First it was southern and northern hemispheres that divided the blocs of the world in two, the hemispheres metamorphosed into first and third world.
There was no second world. Today we are dealing with the developed and developing nations, which is somewhat a more politically correct dissection.
But along the way there were anecdotes introduced in determining how to correctly address the differences between the global class systems. They took the way of the west, the east, and the non-aligned, as well as the extremists, moderates, fundamentalists and now we even have the jihadists.
They are currently named like modern computer software programs. We have the G7 plus 1, the G20, G77 and OECD.
My generation came of age when the hemispheres were gradually getting out of abstract letters to a more contextual meaning and henceforth there were no more east, west, south and north hemispheres. The world instead had rights and challenges.
Applications
Millennium Challenges, MDGs-Millennium Development Goals, CBOs, CSOs and my favourite, world famous wealthy men willing to share their monies with poor people whom they don’t know in foreign places.
By 2001 when I was joining high school, the challenges of the world were determined to be eight and therefore the United Nations was given a new mandate to shape the development of the world.
The UN was coming through a generation where it had played an observer role in the skirmish of the independence and cold wars and even watched shamelessly when a million Rwandan Tutsi were exterminated in 1994.
The same UN had also observed when Charles Taylor, jewel shops in Europe, RUF and FodaySankoh ransacked Sierra Leone for diamonds.
Eight challenges
The role of establishing a mechanism to deal with the challenges by leaders of the UN was also a test for the UN to reshape its relevance and image.
All the noise about arresting some leaders such as Sudanese Omar Bashir, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, Libya’s MuamarGadaffi-and it was even shamelessly rumoured that our own President Paul Kagame was wanted.
All this was a sideshow, background music. But the UN enjoys the soundtracks much more than the action and therefore five years before challenges drive expires; they are still talking about implementation.
Some people were quite serious in taking on the challenges though not least many international Hollywood stars. I have seen many of these folk around Kigali promoting this or that cause. I covered Ashley Judd when she visited Rubale to launch safe water drinking tablets known as PurEau.
I also heard Mat Damon, Mathew McConaughey, Rick Warren and George Bush were in town promoting a solution to one challenge or another. And their efforts paid off in some cases; like when Stephen Lewis went a step further and mobilized funding for a pilot Millennium Village in Mayange and seven other similar villages in other parts of the world.
The results are obvious to Professor Josh Ruxin who runs the Mayange Village. Ruxin says that more children go to nearby schools and fewer are falling sick. And in case they fall to sickness; Nyamate Health Centre is fairly well equipped to effectively deal with any serious incidents.
The Village has supplied bed nets to guard against malaria-infested mosquitoes and thereby tackled one of the eight challenges. As a result the vicinity of Mayange has had malaria incidences reduce by 64 percent to only 4 percent of the health related issue the local clinic handles per day.
Mayange Village
The Village has also established a service to supply good quality seeds for food crops and come harvest season; farmers in Bugesera are some of the happiest in Rwanda. This has seen average prices for a plot rise a hundredfold and price discrimination applies when the buyer originates in other parts of the country other than Bugesera.
To deal with education; the First Lady piloted a school project funded by some generous Americans, the state of the art boarding school will sponsor female children from low income families but with good grades to pursue their education as far as possible.
And as if the government is keeping its ear to the ground; they have decided to construct an airport right about town in Nyamata. The mayor of Mayange who some years ago wrote to the president that his municipal was the poorest in the country is evidence of the changing fortunes of Bugesera. He is a busy man.
And the government went a step ahead further by promoting a new gender balance whereby women outnumbered men on the most crucial challenge table; the parliament and cabinet.
And like the other municipals are keeping things abreast; they have decided to emulate the system of Bugesera. And this has put Ruxin in an even busier situation than the Mayange mayor.
Ruxin is the mentor of the Access Project, which is designing programs that local government authorities can adopt to increase efficiency in health service delivery across Rwanda. And they are working. HIV/Aids prevalence is reduced to officially 3 percent but really JUST below 6.
The people living with HIV/Aids have also been attended to better in Rwanda than IN most African countries and life expectancy per capita has in turn increased.
The changes and linkages in the case of Bugesera and the wider narrative is that most of the challenges were dealt with by the effort of individuals blessed with particular skills and generosity.
It helps that Stephen Lewis was a high profile official of the UN and that Josh Ruxin is also a professor at Columbia University. Having met the latter I was left with the impression that he does his job with a passion and desire that border on instinct, the way Bill Clinton organizes his Global Initiative; which is another successful effort by one individual to change the attitudes of other individuals instead of the banal idea of changing the world that many espouse.
At the UN they are still talking and drawing resolutions and this week they were busy with the Ahmedinejad and the MDGs. Perhaps that’s what the UN does, talking about things and other people doing the things.
Monday, 4 October 2010
Sunday, 26 September 2010
The Llamas.
I mistook em for sheep though,
According to Josh, a friend and a man of the bible, “Jesus considers himself a shepherd to human beings whom he refers to as sheep.
God created us and loves us therefore we are his sheep. Jesus was sent by God to save and keep us (the thieves and robbers are not just Satan, but the consequences of our own fallen situations and bad choices) we recognize the voice of Jesus and follow it to find life. Not just the afterlife, but a better life here, sustenance, and abundance, also unity. One flock, one shepherd.”
I am not very informed in matters of the bible but I know for sure that using sheep to describe human beings is common in God speak. Maybe after-all sheep are cool animals. Don’t tell that to my tribesmen.
WE’RE NOT THE SHEEP
They treated the thing with disdain and intrigue and myth. Eating sheep was in fact forbidden; it was said that the people who ate mutton developed a permanent running nose; that irritating mucus dripping from one’s nose.
The cattle keepers maintained that sheep was helpful in protecting herds of cattle from being hit by lightening and so each family had some sheep that occasionally provided entertainment with their awkward bullfights.
But as children we never knew what happened to the sheep finally; it was unheard of eating their meat and we never had the equivalent of lamb too. As such it was considered an insult to call a person a sheep. Sheep was amongst the highest marks of stupidity.
The Baganda our neighbouring tribesmen in central Uganda treated the sheep with even more disregard.
In this culture for a person to address another as a sheep or to say anything insinuating that the person addressed was like a sheep; it was held as highly offensive. Nobody wanted to be called a sheep; it looked down all the time and even had a very terrible sound.
