I met Sophia and Mariam a couple years ago in a cramped second-floor apartment in a run-down neighbourhood in East Baltimore, where a local NGO had placed the two women together with their children. As a newly christened volunteer for the local refugee agency, I’d been handed a pile of folders about each refugee family in need of help. Instructed to pick one, I’d chosen them. We talked through a local translator, patched in through a cell phone. Mariam, who had fled Eritrea on foot, made it to a refugee camp just over the border in Ethiopia. Freed from the persecution of Eritrea’s military regime, she spent most of her time hanging around, somewhat aimlessly. She is lithe, playful, and quick to smile. But living in a refugee camp had excluded her from the productive activities of society. She did not go to school. She did not have a job. Her main memory of her time in the camp, when I ask her, is of playing pickup games of soccer.
Sophia’s track out of Eritrea curled toward the north. From Sudan she made her way to Cairo, where she scraped by along the margins. The small cross she wore dangling on a chain around her neck marked her as an outsider, excluding her from mainstream Egyptian society. She took a job cleaning hotel rooms. But the heavy lifting damaged her back, and the botched surgery that followed left her incapacitated and unable to work. In yet another stroke of bad luck, doctors diagnosed her little boy, fathered by a fellow Eritrean on the run whom she’d met in Cairo, with a cancerous tumor in his left kidney.
Esta historia es de la edición August 2020 de GQ India.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición August 2020 de GQ India.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
THE FUTURE SOUNDS LIKE AT EEZ
The Coachella-slaying, multi-language-singing, genre-obliterating members of Ateez are quickly becoming load-bearing stars of our global pop universe.
DEMNA UNMASKED
He's the most influential designer of the past decade. He's also the most controversial. Now the creative director of Balenciaga is exploring a surprising source of inspiration: happiness. GQ's Samuel Hine witnesses the dawn of Demna's new era, in Paris, New York, and Shanghai. Photographs by Jason Nocito.
Inside the undercover adventures of a full-time fraud sleuth.
HOW TO MAKE A FORTUNE AS A PROFESSIONAL WHISTLE-BLOWER
A LIFE OF FASHION
In an extensive conversation, the menswear icon discusses his rise, his mistakes, his triumphs, his retirement, and what the future holds for him and his beloved brand.
IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE WITH GEORGE & BRAD
They've spent three decades living intertwined lives at the inconceivably glamorous height of Hollywood. Now, having crossed the threshold of 60, they're more comfortable than ever throwing bombs, dispensing hard-won wisdom, and, yes, arguing about who had the better mullet in the '80s.
ALEXANDER THE GRITTY
One of India's most creative chefs comes of age.
Penning History
Montblanc marks 100 years of its iconic Meisterstück with new writing instruments inspired by the 1924 Olympic Games.
Royal Enfield Forges a New Path
Say hello to the company's most cutting-edge roadster.
Arooj Aftab Owns the Night
The Grammy Award-winning artist, fresh off a Glastonbury set, speaks to GQ about her new album, Night Reign, from the ideas that led to its conception to its genre-defying collabs with Elvis Costello, Kaki King and more.
Louis Vuitton's New Beat
The luxury maison's latest addition to the Tambour line reiterates its commitment to watchmaking and craftsmanship.