17 pages in an hour for her. 17 hours by the radio for them.

i remember it clearly, the second week on outreach, most poignantly on the 27th and 28th of December, my friend borrowing my AM radio, sitting in a small hut on the outskirts of Mwanza, Tanzania.

two major events occurred on the 27th of December, 2007. it was a day that rocked my world.

Kenyans voted for a president, the election being rigged to favor the incumbent. the next 30-odd days awash with blood in a nation heralded as Africa's most peaceful. near 1000 deaths triggered by the lies of the rulers.






Pakistanis lost and began mourning for one of the most prominent women in southern Asian politics.




Benazir Bhutto, the former twice-run Prime Minister, recently returned from Exile, was shot in the back of the head and then blown up by a suicide bomber.

i spent the next several months of my life engrossed entirely in news and updates concerning these two events. i spent countless hours with my friend Joy, from Kenya, listening to my radio for any news of change and peace in her homeland.

i spent nearly an hour in a Barnes & Noble stateside a month later, reading Benazir's book, 'Reconciliation'. the final draft of this manuscript was handed to her friend and editor the morning before her assassination. i read the whole first chapter, all 17 pages, trembling in the plush chair.

tomorrow marks the first anniversary of both of these monumental events.

some great change has come to these two nations, while yet another crisis looms for one and progress has been slow in another. tomorrow i will likely sit, trembling, reading the headlines commemorating such tragic loss of life.

only this time there's still hope for things to get better.