We Should All Be Feminists

Today's blog challenge is 'Feminism/Humanism/Womanism: Where do you stand'. I have no hesitation in stating where I stand: I am a feminist. And as much as I love rambling about my thoughts and positions for once in my life I would really like you to listen to someone who I think, managed to capture what being a feminist is; and why it is so necessary and important, in a way that every adult on this planet should hear out.

Ladies and gentlemen. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

“I looked the word up in the dictionary, it said: Feminist: a person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes. My great-grandmother, from stories I’ve heard, was a feminist. She ran away from the house of the man she did not want to marry and married the man of her choice. She refused, protested, spoke up when she felt she was being deprived of land and access because she was female. She did not know that word feminist. But it doesn’t mean she wasn’t one. More of us should reclaim that word. The best feminist I know is my brother Kene, who is also a kind, good-looking, and very masculine young man. My own definition is a feminist is a man or a woman who says, yes, there’s a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it, we must do better. All of us, women and men, must do better.” 
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists

Why I Am Doing the 30 Day Challenge

The more astute of my readers will have noticed that I have suddenly started churning out blogs (almost) daily for the past few weeks. The even more astute will have noticed the #30DayAfriblogger Challenge hashtag and will have seen me mention it here and there. And besides drawing the conclusion that I have now resorted to drowning my sorrows in the blog, you will know I am on a 30 Day Blogging Challenge with an awesome group of other bloggers (seriously, Google the #30DayAfriblogger and read the amazing blogs of my fellow bloggers following this challenge with me). The question though remains: why am I doing this to myself?

Why am I doing this to myself? (source) 

Because to be honest, it's not easy to blog on a schedule like this especially in-between a full time job at a start up and during the week my company is launching a product. That was my first thought when I saw the call to the challenge on Facebook. 'If only this had happened a few years ago, when I was still a student and had lots of free time.' I closed the Google Chrome tab and went on with my life. But a little voice kept nagging at me from the back of my mind. You dare call yourself a writer neh? You started that blog with the ambition of making something of it no? When exactly was the last time you actually blogged? Give me ten reasons why you shouldn't? What about all the To Do's you've been promising you'll get to? You know you turning thirty soon right?

And it's true. This blog has been one of the things festering at the back of mind for the past year or so when I have seriously neglected to maintain it. At times I would be with my friends then an idea would come to me and I'd be like, that would make an excellent blog post. And then when I got home I'd tell myself I'd do it during the weekend. Then the weekend would come and I'd either have forgotten what it was that seemed such a good idea a few days ago or life would happen (translation: laziness). And sometimes I'd read my past blogs and think on how good (or bad) they were and think to myself, yeah you had energy back then. If you've read my blog about avoiding regret by living in the past (How Not To Live) or my blog about why I write (Confessions of a Writer) or if you have watched this amazing video about the five second rule (see below: seriously though, the video is worth watching!!!) you'll think, I know whats coming; he had an epiphany and pushed himself off his lazy ass and started writing.

Well sort of. It involved a bottle of champagne as well as an epiphany but the end result is the same.

I said fuck it: Challenge accepted!

Why I Chose My Career Path

Today's blog challenge has me asking myself a question that I don't think has an obvious answer. It's a question that defies the single well rounded answer we see on TV: "It was always my dream to be a pilot since I was twelve". We are then treated to a montage of little John or Elizabeth as they grew up starring at the sky seeing planes pass overhead and saying to themselves, "One day that will be me" with a Hans Zimmer produced soundtrack in the background. But in order to answer the question why we have to look at the other question, how. 

Growing up I wished to be many things: a a lawyer, a writer, an artist, a priest. When I thought of possible career paths the only thing I was certain of was what I didn't want to be, a doctor - the sight of blood still makes me queasy to this day. But the truth of the matter is, as an African, there was another factor that came into my decision: what was the most profitable career path I could choose. Perhaps  was a coward; believing that I could never be a good enough writer to sustain myself on a successful writers salary or perhaps I was a realist? I don't know.

