Rachel Laudan

Just because this bears on issues that interest several readers, here’s a list of Arab words in more or less common use in Mexican Spanish.   The full list is on the left hand side of the page. Always puzzles me why more of the sweet names are not included, alfenique for example.  Many thanks to [...]

Every so often I like to post on what people actually eat.  So here’s what was served at a Mexican despedida I went to yesterday.  That’s the name for the hen party a mother gives a month or so before her daughter gets married (despedida can also mean being fired from your job but that’s [...]

A pregnant African woman is sitting in a pristine bathroom on a shining white toilet pedestal. ‘As a child growing up in Sudan, we never had toilets. We had to use pit latrines. Sometimes, in the evenings, we had to go to the nearest forest. You wipe yourself with the hot stones or leaves. You [...]