Lion Fight

Life is a Lion fight, chin up, put your shoulders up , straddle a little.  Do not lick  your wounds, celebrate them; the scars you bear are the signs of a competitor, you are in the lion fight. Just because you did not win does not mean you do not know how to roar.  GA  S4- Chief

Purple & No Wasted Years

Purple, on the Island of Zamalek along the Great River Nile in Cairo!
Tiff, Mena and I went to Purple , random and impulsive decision. Tiff decided that we should go after we had done some work on Tuesday night after  International Public Law, it’s not even  the last day of classes for the week. I concur because I knew we would not get anywhere to finishing the workload we have. Anyway during class Mena sends a message asking if we want to hang out at purple, bang! Maybe we really need to go out I think. I say yeah, why not? She says come along with anyone else, I have booked for 4 people and it is free for ladies. 

Mike hears Tiff and I going over and  over whether we should go to Purple or not and comes to her door, seeing as we had ,made enough noise for him to get out of his apartment. Mike thought it was a ridiculous idea since it was a school night, yet for some reason my body was asking for  something random, something out of my ordinary life. We went claiming we would be out for two hours, well we got home at 4pm. It was a fun time though  because I got to dance all the stress out, only snag is my body and hair were smelling smoke, I felt like a fireplace  that had been burning all day, no heat but the scent of smoke and wood. 

We got hit on by some black Bako players,  I came back home hoping that one day someone would open up a club for only professionals with no, and absolutely NO bako players!  No offense intended, I just think they live such shallow lives and live to party and have nothing sensible to talk about most of the time. 

Yesterday Bianca and  had a talk about ‘ Youth is wasted on the young’  A George Bernard Shaw  quote. It reminded me of what   I kept mulling over  two years ago, the idea that I do not ever want to look back and ask myself, ‘Where did the years go?” I never want to regret and wonder what I could have done with my life. I want to be able to use my energy and life as  much as the potential I have can sustain. 

Am  left with four papers ,  two are  ten pages,  one is 1 page (Alhamdulillah) one is 25 pages and my thesis proposal which is due in a three days is 15 pages! I am going to be a little writing machine  in the next three weeks!!!

Marriage

"The heart of marriage is memories; and if the two of you happen to have the same ones and can savor your reruns, then your marriage is a gift from the gods." Bill Cosby

Brasil

'am drawn to it' Amoding

I choose Reality

For a whole two weeks I have been urging my friends to go hang out at a dance club, because all I want to do is dance and dance! And let the stress out! I want to dance to great music, the music that you can only feel from the depth of your ligaments to the human soul. I have succeeded in dreaming about dancing until I have failed to move my legs to the dance party!

There is always a problem with the club. Kafiya & Mena, say Africana as a club is sketchy but the music is good, Bianca does not like Swiss Club, April has practically kept quiet on me, I wonder what I did! Annie & Meghan did not want to go out dancing but stay in dancing. Tiffany has been trying to get me to go over to her dance clubs (Purple - on a Boat along the Nile), Ace (in Maadi with loads of prostitutes), Some Club in Garden City that does not seem to have a name but we can get in free (even more sketchy!) Am not even sure I will enjoy the music. So last night I decided that  Tiffany, Bianca, Ehab and I would go out,. Bianca could not make it because she had just returned from Siwa; understandably she needed to rest and get back to herself. So I had to wait for Tiff & Ehab to watch an Egyptian movie and then go out with them after.

Well, after spending the whole day in the Desert, New Cairo- using the library with two other human beings whom my sister , Ruth thinks will become skeletons with me in the library, I  was knackered. On the way back  to Cairo, I slept off awoke up drooling and staring at the lady opposite me. She did not even smile because she had been doing the same thing(maybe not drooling). Anyway I got home really way out of myself, watched Tiff dress up, cooked dinner, watched Hotel for dogs,  and slept off setting my alarm for 10pm when I would be waking and going off to a dance party!

Woke up to a strange ringtone…(having changed my ringtone earlier on I could not recognize that it was my phone ringing.) Well Tiffany had sort of given up on me, after sending me texts of places we could go to. I bailed out again, on my own idea. Am sure she has given up on me. Yet am starting to wonder whether I really want to go to a dance party or is it just a fantasy. Really I want to dance, but I want to do it in an environment where I feel safe ( just as always, I want to feel it!) am not feeling now, just wanting.

So I had this fantasy, that I would be out dancing, sit down for a bit, a man , a dark bronze, strong man with lips like Wayne Marshall’s walks up to me and smiles. Sits down, tells me how I caught his eye, hold my hand and kiss it. Our eyes meet and we connect like he is the one I have been waiting for all my life, we talk endlessly about life and good things and poetry. And he recites a poem for me, he tells me a few things about me that I think no one else can figure and am hooked. So this fantasy makes me want to get up and go, but am sleepy, am enjoying dreaming of this fantasy, yet am  so sleepy and tired and my brain cannot stop thinking human rights law that I choose to just keep sleeping.

