The Citadel and Sans Souci Palace of Haiti

by Opal Palmer Adisa

A popular adage says, “what you don’t know can’t hurt you,” but that’s a lie. I do believe that what we don’t know in the Caribbean about our own history has crippled us, has stymied our development. The…

Destroying Mecca: Islam’s Holiest City Transformed

The cultural devastation of Mecca has radically transformed the city. Unlike Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo, Mecca was never a great intellectual and cultural center of Islam. But it was always a pluralistic city where debate among different…

5 Ways Technology and Music Created Words

We often forget that all words are made up. This is primarily because some words are much older than others and many of us don’t buy dictionaries anymore. Many of us don’t know that a new word is added to the dictionary every year, which is voted on by a…

Being Present Here and Now

by Jasmine Irving

“Jasmine, look! We got a present for you!” my little French sort-of-sisters said, excitedly throwing a pretty blue book into my hands.

After Ebola: Children in Sierra Leone Go Back to School

Can you imagine missing nine months of school? The children in Sierra Leone had to do just that to avoid the spread of the Ebola outbreak. Now that the epidemic is under control, many kids have returned to school while others still…