The weather is a topic of paramount importance in the Western World, residents of a specific city or town in Canada check on the temperature, clouds, traffic and every detail connected to the weather before making any decision.
There are whole radio, television and internet channels dedicated to informing residents about weather forecasts. It is interesting. The weather here is important because it is the only thing that technology has not been able to change a bit. Here everything is done with the most convenience to consumers, for example there’s a cloth washing machine, one for the dishes, for the courtyard anything else you can imagine.
Consumers here also have been tuned to take advantage of this technology, there are machines marketed to help you loose your tummy, belly, machines or diets to help you reduce fat, machines to help you think faster, machines to cook, or even already cooked meals that you can buy in the superstore. Every imaginable need has a solution here. Am now considering going to a night club where you all you have to do if you want to get laid is to look at a woman that you admire inside the club. It is not hard, it is a nude club. Before entering, all the patrons are required to undress and remain utterly nude. Iinside you can kiss, get laid and after you pick your clothes at the entrance and go back home or the club arranges for you a cab to drop you.
If you have a sexual orientation that is eccentric the marketeers here also you’re your problems at heart. You will see adverts of married women that are available for a quick anytime you need them, there are others that specialize in giving lunch break quickies’ and even gay men that advertise themselves as experts in giving the best blow jobs for married straight or any kind of man that is interested.
The prostitution industry here is also very convenient for the men, women host their pictures on websites-some have websites while others have myriad sites that market them to potential clients. Anyhow, Charlotte a prostitute puts her picture on the internet and provides information about her sexual specialty and the charges. She leaves her email address or phone and you can call her to have paid sex at her place or your place. Prostitutes here are very organized, they have receptionists, trade unions and the government recognizes them as vital to the daily economics of the country.
With such targeted problem identification and solving, there’s little about life’s issues that is not diagnosed and solved. But be savvy as they are, be technocrats and capitalists as you can imagine, the western world has failed to deal or change the weather to their convenience. Winter comes around October and sends chills down the spines of everybody; bodies become wrapped up in heavy clothes for the next five months, while inside the houses heaters make noses breed. During summer the air humidity itself is crazy, people sweat endlessly and if you don’t drink large amounts of water dehydration can kill you and the cycle is permanent.
Minds have been changed here lives have been transformed and ideas brewed and released but the weather has not been. It has only changed to be ugly and global warming and genetically modified lives will be dangers of the west the way we Africans have suffered with Aids, malaria and wars.
This is Canada
I have not stopped wondering whenever I have visited my African friends that are married or are co-habiting.
African culture encourages and promotes a certain degree of submissiveness from women to their husbands or boyfriends-(During the courting period however, this is different as women are usually considered and treated as queens, they demand for everything and it is easily provided. In Kinya-rwanda the dowry of a woman is expressed in the most precious of society’s cultural heritage, the cow.)
However, after the initial dating stage has been overcome the man normally enjoys a high measure of authority and a woman is supposed to be moderate and abiding in most cases. So whenever I have visited my African friends I have heard this phrase: “We are not in Africa” even Africans start holding stereotypes once they stay in the western world for long. That phrase has normally been expressed when the man is telling his partner to serve food, clean up the mess, make dinner. Or take care of laundry. The women normally don’t present any arguments as to why they are not willing to do given task that their men could have asked them to, o that it is not part of convetional culture for men to be ordering theur wives around they instead remind their men that, “This is Canada.”
Canada is very generous while emphasizing the rights of women or gender equality, it is not cosmetic as that we have in Rwanda. If you annoyed your woman here she can choose to ignore counselling services and take you to court and from the time you step into court it doesnot matter that you could be innocent. You will have to prove tht you are not a danger to your woman rather than she proving that you're giulty.
With this in mind every African woman that reaches in Canada will develop antics that even real Canadian women find disgusting to say the least.
There's the example of Christine who is married to a fellow African friend. Everytime The African friend buys alcohol and brings it to enjoy it from home the woman throws up tantrums, she warns him that she will throw him out of the house before ending the threat with: "This is Canada."
