In the City of Memory

In Managua, another city that suffered a terrible earthquake, people still give memory directions: take me past the square where the old oak tree used to be, then go left, at the corner where that church was...We know that life is precious, and minute is valuable. But nothing can ever bring this understanding of life’s ephemeral quality home so quickly, so solidly so absolutely as the utter destruction, wrought in less than a minute’s time.


By Amy Wilentz writing on recent earthquake devastation in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

As the news clips about the recent calamity in the impoverished Haiti played out in our living rooms, I came across another different and yet very similar story to some extent. I’m referring to the recent article about Somalia entitled “Georgi Kapchits Reports on Somalia, Part II” appearing on WardheerNews in Jan 29, 2010. A unique point of insight that struck with sense of awe and despair was a picture of the luxurious al-Uruba hotel taken before and after the savage conflict.
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