One could imitate the sound of a cow, a cat, a goat and even a dog but imitating a sheep had something irritating about it.
Personally I did not consider sheep as worth representation of human beings, there are cooler animals; say dogs, ironically, referring to somebody as a dog is also considered offensive in most cultures yet humans associate with dogs universally more than they do with cows; cows are certainly cooler than sheep they give us milk, cheese and meat.
God could therefore have called us cows but not sheep maybe chimpanzees. But they look weird, it is said those chimpanzees and gorillas are our cousins after-all but who wants to a cousin of that thing which is not cute?
How about rabbits; Mr. Hare is a cool guy. Somebody said the other day that owls are even cooler.
They have eyes at the back and front of their heads.
Cleary I did not hold sheep in high esteem till recently when I changed my mind on sheep while I was walking in the wilderness next to my neighbourhood.
I was out riding a bicycle in the village where houses are so awesome they have “Buwani” or sun glasses as the English call them. The driveways to the entrances of the chateaus in this village tease the observer.
Like looking at a person with cool shades and you imagine how their face looks like without the shades. When I saw the houses they seemed to be chilling behind the shades; grand, artfully designed and highly reserved. Nothing looked misplaced in this village other than me or so I thought of myself.
Then I saw them animals in the backyard of one home. They were the mothers of all sheep. They were big and tall and they gave the impression they smiled when something unusual happened nearby.
Now that is some sheep.
These four elegant sheep are quite something, their teeth curve at the front to form a V shape looking backwards inwards the mouth and watching their open mouth gives you the impression that they are smiling at you or something below because their eyes are facing down and since they are so tall and I need to tilt upwards my head to be able to see their chin they seem to leave the impression that they are laughing at me. They are like giraffes only they have wool on their bellies and shoulders.
Nobody was watching these sheep-and the owner having appreciated that his animals are indeed not your regular sheep, leaves the four things in close but safe vicinity and clearly visible to passers-by. No human being was in sight other than a dog, which stood guard of the sheep, and it barked the closer I came to the sheep.
As I walked closer I was still wandering whether they were giraffe or sheep.
I was thinking when I watched them that perhaps they are the sheep that they speak of in the bible; and they are the sheep I wannabe.
(Ed’s note: The photos show Llamas and not sheep. Although early writers compared llamas to sheep, their similarity to the camel was later recognized. The llama (Lama glama) is a South American camelid, widely usedas a pack and meat animal by Andean cultures since pre-hispanic times. Thank you)
Tuesday, 21 September 2010
Beautiful British Columbia
As a compulsory topic in geography studies in all East African secondary schools British Columbia is taught with utmost seriousness, in my class we were taught about trees with funny names.
The rivers that transport trees as well the mountains that regulate the weather of the trees and then Vancouver in which the trees turn into paper and dollars.
Sometimes knowing the planting, felling and harvesting season of British Columbia trees stood between a national exam fail and pass.
As a result the study of North America became a lucrative business and made many celebrity teachers in Uganda who todate publish books and pamphlets. My own class teacher was known as Kula’zikulabbe, translated in English, “grow up and you will see.” MANY OF these teachers never even owned passports leave alone ever visiting BC.
Their familiarity with British Columbia like ours ends in class, as students we hated it just as much we hated studying European history; who wants to remember tongue-twisting names of foreign places. Outside of class none of use even knew how to draw the map of North America and we never cared for Douglas fir, red herring, spruce and hemlocks. It was all fantasy, academic bullshit.
That being a prelude I visited British Columbia and I’m still recovering from the pleasant shock of the Canadian west coast. British Columbia simply stuns you. Even to those that have been many times, every visit is cherished.
Even the residents of province know it well; highway posts from Nanaimo to Tofino remind you that; “you are in perhaps the most beautiful place on earth.”
The opportunity to travel to British Columbia was presented to me by Josh a friend from my local church. Josh is a young, he was Canadian born and raised in Red Deer Alberta and he is everything Canadian. He is a professional speed skater, of African descent and he can also be genial too.
Being relatively new in Canada my contribution to the trip was not really worth anything, I cannot legally operate a car in this country and I don’t know the names of places on the grid or worse; I cannot speak with this accent that makes rapping so easy for them Americans.
With this mini predicament I was left in a position of only observing and being enchanted by the natural beauty of BC. And yes, we came across the: “enchanting forest.”
Josh provided most of the observation and it does not mean I was keenly watching him like a work of Michelangelo but whenever we came across that most ubiquitous of Canadian questions: “Where do you come from?” I could not help to watch Josh explain himself.
Being black, Josh was always faced with a second "where do you originally come from sort of look?"
“I’m from Red Deer and now I live in Calgary,” I’d see doubt and disbelief on the face of the enquirer. And when the same question was directed at me and I answered east Africa I’d see approval.
Like: “I knew you were not from around here anyway.”
At one point on Long Beach I noticed a gentlemen chatting with his son, the son was draped in a Barcelona jersey and I asked both if they were football fans. The father responded with a question: “where do you come from?” I said Calgary upon which he added: “I thought you come from an exotic place like Ghana.”
Now: Really what type of question or answer was this, Chilling at Long Beach on the Pacific Ocean in Vancouver Island and this man thinks there’s a more exotic place no earth?
I thought it odd to talk about some of these incidents with Josh but he made it simple when he asked me: “what was it like growing up in a black country, surrounded by the black community?”
I did not have a particular answer so I also asked him how it felt for a black person to have grown up in a country surrounded by white people and whether he felt any sense of brotherhood with the black ones.
Josh answered me back that most times he faced a dilemma whereby his fellow countrymen were reluctant to accept and approve of him as belonging to them. Or even doubting his being a Canadian So he had to prove himself by speaking and after a while based on the things he said and how he had said them, he would be considered a bonafide Canadian. I asked him if it was frustrating growing up in this community.
On the other hand being a strict practicing Christian meant that even among his fellow black community he was in the minority too; “I am a man without a country,” he told me.
To compound his mystery, Josh earns his living teaching that most white of sports; speed skating, josh also offered to give me my first lessons In speed skating for free.
You don’t even want to hear what we talked about me, so I’ll save you the boredom.
That mostly ended our mature conversation
Skating is a game of delicate balancing and speed and when a person with a slow brain as mine needs those two skills it is a recipe for disaster. We went to Stanley Park for my first lessons; (if I were to write about Stanley park in Vancouver I’d never finish this story, so you can google it.)
