Word: slum
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...find magic in the Kathputli slum, if you know where to look. In one of the unlit concrete huts lining this cramped and chaotic warren of alleys, open sewage and dazed beggars, a boy swallows a sword. In another, a string puppeteer makes his wooden princess do pirouettes that send her dress - hand-stitched by his wife - sailing through the air. In a third home, a ten-year-old girl waves her hands over three flowers and - poof! - a bouquet...
...cobbler. Although the caste system was outlawed in India's founding constitution 60 years ago, caste still shapes the lives of millions of people who continue to live in close-knit caste communities throughout the country. Such clans are especially common among India's rural poor and urban slum dwellers. Many urban dwellers, like the people of Kathputli, brought their rural traditions with them when they migrated to the cities...
...other end of the slum, two caged doves flutter their wings in the corner of a concrete room where magician Mohammad Hamid and his father, Sayed Hussein, perform a favorite two-man tricks involving two telekinetic pom-poms. "I have learned all the tricks from my father," says the smiling 18-year-old. He spent years perfecting his favorite, called the Indian basket trick. In that one a boy climbs into a basket, and the magician makes him disappear. And regardless of the changes in the city beyond Kathputli, it is a trick he hopes one day to teach...
...lunchtime in Vitas, the sprawling slum built on the City of Manila's garbage dump. Flies swarm as Bing, a 34-year-old mother of five, prepares a meal of salted rice for her children. While she feeds them, her husband sifts through the mounds of grease-stained cardboard boxes, plastic bags, and broken glass that crowd their home. He'll sell his rotten harvest for about $3.50. For their family of seven, that?s 50 cents per person, per day. The arithmetic is simple, Bing says. "With every child I have, there is less rice each. I can?...
...Pain in Africa The million or so people living in Kibera, the Kenyan slum, are what the WFP calls "the new face of hunger." They are victims of soaring prices, not just of food but also of more costly staples such as fuel, charcoal, cooking oil and kerosene. Residents can almost feel themselves becoming poorer by the day. The sensation is particularly cruel because Kibera's stores have adequate supplies, but the tomatoes lie rotting on the shelves alongside untouched bags of rice and cereal: they are now too expensive for locals to buy and cook. "We are not eating...