The new thing in resource-fueled conflict: cows
Here’s a story I reported during my trip to Goma, about which I know I owe you all lusciously interesting tidbits. I’ll try to…
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Congo’s Conflict-Fueling Cattle
GOMA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO — For years, African militias have used proceeds from precious natural resources to fund conflicts – a practice dramatized…
Read MoreOf palettes and poverty
My colleague and I could think of very few things in the world that could possibly be as interesting as the National Museum of…
Read MoreWhat Congo has that America doesn’t
On my taxi ride to the border, my Congolese driver asked me how the Democratic Republic of Congo compares to America. The dichotomy struck…
Read MoreSweat equity
Near Kinshasa’s biggest airport, I happened to catch sight of what might be its only train. It makes the blue metal boxes clanking through…
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All Things Must Fight To Live
In Congo brutality seems to be everywhere: history, war, politics; in the landscape and the poverty and the desperate chug of locals’ day-to-day lives….
Read MoreObservations in three acts
I. I have met only one person in Africa–though I’ve only been to four countries–who is, as a rule, early. But I’ve found the…
Read MoreThere are only so many ways to say something
Earlier this week, I went through recording after recording from Sierra Leone–interviews with forced wives, and with women who suffered every denigrating crime even…
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