Tag Archives: Merveille

A Lesson in Geography and Modesty

September 19, 2012

There’s nothing like a worldly person to remind you you’re not.

When I meet Merveille Kasongo, her body language reads like one of those signs on the back of a semitruck that warn: “Stay back 200 feet.” Her arms remains locked at her sides and without smiling she looks directly at me with big dark eyes lined with lashes so thick I wonder how they could be real. My brassy American sensibilities are, of course, injured.