how children became other
Desertification and Drought Day – June 17, 2026
Source material: “How Children Became Monkeys,” as told by the Bukidnon people, in Mabel Cook Cole’s Philippine Folk Tales (1916)
About Desertification and Drought Day, being hosted today by Kenya.
A global drought map. The extent of drought in the world today is staggering.
A global food insecurity interactive map.
The World Food Programme.
The poem:
When I first approached the source material, I saw a story about a moth child, with “moth” rising from “mother.” The source material had a different idea.
For the curious, here is how the 5-pass alchemy rose off the page:
