I know, I’ve been MIA. Well, blogging is blogging, and I’ve been Tweeting my little brains out. But I came across this incredibly moving article, and I had to share it.

The scarf is a physical reminder of all those missing and dead in Peru's conflict.

Many, many women in Peru have a place in their hearts that feeds on blackness and silence. It is a bleak landscape of remembering, the result of husbands and sons and nephews and fathers “disappeared” by the Shining Path rebels and state forces in the 1980s and ’90s. Now, today, these women are knitting a Scarf of Hope, a remembrance of the thousands gone from their lives. I am humbled and saddened… and hopeful that the knitters will triumph.

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A Scarf of Hope and Remembrance, by Dan CollynsBBC News, Ayacucho, Peru

There is something warmly familiar and comforting about the quiet chatter of women and the clickety-clack of knitting needles. Standing or sitting huddled together in small groups, the knitters dressed in traditional Andean hats, big “pollera” skirts and draped with a “manta” or shawl, form a multi-coloured feast for the eyes. But they have more in common than crochet. These women are some of thousands in Peru who lost husbands, brothers and sons in the country’s bitter internal conflict between the Mao-inspired rebels of the Shining Path rebels and state forces in the 1980s and 90s.

Read the whole story here.