How Not To Live

For some strange reason the humorous and funny blog post I had crafted in my mind died before it was born. Instead I am left with the reflection that came to me years ago when I read a novel by C.S Lewis, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia among other great works. But before I get to his book I want you to imagine something.

Imagine Time is an illusion. Imagine, if you can, that the past, present and future all happen at once. You can assign whatever reality you want to this concept, be it God, the Divine or the delusions of your dear author. But to whatever entity you imagine Time to be, imagine this entity is a silver circle, with no beginning and no end, merely flowing infinitely from itself and from itself; never-ending, never-ceasing, never-starting. We shall call this circle Eternity (This in and of itself is another difficult concept, what is Eternity? But let us leave that for another day, let us not chase too many rabbits down too many holes at once).

Now imagine a straight line, reaching from somewhere and stretching to somewhere and in your mind that line touches that circle at one point and one point only. In Mathematics, we would call that point a Tangent and it would be the only point in the entire universe that the circle touches the line. But in our example where the circle is Eternity, that line is no longer just a tangent, but the Present. There and only there should life be lived. There and only there should the focus of our desires and our passions and our joys be concentrated, there and only there does regret have no power and fear no strength.

Years ago, an Australian man gave this example to me and I would like to boast that I understood what he meant as we sat by the fire in middle of winter in Bulawayo. My mind grappled to see what all this nonsense about circles and lines meant. He could see it in my eyes and I remember he smiled at me and said, 'simply put, Bongani, it means Live in the present moment'. I smiled with joy; now that was concrete enough for me, an instruction that could be made sense of and lived to but as often with these things, it is easier said than done, even more so when the logic behind was fuzzy to my teenage mind.

And then this is where we return to C.S Lewis. In his book, The ScrewTape Letters whose 'author' is a Senior Demon in Hell and is in the form of Letters to his nephew Wormwood who is on earth trying to capture a human soul; ScrewTape writes the following advice:

The humans live in time but our Enemy destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which our Enemy has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them. He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present — either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.

Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present. With this in view, we sometimes tempt a human (say a widow or a scholar) to live in the Past. But this is of limited value, for they have some real knowledge of the past and it has a determinate nature and, to that extent, resembles eternity. It is far better to make them live in the Future. Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it we make them think of unrealities. In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time — for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays. 

...to be sure, the Enemy wants men to think of the Future too — just so much as is necessary for now planning the acts of justice or charity which will probably be their duty tomorrow. The duty of planning the morrow’s word is today’s duty; though its material is borrowed from the future, the duty, like all duties, is in the Present. This is now straw splitting. He does not want men to give the Future their hearts, to place their treasure in it. We do. His ideal is a man who, having worked all day for the good of posterity (if that is his vocation), washes his mind of the whole subject, commits the issue to Heaven, and returns at once to the patience or gratitude demanded by the moment that is passing over him. But we want a man hag-ridden by the Future — haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth — ready to break the Enemy’s commands in the present if by so doing we make him think he can attain the one or avert the other — dependent for his faith on the success or failure of schemes whose end he will not live to see. We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow’s end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present.

I remember reading that passage so many years ago and suddenly the story about a Circle and a Line came into clear focus and made perfect sense. Epiphany is a word one should rarely ever use but that moment seemed to clear the dullness from around me as I truly realized what my Australian friend had meant all those years ago. A life given to the past is lost in the regret that captures its heart. A life longing to the future is lost in the imaginations and fears of a Time that has not, and might not, ever arrive. And for so many of us that is how we live; captured by the points of the Circle that our lives are no longer in contact with or longing for the ones yet to come, and forgetting the one part that is Real: The Present moment.

I wish I could say I knew how to fully live in the Present Moment; that I had figured out the secret of the Universe and the mysteries of Life and Joy. But alas, your author is still plodding his way along trying to figure it all out. One thing I do know is how not to live: in the Future or in the Past.

Blood Of My Blood: My Totem

Today's post was originally going to be extremely short. One paragraph at most. Why, you may ask? Because for once I was writing about a topic that I am not that well versed in, my totem. But then I realised that that is not an excuse. My responsibility as a blogger was to arm myself with (some) knowledge and Game of Thrones references and then, and only then, deign to write the ramblings of my disturbed mind.