I do know though that I left the decision as late as possible; choosing Sciences for A-Level in order to give me the opportunity to choose any path I wanted later on. But then the end of A-Level came and I still hadn't chosen. Suddenly I was confronted with college applications and I didn't know what to do. So I applied for everything. By that time the country had begun its slow decline into the collapse of 2008 so I started for scholarships in the United States. I remember applying for a degree in Creative Writing at Ithaca College, a degree in Philosophy or something like that at Illinois Wesleyan and Computer Science at some other university whose name now escapes my memory. They all declined to have me.

107 500 dollars of school fees, NUST was on fire!

My heart broken, I applied at the local National University of Science & Technology in Bulawayo. I applied to be, in order of preference, an architect, an electrical engineer and a computer scientist. I really didn't care for the last two, at that point I was convinced that architecture was the creative outlet I needed and that I would design Zimbabwe's next great skyscraper, the signature tower that would be in every postcard of Harare. Several weeks later, NUST shattered my architect dream and offered me a place in their Computer Science course. Now remember, I had applied to be an architect, not really thinking I would be refused so this came as a huge shock to me. I remember at the time, my best friend once asked me to accompany him to his brothers office to collect a hard drive and I had looked at him and asked, 'what is a hard drive?' This was after I had been accepted into NUST!

To make matters worse I was under the assumption that Computer Science was basically sitting at Computers all day and figuring out how they worked. This sounds innocuous until you realise I mean, I thought we were going to be trained for four years on how to use Windows. Little did I know that Computer Science was the study of 'automating algorithmic processes that scale, the theory of computation and the design of computational systems'. This is the fundamental difference between the perceived definition of Computer Science and its actual definition that pisses off many a Scientist when asked to repair a broken printer and being mocked when they are not able to do so. Computers are not what we actually study, computation is. 

But then when I found out the difference I thought back to my time as a child. I had always been fascinated by how stuff worked and my parents had wasted their breath on shouting at me after discovering me taking apart the TV, the VCR and kitchen appliances. I remembered drawing designs of a calculator that would be all touch screen so it could draw graphs and speak to you (If only I had had the imagination to imagine the calculator making phone calls, I could have invented the iPhone!). And I remembered a long afternoon spent trying to figure out why a wire connected to a dish on one end and connected to our TV on the other wasn't acting as a satellite dish.

I shrugged my shoulders and made off to NUST to start off a brave new future as a future graduate of one of Zimbabwe's newest and best universities. If only the story ended there with a happy ending neh? I dropped out after two weeks (that's another story) but the vision I had had of my primitive satellite dish stayed with me and I ended up years later as an Embedded Software Engineer.

The end.

The Three Dishes I Grew Up With

Today's blogging topic is about the staple food in my family. Rather than tell, I will show. A picture is worth a thousand words no?

1. Sadza, Stew and Relish

This was our daily go to. The stew might be beef or mutton or goat. The spices might be mild, or not there at all. The relish might have onions and tomatoes or have been prepared in nothing but sunflower oil but the sadza was always the same. We ate sadza 98% of the time so this can safely have been called the staple food of our household.

Isitshwala in Ndebele (source)

2. Rice, Chicken and Coleslaw Salad

Weekends were a treat for my young mind! We'd have chicken! For those who don't understand, growing up chicken was more expensive than beef so it was something that we'd have once in a while and its rarity made it extra tasty in my mind.

In Zimbabwe, 'salad' can actually be used as slang for a brat. People from the upper middle class who had salad everyday. (source)

3. Chips and Chicken

On extra special occasions like my birthday, my mom would make french fries (or chips in Zimbabwean English) and deep fried chicken. Those days were paradise. (Funny story to be included in my autobiography, someone once found their way to my heart by making me french fries)

In Zimbabwe we have chips with vinegar not the abomination of a meal that the french do; chips and mayonnaise or apple source. (source)

These three meals defined my childhood, probably 80% of our meals were a combination of the above, though on some occasions we'd mix things up with things like ostrich meat, pork, tripe etc. #nostalgia #memories 

My Thoughts on Infertility

Infertility is one of those things that are the staple of the African movie. Diana cannot have children and is harassed by her in-laws and probably her husband. Or Cabangani is infertile and hides it from his wife and blames her until she cheats with Uncle John and discovers that it was Cabangani's "fault" all along. But more than being trope, the stigma is real in Africa. The pressure to marry and have children is greater in most parts of Africa than in the developed world where the lives of people like Angela Merkel, who has no children, pass without comment or consternation.

