“Having once been robbed by a congregation of Christian marauders, one is not so timorous of the heathen”.
David Livingstone, March 2, 1856, Tete, Mozambique
Archive for January, 2008
aka Housekeeping
OK. Now that it’s well underway… Hopeful New Year to y’all. It’s not about how it started (setting the tone for the next 364 days), it’s about what you make of the lemons you’ve been given?
TTD in 2008:
Attend Anita Baker concert. Dissolve marriages of convenience. Ask hard/difficult questions (finally!). Do more ‘totally awesome and memorable’ trips. Do at least 5… 3… 2 road races… if I’m going to invest in the gear [kicking and screaming... only doing it for the toned thighs and reduced impact on global warming, and on my petrol budget - buying a road bike 
], might as well make good/effective use of it. Make and implement crucial life decisions… whatever those are. Bring my heart back to life. Love life. Give love (cue Stevie’s “love’s in need of love”).
Also wanted to talk about what I intend to do with this here blog. Plan to chronicle my MZ trip (I know, I know, I said this already), and to do a couple of “in depth” pieces on stuff that totally fascinates me, captures my imagination, makes me love… unconditionally (so far), MZ.
Oh, and I’ll blog when I want. Scheduled blogging. ‘fraid ’tis too oppressive, friend. One must allow the creative spirit license to flow whenever 
Back when i was in high school (rolls eyes and acknowledges she is indeed an old fart), there were a couple of students who’d studied African literature to a tee. When, in conversation, you asked them about when they were born, they’d present it as “the year after the 7 year drought, before which the rivers had flooded and killed that great chief on the other side, before the locusts had come to lay waste to our crops…”. You catch my drift. Now I see today’s children saying the same thing, only more… updated: “they year I should have sat for my exams was preceded by…” and the saga continues… wutang, wutang.
Wot? I didn’t mention I ride or die on hip hop lyrics? Some more than others.
Powered by ScribeFire.
…Fitzgerald. Beautiful singer. Heard my favorite of her songs earlier today and it’s been playing in my head since. Those lyrics are ‘like wow!’ Coolest parts in bold 
[source]
After one whole quart of brandy, Like a daisy I awake, With no Bromo Seltzer handy, I don’t even shake.
Men are not a new sensation; I’ve done pretty well, I think. But this half-pint imitation, Put me on the blink
REFRAIN
I’m wild again, Beguiled again, A simpering, whimpering child again, Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I
Couldn’t sleep, And wouldn’t sleep, Until I could sleep where I shouldn’t sleep, Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I
Lost my heart but what of it? My mistake I agree. he’s a laugh, but I like it, because the laugh’s on me.
A pill he is, But still he is, All mine and I’ll keep him until he is, Bewitched, bothered and bewildered, Like me.
Seen a lot, I mean I lot, But now I’m like sweet seventeen a lot, Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I
I’ll sing to him, Each spring to him, And worship the trousers that cling to him, Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I
When he talks he is seeking, Words to get off his chest. Horizontally speaking, He’s at his very best.
Vexed again, Perplexed again, Thank God I can’t be over-sexed again, Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I
(Reprise at the end of the show)
Wise at last, My eyes at last, Are cutting you down to your size at last, Bewitched, bothered and bewildered no more
Burned a lot, But learned a lot, And now you are broke, though you earned a lot, Bewitched, bothered and bewildered no more
Couldn’t eat, Was dyspeptic, Life was so hard to bear;
Now my heart’s antiseptic, Since you moved out of there
Romance-Finis, Your chance-finis, Those ants that invaded my pants-finis, Bewitched, bothered and bewildered no more.
Will blog some about the Mocambique island experience over the next few weeks. For now, just have to share my favorite picture from the trip 
The Kenya situation….what to say? Other than whatchya gonna do?
A few years ago I went on a retreat with a Rwandese guy. I laugh at myself when I look back, ’cause I clearly didn’t learn a great deal from that trip. We get there, I’m all about “oh finally some peace and quiet away from the hustle and bustle of the city”. He looked at me like I was crazy, and went out of his way to get a radio or to get the tv in the room working. I wondered why he’d want the outside world to intrude on this quiet time, he said “what if the city burns while we’re here, and we end up driving straight into the mess?” Turns out he’d not listened to radio twice while he was fleeing Rwanda, and had ended up in extremely inconvenient situations both times.
Years later, mid-to-late December 2007, I take off to an island in the Indian Ocean, want total rest and relaxation, and have no desire to listen to tv or radio. On the 29th, however, someone who knows I’m from Kenya mentions that things are heating up with the election count. We all know the rest of that story. As we’re explaining the roots of the problem (as if we ourselves know everything there is to know about it…) he mentions that he was advised never to build anything permanent in a place that is not his home. Why? Because whenever there are problems, it’s the foreigners that are first targeted. I see it’s quite the African and global phenomenon, this. If the trigger is not race or ethnicity (Africa) it’s religion (eastern Europe, Russia) or something else. And the ‘obvious’ foreigners are always on top of this game, ready to jump out at any given moment. Those who have ears, let them hear. And please endeavor to become the stereotype of your race/ethnic group/religion, because I have heard of people in Kenya who have died or been raped simply because, according to the mob, they didn’t fit the stereotype. Maybe we should introduce scientific equivalents of the pencil and paper tests for race and ethnicity.
