“Giving a feckless person money,” goes the Chinese proverb, “is like pelting a stray dog with dumplings.” Nonetheless, I give money to panhandlers. Yes, I know it’s hardly sound philanthropy, but I have personal motivations for saying “yes,” when a stranger approaches me on the street with an outstetched hand and a pathetic plea. In […]
I am ashamed and embarrassed to tell you this, but I was terrified once by a group of retarded adults. Not long ago, I took a position as director of marketing and communication with the local United Way in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, a fine organization that smartly required that I learn the value of the individual agencies […]
He was one of those friends with whom you passed ungainly (and often unseemly) formative years. He’s heard all of your hare-brained schemes and you, his. He’s seen you at your best and your worst. He’s seen you full-of-yourself and he’s seen you utterly depleted. He’s seen you in love and lovesick. You shared long […]
INTO THE ABYSS Four months after Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie jetted into Ethiopia’s capital city of Addis Ababa to pick up their adopted child, Zahara, a group of less celebrated Americans were circling the city in a Boeing 737, their noses pressed to the windows, marveling at the unexpected patchwork of lush, green fields. […]
INTO THE ABYSS (Part 2) Our wild-eyed ride through Nairobi’s poor eastside ends abruptly as we pass through the gates of the Safari Park Hotel. Within minutes, we’re being handed hot towels to press to our travel-weary faces, sipping cold mango drinks and nodding replies to the hotel staff’s Swahili greeting: Jambo! The word means […]
INTO THE ABYSS (Part 3) The region we are headed for is Quacha Birra, a remote, densely populated community that requires a more than 315-mile drive to reach. Nearly half of the drive is over dirt roads. The plan is for us to leave Nairobi at 8 p.m., for the two-hour flight to Addis, then […]
INTO THE ABYSS (Part 4) The official language of Ethiopia is Amharic—an ancient Semitic language closely related to Hebrew. The problem is that fewer than one in seven Ethiopians speak their national language. The rest speak one of more than 80 languages, many of which are based only on oral traditions with no written roots. […]
