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Puulaaku

When you step on a thorn,

not a rose thorn but a desert thorn –

two inches long, yellow and petrified –

you do not stop walking.

You limp as little as possible until

the lunch stop when everyone sits and

you can unobtrusively remove it.

When your baby dies

on the back of your moped as you

hurry to the hospital, hours away,

you allow yourself ten minutes of wailing

then you bury it by the road.

The heat demands it.

When your parents put you on a plane

the first time – you cry. Soon though,

you learn Puulaaku. Bite down on it,

swallow and squeeze it hard in your stomach.

This is honor. This is sanity. This is good.

When you die,

when your belly explodes from everything

you swallowed,

your family will say

“She was a perfect daughter.”

You would do well to learn

Puulaaku.

-Susan Smith, a Burkina Faso MK

Many crimes against children were committed by NTM (now Ethnos360) personnel in boarding schools around the world. Most of these crimes were covered up by NTM.

What a crazy society we have built, where the powerful thrive at the expense of the innocent.



Now we are coming into our own power. Not power over but power with.

It’s our world now. Let’s change it.