Word: lanes
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...late-summer escapism unfolds on the other side of the pond, as a recent divorcee (Diane Lane) flees to Italy, purchases a villa and finds a mysterious foreign love interest. Adapted for the screen by Audrey Wells‚ who also produced and directed‚ from author Frances Mayes’ bestselling memoir, with a number of departures from the book. In the past, Wells has been responsible for such mixed fare as George of the Jungle, The Truth About Cats and Dogs, and The Kid; here she strives to transcend the cliches of the typical romantic romp...
...Rangina gets a warm reception at Ghotair's lane. Children playing outside alert their mothers and elder sisters. Clad anonymously in the customary blue-pleated hijab, they head for Ghotair's hut, carrying shawls and tablecloths they have embroidered. Behind the dirty rag that serves as a front door, they give Rangina their work, for which she pays from the ngo's funds. (They are sold through a loose network of friends and family back in the U.S.) "It has changed our lives," marvels Ghotair. "We can get clothes for our children and milk powder for the babies." She points...
...visitors in her room are all related: in fact, the nine couples who live in the adjoining mud houses on the lane are brothers, sisters and cousins who have cross-married to avoid paying dowries. When they shed their hijab, Afghan women lead a feisty life. Ghotair is the family hairdresser, and all the women have short, styled hair. The husbands enjoy it when their wives apply makeup and dress in transparent, low-cut outfits so that they look like Bombay movie stars. "They have many desires," grins Ghotair. The other women chortle happily, swapping stories of conjugal demands...
...women say they envy and admire Rangina. "If my daughters could become like you," Ghotair tells her, "it would be the greatest gift I could receive." In fact, none of the female children in Ghotair's lane attend school. Ghotair's pretty seven-year-old niece, Farzana, has already been promised to a man to whom the family owes $2,300. (He has agreed to write off $450 in exchange.) Rangina hears the story in horror. She admits to suffering from what returning Afghans ruefully refer to as "survivor guilt," wondering how she escaped the horrors that still enslave...
Forget China's astronauts. The country's most famous intergalactic traveler lives in the last house on his lane at the edge of a Siberian forest. Meng Zhaoguo's odyssey began at the Red Flag logging camp in the Manchurian province of Heilongjiang, when he saw a metallic glint thrown off nearby Mount Phoenix. Thinking a helicopter had crashed, he set out to scavenge for scrap. The 36-year-old lumberjack stood gazing at the wreck from across a valley when "Foom! Something hit me square in the forehead and knocked...