Skating is quite a trend in East Africa but with our unpaved and potholed roads and even errant drivers it is not a common activity. In fact it is not even a sport, it is a marketing tool that is used by crafty politicians, musicians and businesspeople to announce new things. In fact they are known as productLAUNCH OR ROANCH as they call skatesboys in Kansanga.
The kids that skate are wizards.
Personally I learnt about skating from a television advert of the Olympic Games, IT was in late 2006 while I was finishing university and the advert always ended with a question: “When was the last time you did something for the first time?” after which there would be a guy perhaps from a Nordic country trying to skate on winter for his first time. He stumbled a number of times on the skates but finally made it and celebrated with fists raised. The advert was recorded during the 1988 Olympic Games in Calgary.
That advert left an enduring image of Canada in my memory and it was great having to skate in Vancouver.
Josh also owns a small Volkswagen beetle car that was both our means of transport and accommodation; save for some nights we spent on the beach party at the Pacific Rim in Tofino.
Caption: this little car served as our hostel too, it did not have any mechanical troubles save for a broken parking brake at Noisy Creek. I nicknamed it Volksferrari during the day for its speed and VolksFairmont at night for providing super excellent sleep.
Volksferrari increased its distance almost by 3000 kilometres from Calgary to Vancouver.
Activities
After skating we headed to watch a Baseball game at Scotiabank field inside Nat Bailey stadium with Ben Nachiman.
Josh Kron my friend from Rwanda introduced me to Ben his cousin who studies in McGill. The match was between Vancouver Canadians, (yes, as if Canadians need to remind themselves who they are, they keep having the name of the country as a brand for many things from sport to my pub favourite; Canadian.), and some team from Michigan or Missisippi.
So we watched baseball, and really what is there to write about the match? A team in white was playing another in black. There’s a lot of running, throwing, big sticks, head helmets and a mascot called chicken. The chicken dance is a crowd favourite. The crowd itself is young, vibrant and sociable. We met Ben’s friends a Fred, an Allan and a Scot.
Vancouver is rich, it is beautiful, and the city sits on a continent that hosts New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Los Angeles,and an ocean that hosts Tokyo. no superlative can describe the city more eloquent than the names of those cities. In fact Vancouver is so important that is a small brother of Hollywood in movie making. It is the true Canadian WEST.
But like a magnificent sculpture; Vancouver also has a very ugly face. After touring Stanley Park, playing football, and using free Internet at the public library we went to check out downtown Vancouver at night.
Vancouver is home to the largest Chinese community in Canada, the small-scale private sector is almost run entirely by the Chinese and Asian community, there are also other communities that work in the forests, fishing and tourism industries. Vancouver is also among the most diverse metropolitans in North America.
At a Broadway restaurant Five dollars afforded me two cold beers and a very decent meal.
We reached downtown core at about 10pm and by that time Vancouver was deserted of all its glamour, the expensive cars, elegance and braggadocio for which the city in renown; was off. There were instead homeless people, hungry people that congregated in circles resembling Internally Displaced Camps; bleu collars pubs, marijuana pushers and the riff raffs.
People just watching time, people who watch Vancouver every other day their entire lives in the same way I was watching it for the first time.
Yet even amongst this crowd in the city centre there was free and safe drinking water for pedestrians provided by the city, there were also smoking areas where young girls and boys sat and were in conversation till late in the night.
Street industry was at work; people vended cheap and fake contraband of all kinds, touts were screaming as if it was mid morning. One was selling a pack of Marlboro lights at a meager 5 dollars.
Seen closely, Vancouver is just another big city full of hustlers, posher people, the nobles and fine people; each running a different show and pretending to get along just fine. But seen from the ocean and the mountains that stare down upon it, it is the most beautiful place on earth.
Whether it is the most beautiful place on earth you can argue, what you cannot doubt however is that the greater Vancouver area has the most beautiful scenery ever seen on earth.
Mountains, trees, water, waterfalls, lakes, architecture and anything else that symbolizes beauty, power and man’s industry they have. In fact one does not need to be a professional to take a good picture in British Columbia, everywhere you focus the camera captures amazing features. On their vehicles the message is even more clearer: “Beautiful British Columbia.”
Vancouver Island
There’s nothing really to write about the island. It is simply covered by forests, mountains and surrounded by the ocean.
Like the entire BC it is also a favourite holiday spot, on the roads Canadians and international visitors dragged along parts of their lives to enjoy the beauty of the Canadian west coast.
Vehicles pull boats, carbins, go-carts, dogs, and motorcycles. I wondered what is the whole point of holidays when everyone seemed to be dragging along a part of his or her lives on the road that they seemed not intent on leaving behind.
There seemed to be no gate away after all.
This seemed to make sense when all conversations involved; “what did you do today?, did you go fishing, did you surf?, did you hike in the forest, most times I had no answer to these questions. I was happy enough that I was on the island.
There was always enough time to do everything. Or nothing. After all, most times being here was less about doing and more about just being in this magic place.
We slept in the safety of the Pacific Rim National Park and set up tent by the beach, this place hosts many campers especially young students from other parts of Canada who come during the summer to work and have a good time.
Whenever Josh spoke of the next plan I wanted to scream at him, in fact he was so occupied with planning that while we were on this trip he was planning his next activity. And as if to show that even the best laid plans can have unforeseen turns, while returning back we were stopped along the highway as an accident had blocked off all traffic going east from Schuswap.
The Volksferrari hence detoured and spent sometime in schuswap flea market before heading to Noisy Creek to spend a night in the jungle by the lakeside. The drive to Noisy creek (that is the most misleading of names as Noisy creek is among the most noise free places.)
First it is a 60 km drive from the highway and almost all homes are built by the riverbank or lakeside. There are huge ranches, cornfields, factories and old colonial buildings.
A parked Mercedes Benz that looks like it has been in that mode for many years signals a turn off at one roadside junction leading to a country house.
Because of the enormous mountains and elegant trees in British Columbia lakes and rivers appear almost out of nowhere. Driving on the road you’ll think there’s a lake or river at every turn of the highway.
The highway itself is very busy with people traveling between the major cities it lines, these cities include Calgary, Abbotsford, Winnipeg, Regina to the last frontier of Canada; Vancouver.
Kagame,
ends.
The rivers that transport trees as well the mountains that regulate the weather of the trees and then Vancouver in which the trees turn into paper and dollars.
