A Long Way Gone: Ishmael Beah
Back when I wrote an update on Dharfur, my blogging friend Chirp recommended a book, A Long Way Gone; Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah. I ordered it that very day, and read it this last week.
It is a truly heartbreaking autobiographical book about a young mischievous boy growing up in Sierra Leone, leading a relatively simple and carefree life in his village with his family. It is very African. He talks about the games he and his friends play, his fascination with rap music and the simple joys of the life he is leading.
Then the rebels come. The invade the villages, hopped up on dope, their dead eyes with no pity, raping, killing, chopping off limbs, stealing all the village food and burning the village behind them, often with people locked inside their huts.
Ishmael escapes once with friends, eventually returning to the village to find his entire family gone. Most of the book has to do with what he has to do to survive. Many villages are very afraid of groups of boys, even boys as young as these are – in their early adolescence – and will hurt them. At the very least, most of the villages hurry them along. At one point Ishmael is hiding out in the jungle forest on his own, hiding from lions, giant feral pigs, sleeping up in trees and looking for the rare fruit or grass that he can eat without getting sick.
Finally, after meeting up with some other boys and continuing to try to find his family, a village takes him in, a village run by the state soldiers. As they are attacked by rebels, the boys are forced to make a choice – go out on their own again (where the rebels will also try to recruit them, and if they refuse, will kill them) or agree to be soldiers. These are kids 12, 13, 14 carrying AK 47’s. As part of their training they are given drugs on a regular basis which keep them hopped up, full of energy, and not sleeping for days. The young boys learn to kill without pity. He becomes the very people he was fleeing.
This is a book about redemption. At the center where the boy soldiers are taken, they are constantly told “none of this was your fault.” It is a very African approach, a very human and loving approach to redemption of lives that might have been totally lost to the horrors they have witnessed and inflicted. The author is now nearly 30, and sounds – unlikely as it might be – happy.
Thank you, Chirp, for recommending this wonderful book.
Election Fever
I have a very dear friend who will say “I don’t have a dog in that fight” and that is the way I feel about your upcoming elections. You (Kuwait, Kuwait leadership, Kuwait people) are in our prayers for a fair election, and that you elect good leadership. You know what a mess it has been; it would be nice to elect people who can work with the government to get things done.
So I don’t have a clue who those people would be, but I know YOU do.
Here is what tickles me, what I can’t resist commenting on from this morning’s Kuwait Times:
ELECTION FEVER GRIPS STATE
Tribes, groups move to chose candidates • Eligible voters rise to 361,000 including 200,000 women
Holy Smokes! Almost FORTY THOUSAND more women voters than men voters??? Woooo HOOOOOO, Kuwaiti women!
Anything but Pedestrian
Yesterday on 5th ring, we saw the beginnings of the new pedestrian overpasses, which are anything but pedestrian in their design.
Look at that! Not only do they honor the architectural element of the wind tower tradition in Kuwait, but they will also allow pedestrians to cross safely to the other side. For all the derision we heap on highway planners here, they deserve a big pat on the back for these.
From Wikipedia on Windcatchers: A Wind Tower (Persian: badgir, Arabic: “barjeel” or badghir(from Persian)) is a structure seen on ancient buildings of the Middle East, particularly Iran and Bahrain. This acted like a natural air conditioner creating a soothing effect in the harsh conditions of the desert.
Reservations
I just had a truly gut-wrenching experience.
I’ve been checking airline prices for my summertime journey back to the USA. I use Mobissimo most often, but I use them all, just to see how prices compare.
The prices have been high. I finally reserved – paying more than what I used to pay for business-class for an economy-class ticket. Seats are disappearing, prices are soaring and I am betting many families will opt just not to travel this summer, or to travel using a Jazeera-type-airline for travel to more local vacation sites.
If you have travel plans, you might want to start looking at your plans now. It’s going to be a rough summer out there.
Education and No Child Left Behind
One of the most cynical education programs ever put into place, in my opinion, is the No Child Left Behind program. It’s impact, while claiming lofty goals, in actuality forced schools to exclude students who would fail, so as not to have them on their statistical base.
Quote from article: If low-achieving students leave school early, a school’s performance can rise.
In this story from the New York Times you can read how US schools fudge statistics to have a respectable high school graduation rate for federal funding purposes, while the truth is far less positive.
JACKSON, Miss. — When it comes to high school graduation rates, Mississippi keeps two sets of books.
