Word: preston
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...hours from Eldoret in the hills of Kenya's Rift Valley. Several pine trees have been felled across the road, forcing a detour through the forest. A few minutes later, we come across a road-sign barrier bent across the highway. "You cannot imagine that this is Kenya," mutters Preston, my driver. We come to several more roadblocks manned by men sitting by the side of the road. Their breath smells of banana beer, and they want money and news of Nairobi. Some of them check Preston's tribe. I congratulate myself for swapping my usual Kikuyu driver for Preston...
...Preston, an American colleague, and I are driving to Eldoret, the vortex of the tribal violence that has swept Kenya. Four days ago, a mob surrounded Kyamba church just outside Eldoret where hundreds of Kikuyu villagers had sought shelter. The mob barricaded the church doors with mattresses and set them alight. The flames spread through the building and, according to reports at the time, between 30 and 50 people were burned alive before the fire burst through the doors and the rest were able to escape. The Kikuyu, the biggest of Kenya's 42 tribes, became targets after the Kikuyu...
...foot-long knife, another a hockey stick, a third a bow and arrow, a fourth a wooden club. A man who introduces himself as Thomas tells us the men are from the Kalenjin tribe of former President Daniel Arap Moi. "Have you got anyone in the back?" they ask Preston. "What's your name? Are you Kikuyu?" A few minutes further on, there is another roadblock and more men with bows and arrows. Then another, at which they check the trunk and Preston's identity card, which shows he is a Luo. We have passed around 10 more when...
...ages - The Graduate was released 40 years ago today - yet hasn't lost his stroke or his speed. Those deft directorial touches, and the intelligence the movie both exudes and assumes from its audience, put Charlie Wilson's War up there with Hollywood's grand old comedies: the Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder movies about slick schemers and their slicker women. The Nichols-Sorkin film is so much fun, you will not only forget all of Hollywood's serioso war movies, you may forget the international calamities that Wilson's largesse indirectly...
...life as a black man embracing the American Dream. Steele's simplistic labels ("bargainers" and "challengers") disregard the subtleties we employ to navigate our way through the racial land mines of mainstream America. Perhaps he is the one who needs labels and identity cards to know who he is. Preston Foster, LAWRENCEVILLE...