Inspiration behind the story “Sara, Hana and Their Three Wishes”

I remember distinctly the first time I visited Ethiopia in 2015. I was travelling in the back of a jeep, snapping photos on a DSLR, collecting stills of what struck me as snapshots of every day life there. There were little boy shepherds as young as 5, herding their little goats. One boy no taller than a 9-year-old stopped to wave as I smiled at him. He was carrying a lamb on his shoulder, tenderly. As the jeep rolled on on off-track mud roads filled with potholes and muddy water puddles after a rain, I saw specks of bright yellow in the distance.

On that trip, I met a little girl who was so affected by the disaster that she couldn’t really talk to anyone. When I met her, her entire family lived in a makeshift scrap house. She had grown up watching her parents save for a sturdy house. Before they could build it, the typhoon came and destroyed everything.

Hannah Learns About Love is close to home. Years ago, I met a little girl whose parents were absent. She was brought up by her grandparents, a set of loving, selfless and giving grandparents. They were not well-off. They struggled to make ends meet sometimes. This little girl was teased at in school for not having a father, for looking different from everyone, for not having a bicycle, for not having birthday parties.