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.
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.
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.
Saudi Women Only Hotel
From today’s BBC News:
Saudis open hotel for women only
The Middle East’s first women-only hotel has opened in Saudi Arabia.
It will cater primarily to businesswomen, who work completely covered from head to toe in public and have to observe strict segregation.
The hotel, in Riyadh, has 25 rooms and boasts fine dining and conference facilities, as well as a range of health and beauty treatments.
Its executive director said the response to the idea of a hotel just for women had been overwhelming.
The Luthan Hotel & Spa is owned by a group of 20 Saudi princesses and businesswomen.
It hopes to attract expatriates from the nearby diplomatic quarter as well as local women.
It is the first spa hotel in the kingdom available to women all the time – pools in other hotels are only open to women on certain fixed days or hours.
You can read more about the hotel HERE
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.
MacDonalds MacKrisby
This is for my stateside readers. Wherever you go, except for Syria, there seems to be a MacDonalds. The funny thing is, in different countries, they have different specialties, things you never see in the USA. For example, while we lived in Qatar, they had a special called the MacArabia, which was kind of like a local fast food, but on a more Western bun. It was no where near as tasty as the local equivalent, but I think they add things to the menu to appeal to people forced to eat there when the kids insist. I am only guessing; I can’t even remember the last time I had anything from MacDonalds.
In Kuwait, they have added a new sandwich, the MacKrispy, a breaded fried chicken thing, sort of like a great big dry chicken nugget. Because Arabic does not have a “p”, the literal translation of the word (you can see it down by the little golden arches) is MacKrisby.
2nd Amaryllis: For Mom
Mom, the second amaryllis is in full bloom, two full blooms and one more to come! I don’t know why it took the second one so much longer than the first one, except that the first one actually started sending out the stem while it was still in the box!
This has been one of my very favorite Christmas gifts. Thank you!
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!
Qatteri Cat Sinks in Sleep
The Qatteri Cat loves to find new places to slumber down. Today he is on the back of one of the loveseats, literally sinking as he sleeps. I am watching to see how far he will sink before he will rouse himself and get out of the crevice.
Eventually, he will scramble out, and being a cat, he will be embarrassed, but he will pretend like it never happened.
College Level Classes for Older Adults
AdventureMan and I fantasize about what retirement will look like, even though it is a few years ahead of us. It helps to think about what is coming and how we are going to handle it.
We have a house near my Mom, and Mom sent AdventureMan a clipping from the local paper about classes being taught for “older adults” (WHEN did THAT happen, we wonder, when did we become “older” adults???) with the sweet note that AdventureMan could teach a few classes.
Here are some of the classes offered at the college near us:
Africa: A Closer Look
The Canterbury Tales, Part I and Part II
Civil Liberties and Security
Current Issues Forum
End of Life Decisions
Geology of National Parks
The History of the Supreme Court
Jazz: Can You Dig it?
The Many Faces of Hinduism
Native Basketry of the columbia Plateau, Northwest Coast and Arctic Alaska
The Poetry of Billy Collins
The War of 1812
He’s excited about the idea. So as we were planning to pray together before he left for the day, we were chatting excitedly.
“You could teach some classes on buying hand woven carpets! or on Arabic culture! or you could teach about some aspect of Africa!” I suggest. (I have my own projects that keep me very busy.)
“I was thinking more about organizational classes – managing organizations, financial management, that kind of thing . . ” he responded, “You know, like organizing your life . . .”
(I can see that manic gleam come into his eye and I know what is coming next might well be something I don’t want to hear. . .)
“I’ve got it!” he exclaims, and he starts laughing, because he is already cracking himself up. “I can teach a class called . . . HOW TO ORGANIZE YOUR WIFE! Ha ha hahahahahahahahahhahahahahhahahahahhahahhahahah.”
I can’t help it. I am laughing too. But it’s not THAT funny, AdventureMan.
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