And I feel that is as it should be. For first of all society to remove the pressure on young families to conceive and second of all understand that not everyone is lucky enough to be able to create life. And that it is okay if they don't. An admission of these two realities opens up a world of empathy where infertile individuals are not victims to be shamed or mocked but fully rounded human beings who can be allowed to explore other non-traditional avenues, such as adoption if they so desire. Not everyone wants children and that's okay. And some desperately want them but their lot in life was against them having biological children of their own and that also is okay.

It cannot be easy to want to bear children when you want them, and it is our duty as society to not increase the pain of that situation by heaping upon people stigma and community pressure to a struggle that is deeply personal and touches on the core of someones humanity. This week is world childless week so spare a thought to those around you dealing with infertility.

Dedicated to G. E. 

Silent Cry: A Mental Health Post

I would like to think it began after a traumatic experience in Paris a few years ago. That it began when I was compelled to actually go and visit a psychologist, me a person who didn't believe in all this nonsense. I would like to think that before that I had always been 'normal'.

I would be lying.

A language that I did not know I already knew...

What happened that year in Paris introduced me to a language that I did not know I already knew. I had known all the emotions, the colours and the textures to it, but I just had not had a vocabulary to describe what it was. Before that, it had always just been, 'I'm feeling a bit weak, maybe it's a cold'. It had been ascribed to exhaustion from activities that had happened days, if not weeks before. I had calmly found a way to weave my life around it and continue as before. As 'normal'. I honestly don't know when it started but I would like to say the stress of moving to Algeria from Zimbabwe at the age of 19 is about as near as I can pinpoint the beginnings of the worst of it.

It is a darkness. A despair. An enveloping blackness that surrounds you. It is waking up in the morning and not understanding why you are alive. It is wishing the numbness of sleep to cover you and the clocks of life to stop. It is literally praying to die and wondering why you are alive. I remember one time in Algeria, I slept for nineteen hours straight. My friends thought I was seriously sick. The truth is, I just didn't want to be awake. Didn't want to be alive. Sleep was better than anything wakefulness could offer.

Nothing is the same. Food does not taste the same. Music that you love does nothing to you. The very fact of breathing can sometimes seem like an overwhelming effort and the people you love around you, the people you love, your friends and family can suddenly be the most annoying people in the Universe. It's a mood they say. And you believe them, then it lasts days or weeks and you begin to think 'moods' are like that. Begin to believe that this is 'normal' and that perhaps you should take their advice and 'snap' out of it.

Numbness is a gift....

But where is the 'snap' button? At what point did you snap into it? A part of you blames yourself and a part of you rages at yourself, screaming about how useless you are and how weird you are. And depending on the moment, on the day or the hour, depending on the texture of darkness you have surrounding you; you either burst into tears at the slightest provocation or a rage that overwhelms you and leaves you in the centre of yourself, shocked and shaken.

And the cycle continues. The darkness descends and the feelings it provokes in you make it descend further until numbness is a gift, is a joy, compared to the void that surrounds you. I used to write poetry then. Used to write pages and pages of heartbroken poems, screaming at God, at life, at the Universe at something that I couldn't name. Screaming loudest of all at myself, knowing deep inside that something was wrong but unable to put a name to it.

And then it passes and the world goes back to normal and you convince yourself that it was all a dream. That there is just a slight imbalance to the centre of your Self that needs a slight readjustment. That it was nothing to worry about. Until it happens again. And again. And again. For days on end or weeks on end. Until periods of your life are marked by it like a stain on a white sheet. Entire moments are just erased from memory because they were lost to the numbness.

Or it's twin. The euphoria. The manic days when sleep is an enemy, when ideas flow like wind through your mind and your energy is not enough to sustain them all. When entire nights can be spent working on projects that would normally take days but somehow you want to accomplish before the sun goes up. I once spent forty eight hours awake and I remember then my roommate began to truly worry about me. But I cannot worry about myself at all in those moments. It is all joy and euphoria and optimism and celebration and beauty and...and...and...and. And then it's all gone.