And this morning, I realize I think I prefer the fantasy more than anything else. So I choose to pass on the dance club because I do not want to ruin the fantasy. But even I, know that living a fantasy is way too dangerous especially when this fantasy starts to become a dream; because as I live it, life passes me by. So am  back to studying now and writing right, so that I can at most get my Masters sorted. For this is one of the realities in  my life.

'There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart...pursue those.'

    - Micheal Nolan

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops.

Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame

I rise

Up from a past that's rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

Maya Angelou

"Real Breakthroughs happen because someone is scared to death to stop trying!" PD GA

Black girls Rock

 Phoebe Oluka

 

We sure do rock,
I rock because am beautiful
I rock because am loved
Because am not afraid to make it
I rock because i do not give up
I rock because am not afraid to cry
Because am not afraid to say i almost gave up
I rock because my grandmothers had faith in me
I rock because i stand  on the shoulders of great black women
So i rock!!
I rock because i am determined that no matter what i will leave a legacy
I rock because  i have a dream
I rock because i have untapped potential that would change the world
I rock because i have dreams & a purpose
I rock because am God's handiwork
Because everytime i fall i get back up again
I rock because my father has faith in me
I rock because he is proud of me
I rock because i come from a lineage of men & women who paid the price so i could be who i am & who i want to be
I rock because am blessed beyond the curse
Because am an embodiment of God's will
I rock because i am an inspiration to other black girls who have had the worst of life's tough kicks
I rock because i have just one option.....To Rock.
I rock because i rock!!!


Go for it black girls make a difference inspire those younger than you, be a model, make no compromise, live & leave a legacy
because you Rock!!

Writing, the art of old and the ease of the new times

Nick Twinamatsiko, the author of "Till the promised land and other Pilgrimage Poems.", Jesse's Jewel and Chwezi Code, probes why inspite of the developement in writing and its accessories like the word processers and editorial programs, many of today's writers have not attained a quality as that of many earlier writers. I once pondered over this and can vaguely remember what came to mind.
1. Earlier writers gave more attention to detail. The impressions and how they brought them out were important to them. A brief autobiography of an early writer can easily be found included in the Penguin classic edition of his book, speak of the attention writers gave their work.
2. Writing and art was a profession then and not a means of quick money. It was an art which commanded respect and still should for it's adept ability to influence.
3. Imagination was a very important tool and was not despised or feared as it is today. Infact its only those without imagination that submit to oppressive leadership. A dictatorial system will always look to stiffle imaginative minds. Most likely, a person under oppression transfers his pain to imaginative circumstances to go through it.
4. To build a great imagination, one must cultivate it in solitude and also in good, engaging conversation. Wole Soyinka, Ngugu Wa'Thionga, Chinua Achebe, C.S Lewis and Arthur Tolkein were men of this nature. By day they committed to their writing and the inspiration of   the typical daily occurrences of the African village lifestyle, reactions, little and big emotions and nature, while in the evening, they met to discuss their 'imaginations' over a drink at the local pub. These meetings birthed the famous books, The Chronicals of Narnia by Lewis and The trilogy of the rings by Tolkein.
To say the least, these aspects of writing are shuddered upon today but by the determined writer can be created and thrived upon, then maybe, just maybe, we will relive great writings in this century.

A spur of the moment and a conversation with three little men...

After a mixture of sleepless nights, emotions, anticipations and that kind of activity, I am finally recovering my stability and perceiving things I often miss like the prancing of children, the moonlight, excursion and now a remarkable view of water, flashes of lightning and lights dotting the darkness. The air still, cool and fresh. On the spur of the moment I left home on an excursion. I am enjoying and loving it. Quite interesting is the conversation of 8, 5 and 4 year old boys...

Help: a door has slammed, that must be the wind. Emma, where's the wind from.
8: it was from that side (pointing and then with a robust air of immense confidence and certainty ends) because my senses are positive.

8 to 6: do you know what this (shows 6 something) is?
6: yes I do. It is (With confidence and not pausing in his speech) I don't know. (continues his meal with indifference)

6: at the academy, only teachers eat fish.
8: (bragging) me they gave me fish soup one time.

4 to me: for you who do you sleep with?

Me:....think....think....(silence....curtain fades)

6: at the academy, only teachers eat fish.
8: me they gave me fish soup one time.

4 to me: for you who do you sleep with?

Me:....think....think....

Is it your Place?

My heart beats for you
simulating the sounds of the Jembe drum
tallying to the beat of Amagunju
with a summation of the passionate sounds of the Akogo.
People say love hurts,
ours is a gentle pain.
The one you experience when holding a Phena
The piercings are gentle and sweet
with the promise of the  taste that only
those who can smell the Phena from yards away,
know of.