“You are on dah boat?” Arketa asked over the phone.
“I am. We are docked at a harbor in British Columbia,” I said.
“In Canada? Ummm, up from dah water in Seattle but now dah boat is parked?”
LIFE WITH A CAPITAL 'L' Chapter One, Section FOUR
When it comes to valuing others, surely it was more easily done when people lived in isolated villages, knew a small community well, and worried only to the edges of a square mile or two. That was enough.
ZAMBKARI - CHAPTER FOUR
How happy Arketa had been between March 1983 and March 1984. As a boss’s wife, she lived in a brick house rather than a tukul. As was common in her culture, she spent little time with her husband. Sudanese men lived mostly in an exclusively male world. Even Arketa’s house provided a room to which Joseph retreated to escape women’s activities.
LIFE WITH A CAPITAL "L" Chapter One, Section Three
To function well in our crowded world we need to know things about people. But we have little time, thank you, for discovery questions. So what a relief to learn that lingering is unnecessary to the process of collecting pertinent information. Efficiency rescues us. We have labels. Labels reproduce faster than rabbits or house cats, they insinuate content and they clarify such tings as duty, power, authority or lack of, income brackets, skills, limitations, intelligence, talents, or education. They swiftly provide pertinent information.
ZAMBAKARI CHAPTER THREE
The menace of Sudan’s war remained intermittent during Arketa’s childhood. She wasn’t dead from bullets or from a fall in the forest of Bazia, no. Bruised and subdued, yes, but she had survived. Her siblings continued to shake their heads at her playful spirit while her mother worked to corrall it.
LIFE WITH A CAPITAL "L" Chapter One, section two
Sometimes my journal is kept well, sometimes poorly. In it I frequently note my setting, like noticing the antics of a cocky blue jay I see outside now as I write. How well I describe him is less important than what the activity of description requires. It demands that I pause to pay attention, and paying attention is tricky.
ZAMBAKARI- CHAPTER TWO
Arketa lay stunned and dizzy, fairly sure her eight-year-old body was dead. Her long fall through a web of branches left torturous music in her mind—bump, bump, bump,thud. The sounds resembled the bouncing beat of the Ganza, the dance of the dead, off a drum tautly topped with a stretched elephant’s-ear.
Life with a Capital "L" Chapter One, section one
I have lingered this morning. It is raining hard, the house is wonderfully quiet, and the coffee hot and unusually good. I meant to finish unpacking from a trip completed yesterday, to get to my writing with haste. Instead, I have stayed in other situations longer than expect, and I have been reluctant to leave those distractions. By definition, I have lingered.
ZAMBAKARI--CHAPTER ONE
It was nearly 8am, and dear goodness, Arketa thought, the day was already hot and steamy like the tea she was about to prepare. She padded from her bedroom to the detached kitchen wiping sweat from her face and fanning the loose skirt of her pajama, the tailor-made dress that hung loose from her shoulders to her ankles. Nothing underneath, thank goodness. Not the American pajama, no. This cotton frock was made by the local seamstress for wearing at home in the hot Sudan weather. Arketa loved tropical heat but a collection of days hovering at a stifling 90° had been more than enough.
LIFE WITH A CAPITAL "L" INTRODUCTION
LIFE WITH A CAPITAL 'L' invites authentic living. Seven L's lead the way: Lingering, Listening, Learning, Leaning, Loaning, Laughing, Leaving. Then, lest the reader didn't quite catch on, an Epilogue offers a chance to think again.
Zambakari: Intro
According to UNICEF, 25,000 children die each day due to poverty. And, “. . .they die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world.”