One team of statisticians working at the state education headquarters here recently calculated the official graduation rate at a respectable 87 percent, which Mississippi reported to Washington. But in another office piled with computer printouts, a second team of number crunchers came up with a different rate: a more sobering 63 percent.
The state schools superintendent, Hank Bounds, says the lower rate is more accurate and uses it in a campaign to combat a dropout crisis.
“We were losing about 13,000 dropouts a year, but publishing reports that said we had graduation rate percentages in the mid-80s,” Mr. Bounds said. “Mathematically, that just doesn’t work out.”
Like Mississippi, many states use an inflated graduation rate for federal reporting requirements under the No Child Left Behind law and a different one at home. As a result, researchers say, federal figures obscure a dropout epidemic so severe that only about 70 percent of the one million American students who start ninth grade each year graduate four years later.
California, for example, sends to Washington an official graduation rate of 83 percent but reports an estimated 67 percent on a state Web site. Delaware reported 84 percent to the federal government but publicized four lower rates at home.
The multiple rates have many causes. Some states have long obscured their real numbers to avoid embarrassment. Others have only recently developed data-tracking systems that allow them to follow dropouts accurately.
The No Child law is also at fault. The law set ambitious goals, enforced through sanctions, to make every student proficient in math and reading. But it established no national school completion goals.
“I liken N.C.L.B. to a mile race,” said Bob Wise, a former West Virginia governor who is president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, a group that seeks to improve schools. “Under N.C.L.B., students are tested rigorously every tenth of a mile. But nobody keeps track as to whether they cross the finish line.”
Furthermore, although the law requires schools to make only minimal annual improvements in their rates, reporting lower rates to Washington could nevertheless cause more high schools to be labeled failing — a disincentive for accurate reporting. With Congressional efforts to rewrite the law stalled, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has begun using her executive powers to correct the weaknesses in it. Ms. Spellings’s efforts started Tuesday with a measure aimed at focusing resources on the nation’s worst schools. Graduation rates are also on her agenda.
You can read the rest of the story HERE.
Our young people are the leaders and decision makers of tomorrow. My generation thought we were going to change the world, and here the world continues on it’s merry way to pollution, desolation and degradation. I hope the young people of today can do what we have failed to do – create a better world.
Taking Issues to the Paper
Here is where this story started: Corruption at the Morgue.
You have to wonder what is going on here? Both parties are now taking their cases to the press. It’s interesting. It should be easy enough to determine whether the morgue conditions are modern or not, whether the morgue has the equipment it needs to determine blood alcohol content, drug levels, blood infections (you would want your medics and coronors to know if they are exposed to TB, HIV, Hepatitus, etc.) but all this is aside from the accusation that autopsy results and cause of death are being manipulated to prevent successful prosecution of some who commit crimes, and to implicate some who do not.
The female coroner’s accusation of sexual harassment may not even be an issue – does Kuwait have a law against sexual harassment? I would think the courts would be overwhelmed if there were such laws in place! If there is no law against sexual harassment, can you call it assault, and prosecute?
Morgue chief hits back
Published Date: March 17, 2008
By Ahmad Al-Khaled, Staff Writer
KUWAIT: The director of Kuwait’s morgue refuted accusations by a female coroner of departmental wrongdoing and false reports during a press conference yesterday. Department director Eid Bousalib labeled the female coroner Dr Nawal Bousheri a “problem employee.” The director argued that his department is transparent, noting “We have a department of quality control which monitors all our procedures.
He, instead concentrated his statements on attacking Bousheri. Reciting a litany of offenses including failing to show up for work and complaining about the lack of promotion, Bousalib painted Bousheri as a disgruntled employee simply lashing out via the media.
She stopped signing in and out of her log book and declined overtime hours and with that we sent a memo to the administrative department regarding those issues. At that time she was not assigned any cases. On two occasions, one for 46 days and another for 21 days where she never signed-in.” Bousalib pointed out, “This happened in 2007, long before she complained in the media.
He also noted that she applied for a promotion and was rejected and in response, “She placed another complaint with the Civil Service Commission that was investigated and declined…She was still unsatisfied and complained in the administrative courts in 2007 on the same issue (her promotion) and it was rejected,” he said.
