in a vodka-soaked cotton ball and set it afire. She held the burning stick inside each container for a minute, pulled it out and slapped the hot jars, one by one, down on my bare back.
As I lay there on my stomach, she
brought a mirror so I could see red
welts of my skin being sucked
inside the jars. This was not a
comforting sight.
"But it will warm your lungs and pull that cough right out," she assured me.
Ask a Russian, any Russian, about folk medicine and the result is something like lifting the floodgates on a rushing river. Enthusiastic belief in these remedies seems to unite all strata of society. A member of the intelligentsia here launched into a discussion that stretched into two hours when I asked her about home remedies. Another acquaintance, an elderly retiree, responded with equal eagerness and returned the next day bearing a homemade version of something like Crisco. She promised that regularly eating as much of it as I could stand would keep my system "clean."
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The Camel Library
The camels halt under an Acacia tree, grunting, weary from a two hour trip through the African bush. "Toh! Toh!" the herders cry, whipping the beasts' knees to force them to kneel so their cargo can be unloaded. Then the traveling librarians open a wooden box, revealing its cache: books of fairy tales, novels, atlases, biographies and more in English and Swahili (the official languages in Kenya). Barefoot children appear as if out of nowhere, sinewy and dusty, leaning against one another as they watch the librarians unroll grass mats and spread out the books. They wait for the moment when they can sit on the ground and hold the books in their own hands.
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Published by O: The Oprah Magazine
The camels halt under an Acacia tree, grunting, weary from a two hour trip through the African bush. "Toh! Toh!" the herders cry, whipping the beasts' knees to force them to kneel so their cargo can be unloaded. Then the traveling librarians open a wooden box, revealing its cache: books of fairy tales, novels, atlases, biographies and more in English and Swahili (the official languages in Kenya). Barefoot children appear as if out of nowhere, sinewy and dusty, leaning against one another as they watch the librarians unroll grass mats and spread out the books. They wait for the moment when they can sit on the ground and hold the books in their own hands.
Read more
Obama's Afghan headache
An epidemic of kidnapping adds to the downward spiral of violence the president-elect's team will soon confront in Afghanistan.
KABUL, Afghanistan — Businessman Farzad Kadri holds his body tight like a wrestler, and his suspicious squint makes him seem older than his 28 years. Ever since his brother was kidnapped, shot in both legs and then released after the family paid a hefty ransom, Kadri is on edge, constantly varying his schedule, curtailing his nightlife. "These days, people are being grabbed left and right in Kabul," he said. "I have to watch out."
Abtullah Danishwar, raised in Los Angeles, returned this summer to the city where he was born 29 years ago. Full of dreams and idealism, he intended to stay a couple of years, find a wife, and help in Kabul's reconstruction efforts. But he's already escaped one kidnapping attempt and is unconvinced his luck will hold. "I'm so scared," he said. "I don't think I can stay."
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PUBLISHED BY SALON.COM
An epidemic of kidnapping adds to the downward spiral of violence the president-elect's team will soon confront in Afghanistan.
KABUL, Afghanistan — Businessman Farzad Kadri holds his body tight like a wrestler, and his suspicious squint makes him seem older than his 28 years. Ever since his brother was kidnapped, shot in both legs and then released after the family paid a hefty ransom, Kadri is on edge, constantly varying his schedule, curtailing his nightlife. "These days, people are being grabbed left and right in Kabul," he said. "I have to watch out."
Abtullah Danishwar, raised in Los Angeles, returned this summer to the city where he was born 29 years ago. Full of dreams and idealism, he intended to stay a couple of years, find a wife, and help in Kabul's reconstruction efforts. But he's already escaped one kidnapping attempt and is unconvinced his luck will hold. "I'm so scared," he said. "I don't think I can stay."
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Women Wed to Addiction Find Relief at Kabul Center
KABUL, Afghanistan — In a bullet-pocked cement building wedged into a hillside in a crime-ridden neighborhood, a group of drug-addicted women are gathered in the two barren rooms occupied by a family there. Most hold babies as they listen to a social worker passionately urge them to check themselves in to Afghanistan's sole women-only clinic for treatment.
