ByMaggie Downs

Maggie Downs is a writer in Palm Springs, California. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the BBC and The Rumpus, among other publications. She is finishing a memoir about backpacking around the world, making the trip her dying mother couldn't take herself.

  1. I didn’t realize the hostel was a prosthetic limb factory until I checked in and walked around the property. A firestorm of sparks rained from the building next to mine, while men wielding saws and operating welding equipment walked in and out of the concrete structure. Though this was late 2010, the workers were still constructing parts for the thousands of people who had been maimed by machetes in the 1994 genocide. On my way…

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