Addressing Bousheri’s accusations, Bousalib said that male doctors examined male corpses and that women examined female corpses. “That is totally wrong, women examine women and men examine men – even the doctors have separate offices (male and female sections)-If you examine our overnight shift lists, we always have a male and female doctor on shift.” Bousheri alleged that male doctors would be present in the same examining rooms where female coroners examined female corpses. She said the result was in app
ropriate behavior regarding the corpses.
Bousheri also claimed that coroners falsified reports at the request of police. Bousalib rejected the claim. “It is impossible to doctor the records. An administrative person, no matter his rank, has no authority over technicians and what the technicians write on their reports is what they are responsible for in the courts,” he said.
Regarding accusations of poor sanitation, sterilization of equipment, and bad smells in the state morgue, Criminal Investigation Deputy Director Brigadier Dr. Fahad Al-Dousari said, “The ventilation system is modern. The morgue was authorized and approved by the British Royal College and Kuwait University and is up to international standards.” Notably the facility was denied the approval of the British Royal College prior to 2001 but after upgrades, subsequently received the approval.
The department, which includes a wide variety of sections such as a criminal laboratory, forensic medicine section, and a crime scene officers section, has been in operation for 50 years. In 2001 Kuwait launched the identification DNA laboratory which was the first such lab in the Middle East and Arabian Gulf region.
Earlier slanderous rumors regarding Bousheri’s mental state had been leaked to the press. Bousalib declined to comment on the rumors, noting “She is still an employee and a colleague and we do not interfere in her personal life.” Kuwait Times could not confirm the rumors. Dr. Bousheri is still employed at the department, but Bousalib would not confirm if she was still receiving cases.
Female coroner retaliates…
Published Date: March 18, 2008
KUWAIT: Female coroner Dr Nawal Boushiri has retaliated against accusations hurled at her by morgue director Brig Eid Bousalib in Sunday’s press conference. She pointed out that she was waiting for the minister of interior’s nod, especially since he was aware of all the misdeeds that took place at the criminal administration. She met him twice and he has given the director the go- ahead to defend himself, thus making him both the opponent and the judge. She asserted that she has documents to prove the viol
ations that took place in the autopsy room and other departments at the administration.
However, she said that she has reservations about making them public now, since the case is sub judice. She expressed astonishment at the fact that the director avoided the sexual harassment topic, emphasizing that the issue has deeply troubled her and undermined her position at the administration
She said that the head of the department is a dentist; universally, the post is reserved to a doctor specialized in general medicine and surgery. A dentist’s knowledge is limited to the teeth.
My complaint is still being considered by the court and I have a letter authorized by the Civil Service Commission stating that the minute the post becomes vacant, I have the right to take charge.
The director said that the autopsy room is a modern one and meets international standards. I want to say that the room is a hall, that has two tables for inspecting bodies, without any kind of partition. The ventilation system is poor. The equipments used are substandard. This administration department smells foul whenever a body is present in the autopsy room. Authorities should verify this matter.
She said that there have been cases where lab reports indicate that the blood and urine samples taken by the administration were not that at all. Further some reports state that the urine sample was substituted with some ‘liquid.’
Boushiri went on to say, “The director feels that it is not important to decide the dose of drug in the bloodstream. I say it is of extreme importance especially in cases decisions have to be made whether the dosage was part of treatment or not. It is usually the drug overdose that causes death.
Whatever has been said about my commitment to work is baseless. For all the years that I worked at the administration, I stopped signing the attendance register only after the director started sexually harassing me. I did not sign the register for several months before he ordered that my salary be stopped on 16th September 2007. I don’t know why he chose this date in particular.
5KD = LLLOOOLLLL
I have seen opinions, and heard people talking about how Kuwait has more important things to do than to penalize people who are using their mobile phones. They are outraged! Clean up the highways first, they say, give us better schools, enforce the laws already on the books (but leave our cell phones alone!)
I am sorry. I know I am going to get killed for this opinion, but have you ever followed someone driving while talking on a cell phone? Do you watch them wobble out of their lane, try to steer the car with their knee because they have the phone in one hand and they need to adjust the volume of the radio? In countries where mobile phone use has been monitored and statistics kept, they attribute a huge rise in inattentive driving to cell phone use. They have statistics. They can prove that cell phone use is linked to a rise in accidents.
Brave Qatar brought in a team of experts who interviewed seriously injured accident victims. Every single one of them was on a cell phone when involved in the accident.
My rant is this: a 5KD fine? In Kuwait, that is just laughable. A 5 KD fine (about $20 with the dollar diving into the cellar) is not a deterrent. I want to see a sliding scale: start at 50KD for the first incidence, double it for the second, double it again for the third, etc. Make it hurt.
