Archive for the ‘Sierra Leone’ Category
What does Africa have tons of that no one knows how to handle?
(Okay, that’s a little bit off, but these blog titles get tweeted now, so they have to be short and perky.)
Land, of course!
The African continent is freaking huge. Most of its inhabitants subsistence farm that land. Meanwhile, as oil bubbles up on the western coast and foreign-owned agro-farms crop up in the east [...]
Top 10 Sad Things the Palin-Letterman Controversy Says about America
I had a nice little list going, centered on the most outrageous element of all: a form letter for anti-Letterman protestors–egged on, in spirit at the very least, by Sarah Palin and the exeuctive produer of Sarah Palin Radio (“Governor Palin’s own ‘friendly’ media,” according to the site). The sample letter accuses Letterman’s advertisers [...]
So you wanna help Africa? Here's how. (Hint: It only takes $10. But you gotta be fast.)
Some of you might remember my series on grassroots reconciliation in Sierra Leone. Fambul Tok is a local program in every sense–started by a Sierra Leonean, run by Sierra Leoneans, and welcomed by villages that want to use their traditional culture to help overcome the legacy of war. It’s not a requirement of [...]
While we're on courts…a trip back to Sierra Leone
Where earlier this week three members of the Revolutionary United Front were convicted of all kinds of Awful Stuff. The RUF is rebel group behind the most famous of the abuses in Sierra Leone’s war, the hacking off of people’s limbs.
Among that Awful Stuff were convictions for forced marriage, the first ever in the [...]
“It is finished in my heart,” or, how to forgive the man who cut off your arm
I don’t have any idea. But here’s what Temba Kekura told me (this is the last part of my Sierra Leone series; if you read yesterday’s post, you haven’t seen this yet):
Before the war, when his village and his family and his body were whole, Temba Kekura was a farmer. He had few things, [...]
Really, I went to Sierra Leone; or, A look at reconciliation, village by village
Way back in March, the Christian Science Monitor sent me to Sierra Leone to report a series on ‘grassroots reconciliation,’ for lack of a better term, after the war there.
It’s finally seen the light of day, in a three-parter which began yesterday. Here’s the setup:
John Caulker might know the rough, red-rock roads of rural [...]
I am a freelance journalist and multimedia producer who covers human rights, Africa and foreign affairs. [