THE LONG WALK HOME

My name is Suleiman Abdi Hassan. I might look older to you but I was born only twenty years ago in a small east African country called Somalia. Everybody talks of how bad it is over there. They say the country is in a state of anarchy. Anyway, we used to live in a small city called Kismayu. My family was not rich or anything, all I remember my father was able to provide for us. He used to own several herds of cattle and some goats. We even had a school we used to go to. This is my story.

It all started when I was five years old. We went to bed at nine as usual. In the middle of the night we were woken up by loud noises and screaming coming from my parents hut which they used as bedroom. We had three huts, a kitchen that also housed the goats, my parent’s bedroom and ours. I shared the bedroom with my older sister Aisha and my brother Oman, he was the oldest. The screaming that came from my parent’s bedroom was so frightening that I jumped out of the bed I used to share with my brother into a huge basket that my mother used as storage for grains. It was empty by then. After a little while a group of people shouting came towards our hut, they knocked the door open. I could hear my siblings screaming but I stayed calm and quiet inside the basket I was in shock. What followed was a dead silence after the group escaped into the bushes. After probably an hour and half, I don’t remember exactly, I crawled into the bed in the darkness trying not to make any noise least the group came back. I could feel the bed was wet but then nothing was unusual I used to wet the bed anyway. I might have wet it before I was woken up by the screams. I could also feel my brother lying in the bed but I was to too afraid to say anything. I did not sleep that night. I woke earlier than usual and went under our tree, we had gourds lined up as cooking pots. My sister and I used to play under this tree on weekends, it was Saturday. This time my sister did not join me as she always did. I could see my clothes were stained red but I was not hurting anywhere, it was weird. I went back to the hut after two hours. I was hoping to find breakfast ready as my mother always did.

There was a crowd of people around our hut and as I got closer I saw some people laying on the ground covered with blankets they were not moving. One of them had a leso that was my moms’ favorite she had won it the previous night. Our neighbor who lived close to our home approached me and held me tight. She had never done that before. She took me to the back of our hut and told me to stay there. She came back with some clothes for me to change. She took me to her home and said that I will be staying with her for a while. She had a girl that went to the same class that I did. Her name was Foxa.  After two days, my neighbor said that I should resume classes as they figured out what to do next. I did not understand what that meant. I never said much I was always the quiet one. Everyday I would walk to our hut hoping to see my family. There was nobody there.

One day while walking home from school, Foxa told me that she heard her parents say that my family had been killed and that I was lucky to be alive. One day my neighbor said that we will no longer go to school as it was getting worse out there. She never explained. I did not know what was going on but I remember my father was so proud and always reminded us that we were from the Gabra tribe. I was too afraid that the same people that killed my family were going to come back and kill us. One day after having lunch I decided to escape. I took a path that led into the plains. Our school was on the other side. I walked all day eating berries on the way. I never came across anybody. It was a less travelled path. The darkness came and I spent the night on top of a tree. I could hear animals sounds below the tree and I would firm my grip. In the morning I did not see any animal around so I continued with my journey. Berries became my food along the way. The plains were huge I could only see the horizon. That night I climbed up a tree when darkness came. I was woken up but loud moaning sounds. We read about the moaning of a lion at school. They were several of them and the moaning was very frightening that I ‘peed’ my pants. I feared that I would loose my grip and fall down and the lions would feast on me. They were very strong and shook the tree as they tried to climb up but the tree was too slippery for them. I did not sleep that night either. In the wee hours of the morning, I was overwhelmed by sleep. I woke up after sunrise. There was no lion in sight, I must have been dreaming. There was tall grass below the tree most had been flattened.  There was no building in sight or anybody. That evening before sunset I saw some white tents in the horizon they had two letters written on them UN in black. They were so many lined up across the field. They called the place Daa-dab camp. I walked towards them. When I got there an elder man held came towards me and held my hand. He took me to a tent that looked like my head teacher’s office inside they had stacks of papers arranged neatly on the desk. They asked for my name. I told them my name is Suleiman Abdi Hassan drawing on the ground with my toes I was bare foot. I was always shy. They called one of the women in a tent adjacent to the office. They told her to take care of me. She took me to her tent and gave some food I was hungry. She had a boy a little older than I was, his name was Ali. After about a week a group of people came. They said they wanted to take all the kids to the city to study, Ali and I was not left either. They took us to a school in the city they called the academy. I had never seen anything like it. The buildings were made of stone including the academy. They called the city Nairobi. Our class teacher was so nice to us her name was Mrs. Moraa. I would feel proud of myself when she called out my name during roll call. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months and eventually we were told we had to move into a new class after we had an exam. Mrs. Moraa was still our class teacher. Every year we would move to a different class.
 

