Amazing Maria Travels The World And Ends Up In A JAM
Susan notes: My friend Maria is a force to be reckoned with: smart, sexy, sporty, street savvy and SO much more. She makes me go WOW! every time I talk to her, and I never know what she's going to be up to next. I want to be just like her when I grow up :)
Posted by Maria Petit
December 15, 2009
It’s December 2009, and I’m writing this profile in between chukkas in Argentina.
I’ve been living out of a suitcase since fall 2007, when I was relocated by my former employer Motorola Ltd to London, UK, from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
I had been living the Dubai ‘Golden Years’ as Motorola’s Middle East, North Africa and Turkey Financial Controller. It was the highlight of my nine-year career: business was booming – it was the year of the ‘razor’, Motorola V3 – and I lived in my home overlooking Dubai Marina.
Just in time for my 30th birthday, I was promoted to the position of Commercial Director Mobile Devices Business, Europe Middle East and Africa. The promotion meant I had to relocate back to the UK where I had previously spent two-years.
The movers packed my belongings for the third time in four years (Miami-London-Dubai-London) for a sea voyage, leaving behind two suitcases of mostly work clothes to keep me afloat while I transitioned and closed on a property I planned to purchase in London.
Had I known a month of transition would become two years of transformation, I would have at least packed my polo gear, which in retrospect was the one thing I missed the most, and which was thankfully replaced with relative ease. (That's me in the red helmut, having replaced my gear and giving it my all on the polo pitch :)
Rescuing Child Rape Victims In South Africa: Two Letters Of Courage, Compassion, Love & Hope
Susan notes: Patty Melnice went to South Africa as an independent volunteer to work for six months for Bobbi Bear, a small non-governmental organisation which rescues and supports children who have been raped.
She worked directly "in the trenches" with the Zulu women who are Child Safety Officers at Bobbi Bear. She rescued children, took them to the hospital for anti-retroviral drug treatment if appropriate, and followed their cases through court.
She also worked with the police, hospitals, schools - to educate them about child abuse, HIV, and the court system.
If these two letters don’t speak directly to your heart, nothing will. Read more at Melnice’s website Tough Angels .
Mid-December 2009
Dearest Friends,
I am flooded with a range of emotions . . . elation, fear, anticipation . . . I am fatigued, but grateful. Always grateful.
For the past month, the sun has taken leave. It is as if someone ran off with the sky and left this thick, heavy, low-lying ceiling that is suffocating at times. It is void of any color, texture, or light variations. It is just blank. We have had pouring rains and everything is soaked and muddy, including our attitudes.
It is supposed to be sunny, beautiful summer weather now so few are coping well with the unexpected climate. The weather has put a hold on the construction of Lady Fair’s house, and I have had to let go of any hopes that I will see even the walls go up before I leave. I have no doubts though that it is left in good hands and will advance quickly, as soon as the ground dries up. (Click here to read more about Lady Fair, who cares for 11 children, only two of which are her own).
Yesterday, I decided to take the day to begin organizing myself for packing and tying up loose ends before moving back to America. A lot has to happen before I leave and no sooner had I begun than I received a call that I would be picked up for a call-out on a 15-year old rape victim...
Jewish Peace Activist Fights For Palestinian Rights
Susan notes: This story by Cecilie Surasky, the Deputy Director of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), came to me by email. JVP is an American Jewish organization whose core principle is full equality between Palestinians and Israelis.
Sursaky, the granddaughter of Zionist Socialist activists, joined JVP in 2003 as part of a Ford Foundation human rights fellowship; she has extensive experience in social justice communications and advocacy.
She and her analyses of Israel-Palestine politics have appeared in numerous media outlets around the world. She is the founder of Muzzlewatch, JVP's blog documenting efforts to silence open debate about Israel-Palestine policy.
The story touched my heart...
It was the last place in the world I expected to see Barbie's smiling face emblazoned on the front of a children's notebook.
It was a hot day in June, and as we traveled along a bumpy, dusty road in the south of Gaza, I thought how eerily quiet it was compared to the last time I had been here, when we were taunted by the whizzing sounds of small military drones following our every move.
Suddenly, our van arrived at a farmhouse where we were welcomed by a father and beekeeper wearing a flowing white robe. His name was Mohammed Shurrab. On his desk lay a stack of children's notebooks, each with an image of a Barbie doll on the cover.
