内容摘要：What they need is true humanitarian aid – aid that provides not just calories, but a chance at a future.

What they need is true humanitarian aid – aid that provides not just calories, but a chance at a future.

Fear of the Chinese bosses who ran the operation not only permeated their workstations but in the dormitory where they slept.“They told us ‘Whatever happens in the room, we are listening’,” she said, also telling how her co-workers were beaten when they failed to meet targets.

“They stopped them from working. They stopped them from coming to get food. They were not getting results. They were not bringing in the money they wanted. So they saw them as useless,” she said.“They were torturing them every day.”Khobby and Jojo said they were moved to act in case it was their turn next.

When they organised a strike to demand better treatment, their bosses brought in Laotian police and several of the strikers – including Jojo and Khobby – were taken to a police station where they were told they were sacked.They were also told they would not be paid what was owed in wages and their overseers refused to give their passports back.

Khobby said he was left stranded without a passport and the police refused to help.

“This is not about only the Chinese people,” Khobby said. “Even in Vientiane, they have immigration offices who are involved. They are the ones giving the visas. When I got to Laos, it was the immigration officer who was waiting for me. I didn’t even fill out any form,” he said.“He lived a full life, fought a good fight,” she said.

At the time of his death, Ngugi was reportedly receiving kidney dialysis treatments, but his immediate cause of death is still unknown.Born in Kenya in 1938, Ngugi will be remembered as one of Africa’s most important postcolonial writers. Formative events in Ngugi’s early life included the brutal Mau Mau war that swept British-ruled Kenya in the 1950s.

Ngugi’s work was equally critical of the British colonial era and the postcolonial society that followed Kenya’s independence in 1963. Other topics in his work covered the intersection between language, culture, history, and identity.Ngugi made a mark for himself in the 1970s when he decided to switch from writing in English to the Kikuyu and Swahili languages – a controversial decision at the time.