Radriffa slept sideways on the bed beneath barred windows, the morning light filling the room to wake him gently. His father, Peter Toby, sat beside him listening to the crackle of a handheld radio, taking in the day"s headlines. It was quiet that morning in Monrovia, and I stood in the corner of Toby"s one-room household processing that awkward feeling that comes when you peer into someone"s intimate moments. As a twenty-five year old grad student from the U.S. I felt more than out of … [Read more...]
A Lesson in Patience and Reverence
“You’re an uncle!” I heard my mom shout through the tiny earpiece of my cellphone. “Yukiko had Emmalyn early this morning.” I had to plug my other ear in order to hear her correctly as I stared out from behind metal bars into a chaotic sea of concrete, tarps, and corrugated steel as a pair of roosters looked right back at me chuckling to themselves. I will always remember the date, August 9th, 2011, when I became an uncle, standing in the printing press room at the New Democrat as a … [Read more...]