The concept of totem is one I knew from an early age. My relatives used to call me a monkey when I was small and as I grew up I came to realise that my surname for the Ndebele people was synonymous with monkey. You see, just as the Great Houses in Game of Thrones, (and more true to real life - European nobility) have coat of arms with animal or floral representations of their houses; in Africa each House has a spirt, or symbol that represents their clan. For the Ndlovu's it is the elephant, for the Nkomo's it is the the cow and for me it is the monkey.

(c) Ian Leino

But it goes way beyond just a name and a symbol for us sub-Saharan Africans. To understand this one has to understand that there are two ways of proving kinship: bloodline or totems. Rukariro Katsande explains that ' Extended family is made up of intricate kinship, with parents, children, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, brothers and sisters, all regarding each other as closely related. The word “cousin” does not exist in sub-Saharan languages/dialects, and kinship ends at the nephew and niece level.' And that is only the first part, in addition, those who share the same totem may not get married to each other, or if they do, special ceremonies must first be conducted to break the totemic bond between them; lest their relationship be considered incestual.

Another little known fact is the sacredness of the totem to those whose name it represents. For the most part, a family cannot eat their totem. This means that it is taboo for me to eat monkey meat, and as types of meats go, I am very fine with obeying this rule till the day I die! More research has to be done by me on this totem business for sure, including a few calls home to understand and explain the intricacies of it all but I hope that gave you a glimpse of the fabric of our history and culture.

The Ten Rules I Grew Up With, An African Love Story

Today, once again, I will be writing about home. Not the home where I live in but the home I came from. I grew up in Bulawayo, in Southern Zimbabwe. It's a city where I spent the first eighteen years of my life (back then my main aim was to leave) but it's a city that shaped me and whose very texture I miss. But more than the city and my friends, I miss my homes. And no, that is not a typo (see Rule 6), as an African, every home where a relative lived was my home. That's just how things were. Those were the rules and here are the top ten (in no particular order):

"A city whose very texture I miss"
Jacaranda's in Bulawayo (c) Frankie Kay https://frankiekayfotos.wordpress.com/

10. Elders are to be respected

End of story. There was no if, and or but about it.



9. Money does not grow on trees

This is a statement that was hammered into my head time and time again, my parents, uncles and aunts repeated it ad nauseam.

"Stop wasting water as if money grows on trees." 

"Why did you leave the lights on? Money doesn't grow on trees."

" Why is the Mazoe finishing so fast, do you think Spar gives them out for free eh? Money doesn't grow on trees!"

Growing up, one never quite understands the implication of all those rebukes and the place they were coming from but now as a working adult and with bank statements, tax declarations and bills pouring through my postal box like water, I now (quite sadly) understand. And living in Europe, where people do live as if money (and resources) grow on trees, I am grateful for the lesson.



8. There is no such thing as sleeping in

When I was in Algeria for university one of the (guilty) pleasures of life that I discovered was waking up at midday on a weekend. I would like to say that this was a rare occurrence but I have enough sins on my plate let me not add lying to the list. (In my defence though, once you live through 45° Celsius summers you won't be snickering so hard at me will you?) The joy of knowing it was a Saturday and that there was absolutely nothing to do was glorious and I would open one eye early in the morning, acknowledge the world existed and go back to sleep.

Why was slothful submission to sleep this glorious you ask? Because growing up, there was no such thing as a weekend. My mother would come and knock loudly on my door if I slept too late and if she didn't hear the patter of feet in a few seconds she would burst into the room and draw the curtains, sunlight streaming into the room like an uninvited guest at an African wedding. Any notion of sleeping a few more minutes would die there and there because my bedroom faced the East and the full glory of the day would blind me momentarily and chase sleep away. My mother would stand there to meet any complaints, "Ah, when I was growing up, we would be up long before the sun had finished charging its batteries, and here you are complaining in bed at 9am. Mxm. Vila voxo!"



7. You know nothing John Snow!

Fans of Game of Thrones and those raised in African households will know what I am talking about. The formulation is simple: as an African child growing up in an African household any complaints on why things were as they were would be met with the phrase: "ah, you know nothing shame. When I was growing up..."

Complaints about why we had to take the bus to school when the other children had cars: "you know nothing, when I was growing up we used to walk ten kilometres to school and we would arrive fresh and ready to learn." 

Complaints about why ZESA was gone: "ah when I was growing up, we had candles and gas lights to study with and when night fell it was time to sleep vele. If only you knew."

Complaints about being bored and having nothing to do: "hehe if only you knew. When I was a boy I would be woken before dawn to go and herd the cattle and only be back home after the sun had set. Children of today shame!"

