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Food
Seventy-Two Labors
Even though the butcher section was in the back, I could smell animal flesh when I came through the doors, the faint stench that leaked through the plastic wrap and rose above the ammonia smell of the floors.
May 2006
World of Trouble
The place in New Orleans, Louisiana, where I went to give plasma looked like it had recently been a small grocery store. I had never given plasma or blood before and had no appreciation for the difference. All I knew was that you got eight bucks, which was the going rate for a full day’s labor through Manpower back then, in 1974.
February 2006What They Taught Me
If the child is near death from malnutrition, then the rest of the family must also be hungry. According to Malawian custom, the husband eats first, then the wife, and then the children, in order of age. Often no food is left for the youngest.
June 2005
Now And Then
Back then, we carried brown paper supermarket bags filled with trash down the dark apartment-house steps to the incinerator, pulled a handle, dumped the bag onto a metal lip, and let go.
March 2005
The Wake
The phone rings during dinner. The break in the silence is a relief, but I don’t move. In fact, I pretend I don’t even hear it. I’m fifteen and angry at my father for making me stay home again on a Friday night. He pretends not to hear the phone either.
March 2005
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