Saturday 9 May 2009
Wednesday 6 May 2009
Canada Notes 1
As an African visiting a ‘Western’ country for the first time I have been surprised, shocked, amused, amazed, intrigued and confused by a number of things. Among the amazing things of living in the ‘west’ is the personal and individual freedom that people here enjoy.
People are let free to have their own opinions and they’re not dismissed for voicing them. Also if you live in someone else’s home you will be left the privilege to choose what you want to eat among what is placed on the table and in which quantity. If you tell someone that you don't want to speak they will take their mental notes and press no further and if they are well brought up they will return later to ask you if you're okay.
Among the confusing things is the fact that so much fear exists in the west too. People are very afraid to speak to each other in a restaurant, public transport or on road sides. As a newly arrived, I tried to ask directions from one individual at a train station, he run away from me twice and since then I decided never to ask for directions on the streets.
This fear is even worse for black people irrespective of them being African or not.
Black people here are thought to be violent and when I have walked into a strange place I have sensed stares of worry, fear and terror directed towards me. Over the weekend I went with a friend to a banking centre and after being bored inside I decided to walkout and wait for my colleague from the parking yard.
When I reached the parking yard, there was a lady seated inside one of the vehicles in the parking yard, she had seen me coming through the driving mirror and I had not seen her. By the time I reached the window of her car, it was open and she was speaking on phone. The lady looked at me with such shock that I was scared and looked around me to see if something was taking place behind my back. I never understood her reaction and so I told my colleague about it. He told me that it was a normal reaction and that the lady was scared thinking that I was about to pull a gun. It was disheartening to learn.
I discussed this with another friend who goes to an influential university in the country. He told me that this fear of people and strangers is embedded in the culture of capitalism. According to him, capitalism creates competition among people that we all start to see each other as threats to opportunities and resources. In another explanation he added that the culture of fear and suspicion was rooted in the fact in a capitalistic society people are welcome according to what they can bring on the table. If you’re talented or provide a certain satisfaction you will be welcome in this society and made to feel comfortable. This to a certain extent justifies the respect and fame that showbiz commands in these
societies. In a purely individualistic society, someone is likely to stab you with a knife if you have a possession of value or deemed t be of value. Therefore the guy walking behind you on the street is very fearful of you because he thinks that the temptation you have to turn back and cut off his arm and run with his watch, CD walking, Ipod, mobile phone is very high. The better that he keeps a distance between you and him. And should you need to ask anything from him or try a conversation, it will get off on a very awkward note and chances are that it will end briefly thereafter.
This adds on the fact that because a capitalistic society is mostly about production, suspicion and consumption, individuals have little time to interact or develop deep relationships with each other or it is useless to have such relationships because these individuals have so much knowledge of what they are like and what exactly they need or demand. Therfore, it is easy to start a friendship here and end it there without making much effort in trying to change its direction or improve it should it have weaknesses. People don’t trust each other and most relationships start with trying to figure out each other although discretely what you really are. People are usually making mental notes here about each other.
This state of affairs creates a situation in which pet animals especially dogs are sacred. One journalist told me when I tried to get job in a community newspaper that if “if you love dogs everything else here is simple,” A woman/man will invest all her resources in a dog because she is fearful of what will happen when she gets in a ‘couple’ relationship with a man. She/he is afraid of the demands of a man, a relationship; friendship because he demands of such a relationship will be many.
It is possible that neighbours don’t know each other’s names but they know the names of each other’s dogs and the dogs-will communicate more than the people that own. Yesterday I was told the a dog in this country is more important than a man. In order of importance life here creatures are important starting with children, women, dogs, men and old people, this is what one person that has lived in Canada for seven years told me.
Today I was inspired to write about dogs after watching a programme on television where a woman adopted a dog when she was still single. The dog died later and she bought another one and then got two more. She found a man afterwards and the dogs stayed in the home But from the programme I watched, the dogs were given such treatment that I felt that man was just an accessory in the woman’s home.