Sometimes knowing the planting, felling and harvesting season of British Columbia trees stood between a national exam fail and pass.
As a result the study of North America became a lucrative business and made many celebrity teachers in Uganda who todate publish books and pamphlets. My own class teacher was known as Kula’zikulabbe, translated in English, “grow up and you will see.” MANY OF these teachers never even owned passports leave alone ever visiting BC.
Their familiarity with British Columbia like ours ends in class, as students we hated it just as much we hated studying European history; who wants to remember tongue-twisting names of foreign places. Outside of class none of use even knew how to draw the map of North America and we never cared for Douglas fir, red herring, spruce and hemlocks. It was all fantasy, academic bullshit.
That being a prelude I visited British Columbia and I’m still recovering from the pleasant shock of the Canadian west coast. British Columbia simply stuns you. Even to those that have been many times, every visit is cherished.
Even the residents of province know it well; highway posts from Nanaimo to Tofino remind you that; “you are in perhaps the most beautiful place on earth.”
The opportunity to travel to British Columbia was presented to me by Josh a friend from my local church. Josh is a young, he was Canadian born and raised in Red Deer Alberta and he is everything Canadian. He is a professional speed skater, of African descent and he can also be genial too.
Being relatively new in Canada my contribution to the trip was not really worth anything, I cannot legally operate a car in this country and I don’t know the names of places on the grid or worse; I cannot speak with this accent that makes rapping so easy for them Americans.
With this mini predicament I was left in a position of only observing and being enchanted by the natural beauty of BC. And yes, we came across the: “enchanting forest.”
Josh provided most of the observation and it does not mean I was keenly watching him like a work of Michelangelo but whenever we came across that most ubiquitous of Canadian questions: “Where do you come from?” I could not help to watch Josh explain himself.
Being black, Josh was always faced with a second "where do you originally come from sort of look?"
“I’m from Red Deer and now I live in Calgary,” I’d see doubt and disbelief on the face of the enquirer. And when the same question was directed at me and I answered east Africa I’d see approval.
Like: “I knew you were not from around here anyway.”
At one point on Long Beach I noticed a gentlemen chatting with his son, the son was draped in a Barcelona jersey and I asked both if they were football fans. The father responded with a question: “where do you come from?” I said Calgary upon which he added: “I thought you come from an exotic place like Ghana.”
Now: Really what type of question or answer was this, Chilling at Long Beach on the Pacific Ocean in Vancouver Island and this man thinks there’s a more exotic place no earth?
I thought it odd to talk about some of these incidents with Josh but he made it simple when he asked me: “what was it like growing up in a black country, surrounded by the black community?”
I did not have a particular answer so I also asked him how it felt for a black person to have grown up in a country surrounded by white people and whether he felt any sense of brotherhood with the black ones.
Josh answered me back that most times he faced a dilemma whereby his fellow countrymen were reluctant to accept and approve of him as belonging to them. Or even doubting his being a Canadian So he had to prove himself by speaking and after a while based on the things he said and how he had said them, he would be considered a bonafide Canadian. I asked him if it was frustrating growing up in this community.
On the other hand being a strict practicing Christian meant that even among his fellow black community he was in the minority too; “I am a man without a country,” he told me.
To compound his mystery, Josh earns his living teaching that most white of sports; speed skating, josh also offered to give me my first lessons In speed skating for free.
You don’t even want to hear what we talked about me, so I’ll save you the boredom.
That mostly ended our mature conversation
Skating is a game of delicate balancing and speed and when a person with a slow brain as mine needs those two skills it is a recipe for disaster. We went to Stanley Park for my first lessons; (if I were to write about Stanley park in Vancouver I’d never finish this story, so you can google it.)
Skating is quite a trend in East Africa but with our unpaved and potholed roads and even errant drivers it is not a common activity. In fact it is not even a sport, it is a marketing tool that is used by crafty politicians, musicians and businesspeople to announce new things. In fact they are known as productLAUNCH OR ROANCH as they call skatesboys in Kansanga.
The kids that skate are wizards.
Personally I learnt about skating from a television advert of the Olympic Games, IT was in late 2006 while I was finishing university and the advert always ended with a question: “When was the last time you did something for the first time?” after which there would be a guy perhaps from a Nordic country trying to skate on winter for his first time. He stumbled a number of times on the skates but finally made it and celebrated with fists raised. The advert was recorded during the 1988 Olympic Games in Calgary.
That advert left an enduring image of Canada in my memory and it was great having to skate in Vancouver.
Josh also owns a small Volkswagen beetle car that was both our means of transport and accommodation; save for some nights we spent on the beach party at the Pacific Rim in Tofino.
Caption: this little car served as our hostel too, it did not have any mechanical troubles save for a broken parking brake at Noisy Creek. I nicknamed it Volksferrari during the day for its speed and VolksFairmont at night for providing super excellent sleep.
Volksferrari increased its distance almost by 3000 kilometres from Calgary to Vancouver.
Activities
After skating we headed to watch a Baseball game at Scotiabank field inside Nat Bailey stadium with Ben Nachiman.
Josh Kron my friend from Rwanda introduced me to Ben his cousin who studies in McGill. The match was between Vancouver Canadians, (yes, as if Canadians need to remind themselves who they are, they keep having the name of the country as a brand for many things from sport to my pub favourite; Canadian.), and some team from Michigan or Missisippi.
So we watched baseball, and really what is there to write about the match? A team in white was playing another in black. There’s a lot of running, throwing, big sticks, head helmets and a mascot called chicken. The chicken dance is a crowd favourite. The crowd itself is young, vibrant and sociable. We met Ben’s friends a Fred, an Allan and a Scot.
Vancouver is rich, it is beautiful, and the city sits on a continent that hosts New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Los Angeles,and an ocean that hosts Tokyo. no superlative can describe the city more eloquent than the names of those cities. In fact Vancouver is so important that is a small brother of Hollywood in movie making. It is the true Canadian WEST.
But like a magnificent sculpture; Vancouver also has a very ugly face. After touring Stanley Park, playing football, and using free Internet at the public library we went to check out downtown Vancouver at night.
Vancouver is home to the largest Chinese community in Canada, the small-scale private sector is almost run entirely by the Chinese and Asian community, there are also other communities that work in the forests, fishing and tourism industries. Vancouver is also among the most diverse metropolitans in North America.
At a Broadway restaurant Five dollars afforded me two cold beers and a very decent meal.
