Mary Okeke Reviews: October 2015

Tuesday, 27 October 2015

Saharawi Refugees: UNHCR press release

Devastating flooding affects 25,000 Sahrawi refugees in Tindouf camps

Briefing Notes, 23 October 2015

This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Melissa Fleming – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at the press briefing, on 23 October 2015, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

The guest speaker for this item was Amin Awad, Director of the Bureau for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Refugee Coordinator for the Syria and Iraq situations.

Heavy rains and flooding have caused widespread damage to five camps providing shelter to some 90,000 of the most vulnerable Sahrawi

An Elegy for Easterly, 2009, Petina Gappah ***

An Elegy for Easterly is a collection of thirteen short stories that expounds on the socioeconomic political situation of the actual and the good old days Zimbabwe.

Let me say that the stories are funny, witty and most of the time tragic. Tragic because of the corruption, inflation, despair, poverty, HIV and AIDS constantly present in every backdrop of each story. For instance the story "The Cracked, Pink Lips of Rosie's Bridegroom" you can feel
the pressure on women to get married, Rosie is so desperate to tie the knot that she does not care that her groom is obviously down with AIDS. Everyone turned a blind eye, of course they will, let he who is not infected or has not buried a relative who died from the disease cast the first stone.

In addition, what baffles me is

2015 Summer Read Progress (SRP)

My summer reading is nothing to boast about, I would have liked to read more since I still have quite a handful of unread novels sitting on my shelf. Nevertheless, whatever the excuse, I just did not get to read as much as I would have liked to. Life came in the way. All the same, I am glad I read at all, very thick novels for that matter. OK, maybe I am just exaggerating when I say thick, below the pages.