Delaying the Inevitable

The morning call to prayer drowns out the chatter, the children, the cockerels; at least for a minute. How many pleas will go unanswered today? Five times the Adhan will ring out across the camp, and they will come. Unwaveringly. Resolutely. Religiously. Who are we to judge? Stuck here in the dust between two lands. Unwanted; surrounded by enmity and apathy. Where else can you look but up, when all your terrestrial options are spent? When any solution is mired in the petty politics of race, religion and region whilst we cling to our own part of this insignificant rock, speeding through space at 600 kilometres per second. On the sprawling hilltop opposite, the sun glints off corrugated metal; a shining beacon of inequality in a world that could do better. In a world that hasn’t learned from the past; where our “never again” became “never somewhere close”. And where even that seems less achievable than ever.  So, I too look up. And pick out the ki...

Memories of working in Sierra Leone: I’ve had enough of this. Their voices start to blend into the mechanical monotony of the air conditioning unit. Sitting opposite each other at the far end of the table, they gesticulate like policemen directing traffic at a busy junction. “I’m just going to get some fresh air, I’ll just be outside” I say as I begin to shuffle past them to the door. They pause their conversation to theatrically rearrange the furniture; ensuring I don’t come within a couple of metres of them as I go past. As the door opens, the stale heat envelops me. I light a cigarette and make my way over the cobbled courtyard to a welcome area of shade. We’d just got a call to say the little boy had died. The news was like a sucker punch. Hit after hit after hit had been raining down but this had come when we were looking the other way. He’d been through so much. From the day he arrived at Kerrytown, he’d never been far from death, but his malnourished body had foug...