Posts Tagged ‘capitalism’
Sweat equity
Near Kinshasa’s biggest airport, I happened to catch sight of what might be its only train. It makes the blue metal boxes clanking through India look advanced. These could’ve been rusting shipping containers with windows cut in the sides. I have no idea how the “cars” were strung together, let alone with [...]
Of reconciliation, reunion and returns–the $$ kind
Thanks to Diana for sending this link from CNN, where Christiane Amanpour just did a story about justice, forgiveness, living wages…
Amanpour’s story is at once a testament to the remarkable reconciliation efforts happening in Rwanda, both on official levels and at the grassroots. She tells the story of Iphigenia Mukantabana, who weaves “peace baskets” [...]
Like water, below the equator, the law of supply and demand runs the other way…
Sometimes, business decisions here don’t make a lot of sense. There are lots of examples I hear from people who work in big business, the kind that involves capital and investment and hiring decisions, but I’m a journalist. I like microcosms. So the thing I think about is being on the street [...]
Rwanda’s street kids or America’s homeless: Who’s poorer?
A friend recently spent a month in California. While there, he took a trip to Venice Beach, and from the sounds of it, everything there surprised him. Like the crazy people who mutter to themselves and to anyone else who will listen. The most fantastical things roll effortlessly from of their [...]
The civics of capitalism
I ran into an article today that raises a point similar to one that troubled me earlier, about the seeming panacea of purchasing power. This is a fantastic, if a bit lengthy, piece from 2002, a diary of one woman’s regular calls to the White House Comment Line. By the end of her [...]
Short is the new tall
Coffee, that is. That’s right, people. There’s a Starbucks-like coffee shop in Kigali. Only here, a tall is a medium. Even for those of us schooled in the vocabulary of ventis, it’s less confusing than if it were in Kinyarwanda, I suppose. English is the language of money…
I am a freelance journalist and multimedia producer who covers human rights, Africa and foreign affairs. [