There are too many drivers for the roads, even with the ongoing improvements. The drivers are ill experienced, and careless. Driving in Kuwait is lethal enough without the additional factor of cell phones. If you need to ask directions, pull over. It’s not that hard, you’re smart, you can figure it out.
Church Blocking the Way
I can’t help being a little cynical and a little sad. I have often wondered how long a very visible church could last in a very visible location. It always made me proud that Kuwait was so tolerant to allow Christian worship to take place side by side with Islam in Kuwait. So now the church is impeding progress, and has to go?
From the Arab Times:
Church, cafe blocking way
KUWAIT CITY, March 17: ‘Minister of Public Works and State Minister for Municipal Affairs Mussa Al-Sarraf is determined to remove all obstacles facing the First Ring Road expansion project,’ Al-Rai daily quoted Assistant Undersecretary for Road Engineering Affairs at the Ministry of Public Works Hussein Al-Mansour as saying. The Minister instructed officials to find solutions to the problems, especially for buildings which block the road’s expansion like the church near Jahra roundabout and a cafe, he added.
According to Al-Mansour, the ministry will not be able to complete the project due to these obstacles and ‘it is likely to cost the ministry a lot of money as the contractor will ask for compensation for the delay.’ He said the ministry is waiting for a temporary location for the church and is trying to find alternate arrangements for the cafŽ to hasten the execution of the project ‘which will help in easing the traffic problems in the country.’
Roasted Tomatoes
A friend brought me a huge bag of tomatoes, and also a serving of the same tomatoes roasted up – oh WOW. Roasting these already tasty tomatoes concentrates their flavor.
I serve them as a side dish. I add them to salads, and to salad dressings. I serve them as a salad with a little Balsamic vinegar. I add them to the spaghetti sauce. I make them into a roasted tomato soup, with basil (be sure to use real cream; it’s OK, it just makes the taste richer and more satisfying. If you are satisfied, you won’t eat more and the cream won’t make you fat. I promise.) They are like magic, anything they touch tastes wonderful.
Chop cherry tomatoes in half, bigger tomatoes into quarters. Place in a long flat pan (with sides; these get juicy at first) and spray with a really good olive oil and sprinke with sea salt.
Roast at 180°C / 350°F for 40 minutes, longer if you want less juice.
You will find it hard to resist eating them right out of the pan.
Meat and Fish at the Sultan Center
It doesn’t take long before you live in a country long enough that you don’t see with the same eyes as when you came. Last week, as I was shopping, I was looking for something to fix for dinner. Normally, I just see something and grab and go, but my attention was caught by how expensive everything was, and then again, by the fact that American ground beef was twice as expensive as New Zealand ground beef, and both were really really expensive – it’s ground beef!
I’ve been careful about meat ever since I read Deadly Feasts about ten years ago. The book is a medical mystery, it traces the identification of Mad Cow Disease, and how vulnerable we all are. The human variant takes ten years to develop – all because tainted meat enters our food supply, because meat producers are too greedy to pass up a cow who is stumbling and falling down.
Even those who keep it out of the human food chain often process fallen cows for animal food.
And none of that has anything to do, really, with this post. The point is, for once, instead of rushing by, I was paying attention. When you pay attention, you start to see things (again) (or for the first time.) Here, you see things routinely that you don’t see in the United States:
Lamb’s brains:
Lamb’s heart:
Sheep’s feet:
Fresh Quail:
Kuwaiti Shoom:
Saudi Shrimp (these look big, but Kuwaiti shrimp, in season, are even bigger, and the sweetest shrimp you have ever tasted):
Iranian Squid:
Nuabi (a fish caught locally)
I love Kuwaiti seafood, and this is the one I love the best of all, Kuwaiti Zubaidi:
For those of you in the US, you can multiply the prices by four for an approximate idea of how much the food costs in dollars. The dollar is slipping here, as everywhere else, prices are going up, and we are taking the double whammy.
The seafood is out of this world. Even though expensive, local caught seafood is about what we would pay for seafood in the US. Vegetables IN SEASON can be reasonable. When I want iceburg lettuce, I pay about $3/ head. I have wonderful friends who are sharing their bumper crops of vegetables this year, and oh! they are SO good, so tasty! One of my friends has tried some heirloom tomatoes, and they are doing well!
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