Because of the love that the lady had for her dogs they had never got a chance to go to a honeymoon after their marriage because they had no where to leave the dogs. They later hired a nanny for dogs. But it was clear when the woman spoke during the show that the dogs were the most important part of her life.
People are let free to have their own opinions and they’re not dismissed for voicing them. Also if you live in someone else’s home you will be left the privilege to choose what you want to eat among what is placed on the table and in which quantity. If you tell someone that you don't want to speak they will take their mental notes and press no further and if they are well brought up they will return later to ask you if you're okay.
Among the confusing things is the fact that so much fear exists in the west too. People are very afraid to speak to each other in a restaurant, public transport or on road sides. As a newly arrived, I tried to ask directions from one individual at a train station, he run away from me twice and since then I decided never to ask for directions on the streets.
This fear is even worse for black people irrespective of them being African or not.
Black people here are thought to be violent and when I have walked into a strange place I have sensed stares of worry, fear and terror directed towards me. Over the weekend I went with a friend to a banking centre and after being bored inside I decided to walkout and wait for my colleague from the parking yard.
When I reached the parking yard, there was a lady seated inside one of the vehicles in the parking yard, she had seen me coming through the driving mirror and I had not seen her. By the time I reached the window of her car, it was open and she was speaking on phone. The lady looked at me with such shock that I was scared and looked around me to see if something was taking place behind my back. I never understood her reaction and so I told my colleague about it. He told me that it was a normal reaction and that the lady was scared thinking that I was about to pull a gun. It was disheartening to learn.
I discussed this with another friend who goes to an influential university in the country. He told me that this fear of people and strangers is embedded in the culture of capitalism. According to him, capitalism creates competition among people that we all start to see each other as threats to opportunities and resources. In another explanation he added that the culture of fear and suspicion was rooted in the fact in a capitalistic society people are welcome according to what they can bring on the table. If you’re talented or provide a certain satisfaction you will be welcome in this society and made to feel comfortable. This to a certain extent justifies the respect and fame that showbiz commands in these
societies. In a purely individualistic society, someone is likely to stab you with a knife if you have a possession of value or deemed t be of value. Therefore the guy walking behind you on the street is very fearful of you because he thinks that the temptation you have to turn back and cut off his arm and run with his watch, CD walking, Ipod, mobile phone is very high. The better that he keeps a distance between you and him. And should you need to ask anything from him or try a conversation, it will get off on a very awkward note and chances are that it will end briefly thereafter.
This adds on the fact that because a capitalistic society is mostly about production, suspicion and consumption, individuals have little time to interact or develop deep relationships with each other or it is useless to have such relationships because these individuals have so much knowledge of what they are like and what exactly they need or demand. Therfore, it is easy to start a friendship here and end it there without making much effort in trying to change its direction or improve it should it have weaknesses. People don’t trust each other and most relationships start with trying to figure out each other although discretely what you really are. People are usually making mental notes here about each other.
This state of affairs creates a situation in which pet animals especially dogs are sacred. One journalist told me when I tried to get job in a community newspaper that if “if you love dogs everything else here is simple,” A woman/man will invest all her resources in a dog because she is fearful of what will happen when she gets in a ‘couple’ relationship with a man. She/he is afraid of the demands of a man, a relationship; friendship because he demands of such a relationship will be many.
It is possible that neighbours don’t know each other’s names but they know the names of each other’s dogs and the dogs-will communicate more than the people that own. Yesterday I was told the a dog in this country is more important than a man. In order of importance life here creatures are important starting with children, women, dogs, men and old people, this is what one person that has lived in Canada for seven years told me.
Today I was inspired to write about dogs after watching a programme on television where a woman adopted a dog when she was still single. The dog died later and she bought another one and then got two more. She found a man afterwards and the dogs stayed in the home But from the programme I watched, the dogs were given such treatment that I felt that man was just an accessory in the woman’s home.
Because of the love that the lady had for her dogs they had never got a chance to go to a honeymoon after their marriage because they had no where to leave the dogs. They later hired a nanny for dogs. But it was clear when the woman spoke during the show that the dogs were the most important part of her life.
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