We reached downtown core at about 10pm and by that time Vancouver was deserted of all its glamour, the expensive cars, elegance and braggadocio for which the city in renown; was off. There were instead homeless people, hungry people that congregated in circles resembling Internally Displaced Camps; bleu collars pubs, marijuana pushers and the riff raffs.
People just watching time, people who watch Vancouver every other day their entire lives in the same way I was watching it for the first time.
Yet even amongst this crowd in the city centre there was free and safe drinking water for pedestrians provided by the city, there were also smoking areas where young girls and boys sat and were in conversation till late in the night.
Street industry was at work; people vended cheap and fake contraband of all kinds, touts were screaming as if it was mid morning. One was selling a pack of Marlboro lights at a meager 5 dollars.
Seen closely, Vancouver is just another big city full of hustlers, posher people, the nobles and fine people; each running a different show and pretending to get along just fine. But seen from the ocean and the mountains that stare down upon it, it is the most beautiful place on earth.
Whether it is the most beautiful place on earth you can argue, what you cannot doubt however is that the greater Vancouver area has the most beautiful scenery ever seen on earth.
Mountains, trees, water, waterfalls, lakes, architecture and anything else that symbolizes beauty, power and man’s industry they have. In fact one does not need to be a professional to take a good picture in British Columbia, everywhere you focus the camera captures amazing features. On their vehicles the message is even more clearer: “Beautiful British Columbia.”
Vancouver Island
There’s nothing really to write about the island. It is simply covered by forests, mountains and surrounded by the ocean.
Like the entire BC it is also a favourite holiday spot, on the roads Canadians and international visitors dragged along parts of their lives to enjoy the beauty of the Canadian west coast.
Vehicles pull boats, carbins, go-carts, dogs, and motorcycles. I wondered what is the whole point of holidays when everyone seemed to be dragging along a part of his or her lives on the road that they seemed not intent on leaving behind.
There seemed to be no gate away after all.
This seemed to make sense when all conversations involved; “what did you do today?, did you go fishing, did you surf?, did you hike in the forest, most times I had no answer to these questions. I was happy enough that I was on the island.
There was always enough time to do everything. Or nothing. After all, most times being here was less about doing and more about just being in this magic place.
We slept in the safety of the Pacific Rim National Park and set up tent by the beach, this place hosts many campers especially young students from other parts of Canada who come during the summer to work and have a good time.
Whenever Josh spoke of the next plan I wanted to scream at him, in fact he was so occupied with planning that while we were on this trip he was planning his next activity. And as if to show that even the best laid plans can have unforeseen turns, while returning back we were stopped along the highway as an accident had blocked off all traffic going east from Schuswap.
The Volksferrari hence detoured and spent sometime in schuswap flea market before heading to Noisy Creek to spend a night in the jungle by the lakeside. The drive to Noisy creek (that is the most misleading of names as Noisy creek is among the most noise free places.)
First it is a 60 km drive from the highway and almost all homes are built by the riverbank or lakeside. There are huge ranches, cornfields, factories and old colonial buildings.
A parked Mercedes Benz that looks like it has been in that mode for many years signals a turn off at one roadside junction leading to a country house.
Because of the enormous mountains and elegant trees in British Columbia lakes and rivers appear almost out of nowhere. Driving on the road you’ll think there’s a lake or river at every turn of the highway.
The highway itself is very busy with people traveling between the major cities it lines, these cities include Calgary, Abbotsford, Winnipeg, Regina to the last frontier of Canada; Vancouver.
Kagame,
ends.
Monday, 20 September 2010
Musoni said government had abolished tax charges on agricultural products in the country; however he said the increase of food prices was because of increasing fuel prices.
He called upon Rwandans to be more active in determining the standards of the commodities they consume; “Rwandans should be more active consumers. They should question the sellers (of services and goods) instead of relying on government to make all the decisions.”
Increasing food prices have been the cause of political violence and death in and will present future concerns like war according to UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon
Monday, 13 September 2010
From the Hammock :The tale of the feet and the hair
By George Kagame.
It’s not the fault of hair that the feet are hidden far away from the pedestal of the anatomy and therefore like a front display rack in a shop; the head is perfectly organized and made beautiful beyond its natural disposition while in all matters feet are literally and figuratively down the pecking order.
The feet and the bum
The feet and their immediate neighbour; the bum are sometimes taken with delicate concern and attention.
The sort that requires concentration skills only acquired by scientists of note, forsome women and lately men, the hair and bum are two issues of paramount importance.
Even the WEIRD, (Western Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic); where they mock Africans for our love of “booty”, they also revere bums as is illustrated by respectable East African Charles OnyangoObbo;
“In many countries, even health-conscious women who exercise to lose weight worry about the bottoms shrinking with the rest of the body. As a result, there are many quack regimes for losing weight in all parts of the body, but the “bumper”.
The business of bums and the hair indeed is a major industry in their own right. Particularly for hair it is not just a couple follicles coming out of the scalp; and for others it is a line between opportunity and catastrophe.
But generally many of us never care about the shape and features of our feet; but ironically it is safe to state that a man without hair and without a pair of shoes is indeed a mark of poverty, one we would rather avoid on the street.
And there’s some truth in the modern proverb that a man without hair spends his money and time on his feet=MOBILITY.
A case for Hair
Some Indians wrap their hair up in a weird robe to resemble a pyramid on top of their anatomies; the Iranians have just decreed a legally accepted haircut while the mullahs in Afghanistan have long imposed a strict beard policy.
In my little island hometown on a lake, I saw village women literally burning their skulls with hot combs to perm their hair into curls. It seemed there was a decree that African men were not allowed to grow long hair such that they would be able to take care of their womens’ hair.
Try not facilitating your woman’s visit to a salon and you’ll know what that means.
Hair control was very liberal toward girls and later in puberty when the girls decided to wear things on their heads that resembled the feathers of the rear side of a chicken, not an eyebrow was raised.
But even historically, women’s hair and what they did with it were never a threat to the periodical rulerman of past and present. Forget what you read about the Islamic Burka.
At boarding school; boys were routinely required to report for a mandatory haircut on weekends. Nobody asked if the nails were cut or teeth brushed, ears cleaned but the hair had to be short at all times.
In the unlikely event that a boy let his hair grow long or took effort in his appearing it was taken as a sign of crafty behaviour. And the widely held opinion was that boys who took too much care in their appearance were gay.
