Birding Babylon: A Soldier's Journal from Iraq
Author: Jonathan Trouern Trend
Early in 2004, a National Guardsman from Connecticut arrived in Iraq for a year's posting. Sergeant First Class Jon Trouern-Trend had been a birder since age 12. So naturally he looked for birds--and found them in surprising number and variety around Anaconda Base in the Sunni Triangle, where he was stationed: old-world warblers near the laundry pond, kestrels at the dump, wood pigeons by the airstrip, owls on the cement bunkers. And whenever he got "outside the wire"--collecting water samples from the Tigris, delivering supplies to schoolchildren, at a forward operating base in Mosul, or on a trek to the ruins of ancient Babylon--his lifelist grew longer.
From nearly day one until he left Iraq, Trouern-Trend wrote about his sightings in an on-line journal, which attracted thousands of readers and was excerpted in the press. Now some of the highlights of his "Birding Babylon" blog are collected in this small, beautiful volume, designed to resemble a birder's journal. In a Preface, the author looks back on his experience--and ahead to what the future might hold for the rooks, doves, storks, bulbuls, and sparrows of Iraq, and for its people.
This little book cuts through the politics of war like birdsong, reminding us of our imperishable connection with nature; of how birds and their journeys tie the world together; of the persistence of life even in a wasted land. It's a small act of grace.
Go to: Costa Rica Reader:História, Cultura, Política
Selling Olga: Stories of Human Trafficking
Author: Louisa Waugh
It’s seems inconceivable in the 21st century, but human trafficking is now the world’s fastest-growing illegal industry: according to U.S. government estimates, between 700,000 and two million people have become victims. Following three years of in-depth research, award-winning author and journalist Louisa Waugh has produced a vivid, unflinching account of how this immoral commerce operates and why it thrives. Throughout Eastern Europe, a combination of war and poverty has led to women being sold in bars, confined, and coerced into sex work. And while Waugh focuses especially on one woman, Olga, who tells her own story in angry, heartbreaking detail, she also introduces us to many others across Europe including Nigerian women in Italy and migrants trapped in other forms of forced labor. She helps us understand why, in spite of global awareness, relentless anti-trafficking campaigns, and increasing numbers of imprisonments, this type of crime hasn’t disappeared…and why, in spite of everything, there is hope for change.
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