‘Holding my son, I watched the flames in disbelief’
It was just after 6 a.m. on a Sunday morning when I woke to screams of “Help.” I roused my husband, and ran downstairs to see someone banging frantically on our sliding glass door. Panicked, I couldn’t get it unlocked so I ran out the front entrance and called 911. “Someone is screaming for help at my back door,” I said to the dispatcher. “I don’t know what is going on.” It was then I saw a plume of smoke billowing from my neighbor’s roof. Our homes shared a wall at the Oak Villas Condominiums. A man, whose name I can never remember, was lying motionless on the grass. “There’s a fire!” I told the woman on the phone. Continue reading here at VeroNews.com. |
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Mountain Causes: Habitat builds homes and hope
I wasn't sure what to expect when I headed out to an Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity job site last week. The thought of hammering away my Friday morning to build a house for someone in need was certainly appealing, but it was also 7:45 a.m. and very cold. For a brief second, I considered canceling. Realizing that being too cold or too tired was a lame excuse to not help my neighbors in need, I traded in my earrings and wedding ring for safety goggles and knee pads and got to work. It was the best decision I made all week. It took the whole morning, but we built a floor. Now I know the word "floor" sounds a bit mundane, the same way the words "door" or "wall" would, but like with any Habitat home, the real story is with the owner. The floor we built will soon belong to Gwendolyn Jones. Born and raised in subsidized housing in West Asheville, Jones will be the first homeowner in her family. Continue reading here at Citizen-Times.com |
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New mom diaries: The nose ring that wasn't
When Charlie was born and everyone around us celebrated a new life, a small part of me mourned the loss of myself. During those early days of no sleep, breastmilk in my hair and a crying, hungry baby, I wondered what would happen to the Beth I knew, the one I took years to develop, the renegade, an independent woman, smart and free. Before the age of 30, I had traveled all over the world. I backpacked across Asia and Eastern Europe. I joined the Peace Corps twice, working in remote villages in both Rwanda and Kazakhstan. Most people don't even know Kazakhstan is a real country, and I had friends there. I had established a career as a news writer in a male-dominated industry. I had bylined front page stories in USA TODAY. I had worked as a crime reporter in Las Vegas. I had a master's degree. Now, I had a baby. Continue reading here at Citizen-Times.com. |
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Malaria Month Madness at Peace Corps: An Introduction and thank You to the African Peace Corps Community
The thing that I love most about the Stomping Out Malaria in Africa Initiative is its ability to allow volunteers (PCVs) to share resources and best practices across the continent. Both in person at events like Malaria Boot Camp, and online through Monthly Town Halls, Facebook, the Google Drive, and this blog, there is something so inspiring about seeing our peers in other countries mobilize together behind a common goal. Sharing our stories allows us to better serve our communities in new, innovative ways; be more efficient and effective with our resources; and have a larger impact than the volunteers before us. This past month Peace Corp Rwanda celebrated World Malaria Day with its 2nd Annual World Malaria Month Competition. It was by far the most active month STOMP Rwanda has ever seen and we owe it all to our international peers. Read more here at the STOMPing out Malaria in Africa blog. |
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My Sister Goes for Ten Cows: A blog in honor of our first wedding anniversary in Africa
In Kazakhstan everywhere John and I went the subject of how much John paid for me came up. We’d be sitting around a table at mealtime and without a doubt, someone would ask. “How much did you pay for Elizabetta?” Since a woman’s status there was often directly related to the dowry–the more money, the more respect–John used to delight in telling them I was free. (He also once jokingly “sold me” to a train conductor for $1,000 USD, but that’s another blog post, and perhaps another marriage.) Rwandan culture is much less aggressive than Kazakhstan’s, so despite everyone’s unrelenting curiosity about the strange ways of white people, I was hopeful that questions about dowries were a thing of the past. As is often the case, however, I was wrong. Continue reading here at Abazungu, a short-lived travel blog from my time in the United States Peace Corps. |
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Neighbors: Treats for the troops
Gay Bos remembers scrambling into fox holes when the war planes flew overhead. And she can still envision people from her old neighborhood in the Netherlands getting caught by German soldiers for harboring Jews. But most of all, Bos recalls the soldiers who freed her from the Nazi regime. "I remember the soldiers who freed us," said Bos, 75, who immigrated to the United States in 1948. "I never dreamed I would come here, and I so appreciate what America has done." |
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