Until in the end you begin to be afraid of yourself. Afraid when you are happy because you don't know how long it will last. Afraid of when you are numb because of what you might do. Afraid of being high because the crash landing can literally suck the life out of you. And in between the fear, the numbness and the mania, you are left to dig something out and fashion it into a 'normal'. 'He is just looking for attention that one, don't mind him'. At some point, even the friends you have begin to evaporate and even as much as you are afraid of being around people, you begin to be afraid of being alone just as much.

I had a friend once. A close friend who studying medicine at the time. He says he was in a lecture about mental health and the professor began describing the symptoms of depression and he sat there and said, that is Bongani to a T. I remember laughing as he told me this but he scolded me to take it seriously. I saw that same spark of recognition in my psychologists face in Paris as I told her about my life. She listened and listened and listened. And finally when she spoke, she put words to the darkness whose name I had not known before but whose face I had come to recognise better than my own.

Chester Bennington, the lead singer of Linkin' Park who committed suicide in July 2017

I write for those who recognise themselves in this and those who recognise their loved ones. I write for those who insist mental health issues are a myth and those who are afraid of crystallising them into words even as they face their realities every day of their lives. Talk to someone. Reach out. Survive. 

And Then?

Today's blog challenge has posed the dilemna of blogging about the number one question everyone keeps asking me.

What question do I get asked the most? 

I really don't know, I have been in a socially stagnant place in my life past few years, hardly been meeting people who don't know stuff about me that they need to ask questions. So let's try and see.

Why don't have I have a beard?

I don't know. Whatever the reason is, I'm super happy with it! 

I'm in good company....

[Related to previous question] How often do I cut my hair? 

About once every three months. My body is Ndebele, why waste good energy on hair...

When will I get married? 

Married for who?

Story of my life.

Who do I love? 

Penny. 

If you didn't get that response that's why we are not married.

Are you crazy?

Possibly. Let's keep all options open shall we?


Why do you talk so much?

I'm lonely, see post about where I live.


Why are you so quiet?

Possible mental instability, see question above.

This is possibly one of the best trailers for one of the best series ever and this is the best image in that trailer. #skins

The Best French Brands

After being particularly harsh towards my host nation in yesterdays blog, today's blog post is about the best local brands so I will introduce you to three French brands that I love.

3. Orangina

Yes, you won't be able to get sexy kangaroo out of your mind.

Orangina is a fizzy drink that I can only describe as the perfect blend of orange juice and carbonated water. It pops on the tongue and get this: the drink even has orange pulp. Technically the drink was first sold in French Algeria and that's where I first discovered it. As a Zimbabwean, this is the closest thing to Mazoe I have found outside of Zimbabwe.


2. Cheese & Wine

Whilst this is not technically a single product nor a brand, I have to include this in my list because there is at least one stereotype about the French: no one beats them when it comes to wine or cheese. Walk into any supermarket in France and you will be spoilt for choice.

There is quite literally a cheese for every day of the year in a typical French supermarket

Vin rosé, vin rouge, vin blanc, champagne...

And I assure you, very few non-French cheeses or wines can compare to whatever witchcraft the French do in their vineyards and dairy farms.

1. Le TGV

When most people are asked what the French are known for, not many will answer trains. But yes one of the most renowned brands in the world is the French TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse, which literally translates to the unimaginative 'High Speed Train'). The TGV is the fourth largest and one of the fastest commercially operated high speed train networks in the world, with trains reaching up to 320km/h on a rail network that saw the fastest TGV ever produced break what was at the time 578km/h world record in 2007.

All I can say about the TGV is that it is an experience.

Number 1Thing To Do In My City

I live in a city with a mouthful of a name. Bellegarde-Sur-Valserine. It so happens to be the point where the Valserine river meets the Rhone River as it exits Lake Geneva (Lac Léman). Besides that the city has no other claim to fame. It is 25 minutes from Geneva Central therefore happens to be one of the few French cities closer to a major foreign city than it is to a major French city. I wish I could lie and say there is much to do in this God forsaken back of beyond but Lord, I will not lie. The one thing one should do if one ever finds themselves in this city is to get out. Which is what I often do. Bellegarde happens to be 3 hours from Paris and 1 hour from Lyon.

So the number one thing to do in Bellegarde Sur Valserine, is to leave.

