Category: The Places
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Haiti – Dispelling Myths And Searching For Truth.
I left for Haiti on the 26th of December 2004 to spend two weeks helping out and teaching English at a small but well-established mission. The mission has been in Haiti for over twenty-years. It established a co-op consisting of seven villages, which has proven successful thus far. It also boasts the only work-exchange program…
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Russia’s Splitting Headache – A Brief History Of Chechnya
Strabo at the time of Jesus mentions 26, already ancient, Albani tribes in the Caucasus that, by linguistic argument, included the Chechens (and Ingush). Most of the 55 ethnic groups in the Caucasus mountainous region between the Black and Caspian seas speak unique Caucasian languages. Chechen is a Northeast Caucasian language called Veinakh, meaning ‘our…
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Boomtown Basra
Most of the products Munkith and Munthir Abbas sell were either illegal for ordinary Iraqis to own or too expensive for them to buy. Now, the twin brothers manage just one of many import shops that offer a range of electronic goods, from hand irons to satellite television receivers. “Whenever the people can buy, they…
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Troubled Times – A Brief History Of Kurdistan
The unofficial country of Kurdistan occupies a region steeped in history; a history, that is, of bloody turmoil, occupation and assimilation. When the Medes (descended from the Aryans) first arrived in the region around 1000 B.C. the stage was set for a protracted and arduous battle for supremacy against the neighbouring Assyrians and Persians. For…
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Darfur Crisis: From the inside
Polo’s Bastards’ Contributor, Vince Gainey has recently returned from a 6 week posting in the middle of the Darfur Crisis in West Sudan with a major international aid agency.
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War in Iraq: A Pylon too far?
Route six, Iraq – AKA “MSR Topeka” (Main Supply Route Topeka), as named by the UK coalition forces, is a long, worn, and neglected jugular through the heart of Shia Iraq, running roughly south and east from Baghdad to Basrah – the second city.