First published on November 30, 2021 At exactly zero dark 1, a loud banging on the door woke me up. I jumped out of bed so quick I put a dent in the ceiling and came down with a thud, missed the mattress by an inch. I had no time to think about a sore…
First published on December 20, 2021 So, hmm.. this village is showing me things! The other day the village ATM swallowed my debit card. I beat it, pap-pap, it refused to spit it out. It seems it was angry that I took money from it. The security guard for the ATM kiosk was eating mangoes…
The International Crisis Group will list you the top ten conflicts going on around the globe. When I last used their analysis last Fall, all nations with active war, the kind that comes with ceaseless bloodshed and loss of life, were in those parts of the world where people have learnt to turn a blind…
The train station at Lviv is packed, Ukrainians are fleeing war. The entry point at Medyka into Poland is bursting at the seams with those seeking refuge. A hotel in Kharkiv is overflowing with families looking for warmth as bitter cold sinks its teeth into the flesh of those bombed out. In all these situations,…
It’s office hours. One-on-one with students on Zoom. Pandemic teaching feels like an apocalyptic burnout in a gray sci-fi future, cold light streaming through your window in colors of hopelessness. My office hours are no longer about academics and negotiating assignment deadlines. They’re about survival. We have gone through a whole year of Covid-19, and…