And being gay was so horrible that imagining the thing was in itself an evil.
Psychology books arrived and informed that us that actually men were more scared of being bald than impotent and to eliminate the fear of a bald; modern African man decided that keeping a clean shaven head was an eternal solution.
The colonial had of course the short hair policy baldness withstanding.The colonialist in Africa decreed that the people in his control were prohibited from growing more than an inch of hair.
Heaven forbid if your hair grew longer. As happened, all those that were not direct beneficiaries of the colonialist grew long hair as a protest.
The colonialist not a fool, decided that only devil worshipers and socially inadequate people allowed their hair to grow long.
The marine cut
The army men apparently insist on a hair policy because it exudes hygiene and discipline or so Tony my brother says he was told in training.
“Short hair is a mark of hygiene and discipline as is brushing your teeth in the morning.” Hair, its style or texture is stuff I must not bore you with on a Sunday afternoon but it is something else altogether — singular in its capacity to command interest and carry cultural baggage.
And allowing my hair to grow longer recently has created situations and the catalyst for a conversation that begins with style but quickly transcends outward appearance and ultimately transcends many images and symbols.
According to TIME magazine, nobody has put more significance on hair than US first lady Michelle Obama, the changes in her hairstyle from coiled strands to fully straightened on occassionshas brought to the table the question; “Is it the chemicals of heat?” and what is the normal and accepted symbol for black people’s status in terms of beauty, acceptance and power?
donuwagiwabo@gmail.com
It’s not the fault of hair that the feet are hidden far away from the pedestal of the anatomy and therefore like a front display rack in a shop; the head is perfectly organized and made beautiful beyond its natural disposition while in all matters feet are literally and figuratively down the pecking order.
The feet and the bum
The feet and their immediate neighbour; the bum are sometimes taken with delicate concern and attention.
The sort that requires concentration skills only acquired by scientists of note, forsome women and lately men, the hair and bum are two issues of paramount importance.
Even the WEIRD, (Western Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic); where they mock Africans for our love of “booty”, they also revere bums as is illustrated by respectable East African Charles OnyangoObbo;
“In many countries, even health-conscious women who exercise to lose weight worry about the bottoms shrinking with the rest of the body. As a result, there are many quack regimes for losing weight in all parts of the body, but the “bumper”.
The business of bums and the hair indeed is a major industry in their own right. Particularly for hair it is not just a couple follicles coming out of the scalp; and for others it is a line between opportunity and catastrophe.
But generally many of us never care about the shape and features of our feet; but ironically it is safe to state that a man without hair and without a pair of shoes is indeed a mark of poverty, one we would rather avoid on the street.
And there’s some truth in the modern proverb that a man without hair spends his money and time on his feet=MOBILITY.
A case for Hair
Some Indians wrap their hair up in a weird robe to resemble a pyramid on top of their anatomies; the Iranians have just decreed a legally accepted haircut while the mullahs in Afghanistan have long imposed a strict beard policy.
In my little island hometown on a lake, I saw village women literally burning their skulls with hot combs to perm their hair into curls. It seemed there was a decree that African men were not allowed to grow long hair such that they would be able to take care of their womens’ hair.
Try not facilitating your woman’s visit to a salon and you’ll know what that means.
Hair control was very liberal toward girls and later in puberty when the girls decided to wear things on their heads that resembled the feathers of the rear side of a chicken, not an eyebrow was raised.
But even historically, women’s hair and what they did with it were never a threat to the periodical rulerman of past and present. Forget what you read about the Islamic Burka.
At boarding school; boys were routinely required to report for a mandatory haircut on weekends. Nobody asked if the nails were cut or teeth brushed, ears cleaned but the hair had to be short at all times.
In the unlikely event that a boy let his hair grow long or took effort in his appearing it was taken as a sign of crafty behaviour. And the widely held opinion was that boys who took too much care in their appearance were gay.
And being gay was so horrible that imagining the thing was in itself an evil.
Psychology books arrived and informed that us that actually men were more scared of being bald than impotent and to eliminate the fear of a bald; modern African man decided that keeping a clean shaven head was an eternal solution.
The colonial had of course the short hair policy baldness withstanding.The colonialist in Africa decreed that the people in his control were prohibited from growing more than an inch of hair.
Heaven forbid if your hair grew longer. As happened, all those that were not direct beneficiaries of the colonialist grew long hair as a protest.
The colonialist not a fool, decided that only devil worshipers and socially inadequate people allowed their hair to grow long.
The marine cut
The army men apparently insist on a hair policy because it exudes hygiene and discipline or so Tony my brother says he was told in training.
“Short hair is a mark of hygiene and discipline as is brushing your teeth in the morning.” Hair, its style or texture is stuff I must not bore you with on a Sunday afternoon but it is something else altogether — singular in its capacity to command interest and carry cultural baggage.
And allowing my hair to grow longer recently has created situations and the catalyst for a conversation that begins with style but quickly transcends outward appearance and ultimately transcends many images and symbols.
According to TIME magazine, nobody has put more significance on hair than US first lady Michelle Obama, the changes in her hairstyle from coiled strands to fully straightened on occassionshas brought to the table the question; “Is it the chemicals of heat?” and what is the normal and accepted symbol for black people’s status in terms of beauty, acceptance and power?
donuwagiwabo@gmail.com
Tuesday, 31 August 2010
Head boy; head girl and the Walkman
GEORGE KAGAME
As students we were meant to discover and learn our individual career paths and launch ourselves to the world.
Some of my classmates decided they wanted be lawyers, some soldiers, others Pan humanists, doctors and policemen.
The school administration prudently divided our class into two parallel segments; each announcing the intentions of the members as “sciences” or ‘ARTS.”
In the event that one changed their minds along the way and wanted to change directions we had a big man eloquently titled as “Career’s Master,” it was always a guy and many usually spotted a weird moustache. That kind you see on streets resembling wings of an eagle above the upper lip.
Among the supposed functions of a careers’ master was to teach us things like writing resumes, cover letters for jobs on top of advising about the link between potential; profession and impact.
But in most cases the careers’ master was also the disciplinary master; the later was eternally hated. He enforced the rules of the school to the letter. The problem was that his rules were more numerous and demanding than those of the school.
The disciplinary master on one occasion addressed me in front of assembled students; “George; I’m going to put you on a kiboko diet,” the next seven days after this statement I reported at his house in the morning to be lashed ten times.
