I've enjoyed my online silence, which did indeed make me more productive, but this piece jolted me back into the game...
In 2009, The Christian Science Monitor ran an award-winning year-long series, "Little Bill Clinton," about nine-year-old Bill Clinton Hadam, a newly arrived refugee in Atlanta, and the charter school and community that became his home. The whole series – a multi-platform project that included daily blogs, regular videos and monthly print stories, and took a huge commitment by the writer and her editors – is worth an extended look, but I point it out today because journalist Mary Wiltenburg recently posted updates about the family – seriously heart-warming stuff – and about a family member still stuck as a refugee in Tanzania.
Mary's portrait of Neema John's life in Tanzania captured Monitor readers', who wonder what has happened to the now 22-year-old who's been in refugee resettlement limbo for ages. Turns out she's trying to make it through the red tape of new US refugee resettlement rules, which require a DNA test to prove the relation you claim on paper.
It should be straightforward – and Neema and her family thought it would be – but nothing that involves relocation ever is, and Neema's limbo continues...
Meanwhile, Neema's family in the US is making the most of its new life – and Little Bill Clinton is basically training for the Olympics. Seriously. If you want a warm-fuzzy story for the holidays, and even the greatest cynics among us must want a little break from all that jadedness at this coercively jolly time of year, this is it. Check it out.