I will however leave you with some photos of this back of beyond.

The Face Of God

God used to smell of incense. He was ritual and the silence of the church. He was song as the choir burst into song and a thousand students stood as the priests made their way to the altar. He was light and darkness, beauty and golden chandeliers, He was there and not there. The three priests would turn to face us. "The Lord be with you", they would say. "And also with you", we would answer. And also with you.

The chapel at my high school, St Columba's Anglican High School, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

God was my face the day the Headmaster made me stand up in front of the students. I used to like to sit in the very front row of the church, all the better to hear the music and watch the rituals unfold in front of me. The breaking of the host and its mysterious transformation into the sacrifice. The pouring of the blood red wine into the silver grail as the choir exploded into song, Igama lenkosi malibongwe. The girls soprano dancing above the rumbling of the boys tenors and bass. I would march up the red carpet and take my seat and watch in wonder and awe, sad that I could not take part in any the communion because I was a Lutheran and not an Anglican.

Usually I would leave unmolested but that day the Headmaster, who was also one of the Head Priests was bellowing through his sermon then suddenly he waved, "you are all made in the image of God. All of you. Love one another because God is in each one of you. You have the Face of God". He looked around and let the words sink in, then he grabbed me by the arm as he gestured for my terrified self to stand up and face a thousand students. "In fact, even this small boy, look at his face. If you ask yourself what God looks like, he probably looks like this." The teasing endured for months. 

Njube Lutheran Church where I was baptised at eight months (c) Agneta Jürisoo and Mats Lagergren,

God was harsher and more stringent at our humbler church whose domes made it look more of a cross between a mosque and a museum. The wall was covered in white plaster that rubbed off on your clothes if you leaned against it and the louvred windows reached almost up to the top of the building letting light stream in throughout the service. Here God was simpler, no incense and no golden chandeliers, the candlesticks were made of simple metal painted black and the flowers picked from the garden outside. No high tech public address system nor red carpet. But He was louder, harsher, more demanding. He was the voice of the pastor whose robes would flail from behind the lectern as he warned us all of the consequences of sin, of the dangers of death, of the evils of the world. My heart beat in wariness of the sins I knew I had committed and in mortal dread of the sins I didn't know I had committed and in absolute horror at the sins I might commit. 

God was mystery at my A-Level school. His words had turned from Shona and Ndebele to Latin as five hundred boys repeated after the brothers. Kyrie elysion, Christe elysion, Kyrie elysion. He was wrapped once again in incense but this incense formed thicker clouds around him with words of dogma, of history and traditions and messages from a Pope, (or to use his formal title: His Holiness, Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the Vatican City State, Servant of the servants of God.) in the Vatican, thousands of miles away who spoke on His behalf and whose spirt we regularly prayed for. God's mother, Mary, was suddenly everywhere and she was prayed to. Prayed to for her mercy and intercession so she could speak to this mysterious God on our behalf. He was incredible wealth as the brothers spoke of the many other schools like ours around the world but he was also service in action for the poor and oppressed in the world.

The Pietà Madonna by Michelangelo in St Peter's Basilica, The Vatican

But in an instant God became nonsense in Algeria. Suddenly the privilege from living in a 99% majority Christian country disappeared like the morning dew when I found myself in a 99.8% majority Muslim country surrounded by a fraction of the almost two billion Muslims around the world. God was hidden Bibles on our way to church, covered crucifixes around our necks, was a thousand inquisitive questions, some friendly, others harsh where suddenly a lot of 'simple' things became extremely difficult to explain.

"So you have three God's n'est pas?" "No, we have one God". "But you just told me that Jesus and this Holy Spirit person are also God no?" "Yes, yes but they are one." "You literally don't make any sense at all you know that, plus you said God died on a cross!" Latin words and dogma lying in a library somewhere in the Vatican somehow started feeling less comforting. "So this Bible of yours has many versions but some versions are the true one and the one you follow is one of the true ones but not some of the other ones whom you call cults....who gets to decide heh? You know the Koran only has one version?"