One morning, Mrs. Moraa came into class and said that she had some very good news for us. She said that some sponsors wanted each and every one of us to submit an essay of anything we wanted to write about as long as it was “good quality material”. She said that the best three essays would get a scholarship overseas. I didn’t know what overseas meant but Mrs. Moraa said it would be life changing. She said that the essay would be timed for one hour after which she would collect them as she always did during exams. She said that we would write the essay the following day and we should take that day to think about what to write. The following day she came to class with a stack of writing paper for us to use for our essays. She gave each one of us two sheets of paper to write on. I wanted to make Mrs. Moraa proud of me but I didn’t have anything to write about. I decided to write about my own personal story. Every now and then Mrs. Moraa would walk around the classroom to see how we were doing on our essays. That made me nervous. After an hour she took the essays from us and told us that it would take two days for her to mark them. On the third day early in the morning Mrs. Moraa came to class holding a stack of what she said was our essays and that she had the best three essays already in her hands. My heart felt like it would explode as she called out the name of the third best essay working her way up to the best. It wasn’t my name. The second best essay wasn’t mine either. As she called the best essay I felt like I would pass out, I remember hearing my last name Hassan no one else had that name in that class. I jumped from my seat and run towards Mrs. Moraa. I hugged my class teacher that day. I was overwhelmed. She took photographs of the top three students for what she called “legal documentation”. What followed is the most memorable part of my life.


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WORLD POPULATION: CAN THE EARTH SUPPORT?

Last July the world announced that 7billion person was born. This has generated a lot of question of where the world has come and where it’s heading. Let’s take a look at some of the factors that might have contributed to the rapid increase in human population and the policies and regulations that facilitate the same.

In the last century, the world has experienced an increase in life expectancy. People had a life expectancy below 50.  America today has a life expectancy of about 75 years with a variation between male and females. Other countries have a higher and some with lower that. One of the major causes of high human population is healthcare. Human health has improved significantly in the last century. People can go to hospitals for infections before they progress to critical levels. Also, preventive healthcare can spot potential diseases before they even take root. Drugs are more efficient today with advancement every day. Clean water and sewage system has also kept humans in good health.  Today, more is known about disease causing organism than in the past. More powerful microscope, equipments and diagnostic kits have been invented. Therefore, with improved healthcare people have had a longer life expectancy than in the past.  Some countries like Japan have older population than there are youth and young adults that means they are not even able to replace the parents that gave birth to them. This is causing a decline in their population.

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Another major contributor of high human population is nutrition. People are more aware of what they eat these days than ever before. This has increased their overall health. In North American and Europe, nutritious food is available throughout the year. People therefore are able to plan their diet without any worries. However, that cannot be said of other places in the world where starvation is a serious threat. We now know that certain populations are more vulnerable to certain diseases that are basically brought by what we eat including certain cancers. They has also helped in some people avoiding certain food for the sake of their health. Other types of food boost immunity and strengthen the body. There is a saying today that “we are what we eat.” Weight is a serious issue today with more processed food being available in the market. More and more people are hitting the gym to make sure weight does not add to their problems. These are some of the things that were not available or embraced in the past.
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Standards of living have improved considerably in the last century. We have improved sewage system, access to clean water, general cleanliness and sanitation. These were some of the challenges that people faced in the past with some diseases related to them killing thousands of people. Cholera, plague has had a fair share of deaths in past and in places without clean water or environment.

Increased agricultural production with advanced seeds and machinery has also boosted human population. The farms ensure the food is available throughout the year that is more nutritious. Most people live I urban areas because the farms can support their food requirements. This gives more time for procreation and other activities.

With all these factors contributing to high population growth, what is the best way forward? Methods of reducing escalating human population are a hot issue today. Churches are against contraceptives, abortions and some people advocate for freedom of choice. What is the solution to the problem? is it really a problem? Can the world support the population with its rapidly increasing rate?

