The poor will always be with you
Christmas! It marked one year since we started teaching at the little slum under the bridge. I wanted to try something special for them. We ended up making our way over in the morning with a bag of gifts in one hand and Shakeenah doing her stern Santa impression in the other. It was a …
“He had a look on him that he was willing to kill. He said that he didn’t have any reason to live and that he knew he was going to die today…I knew that if he got out that door he was gonna kill everybody.” Antoinette Tuff was a bookkeeper at the Ronald E. McNair …
If you've been reading this blog more than a year (or any other blog I've authored) you know I think American Christmas is a flashpoint for our greatest societal dilemmas. Will we put our faith in God, or will we trust in wealth and possessions? Which one do we celebrate? If an alien being observed …
Watching people's homes crushed to the ground is a horrible experience. Two years ago I saw police officers assemble in a nearby slum. I walked inside to find bulldozers obliterating brick and stick dwellings. Families were crying while a line of 50+ heavily armed officers blocked anyone who might attempt to stop them. I felt …
As I've shared about life in the slum, I've focused on material things: homes, electricity, water, etc. With that stuff it's relatively simple to measure the differences between life here and in the West. But as you may have discerned from the incident with Alia as well as the boys on the train, there are …
Continue reading Capital matters. Social capital matters more.
Maria was clearly disturbed. I asked her what was wrong and she began to tear up. I'm becoming used to seeing her tear up. "Our shop....it burned down in the night." This is the Maria whose sister Alia became extremely ill with tuberculosis last month. Who has had two other sisters with chronic illness. Whose …
Last week it rained for three days. On that third night I realized my pad was getting soaked. I thought the rain had gotten around the edges of the window, but I looked closer....and it was coming through the wall! Our room was built with secure-looking bricks, but they're just one layer deep and on …
I realized that we've shared a lot of stories the last couple months and wanted to update where various people are at right now. Alia returned home on Friday. She looks healthier with more color to her face than she did before, and her arm infection seems to have completely cleared up. But she is …
Friday, August 30th "Alia is really sick. She's been having some trouble breathing, and now she doesn't even know what's going on around her when people come in." "That's serious. You should take her to the hospital right away. How long has she been like this?" "Since last night, but only the worst since …
Four years ago I met a young girl named Alia. Alia was 13 the first time she came to our literacy lab. She was mentally disabled and had been attending a special school for the disabled for four years. Though she was not literate and in fact could only recognize a few letters, it was a …
