On Thursday, October 14th, Willard Tillotson passed away. As the chairman of Hefren-Tillotson and a man deeply involved in the Pittsburgh community his funeral was attended by hundreds of people. I had the pleasure of meeting him, and as brief as it was, we still shared a good laugh. * Ting! I was standing in …
from a memoir about growing up in Belize My mother sent my older brother and me to the village’s river to get water for cooking and drinking. She boiled the water until it tasted of charcoal, a smoky wetness. Ibrahim was an athlete, so he sprinted down to the river, his feet slapping against the …
In 1993, when my family moved from San Bernardino, California to More Tomorrow Village in Belize, it hadn’t occurred to me that this new place would allow me to deeply experience the rawness of the natural world. We moved to a village because my mother wanted to go to the most remote place and show …
“Are you praying?” my mother asked, her voice quavering through the phone. She repeated it again and a sick silence followed. “No Maam…,” I stared at the floor and saw nothing. “Girl, you have to pray.” I nodded as if she could see me. In the name of Allah the Beneficent, the Merciful. But she …
On the weekends, my mother hand-washed our clothes at the river. Bending over and slapping the clothes into the water, she would occasionally look up to see us flap around. We children teased the slippery current with our bodies, playing with other children as their mothers sliced the water with heavy clothes as well. At …