Tag Archives: Kenya

war’s cure

14 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by in Illustration and art, Poetry, sonnet

≈ Comments Off on war’s cure

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Dada'ab 1

How to understand? In dreams I’m simply
holding a child together in my arms,
swathed and bloody. Wake up. In Swahili

mzimu means ghost. They come from burnt farms,
poisoned wells, fields where the bodies went down.

Who understands the dead?: ghosts, mzimu,
souls. Go work at Kenya’s Dada’ab Town,

largest refugee camp in the world. “You
need to work,” we tell ourselves. Understand

words are a start but not an end. Orphans
and ghosts are still looking for us. War’s cure
is hard work; so find us a new grassland,
enough for all. Enough food for millions.
Enough water to let us dream once more.

largest refugee camp in the world

largest refugee camp in the world

Kenya-Dada'ab

Remembering the Tree Mother, Kenya’s Wangari Maathai

08 Saturday Oct 2011

Posted by in Passings and Death Notes

≈ Comments Off on Remembering the Tree Mother, Kenya’s Wangari Maathai

Tags

, ,

Today Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize winner, was laid to rest in Kenya. The BBC stated:

A state funeral for Nobel Peace Prize winner and environmentalist Wangari Maathai has taken place at a Kenyan national park she fought to save.

Mrs Maathai, whose Green Belt Movement planted an estimated 45 million trees in Kenya, died last month of cancer.

Thousands of mourners lined the route of the procession to the funeral in Uhuru National Park in Nairobi.

President Mwai Kibaki praised her courage, tenacity and “selfless service to the nation”.

Mrs Maathai, who died on 25 September, was the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2004. She won the award for her campaigns to promote conservation, women’s rights and transparent government.

Maathai’s legacy is a blessing for us all.