Complaints about going to the rural areas for holiday: "you know nothing you child of the City. This is where I grew up. This was my home"

Looking back I really do realise that I really did not know anything.

(c) HBO

6. Family comes first

Without going too deeply into the drama that is family (my mothers family is Sotho and they speak Sotho which I don't understand, my fathers is Ndebele but they all speak Shona and that's just touching the surface), there was one thing that came as naturally as breathing. It was a rule that was hardly spoken, it just was. Just as it is in Game of Thrones (forgive me, I am a geek and therefore a superfan), family is everything. My parents once lived in Europe before I was born and they told me about siblings who would book appointments before seeing each other and that would be once or twice a year (this apparently was Sweden in the eighties). To illustrate how different things were in my African household, we once drove to Gwanda where my aunt lived when I was around six or seven. There I met my cousin who was a year younger than me. When it was time to leave, I calmly told my parents that they could leave without me, I would take the bus and follow on Monday morning. And that is exactly what I did.

No invitations necessary, no deadlines or schedules to work around. I would spend weeks in Harare at my cousins, a month at my aunts in Beit-bridge and weekends with cousins in Bulawayo on the spur of the moment. Because that is what families do.

Family. Duty. Honour
(c) HBO

5. Gratitude is not optional

My name, Bongani, literally is an instruction to 'give thanks'. One does not just walk into an African household and eat food then rub ones belly in satisfaction. One claps their hands in gratitude and lists the clan names of the house before thanking them from the bottom of their hearts. And that is that.

One of the best stories from my cousins was when they ate then sat to watch TV as if nothing had happened. Their mother, my aunt, quietly gathered the plates went to the kitchen and cooked a fresh pot of sadza and stew and served them again. When she registered their apparent dismay she innocently mocked, "I didn't hear a thank you so I assumed you were still hungry. Now finish those plates." 



4. When we buy new things one does not remove the plastic cover until it is torn and begging to be removed

We all know the TV remote that stayed wrapped in its plastic until it had holes. And in an age where we all now regularly buy smartphones with the processing capabilities of a 1980's supercomputer then replace them when the screen cracks, this is just a beautiful extension of rule number 9. And an application of rule 7. We know nothing.



3. Friends should be chosen carefully

I would like to think I was not the only one who was subjected to a full FBI interrogation when I asked that a friend come and sleep over. Who are his parents? How long have you known this person? Where does he live? But of course once they met my friends they would be granted the seal of approval and our home was theirs.

I only came to understand why when I was leaving for Algeria. My mother, a woman I had never been apart from for more than three months at a time gave me this parting piece of advice: "choose your friends wisely. They will be many acquaintances in life and you can afford to have bad ones but one thing you cannot afford is a bad friend." 

Now, looking back, regret says; if only I had understood exactly what she meant.



2. I am because we are

In Ndebele we have a saying, umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu. It is part of the concept of Ubuntu. (And no, white people, it is not Ubhuntu, it is Ubuntu) Simply put it means 'a person Is because of other people.' Notice the capital 'I' in 'is', that again is not a typo: our raison d'être (the French have a beautiful way of expressing that capital I: raison d'être; the sole or ultimate purpose of something or someone) is not for ourselves but to change the world around us and to serve those around us. In some households it would be expressed as don't waste food, children are dying in that country I don't want to name whilst you are busy here wasting food. Certainly that was true in mine as well. But it was also in the small things, stubbing your toe and squealing with pain and everyone around you says sorry. In Europe when I say sorry to a friend who has hurt himself, they laugh at me and say but it wasn't your fault. Yes, I know but I feel your pain.

I Am because you are. It was being reminded to do whatever one could do for those less fortunate than oneself. It was weekends spent at a children's shelter with my Dad, watching my mother give her time and effort to whatever cause she felt could help. And slowly learning that I could do the same.



1. This is not a democracy, it is a constitutional monarchy

I remember watching some America reality show and seeing the children swearing at their parents. And when I say swearing, I mean screaming 'fuck you' at their mother. For those who were raised in African households this needs no further explanation. For those who were not, let me just say a little demon whispered in my mind, imagine that happening to you and the rest of my mind revolted in horror. Because we all know what is like in an African household (if you still don't know refer to rule 10). And we all know that any bambini unfortunate enough to whisper back at an African parent will know that day what is is like to visit hell.

"I'm beating you and you are crying? Hahaha manje you will know what it's like to cry."

[Five minutes later]

"I'm beating you and you are silent? You are a man now? Let's see who is the older one today!"