I must have been around 8 when the Ugandan refugees came through and spent several years living among us in Kenya. I remember a conversation where they (men) indicated they’d been on the run for days. I had wondered why they hadn’t hidden and held very still (like Anne Frank) so that those looking for them would pass by. I clearly had not realized that along with the hunt came torching of houses and any conceivable hiding places. My other memory is of the coup in 1982. I was at patch primo then, a boarder. I remember waking up to the smell of firecrackers and haziness in the dorm room. The matron came round crying, telling us to say the rosary because our parents were dead. I think I put in a lifetime installment of rosary recital in the two days I was waiting to be rescued.
Anyway, I pass through Maputo on my way back to the big city, and a colleague indicates that “whoever it was that won must be loved by the americans ’cause George Bush was the first to congratulate them”. Later, we find out that a colleague is trapped in Eldoret, in a church. I think, with the ‘logic’ that can only be afforded by a person thousands of kms away from the fracas, “when will we learn not to hide in churches or mosques”, and I realize I’ve said it out loud. My colleague agrees, says cemeteries would probably be a better bet… Africans seem to respect dead/resting people more than living ones. Note to anyone building churches from now on: build them with fortified walls, strong unscalable fences, and escape tunnels. Build them right or not at all. Same goes for hospitals, schools, police stations, etc. Maybe cemeteries should also have shelters. Kenyans should also take a leaf from Mormons, stock up your pantry like the world was going to end tomorrow (I know… on less than $2 a day?).
I know the above may sound callous, but whatchya gonna do? I’m all the way here, very sad that the Kenyan marriage (which yes, we all knew wasn’t going too well to start with) has broken up. Where do we go from here? My suggestion to nations that have been at war for a long time (e.g. DRC) is that they should split themselves up into the federal villages of whatever nation. Perhaps that’s a route for us, so we can someday sit back and say “in the good old days of a united Kenya, things used to be …”
Some feel the ongoing violence/situation is cathartic and indicative of positive change. It’ll remind future regimes/politicians not to take the people for granted. Others feel we should wake up and smell the coffee, and formalize the divisions. I’ve always wondered, though, where the idiots who were foolish enough to believe in the one Kenya fantasy (and marry people outside their communities) fit into this new disposition? Guess it just sucks to be them. Then there are the ones who appeared paranoid at the time, but turn out to have called the play precisely. Wouldn’t it have been nice to include a list detailing “how to prepare for armagedon”? Cold comfort though, ’cause in true Kenyan fashion, we wouldn’t have paid attention to the list.
I manage to laugh at my Kenyan self when I read this article and at the end there’s a comment from a Somali: “i am somali, and for one does not care weather kenya burns or not. Kenya helped burn my country, enjoy it”. That’s what we get for feeling sexy all these years. And judging by the other comments on that article, enough of us are happy about the bloodletting as a lesson to those who refuse to listen.
Me? In quintessential Kenyan escapist mode, I’m moving to the Seychelles. It doesn’t matter that ‘my tribe’ is with the losers or with the winners. If your spouse, after many years of a generally unsatisfactory marriage, unleashes unspeakable violence on your children (in this case, on your friends who are drawn from all Kenyan communities), will you hang around? Or join the travelling circus of people disappointed in the places they were born?
Plan to work that age-old strategy of employing marriage as a tool for integration into a society. More on this when I blog a bit about the history of the Mocambiquan coast
Update:
Enough already with the Kenya situation. Some people say it’s a good thing this happened, no tribe government will ever imagine it can run roughshod over Kenyans again. I ask “with our collectively short memories??” I think it’s completely screwed up the national psyche, and it’s something that will never mend. I suppose we can now officially join the ranks of the Serbians, Croats, and others whose DNA remembers the injustices (real or perceived) visited upon them (i.e. animosity shall persist for generations to come, with no apparent provocation). Worst part is the glee/concern of other African nationals. It’s terrible when you’re the sexiest one on the block (real or imagined), take it for granted, then the day you lose your sexiest crown, folk come out of the woodwork to gloat/sympathize. Sigh! Anyway, one person mourns because, as he says it, you were the one good example in East and Southern Africa. Now it’s official that there is no hope for democracy in Africa. Anyone hanging on to hope for the continent can now let it go, and join the masses seeking to emigrate to countries outside the continent. I say: think of it as the perfect couple going through an acrimonious divorce, and all the neighbors protesting, “but they were so happy together!” An ex-boss used to say you get what you paid for. That’s Kenya for you. And that’s the last I’ll say about that (diretamente).
