The Journey Of Life

Leah Sottile: By all rights, Agwa Taka should be dead.

If starvation didn't get him as a kid in Ethiopia, then disease, three wars, childhood slavery and a year in a hellhole prison certainly should have done the job.

But here he is, up at 1:30 every morning, drinking a cup of coffee, the snow melting outside his kitchen window and cars passing in the distance on Grand Boulevard. Agwa ("AWG-wah") listens to the news on the radio. He pets his dog Rosco, filling his bowl with kibble as the mutt looks back at him with a tonguey grin. He pulls on a pair of jeans, hiking boots and a polo shirt.

In the dark, he maneuvers his bright red pickup truck down the South Hill, up Division, through East Spokane, past car dealers and grocery stores and taverns. At a gate, he swipes a card and parks behind a warehouse.

Inside he punches a timecard, stashes lunch in a fridge and walks onto the warehouse floor.

By all appearances, an average man with an average American life.