Who knew an orange peel could hold so much history? 🍊✨
In the 18th century, these were known as "Bergamot Boxes"—dainty, hand-crafted trinket holders used in Italy and France to store jewelry, perfumes, and cosmetics. They were prized for their natural citrus scent that lingered on everything inside.
By the 1850s, mass production took over, and this beautiful craft almost vanished. There’s something so grounding about bringing back a skill that hasn’t been common for nearly 200 years. It’s a slow, delicate process (with a bit of trial and error!), but seeing the final result painted with acrylics makes it all worth it.
In a world of plastic and fast-fashion, let’s bring back the beauty of things that grow from the earth.
Who else is ready to start drying their fruit peels?
Babies get raped. Elderly women get raped. Women dressed modestly get raped. Women in hijabs get raped. Nuns get raped. Women in jeans, tracksuits, pyjamas, school uniforms, work uniforms get raped. There is no outfit that prevents rape and no outfit that invites it.
If you are more comfortable analysing a woman’s clothing than condemning a rapist, you are part of the problem.
𝗗𝗘𝗔𝗧𝗛 𝗢𝗙 𝗔𝗙𝗥𝗜𝗖𝗔𝗡𝗦 ‘𝗚𝗢𝗢𝗗’ 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗡𝗘𝗧
It often feels like, to the West, African lives are totally expendable.
A new article in The Atlantic loudly proclaims that war in Congo has “kept the planet cooler” - i.e., has been good for Mother Nature… as if the devastation inflicted on the Congolese were a price worth paying for a healthier environment.
To be fair, the subheading is: “the grim ironies of climate change.”
But bear in mind that the conflict in Congo has cost nearly 6-million lives and displaced almost 7 million. (No sane Western editor would run with “The Holocaust’s environmental benefits” as a headline - even if there had been some such imagined consequences!)
The article’s writer matter-of-factly observes that war has hindered the economic exploitation of Congolese rainforest. What Ross Anderson misses, though, is that DRC timber is one of the resources fuelling conflict, as rival armed groups jostle over the charcoal and timber trade. Not very climate friendly, is it?
And, however hard the war is raging, Western conglomerates have not ceased their relentless exploitation of Congo’s men, women and children - sending them to toil in dangerous and super-polluting mines. Moreover, in the greed-driven quest to exploit Congolese resources, countless villages have been wiped out, patches of forest cleared and rivers poisoned by mineral extraction.
But the main point is this - Western editors and journalists, please write about Africans in a way that grants them the human dignity they deserve.