Anger and frustration would rise, but also questions that led down paths that sometimes had no answers. Like the time when I was a child and I had piped up during a Bible study session; but if God was really so good why did he put the Apple tree smack bang in the middle of the garden? My question hung in the air like an unexploded bomb until someone told me not ask such silly questions. Perhaps God's answers were in the mosque I attended with my friends several times but the flood of Arabic only raised more mysteries. Perhaps God was only in Zimbabwe and this was indeed a people doomed to fate. Perhaps he was in the Vatican whispering answers to the Pope. Perhaps he was in the streets with the prophets who screamed fire and damnation was nigh to anyone who was not in their denomination of Christianity, one of 38, 000 worldwide. What did I know? Nothing.

I looked at my Algerian, Muslim friend, his face screwed up in confusion at the crawling mass of my stories of this God of ours against the injunction of his Allah. And then I heard Mr Moyo's rumble of a voice from that incense filled building, Your friend has the face of God.

Love him. 

My Top Ten Songs From Zimbabwe

Today's blog takes us to the world of Zimbabwean music, specifically my Top Ten Songs from Zimbabwe. For those who are actually Zimbabwean, forgive the 'datedness' of my list, (and the Shona translations (hides)) it has been years since I have continuously lived in Zimbabwe. 

The reason I love lists like this, making and reading them, is that they allow people to discover music they might not otherwise have ever heard. Click here for a similar list I compiled for my favourite French music. And now to Zimbabwe....

10. Ammara Brown - Mukoko

Ammara Brown is one of Zimbabwe's newest stars. She is also part of a family rich with musical legacy, her mother was Chiwoniso Maraire, an international legend on the mbira and her father was the musical genius Andy Brown, both sadly have passed on. In this song, Mukoko (the Shona word for honey) Ammara proudly proclaims that she isn't just a babe (a honey in Shona slang), but a real woman. The video is one of the best choreographed Zimbabweans I have seen in a while, with splashes of colour and the ambience of the township.

Best line: I will sing for you and make you my hubby. But you gotta treat me like a treasure. You gotta treat me like a treasure!!! 

 

9. Hillzy & Oliver Mtukudzi - Ndiwe Wega Uripo (Trap Soul Remix)

I actually had not heard Hillzy before this song and I never knew there was a Zimbabwean trap singer, much less a trip soul artist. Surprises never cease. In this soulful remix of Oliver Mtukudzi's Ndiwe Wega Uripo, Hillzy raps above the melody of the echo of the original song and then harmonizes in a haunting chorus. I wish this had a video!

Best line: Ndiwe mumwe wangu, ndiwe wega uripo...(you are my better half, you are the only one there)

8. Tricky J - TAMBISA DAKO ft.Sinte & KYD

This song was banned on Zimbabwean TV! And if one if familiar with Zimbabwean conservatism, one can begin to understand. Who cares! I love this song, the beat is amazing, the choreography is great and the video is so funny! Even funnier for me was that I initially had no idea what a 'dako' was, my Shona whilst passable is hardly perfect lol. 

Best line: Tambisa dako!!! (Shake that ass!!!)

7. ExQ - Bhachura ft. Ammara Brown

Ammara Brown makes another appearance on my list, this time with ExQ, a popular Zimbabwean urban grooves singer. The video is heartbreaking and the lyrics are bittersweet, a recently single young man singing that it was better being single. Relationships huh? 

Best line: Everything Ammara sings! The passion in her voice. Tjoh.

6. TINASHE - Bated Breath

This is technically cheating, because Tinashe is technically American. But in my defence, her name is Shona and her father is Zimbabwean so there. I will claim her back as one of our own! What makes this song even more special for me is that I was listening to my random Spotify Daily Mix when this came up on the playlist. Not even knowing that it was a Zimbabwean born singer, I played it over again and again.....

5. Chiwoniso - Wandirasa

And the Queen of the Mbira is Chiwoniso! This discordant hymn to pain is one of the most haunting Chiwoniso songs I know. Her voice rises above the mbira filled with pain and a cry to be released from pain. An ode to a lover who has abandoned her, the title literally translates to 'You have thrown me away' (it's amazing how one word can turn into an English sentence!)