"If your husbands smoke heroin, sisters, or you yourself take opium as medicine, it is like eating poison," said Nadara Saee, squatting before the women. "Besides, it is a big sin against Islam. And it makes you unable to take care of your children. Please listen to me. You must get treatment."
"Before God, I want to come," murmured 45-year-old Torpakai, who like many Afghans, goes by one name only. "But I don't have my husband's permission yet. God willing, he will give it tomorrow."
"We will return tomorrow then, sister," promised Saee.
Nazdana, 33, addicted to opium and painkillers and in whose home the group was gathered, spoke up. "I am ready. I will go."
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PUBLISHED BY WOMEN'S eNEWS
KABUL, Afghanistan — In a bullet-pocked cement building wedged into a hillside in a crime-ridden neighborhood, a group of drug-addicted women are gathered in the two barren rooms occupied by a family there. Most hold babies as they listen to a social worker passionately urge them to check themselves in to Afghanistan's sole women-only clinic for treatment.
"If your husbands smoke heroin, sisters, or you yourself take opium as medicine, it is like eating poison," said Nadara Saee, squatting before the women. "Besides, it is a big sin against Islam. And it makes you unable to take care of your children. Please listen to me. You must get treatment."
"Before God, I want to come," murmured 45-year-old Torpakai, who like many Afghans, goes by one name only. "But I don't have my husband's permission yet. God willing, he will give it tomorrow."
"We will return tomorrow then, sister," promised Saee.
Nazdana, 33, addicted to opium and painkillers and in whose home the group was gathered, spoke up. "I am ready. I will go."
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Frogs on the Highway
I learned I was pregnant in the midst of covering the intefedah in Gaza and the West Bank. The doctor asked what I did for a living and what I knew about the stages of pregnancy and then he shook his head. "Try to avoid tear gas for the next few months," he said. I was still so young, and fearless.
The first baby arrived, everything about her perfect — tiny faultless fingernails, the exquisite shape of her head, the little noises she made: pure poetry. I, who detested exclamation points, was reduced to superlatives. Still prone an hour after the C-section in the Jerusalem hospital where she was born, I told my husband I wanted three.
"Hold on," he said, laughing wryly, enigmatically. "Let’s get used to one first."
Though the day of the birth was joy defined, I understood quickly that things could go wrong. Horribly wrong. Before we left the hospital with our new baby, an Orthodox couple in a corner room asked my husband, a gentile, to turn off the lights on Shabbat, and then revealed that labor was being induced because their baby was a stillbirth. I barely met them, but their story haunted me. I was fearless, it turned out, except when it came to my children. From the beginning, I grasped that loving someone this strongly made me vulnerable.
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PUBLISHED BY New York Times
I learned I was pregnant in the midst of covering the intefedah in Gaza and the West Bank. The doctor asked what I did for a living and what I knew about the stages of pregnancy and then he shook his head. "Try to avoid tear gas for the next few months," he said. I was still so young, and fearless.
The first baby arrived, everything about her perfect — tiny faultless fingernails, the exquisite shape of her head, the little noises she made: pure poetry. I, who detested exclamation points, was reduced to superlatives. Still prone an hour after the C-section in the Jerusalem hospital where she was born, I told my husband I wanted three.
"Hold on," he said, laughing wryly, enigmatically. "Let’s get used to one first."
Though the day of the birth was joy defined, I understood quickly that things could go wrong. Horribly wrong. Before we left the hospital with our new baby, an Orthodox couple in a corner room asked my husband, a gentile, to turn off the lights on Shabbat, and then revealed that labor was being induced because their baby was a stillbirth. I barely met them, but their story haunted me. I was fearless, it turned out, except when it came to my children. From the beginning, I grasped that loving someone this strongly made me vulnerable.
Read more