Posts tagged “burundi

Who Gives, Who Loses, Who Receives

Posted on 2 November 2018

The train station is impeccably shiny with lights reflecting from the ceiling off the floor. The platform is long and it took a few minutes to traverse the underground and emerge into the rainy day hanging above Monaco. As we wandered out onto the sidewalk, a few cars passed us by; I don’t know cars, but I could tell these were expensive. We walked up stairs abutting what was a fortress to Monaco-Ville, the older part of the city-state, turning around periodically to look out at the tall buildings climbing up the steep hill before us, and to our side at the port, where mega-yachts were anchored. Monaco is one of the very richest countries in the world. Every third person in Monaco is…

Glimpses of Slaughter and Silence

Posted on 20 November 2016

There was a wall before me. I ran my hands along it. I peered over it. I spent months perched on top, dangling my feet over the edge, observing. I scraped my elbows and palms, gathering glimpses at foreboding pasts and awful alternative presents, collecting calluses. The wall is cracking beneath my palms. Genocide seems far away. Even when standing on its grounds, an inexperienced mind, sans memories, isn’t elastic enough to fully accept this truth. When I was there, I tried, I really did. I looked at everyone my age and older: Which side were you on? What memories do you hold in your body? Around me, motortaxis zipped by. Rwanda truly felt safe to me. Reconciling pleasant Kigali with what I knew…

The Pee-Rats and I, or Adventures in Toilets

Posted on 4 June 2014

The first really, truly questionable toilet I encountered was somewhere between Saint Petersburg and Pskov. And toilet is a loose term—I should say a hole. Saving my money had been a theme of studying abroad, so when our group stopped at some train station, I along with a few others opted for the free toilets. I shut the door of the stall, hovered over the hole that was surrounded with—you know—and I failed. I couldn’t figure it out. So I pulled a few rubles from my purse and went to the paid toilet where I could actually pee. I was nineteen and my American self was still innocent and rather squeamish about the span of toilets that can be found in the world. This…