Circumspecte

I had come home to find a stack of papers and brown envelopes in my laundry basket. Assuming it was my sister’s, I ignored them. That is, until I needed the laundry basket. They were mine: college applications, recommendation letters, letters from high school, the works. I ignored them still. Until I needed yet another excuse to delay my packing (procrastination becomes your best friend when you absolutely dislike packing). So, leafing through the stack of materials I’d long forgotten I had, I time-traveled to younger versions of myself and of my parents. Among the things I found were invoices, letters and notes from my first real job… straight out of high school. Now I must say that I didn’t get my job as an administrative assistant and sub-editor the traditional way. Applications? No siree. Connections – mum tells distant-not-really-a-relative aunt of so-so and so that her all-grown-up-distant-not-really-related-niece is all done with high school and looking to keep busy – nop...

On April 15, 2014 an estimated 200+ girls at the Chibok Government School in Borno state of Northern Nigeria were abducted by armed militiamen suspected of being members of the radical Islamist group Boko Haram. The girls had just returned to school to take their final physics exam following school closures across the region after targeted attacks by Boko Haram. Almost 20 days after the incident, over 200 16- to 18-year old girls are still missing, with about 50 escaping and returning to tell their harrowing tale. Accounts from nearby village inhabitants, who witnessed a mass wedding taking place indicate that the girls may likely have been "married off" to the militiamen, have left parents and relatives at wits end. There are also fears that the girls  may have been trafficked into neighboring Chad and/or Cameroun. Their parents received this information when they ventured into the wilderness with bows and arrows in search of their daughters. Two weeks after their dau...