Holding our breath, 2009
Choose Anker, 2009
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I love the gentle cast of Christmas lights on skin.
and turn my world upside down.
Phytophotodermatitis results from spilling lime juice onto the skin in a sunny climate. The result is exaggerated sunburn that gives rise to a linear, asymptomatic lesion that later develops hyperpigmentation. The hyperpigmentation may take weeks or months to resolve.
YAMBIO, Southern Sudan — Everyone at the dinner table shied away when a friend here, a longtime aid worker and old Sudan hand, started unloading the contents of a plastic bag: a can of mace, an air horn, a whistle with a bright light, and last but not least, a taser. Then he began demonstrating each tool, sending up a distressing cacophony of shrill whistles, bullhorn blasts, and loud, painful-sounding buzzes.
Here in a place where the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, launch regular incursions, and the streets in town clear out at dark as people voluntarily move to the relative safety of their homes, the sounds were startling, even as we sat in our secure compound around the corner from the United Nations Mission in Sudan.
When the racket stopped, our friend explained himself: this assortment of noisemakers and non-lethal weapons are just what the local communities need to help fend off the LRA.
(Click here to read the rest of this fascinating article, by the Enough Project’s Laura Heaton, who is currently reporting from the field in Sudan)
“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” — Lao Tzu
Now, 2009
Congregation Works With U.S. to Release Immigrant Detainees -
“Like most of the Indonesians, Mr. Assa and his wife, Grace, came on tourist visas that were suddenly easy for poor people to get in the 1990s, when a booming economy welcomed foreign labor with a wink and a nod. Everything changed after 9/11, when a government directive required the “special registration” of men ages 16 to 65 who had entered the country on temporary visas from a list of predominantly Muslim countries, including Indonesia. If they did not register, it was understood, they would be considered terrorist fugitives.”
(thank you, d)
When the pasta water is boiling, I pour a small pile of salt into my left palm and then, rather than sprinkling it in, I fling it into the water with a flick of my wrist. I love the “thp” sound the salt makes as it hits the water and instantly dissolves.
Love me still and always,
love me still and always.
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