Just months before, during Israel's attack on Gaza, Mohammed and his two sons waited for a lull in the fighting so they could flee to join the rest of their family. They weren't far from the farmhouse when they came under a hail of bullets from Israeli soldiers. All of them were shot...
Amazing Woman Happy To Help Fat Dude In Sleigh With Reindeer
Susan notes: thanks to the Christmas Traditions website, from which I have borrowed this piece on Mrs. Claus (wife of Santa Claus who rides around the world each year on December 24 in his sleigh drawn by reindeer to distribute gifts and goodies to well-behaved girls and boys).
In Bates’ 1889 poem, Mrs. Claus begs to be taken along in the annual Christmas Eve toy delivery sleigh ride with Santa. She has raised perfect candy trees all year long and feels deserving of a chance to participate in the fun.
As they make their deliveries, Santa pops up and down chimneys, and Mrs. Claus stays on the roof and holds the reindeer...
The Smile That Saves: One Woman's Work Changes The Faces Of A Nation
Sara notes: We posted this story on December 15, 2009. Since then AWR has been made aware that DSF is
currently under investigation for accounting practices. We will update this
page as we learn more about the progress of the investigation. In the meantime, we would like to continue
to lend our support to acid attack victims worldwide.
Masarrat Misbah, a businesswoman and entrepreneur, runs a chain of highly successful beauty salons across Pakistan.
Depilex salons give women the opportunity to highlight their surface beauty but it was perhaps Misbah’s ability to uncover the beauty of the soul within that spurred her to take her work one step further.
Now, Misbah is a lifeline for hundreds of women whose lives have been violently dislocated after suffering what is becoming a common fate for women in rural areas of Pakistan – acid attacks. (See the compelling video at the end of this story.)
An attack can be vengeful retribution from a spurned suitor. Other times, attacks are punishment for requesting a divorce from an abusive husband or for behaviour deemed inappropriate by male family members. As a result, each year hundreds of women find themselves stripped of their face, their future and sometimes even their desire to live.
Four years ago, I received a call from my brother in Canada telling me that our stepfather was dead. He had stabbed himself twice in the heart. He must have been in such great pain to have taken his life in this way!
Twenty-four hours after receiving my brother¹s phone call, I was on a plane flying half-way around the world to do something I would never have believed possible: I delivered my stepfather¹s eulogy. With care and compassion, I spoke of what he had meant to others. I did not speak of the pain he had inflicted on me.
When I was five years old my stepfather took me to the empty house that he and my mother had just sold to pick up a few things that had been left behind. On the way there, he told me had a little surprise for me; he had invited a friend to come over and "play" with us. I was struck with fear and anxiety, because I knew what that meant.
My stepfather had been "playing" with me, with my body, since I was three years old. On this day, both he and his friend, two grown men, were going to "play" with my body. I was used to my stepfather molesting me, it had become as familiar as eating breakfast in the morning. But now someone else was going to be touching my body. How could this be happening to me?
Marina Julia Neary grew up in Belarus (a republic of the former USSR) in a family of professional musicians who raised her in the spirit of Western individualism. Her mother taught piano at a music academy, and her father, a national laureate, was a prominent vocal coach whose students went on to becoming world-class opera singers.
In a society where individualism was ersecuted, Marina was frequently at odds with her peers and school teachers.
She found consolation in Catholicism her Polish-born father introduced her to this religion - which was frowned upon by the predominantly atheistic government. At the age of 10 she began writing her first historical novellas. She did not dare to show those pieces to her teachers, because the ideas expressed in them went against the Communist grain.
In 1992 her family came to the United States. Even though her parents got divorced shortly after, Neary was thrilled to be in a country where individual freedom was valued. Her literary voice, much like her spoken accent, is a mixture of European, British and North American.
She worked directly "in the trenches" with the Zulu women who are Child Safety Officers at Bobbi Bear. She rescued children, took them to the hospital for anti-retroviral drug treatment if appropriate, and followed their cases through court.
Susan notes: This story by Cecilie Surasky, the Deputy Director of 
First introduced to the world in the poem 
Four years ago, I received a call from my brother in Canada telling me that our stepfather was dead. He had stabbed himself twice in the heart. He must have been in such great pain to have taken his life in this way!
Marina Julia Neary grew up in Belarus (a republic of the former USSR) in a family of professional musicians who raised her in the spirit of Western individualism. Her mother taught piano at a music academy, and her father, a national laureate, was a prominent vocal coach whose students went on to becoming world-class opera singers.
