Stories of our lives in the slum and other marginalized settings
Tough-looking teenage boys who reduce themselves to goofy noises to try to make Sakeenah smile and then melt to pieces when she does Seeing a new bird fluttering through the slum that I've never seen before Shadia making phone calls home to her 'mata ji' and 'papa' Every moment that one of my learners puts …
Pooja was a late addition to my literacy class, not asking to read until a month after her brother had started. As a 15-year-old who had never attended school, she wasn't accustomed to academic work and had a lot of home responsibilities which took her time away. But from her first lesson she was hooked, …
In a recent post I mentioned that we took in a foster daughter a few years ago, and we have been through many struggles together. One of the central struggles has been our young Shadia's battle with Borderline Personality Disorder.1 It was the impetus for a lot of tears in our family. But also a lot …
When did it hit? It wasn't when we landed in the airport. It wasn't when we got through immigration. It wasn't when we fought through the crowds to get out of the metro station. It wasn't when a line of 100+ motorcycles trying to bypass a traffic jam stalled behind me on the overpass sidewalk …
8am Peregrine accompanies our friend Shazia and her three-year-old to the hospital. Two months ago he fell off a roof, since then he has miraculously recovered from life-threatening brain trauma. God willing, nothing more from the doctors is necessary. But it has been impossible for Shazia to get answers. She is ignored like a nobody, asked for …
Four years ago, Peregrine was present when our teenage neighbor went into labor. The young woman's previous hospital childbirth had been so abusive that this time she insisted on giving birth at home attended by untrained local women. Peregrine was with her at the birth and helped as she was instructed. The baby died. The …
Gulab, the 18-year-old daughter of our landlord, told us about a horrific motorcycle accident she had witnessed. After the crash the man was bleeding severely from his head and had gone into seizures "moving like a fish." Then the movement stopped. She was on her way to school but was so traumatized by the accident …
The mother of two of my students is walking down the alleyway. Her face is as beat-up as anyone I've ever seen. Black eyes, darkly swollen bruises, one of her arms in a brace...she looks like a motorcycle accident victim, but the nature of the injuries suggests a beating more than an accident. I ask …
Hamza was in the middle of a crowd of boys outside of his door. They were watching something advance along the ground under its own power. Hamza turned to look at me and said, "This is my car, I made it." I was impressed. The above photo shows his first working motorized car, made entirely …
We were still in our first year in our new city and were moving to a different room in the slum for the second time. The dirt-floored room we were moving into had an inadequate roof, so I carried over the bamboo-and-tarp roof that had been made for our previous place and stuck it right up …
Stranger in a Slum 