Best line: Something about you baby has touched me deep inside, I can't explain it to you. No matter how hard I try to stay away from you but we both know it will never be the same.....(and the screams in the end that haunt your dreams long after)

4. Oliver Mtukudzi - Neria

This is a song that a lot of Zimbabweans will resonate with no matter what language they speak. A song that reminds us of the award winning movie Neria about a widow whose in-laws throw her out to the streets to fend for herself and her children. Decades later I can hardly remember the details of the movie but this song takes me back to the first day I heard it as if it was yesterday. Oliver's voice and the guitar of which he is one of Zimbabwe's unrivalled masters gently sing to comfort Neria, telling her God is with her, not to lose heart and to be strong. 

Oliver Mtukudzi's CV is too long to list here. With countless albums, countless awards, work as an ambassador for UNICEF and the Cavaliere of the Order of Merit Award from the government of Italy, we Zimbabweans simply know his as Tuku.

Best line: Usawore mwoyo kaNeria, Mwari anewe.....shinga moyo shinga! 

(PSA & shameless plug: head over to www.zimhealth.org, an organisation I am part of and who have as their Ambassador for Health none other than Oliver Mtukudzi!)

3. Mafriq - Chizevezeve

When I left Zimbabwe in 2007 this song had just come out. And I remember at the time it had one of the best music videos I had seen for a Zimbabwean song. The song itself is an morality song, a young couple singing of the work of gossipers who are never happy when people are happy but always happy when gossip and bad relationships abound. The Shona was so deep for me at the time I had to ask a few of my Shona friends to translate the song for me. 

Best line: Nhasi vadanana, mangwana varambana. Chenjerai kunyara makuona vachichata (today they are in love, tomorrow they are fighting, watch out will all your gossip because one day they will be married)....[Shona transcribing skills fail here] when the girl told the boy her name was Chido and the boy lied back and said he was Tindo, all of you were not there, you have no shame!

2. Pah Chihera - Runonzi Rudo 

I actually don't know much about these two singers but I love the song and the video. Lovely, happy and colourful. The title translates to 'It's called love'. 

1. Chiwoniso - Iwai Nesu

I won't lie, I was going to add another Oliver Mtukudzi song to the list, he is one of my favourite singers but then I remembered that there is a song I listen to when I'm down. A song whose smooth voice comforts me, whose prayer reminds that the world, an unfair place as it, is still a place of beauty.

One of Chiwoniso's last songs before she died, Iwai Nesu, (Be with us), is a song & a prayer. It pleads with God to be with us. To listen to us. To see a world ravaged by injustice and be our Father. The mbira, played by Chiwoniso, strums  in the background as she reminds God that we are His children.

Best line: Vamwe vaparara nendzara, vamwe vachifa nekuguta, kumwe vaparara nemvura, vamwe vechipera nezuva....Tirivana venyu.... (There are those dying from hunger, whilst others are dying of gluttony, others are washed away by floods and others are finished by the sun...We are your children!) 

PS: Some will remark that all these songs are almost entirely Shona, a language I learnt at the age of ten, and not my mother tongue, Ndebele. I noticed it today and perhaps that is the subject of another blog post? Perhaps. Probably. 

Are My Parents Included In My Retirement Plan

Today's Blogging Challenge Topic posed the question; Are My Parents Included In My Retirement Plans.

My immediate reaction:

Quickly asks Google, "Does that imply saving money?"

Google: "Yes..."

Me:

By now you will have surmised that there are no piles of Ncube cash stockpiled in a Swiss bank account waiting for my dying days.

You mean not every weekend has to look like this?

But it's difficult to even start preparing for the future when money seems so transient and expenses seem so insurmountable. 

But true story, before starting this challenge I started reading Rich Dad Poor Dad, a 1997 book written by Robert Kiyosaki advocating the importance of financial literacy. My conversion to wanting to be one of those 'grown up' people saving money bit by bit, and planning for the future came after I saw a chart of a typical American life plotted in weeks. Let's be honest, we all live as if we shall live forever, especially in early adulthood; death and old age are vague conceptual things that have no place in our every day. But when faced with a graph like the one below, there is something in me that understood as if for the first time, the unyielding passage of time.

Where are you on the graph? (source)

I am still in the process of learning the dark magic of saving money for a rainy day, let alone money for the day that I am (heaven's forbid) old. So for now, sorry to disappoint folks, there is no retirement plan!

Check back with me in a bit when I have learnt some more. 

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.