Zeroth Rule. There is nothing an African Household will not do for its own

This is an extension to rule 6. But more specifically aimed at the household rather than the extended family. In Ndebele we have a saying, indlovu ayisindwa ngumboko wayo.

Literally put, an elephant is not weighed down by its trunk.

Simply put: there is nothing I would not do for them.

And there is nothing they haven't done for me. 

We Are Not Lions...

I am as bewildered as the ordinary Zimbabwean as to why the death of what essentially was a big, wild cat has managed to unite the world in mourning. The excitement has risen to the extent of seeing my Twitter Timeline and Facebook homepage flooded with hashtags such as #cecilTheLion, #WalterPalmer and even, sacrilege of sacrileges, #jeSuisCecil. Demonstrations have been organised, petitions signed and Jimmy Kimmel was so moved by the events in Zimbabwe that led to Cecil’s death, that he shed tears on his show. In 24 hours alone, the hashtag #CecilTheLion racked up three quarters of a million tweets. Zimbabwean Twitter was soon alight with tweets of bewilderment and slight mirth as we watched this global display of grief over the death of one of our lions.

Honestly, shrink him a little bit and he's nothing more than a cat! A glorified cat!

The backlash was inevitable though; some Zimbabweans are now feeling slighted by the international media, who have thrust a dead lion, into the limelight ahead of what they feel are more deserving issues. Like the case of political activist Itai Dzamara who was kidnapped four months ago and is still missing or a government seemingly hell bent on digging now that the economy has reached rock bottom; issues like rocketing unemployment and an ever fragmenting ruling party facing off with a fractured opposition. But in the plethora of commentary both for and against Cecil The Lion, I find something deeply disturbing. In criticising Western Media for their focus on this story, Zimbabweans are silently overlooking our own silence on our own stories. 

Men and women on the far side of the planet have taken to their streets to protest for the rights of a lion they will never see. Yet in Zimbabwe itself, we have held our relative peace as nine thousand people have lost their jobs in two weeks according to President Robert Mugabe himself. We have looked and mocked each other on Twitter as we watched Mrs Mugabe essentially award herself a Doctorate from the country’s leading University, the #DrAmai hashtag trended for a few weeks but at the end of the day, we have let her keep her dubious degree. We watch as government bickers openly, Ministers are spied on and political parties fragment into more pieces than they are Christian churches and in all this we seem to have failed to bring as much attention to our own issues as outraged white Americans and ‘Western Media’ have bought onto the case of one dead lion.

One assumes Cecil is in Lion Heaven singing Hakuna Matata....

Our voices all over social media have never been as united as they have been in this weird pro/anti Cecil The Lion universe we have been thrust into. Our willingness to analyse the legality of extraditing Dr Palmer has never been as in depth as our analysis of Doctorates falling from heaven into the laps of ruling party members.  And even when our voices have reached levels matching the current brouhaha, action has not matched Western efforts over a dead lion. In one day Jimmy Kimmel has raised USD 150 000 for Cecil The Lion. This is not to negate nor ignore the tireless voices who have spoken out over the past decade, organisations and individuals alike, who have fought for Zimbabwe. But this is to question the many who have remained silent in the face of the few who have acted and spoken, risking livelihoods, lives and limbs.

 Part of it is due to the eternal optimism of Zimbabweans, what else has taken us through hyperinflation so terrible the government could no longer fit enough zeros onto the local currency before it collapsed? What else has taken us through almost a decade of electricity cuts, water cuts, understaffed and underequipped hospitals? Where the citizens of almost any other country in Africa would have long ago declared enough to be enough, we have simply held onto the belief that tomorrow is another day and maybe, just maybe, tomorrow will bring something better with it. The rest is fear. Fear of a repressive regime that rules in a country where opposition leaders get severely assaulted by the national police, where political activists disappear, where outspoken Catholic Archbishops like Pius Ncube are silenced with nationally broadcast ‘leaked’ sex tapes. 

But in failing to address the optimism that has led us nowhere nearer to regaining the glory of our yesterday nor face the fear that has bound us to inaction, Zimbabweans are demonstrating that as much as we might cry for this lion, this alpha male who was king of Hwange National Park, we leave our story, by default to be told for us by the ‘Western Media’ and foreigners who will always care for whatever their heart chooses to care about. And in failing to stand up for our own stories, speak out with our own voices, we fail to be fearless or brave or agents of change on the broken scene of our country’s landscape. We fail to be lions. 

Tywin of House Lannister: A True Lion