Wars kill thousands of people each year, diseases, accidents, starvation. Some countries have negative population growth others have policies that limit the number of children one can have. Will the world solve the problem without intervention into human populations? In the first world more people are education live comfortable lives and have high living standards. Therefore families are getting smaller and smaller as they have improved healthcare and low mortality rate. Other countries will follow the same trend when the conditions improve. The need for bigger families was a survival technique and when survival is more certain, and then families get smaller. Bigger families were a source of labor, with more mechanization the need becomes obsolete hence smaller families.

There is fear that the world population is going to double within the next few years, and that the world will not be able to support it. Is the fear justifiable or is it for nothing? We know food production is improving with better varieties and better farming methods some do not even require soil will these advancements be enough or are we doomed? Some books have provided facts that the earth cannot support 15 billion people based on some reasonable calculations and hypothesis. Do we want to test the waters or should we implement adequate measures? Contraceptives, family planning, anyone?

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PLACES TO VISIT WHEN IN KANSAS CITY

Kansas City is endowed with various attractions that would be very interesting for visitors and residents alike.  The city has activities going especially in the summer that would keep visitors busy throughout. Such both indoor and outdoors activities would offer alternatives especially during the hot weather. Some of the places to visit include but not limited to; Kansas City Zoo, WW1 Memorial, Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City Ballet, Kansas City Symphony, Chiefs and Royals Stadiums during matches among others.

WW1 Museum

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WW1 Museum is the best place to view Kansas City downtown. Its raised platform offers an elevated of downtown that no other place can boast of. It also has memorabilia, military equipments and videos of what happen during the world war. The place is definitely one of the best places to visit while on Kansas City.

Nelson Atkins Museum of Arts

 

About 2 miles from downtown Kansas City on the plaza is Nelson Atkins Museum. This offers arts from different artists that they show case. For museum enthusiast and art lovers, this is the place to be. In this time of the year when the temperatures are high and want to amuse you these place offer the best options.

Chiefs and Royals Stadium

These stadiums are close to each other and subsequently offer athletes fans entertainment throughout the year. Baseball often played in the spring and summer and football played in the fall and winter season giving an all year round entertainment for their fans

Kansas City Symphony

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The symphony offers enthusiasts entertainment throughout the year. Music lovers are not left behind for that matter. Also in downtown Kansas City is Kansas City Ballet.

Kansas City Zoo

For animal lovers your place to be in Kansas City is the Kansas City Zoo. With a wide variety of animals from all over the world including polar bears, lions, zebras etc. The zoo on occasions offers residents of close counties free entry. Also the fees that they charge are reasonably priced if you are not a resident of those counties don’t feel left out.

 There are many more attractions that the city offers, for those people from around the world that want to visit Kansas City be assured you will entertained to the fullest. Visit Kansas City.

 

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ABOUT EASTER AND THE CALENDAR

From the far-North to the south, the East to the West the moon has been used as a measure of time. It has been used to tell seasons, mark anniversaries and various functions that are observed every year. The various phases of the moon led to the innovation of the calendar that is widely used today. However, coming up with the calendar has not been easy. By the time the first calendar was devised, little was known about the earth and it revolution around the sun. People did not know how many days there are in a year or even leap year. This led to the discrepancy in the making of the calendar by various populations inhabiting different parts of the world. People came up with calendars that were suited to serve their purpose in the regions they resided. As travel and communication between various parts of the world improved, there need to come up with a universal calendar. Religion and civilizations were instrumental in uniting people around the world and so was the need for a calendar acceptable the world over. This led to divisions in the some religions as they failed to agree on the interpretation of the moon phases and the calendar to be used. In order to come up with an acceptable calendar, adjustments were constantly made to the calendars that were available as they discovered the discrepancies in them when they failed to deliver and as people gained knowledge of the moon and seasons. Some religions and civilizations refused to follow the widely accepted calendar and even today follow calendars that were made long time ago.

Here is the chronological order of events that resulted in modern calendar and also the Easter Holiday.

Everywhere we find relics of mythic, mystic, romantic meanings as people hail the new moon; “moonstruck”, “lunatic”, “moonshine” connecting the moon with measuring.

The word “moon” in English and other cognate languages are rooted in the base me meaning measure.

Despite its use as a measure of time it proved to be a trap for naïve mankind.

It didn’t give what the farmers and hunters needed most-the calendar. The wanted to know how long before planting time, when to expect the first frost or the heavy rains.

