Sunday, July 22, 2007
If you are willing, there is a way to learn.
When the lights go out, students take off to airport.
When the sun has set in one of the world's poorest nations and the floodlights come on at G'bessi International Airport, the parking lot begins to fill with children.It's exam season in Guinea, ranked 160th out of 177 countries on the United Nations' development index, and students flock to the airport every night because it is among the only places where they can count on finding the lights on.
Groups begin heading to the airport at dusk, hoping to reserve a coveted spot under the oval light cast by one of a dozen lampposts in the parking lot. Some come from over an hour's walk away.They sit by age group with seven-to-nine-year-olds on a curb in a traffic island and teenagers on the concrete pilings flanking the national and international terminals. Few cars disturb their studies.
The students at the airport consider themselves lucky.Devoted couple married 50 years die hours apart
A couple died within hours of each other while celebrating their Golden Wedding anniversary.Brian and Betty Eckersley were marking 50 years of married life with a holiday in Majorca. But tragedy struck when, on the day they were due to travel home, Mrs Eckersley suffered a fatal brain hemorrhage and Mr Eckersley had a massive heart attack.
Medics on the island were unable to save the couple, both aged 72, leaving the family who had traveled with them heartbroken.
Daughter, Carol Cutler, said: "In all the days they were married my parents had not spent a day apart.
They got engaged before my dad went off to his National Service, and married when he returned. Their story is just so romantic. These days stories like this are rarely heard of.
What happened came as such a shock to everybody. My mother was not ill, and, although contracted cancer two-and-half-years-ago, it didn't stop him from doing anything. Even in death they were never apart."
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