Zuhra Update, September 3, 2011 Yemen has been in a state of serious upheaval since January, with protesters demanding the ouster of the president, violent clashes displacing thousands of people, and famine sweeping the country. Yet every time I ring Zuhra via Skype to ask how she is doing, her answer is always the same: [...]
Mar
03
2010
Busy week. I just returned from lunch at Farouk’s house. (Farouk is one of Tim’s bodyguards, and sometimes mine). I wanted to give his daughter some gifts, because I had so many brand new things for Theadora that we didn’t need. So I put them all together in a gift bag. Tim said that it [...]
Feb
14
2010
“I have to go, I’ll ring you back,” Tim said from 5,000 miles away, his voice trembling with tears. I stood in the kitchen that was not my own, holding the silent phone, still crying myself. I’d rung to tell him that I wasn’t sure that I should return to Yemen with our daughter. We [...]
Aug
15
2009
I was on my second forkful of pomegranate seeds when I looked up to find the barrel of an AK-47 pointed at my head. Our heads. There were five of us, five women from five different countries picnicking on the side of a hill in the Yemeni countryside. We’d set out early that morning on [...]