The cycles of the moon are caused by the moon’s movement around the earth at the same time the earth is moving around the sun.

The moon is elliptical and departs by an angle of about five degrees from the earth’s orbit about the sun explaining why eclipses of the sun do not occur every month.

The ancient Babylonians started with the lunar calendar and stayed with it. They discovered the Metonic cycle around 432 B. C. of nineteen years. However, it was too complicated for everyday use.

The Egyptians were the first to discover the length of the solar year and to define it in a useful practical fashion. They had no astronomical instruments not already well known to the ancient world.

In Greece each city state made its own calendar arbitrarily “intercalating” the extra month to mark a local festival or to suit political needs to defeat the very purpose of a calendar. A calendar held the people together, eased the making of common plans such planting of crops and delivery of goods.

In Egypt, the annual rising of the Nile River set the calendar of sowing and reaping with its three seasons: inundation, growth and harvest.

The primitive Egyptian calendar was a “nilometer”- a simple vertical scale on which the flood level was yearly marked. They found out that adding five more days to the twelve months thirty days each would make it more useful to make a year 365 days. They called the “civil” year or the “Nile year”.

They also had other signs: Sirius, the Dog Star, the brightest star in the heavens.

Since the solar year was not a 365 days, the Egyptian year of 365 days over the years became a “wandering year” with each named month occurring in a different season. The discrepancy was so small and took many years to affect the daily living. It was used through the middle ages and was used by Copernicus in his planetary table in the sixteen century.

The Jews preserve their lunar calendar and each Jewish month begins with the appearance of a new moon. And to keep in step with the seasonal year the Jews have added an extra month for each leap year.

In the Bible most of the months retain their Babylonian rather than the Hebrew names.

Christianity following Judaism for most religious anniversaries has kept its tie to the lunar calendar. For example “Easter-Day” which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus is always the first Sunday after the full moon which happens upon or next after the twenty first day of March and if the full moon happens upon a Sunday, Easter-Day is the Sunday after.

The bitter quarrel over the calendar led to one of the earliest schism between the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Church of Rome over the interpretation of the  of the Bible that fixed the death of Jesus  on a Friday. If the anniversary was to follow the Jewish lunar calendar there is no assurance that Easter would occur on a Sunday. A meeting in Asia Minor was called to come up with a uniform date to stay with the lunar calendar and assure that Easter would always be observed on a Sunday.

This did not resolve the matter, for community planning someone had to predict the phases of the moon, the task was given to the bishop of Alexandria.

The reform of the calendar was done by Pope Gregory XIII. The actual solar year- the time required for the earth to complete an orbit around the sun is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds which was less than the Egyptian year of 365^1/₄ days. The leap year of the old Julian calendar was readjusted to prevent the discrepancy with the Egyptian calendar omitting the leap day from years ending in hundreds unless they were divisible by 400. This led to the modern calendar that is still used by the west today.

The whole Christian world shares the solar calendar that serves the convenience of the farmer as well as the merchant.

In the west, the calendar might seem like just a system of chronological bookkeeping but has proved to be one of the most rigid of human institution.

In 1911 in china, a revolution brought a reform which introduced the calendar of the west alongside the traditional Chinese calendar.

In 1940 after the Soviet Union wanted to dissolve the Christian year in 1929 by replacing the Gregorian with revolutionary calendar returned to the familiar Gregorian calendar.

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 Daniel J. Boorstin. 1983. The Discovers. The Temptations of the Moon.Random House, New York. Pg: 6-12.

The plaza-Kansas City

With summer almost here one cannot help but think of outdoor activities to do when it finally arrives. One thing that actually comes to mind is The Plaza in Kansas City; this place is full of activities and functions that are organized every now and then. This place is also ideal for people who would like a new place to exercise as it has a nature park that is second to none.

Runners and walkers alike would feel fulfiled as they take their hobbies and passions to new levels. With the trees and other plants fully bloomed, you surely would have it all as the park offers a refreshing experience after visiting the shops that provides various services. There will be more information from this part of Kansas City as the days unfold.With summer almost here one cannot help but think of outdoor activities to do when it finally arrives.

  One thing that actually comes to mind is The Plaza in Kansas City; this place is full of activities and functions that are organized every now and then. This place is also ideal for people who would like a new place to exercise as it has a nature park that is second to none.





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