Archive for the ‘West Africa’ Category
A step, or a leap, or maybe nothing at all, for African women
About a week ago, the Christian Science Monitor ran an article I wrote from Sierra Leone on a new law protecting women in war zones. The law–less a law than an international precedent which may, or may not, become influential–categorizes the crime of forced marriage as a crime against humanity, for the first time ever. [...]
There are only so many ways to say something
Earlier this week, I went through recording after recording from Sierra Leone–interviews with forced wives, and with women who suffered every denigrating crime even without being taken in marriage; interviews with ex-rebels, one so young he said he had to be taught how to rape; hour after hour of awful stories, each living in the [...]
Getting right speech right
I’m pretty sure I waxed rhapsodic in my graduate school essay about the importance of telling people’s stories. Stories were the one thing in the world that always made sense to me, even helped me make sense out of all the other things that didn’t. I don’t know when exactly it happened, but I’ve left [...]
Here’s how I guess this will work…
So, my friends, my intention was to begin my blog with a couple of posts a day about the Sierra Leone experience. Then, segue you nicely back into Central Africa. Here’s the problem: Stuff is still happening in Kigali. Actually–get this–stuff is still happening all over the world, even if I am not writing about [...]
Scratch “Plays well with others,” add “Scares little children”
20-21 March 2008, en route It took two days to drive from Freetown, on the western coast of Africa, to Kailahun, in the extreme east of the country, not far from Liberia. The further we got from Freetown, the more and more excited people seemed to be to see white people. In Rwanda, as I [...]
Wildway
19 March 2008, Freetown He is my taxi driver. A friend of a friend gave me two driver’s numbers, and I called this one first, just because of the name. He wears a t-shirt, dark blue jeans with a trendy weave, a red foam visor that’s the cleanest thing I see all day. He says [...]
I am a freelance journalist and multimedia producer who covers human rights, Africa and foreign affairs. [