I disrespected this man and his office; I could never bring myself to face him leave alone career advice and in fact I detested his profession.
According to him it was easy to find undisciplined students; they wore caps, never tucked in their shirts, talked to girls, “A lot,” liked music and grew long hair. If at all one of the above features described one; they would be under the watchful and nosy eye of Ngobi.
But the careers’ master was not the only culprit in making teachers look like a page from a dictators book. The entire teaching staff reveled in fear and awe; they made laws, made us kneel for them, fetch their water and for some girls, to make their meals.
They operated like a nobility, identifying students that were good and different from the undisciplined cases.
The good students sang in the church choir, attended all prayers, talked with teachers a lot and always tucked in their shirts; many were appointed into leadership positions. Even the timekeeper possessed considerable authority so as to make a student’s life miserable.
The students’ body was the bridge between the school management team and the students and was on paper meant to be voted and representative of the students’ community. And yes; we participated in the elections but they were a sham as the teachers appointed whomever they felt deserved to be what in the guild.
The entire students guild were teacher favourites; from the awkwardly named “head boy” and “head girl” to the timekeeper. And then there were others chosen in the service of the lord. They were our age mates but we referred to them as; “elders” because of their wisdom and dedication to all matters church.
It seemed the teachers were only interested in grooming students who were keen on becoming teachers, activities like fashion and design were even abandoned and heaven forbid if a student dressed in a manner that suggested popular style.
It happened onetime; a girl wore a short skirt to the dining hall where the disciplinary master was holding fort. Upon seeing the girl approach the serving table Mr. Ngobbi literally detained her and the poor girl was sent home to bring her parents who would have to explain where it is that their girl had learned this style of dressing.
After this incident, Ngobbi decreed that the school uniform was the only accepted clothing for students during the school term. Heaven forbid if at all a student was caught with a shirt or t-shirt that was not part of the school uniform.
The most dramatic decree however was the ban on anything that produced sound; having or listening to a radio was tantamount to calamity.
Consider that in our time music was different from what it is today; a Walkman was an important gadget to have; the mother of all gadgets. The kid with a Walkman was the coolest kid in town. The Walkman had FM radio that played the latest tunes “hit after hit” and the savvy of us connected the thing to small speakers for communal and hence a party. Friday night was particularly popular with “Rasta rob on the master knob.”
But walkmans were banned in the school and if a student was found with one; (a), the Walkman was subjected to many lashes of the cane until it broke up into many un-adjustable particles, (b) the student was subjected to 20 lashes plus the usual mowing the lawn of the compound and “masters quarters.”
Depending on the day, some teachers just confiscated the Walkman instead of smashing it into pieces on the floor.
Beyond sinning however was to the act of escaping from school to go off campus; it was abominable. Jose Chameleon was one of the usual suspects and culprits of the crime of escaping from school to go to Wobulenzi, a nearby city and from this point the mark was laid on Chameleon that he is “a bad boy,” and boys like him were promptly expelled from the school regularly.
To be continued….
As students we were meant to discover and learn our individual career paths and launch ourselves to the world.
Some of my classmates decided they wanted be lawyers, some soldiers, others Pan humanists, doctors and policemen.
The school administration prudently divided our class into two parallel segments; each announcing the intentions of the members as “sciences” or ‘ARTS.”
In the event that one changed their minds along the way and wanted to change directions we had a big man eloquently titled as “Career’s Master,” it was always a guy and many usually spotted a weird moustache. That kind you see on streets resembling wings of an eagle above the upper lip.
Among the supposed functions of a careers’ master was to teach us things like writing resumes, cover letters for jobs on top of advising about the link between potential; profession and impact.
But in most cases the careers’ master was also the disciplinary master; the later was eternally hated. He enforced the rules of the school to the letter. The problem was that his rules were more numerous and demanding than those of the school.
The disciplinary master on one occasion addressed me in front of assembled students; “George; I’m going to put you on a kiboko diet,” the next seven days after this statement I reported at his house in the morning to be lashed ten times.
I disrespected this man and his office; I could never bring myself to face him leave alone career advice and in fact I detested his profession.
According to him it was easy to find undisciplined students; they wore caps, never tucked in their shirts, talked to girls, “A lot,” liked music and grew long hair. If at all one of the above features described one; they would be under the watchful and nosy eye of Ngobi.
But the careers’ master was not the only culprit in making teachers look like a page from a dictators book. The entire teaching staff reveled in fear and awe; they made laws, made us kneel for them, fetch their water and for some girls, to make their meals.
They operated like a nobility, identifying students that were good and different from the undisciplined cases.
The good students sang in the church choir, attended all prayers, talked with teachers a lot and always tucked in their shirts; many were appointed into leadership positions. Even the timekeeper possessed considerable authority so as to make a student’s life miserable.
The students’ body was the bridge between the school management team and the students and was on paper meant to be voted and representative of the students’ community. And yes; we participated in the elections but they were a sham as the teachers appointed whomever they felt deserved to be what in the guild.
The entire students guild were teacher favourites; from the awkwardly named “head boy” and “head girl” to the timekeeper. And then there were others chosen in the service of the lord. They were our age mates but we referred to them as; “elders” because of their wisdom and dedication to all matters church.
It seemed the teachers were only interested in grooming students who were keen on becoming teachers, activities like fashion and design were even abandoned and heaven forbid if a student dressed in a manner that suggested popular style.
It happened onetime; a girl wore a short skirt to the dining hall where the disciplinary master was holding fort. Upon seeing the girl approach the serving table Mr. Ngobbi literally detained her and the poor girl was sent home to bring her parents who would have to explain where it is that their girl had learned this style of dressing.
After this incident, Ngobbi decreed that the school uniform was the only accepted clothing for students during the school term. Heaven forbid if at all a student was caught with a shirt or t-shirt that was not part of the school uniform.
The most dramatic decree however was the ban on anything that produced sound; having or listening to a radio was tantamount to calamity.
Consider that in our time music was different from what it is today; a Walkman was an important gadget to have; the mother of all gadgets. The kid with a Walkman was the coolest kid in town. The Walkman had FM radio that played the latest tunes “hit after hit” and the savvy of us connected the thing to small speakers for communal and hence a party. Friday night was particularly popular with “Rasta rob on the master knob.”
But walkmans were banned in the school and if a student was found with one; (a), the Walkman was subjected to many lashes of the cane until it broke up into many un-adjustable particles, (b) the student was subjected to 20 lashes plus the usual mowing the lawn of the compound and “masters quarters.”
