From out of the Trees
Sweet chestnut trees loomed overhead as Sylvere moved along a narrow, stone pathway in the direction of a stone bench. To the west, above the waters of the Atlantic, the sun already had begun...
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Laughter Somewhere Not Far Away
“We’ll do what has to be done,” the younger man said, speaking French. Laughter could be heard. It was women’s laughter. “We’re running out of time,” the older man said in Lingala. Behind the...
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Chérubin at Hotel Rastelli
Knock. Knock. Knock. Then came a voice. “Sylvere.” The voice sounded again. “Sylvere.” He opened his eyes. The voice came from the other side of the closed sliding-glass door. Sylvere was awake now. The...
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The Woman from Angola
Turning toward an open door to a small office at the foot of a wide staircase, the Flemish woman disappeared into the office without warning. Equally quickly, a very young, maybe 19 or 20...
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The Man from Congo
The silence hanging over the table was heavy, but Sylvere, finishing the food on his plate, was unconcerned. He was just a man enjoying a nice meal in a nice restaurant. The other three...
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Italian Food at the Oude Markt
The front door of the small building looked like it had been given a fresh coat of paint only the day before. Switching his gaze from the newly applied red paint on the wooden...
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Lunch at L’inizio in Leuven
The streaking black car on the pale highway crossed a field of clover before braking hard on the outskirts of Leuven, a medieval city of cathedrals and over-sized burghers’ houses, where Chérubin and Sylvere...
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One Morning at the Flemish Market
Tourists already had started appearing on the streets next to the town square, or markt, as it was known in Flemish, wearing clothes they selected for the warm weather. The men dressed in shorts...
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Message from Kinshasa, Part III — The Park
The rising sun, which burned brightly from its position just above the horizon in the eastern sky, already had lit up the landscape of forest, water, and grass and, further to the west, the...
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Message from Kinshasa, Part II — The Bakery
The bathroom in Sylvere’s suite at Hotel Rastelli was, like the main room itself, modern but not overtly luxurious. The fixtures seemed new. Entering the bathroom to brush his teeth and take a shower,...
China’s Plans for the Mekong River
The Mekong River, which sustains life for millions of people in Southeast Asia, is an increasingly valuable source of power for China’s leaders. They want to build a series of dams on the river...
Will Corn Farmers Go North?
Each year rising temperatures and dwindling water supplies will lead to the failure of increasing numbers of crops on farms across the globe. At a time of de-stabilizing climate change, the people who work...
Can Mexicans Take Back Their Corn?
Mexicans are looking for new solutions to farming problems that have been growing steadily worse for 25 years. At the moment, they can’t feed themselves. They have to import half of their food from...
Can Mexico Produce Its Own Food?
After Americans elected Donald Trump to the United States’ presidency in 2016, Mexicans, it seems, are going to elect their own nationalist president in 2018. Voters in many different countries increasingly are embracing politicians...
Faceless Chinese Workers
If the problems in China’s financial sector are the most serious issues in the nation’s economy today, the problems in its massive factory workforce aren’t far behind. The workforce, composed of almost 300 million...
Xi Jinping Rejects Human Rights
Xi Jinping and his communist party officials execute more people in China than do government officials in all other nations of the world combined. The researchers at Amnesty International estimate the number of executions...
ASEAN Rejects Human Rights
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, has never had a reputation for solving problems. Rather, ASEAN, founded in 1967 to meet new economic and political challenges, has always been known for inaction,...
Labor Reform in Vietnam
In Vietnam, the workers who toil in the factories driving the nation’s rapid economic ascent belong to a single labor union: Vietnam General Confederation of Labor, or VGCL. As the only labor union in...
From out of the Trees
Sweet chestnut trees loomed overhead as Sylvere moved along a narrow, stone pathway in the direction of a stone bench. To the west, above the waters of the Atlantic, the sun already had begun...
Laughter Somewhere Not Far Away
“We’ll do what has to be done,” the younger man said, speaking French. Laughter could be heard. It was women’s laughter. “We’re running out of time,” the older man said in Lingala. Behind the...
Chérubin at Hotel Rastelli
Knock. Knock. Knock. Then came a voice. “Sylvere.” The voice sounded again. “Sylvere.” He opened his eyes. The voice came from the other side of the closed sliding-glass door. Sylvere was awake now. The...
The Woman from Angola
Turning toward an open door to a small office at the foot of a wide staircase, the Flemish woman disappeared into the office without warning. Equally quickly, a very young, maybe 19 or 20...
The Man from Congo
The silence hanging over the table was heavy, but Sylvere, finishing the food on his plate, was unconcerned. He was just a man enjoying a nice meal in a nice restaurant. The other three...
Italian Food at the Oude Markt
The front door of the small building looked like it had been given a fresh coat of paint only the day before. Switching his gaze from the newly applied red paint on the wooden...
Lunch at L’inizio in Leuven
The streaking black car on the pale highway crossed a field of clover before braking hard on the outskirts of Leuven, a medieval city of cathedrals and over-sized burghers’ houses, where Chérubin and Sylvere...
One Morning at the Flemish Market
Tourists already had started appearing on the streets next to the town square, or markt, as it was known in Flemish, wearing clothes they selected for the warm weather. The men dressed in shorts...
Message from Kinshasa, Part III — The Park
The rising sun, which burned brightly from its position just above the horizon in the eastern sky, already had lit up the landscape of forest, water, and grass and, further to the west, the...
Message from Kinshasa, Part II — The Bakery
The bathroom in Sylvere’s suite at Hotel Rastelli was, like the main room itself, modern but not overtly luxurious. The fixtures seemed new. Entering the bathroom to brush his teeth and take a shower,...