“The feeling that you get [when you hear me sing], I get first.”
—
LAURYN in her first interview in yearssss. “The Many Voices of Lauryn Hill” by NPR’s Zoe Chace
June 2010
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“
In an effort to get people to look
into each other’s eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.
When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.
Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.
When she doesn’t respond,
I know she’s used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.
meet beatrice: a woman who pours it all
one of the great things about interviewing people for stories is once in a while you meet people who really change the way that you view things and affect how you put things in perspective. for me, Beatrice Ayuru Byaruhanga is one of those rare people. i decided to profile her for MediaGlobal after she received a UN award for business woman of the year to get more information about her school, The Lira Integrated School in Uganda. while i knew she was an educator and respected her for that, from our conversations i also learned how much of her success came from having the attitude of a survivor. she lived through the worst war in Ugandan history, grew up in extreme poverty and was persecuted by her own people for wanting to build a school to help the communities children. she is a woman who does is not expect pity and demands more from herself each day.
lately, i am forcing myself to expect the same type of will from myself. i def did not grow up facing nearly as many obstacles as she did. in fact, many of my “limitations” are ones that have been purposely or not, self imposed. but on some level the key to making things happen is working despite the doubts around you- from the oppression of others or the insecurities of yourself. i think that is one of the strongest personal lessons i took from this story- that your aspirations mean nothing unless they benefit others and are worth withstanding darker moments.
as for beatrice’s darker moments in building the Lira School (pictured above), she told me:
I had nothing to make anybody believe in me and all I could do was to use my own energy to plough the garden. The income I raised from the cassava was used for making 25 wheel-barrows that I hired out to wheel-barrow pushers at $6.25 per day and I would save this…
Many in the community at that time saw what I was doing as strange and were just waiting to see my downfall since they had grown up with me and come from the same background of poverty. They thought I was crazy and that could it be the degree I got from the university that was disturbing me and making me over ambitious. It was not until the buildings reached some level that the community started believing in what I was doing.
i think the idea that the motivation for doing good comes when you have nothing to make people believe is such a powerful one. often times, its disproving peoples notions of what we are capable of that propel us to exceed all expectations. beatrice has done it by becoming part of only a handful of African women recognized on an international level for their entrepreneurship. and despite that she is not complacent with what she has done. “there is always more that i have to do,” she told me, “i just wake up everyday and pour all of me into the day in front of me. there are enough that i’ve had to leave behind for me to let anything else get away.”
she is absolutely right- life leaves us all tired, but you cant sleep on your purpose. we’re still here, let’s wake up.
“
Although he knew he had strong material, he was amazed by the repercussions of his report. “I thought he was unfireable,” he said. “I never thought Obama would actually do it. I honestly thought it would be a three-day headache maybe at best and then they would roll with it and go on, which is what they have done with other media debacles.”
Hastings is in Kabul, but refused to say for how long: “I’m not going to discuss travel arrangements. I’m generally paranoid, I spent time in Iraq and bad stuff happened there.”
A little later he asked, “Are you going to use that paranoid quote?”
The Guardian said only if he allowed it to be quoted.
“I guess – fuck it,” he said.
” —from guardian interview with Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings
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Africa, in particular, is likely to receive only about USD 11 billion of the USD 25 billion increase envisaged at Gleneagles, due mainly to some European donors who give large shares of their official development assistance (ODA) to Africa not meeting their ambitious targets. →
oecd.org
from a 4/10 OECD report. toronto is a sad place always but especially this week.
Kissinger joins warnings of collapse in US public support →
guardian.co.uk
if anyone knows about waning public support for a war, itd be this guy. give him that.
IRC photo blog follows a refugee family from Bhutan as they start over in the Bronx. →
ircblog.org
def worth looking through. shows so much about the resiliency of people, the innocence and fragility of children and also what the bronx looks like to a family that has seen and experienced ethnic conflict and persecution first hand.
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“Fresh air is so overrated. Everyone talks about how great it is and how you need to get it then you experience it and realize it’s not as awesome as everyone said it would be. Fresh air is the Drake of nature.”
—via basseyworld (DEAD.)
