While writing about libraries and reading culture a few months ago, I remembered one of my closest college friends, Elizabeth Chase, who now has a Masters in Library Science and has been working as a librarian for 9 years. I thought my readers might be interested in knowing how an American library works, so I asked Elizabeth if she’d share a few details about her work. Elizabeth is a Senior Librarian at Frisco Public Library in the city of Frisco, Texas, which has a population of about 130,000.

Read more: A Conversation with American Librarian Elizabeth Chase

On Sunday, March 17, I received a text message telling me of the death of a former schoolmate at Hillcrest School in Jos, Rachel Horlings. Rachel was born in Benue State in 1979 to Canadian-American missionary parents, who still live in Jos. I remember her as an adventurous girl with beautiful blonde hair, who was on the high school track team. She was my brother’s classmate, and the sister of my classmate Bryan. As an undergraduate, she attended Florida State University and hosted my brother when he first transferred to the university to complete his BA there.

Read more: In Memory of Rachel Horlings, a Daughter of Nigeria

On 15 April when I saw the headlines about the bombings at the Boston Marathon in the United States, which according to CNN online killed three people and wounded 183 others, I sighed. I didn’t even click on the news articles to read the details for several hours. Living in northern Nigeria where bombings and shootings with an even higher death toll hardly make the front page of local newspapers anymore, it was hard to feel anything but numb—a sort of intellectual grief. Perhaps I would have felt more personally affected had my satellite subscription not lapsed and I had been able to watch the 24 hour CNN coverage. When I checked my email later, I saw a post from Egyptian writer and journalist Nadia El-Awady, whose thoughtful blog, From the Inner Workings of My Mind, I subscribe to. She expresses beautifully the tensions of how to respond to a tragedy of this sort in the U.S. when one’s own region has suffered far worse. She has given me permission to reprint her piece this week. - Carmen
Nadia El-Awady

Read more: Boston: Why Arabs like me are horrified

On Friday, 22 March, I opened an email from my friend, Elnathan John. He wrote of Chinua Achebe’s death. After the first shock, I remembered a letter I had started to Achebe and had never sent. I share below what I spent the rest of the weekend rewriting.

Read more: A letter to Chinua Achebe, never sent