Depending on the day, some teachers just confiscated the Walkman instead of smashing it into pieces on the floor.
Beyond sinning however was to the act of escaping from school to go off campus; it was abominable. Jose Chameleon was one of the usual suspects and culprits of the crime of escaping from school to go to Wobulenzi, a nearby city and from this point the mark was laid on Chameleon that he is “a bad boy,” and boys like him were promptly expelled from the school regularly.
To be continued….
Tuesday, 17 August 2010
A VIP and supermodel’s night at a party and day in court
By George Kagame
A story about Africa involving some important and fine; and even ones that Nigerian legend Fela Kuti called Vagabonds in Power-VIPs is in the offing.
But it is so far away from here that even writing about it is a tough wit game, which is afforded only to a columnist. It is far away in the priorities of relevance, proximity and eminence. But a story is never strange; after all it is just that, a story.
The theatre is at The Hague in Netherlands and Supermodels and cameras grace it with one of those catwalk galleries that are decorated.
And they don’t come bigger or even better than Naomi Campbell; that graceful of women and she is appearing in a de’ja’vu scene where ghosts are playing tricks on her. She even now looks troubled or trodden; I swear, look at her face.
Her cast involves Charles Tayor playing the role of illegitimate African leader and the drama is completed with wigged lawyers; they look like Father Christmas.
I have been in one such court at Arusha where a cousin of The Hague; the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is trying genocide suspects. It was like a play, life was reduced to eloquent elite debate laced with figures, colours, cars and talk; everyday I walked into that court I was tempted to spit at the fat security guards and even fatter bureaucrats.
But who wants all that narrative really?
A day in court
In other news; Naomi Campbell; she of the long neck, beautiful eyes, even more beautiful legs that stretch up to her shoulders and curves that only God can design. But you can put all that in past tense now.
Charles Taylor drools upon her at one party in Pretoria in 1997, they get cozy and flirt; looking deep in their exotic Africa eyes.
Taylor, in the game of wooing and perhaps even reveling in the benefits of wooing decides to gift Naomi Campbell with a diamond. Read that again; a couple diamond stones.
It is even juicier for us common folk. We talk about cars, houses, envy the fine people and even dream of having custom made women like Naomi. It takes diamonds my friend. Diamond.
I have never seen a real diamond myself and I can’t comprehend why the goddamn stone along with gold is used as a measure of prestige and power the world over. And why they attract women the way pollen grain attracts bees. Hell, I cannot even tell the difference between diamond and silver.
I hear they got the thing aplenty in Congo and it is traded in Goma for just two hundred dollars but true; haki ya mungu, even after visiting Goma many times; I have no idea what is the BIG DEAL. I see hustlers selling fake jewel on the streets in east Africa but I have never bought a stone other than those used in construction.
I have heard that stones have many movies about them, movies about guns, grim looking African chiefs, even grimmer muscled guys with machetes, as well as a couple massacred women and babies’ bodies putting in appearances.
True; in the name of God; diamonds are a HUGE DEAL. I have watched Tears in the Sun and Blood Diamonds both based on true stories.
Forget all that about the oil and its petro dollars ah well, maybe we shall keep the oil secrets for another day; there’s a possibility that Omar El Bashir of Sudan offered supermodel Tyra Banks an oil well; you never know!
I hear The Hague is also keen on getting the Arab man for torturing his black countrymen in the south; never mind that these ones have no stones yet.
Back to our story, think of a climax; no make that a threesome, VIPs and super beauties mingling and flirting a recipe for disaster.
That exactly leads to the scene in the International Criminal Court at The Hague where diamonds, superbeauties, powerful men and parties swing from possible one nightstand and its wits.
Naomi is asked to tell on herself in the court of law, the gift of diamonds from Taylor and their late night party in South Africa; she says: “seriously, I have never heard of Liberia and I don’t even know where it is on the map.”
Never mind the diamonds actually came from Sierra Leone; but that is a story for another day.
Damn it, Naomi must treat diamonds the way you treat your food.
Imagine the difficulty you’d face if you had to explain the details of the food served on your table everyday. Are you expected to know about fries, chicken, vegetables and milk? Who grows it, who is responsible for its constant flow, how is it planted? Are the planters paid anyway? Do they have children?
Hell; even my nosy neighbour would be cautious asking such many questions at every single meal!
Working class people getting along
In fact lets getaway with the questions about fair trade, imaginations and even the self-righteousness. Lets have a good conversation, lets talk about gender relations, a woman, a president=gender and power relations, a presidential backpack that carries dirty diamonds to a late night party and a super model. Working class people getting along
Imagine a black supermodel in England, with all the attention and attraction in the world, then Taylor an African corrupt leader walking about as a pimp.
Ah wait, he is a descendant of freed African slaves in North America who were forcibly returned at the end of slavery and resettled in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The former slaves in turn became kings and queens in the free countries; they even renamed one city Free Town. Many of the returnees became princes and chiefs in literal and figurative forms. Ever wondered why so many West Africans come with names such as Prince, King, and Chief? Just like you hear those arrogant British go around with Sir, Lord, viscount, Earl and my favourite duke.
The prosecuting team in the case against Charles Taylor is smooth; you have to give it to them for getting their case to the front pages and even hidden ones like the one you are reading right now.
Because would you really not give Naomi Campbell a diamond if you had some?
And; is it not ironical that the blood diamonds were sold and worn in Europe and now it is in Europe that their retribution is taking place?
A story about Africa involving some important and fine; and even ones that Nigerian legend Fela Kuti called Vagabonds in Power-VIPs is in the offing.
But it is so far away from here that even writing about it is a tough wit game, which is afforded only to a columnist. It is far away in the priorities of relevance, proximity and eminence. But a story is never strange; after all it is just that, a story.
The theatre is at The Hague in Netherlands and Supermodels and cameras grace it with one of those catwalk galleries that are decorated.
And they don’t come bigger or even better than Naomi Campbell; that graceful of women and she is appearing in a de’ja’vu scene where ghosts are playing tricks on her. She even now looks troubled or trodden; I swear, look at her face.
Her cast involves Charles Tayor playing the role of illegitimate African leader and the drama is completed with wigged lawyers; they look like Father Christmas.
I have been in one such court at Arusha where a cousin of The Hague; the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is trying genocide suspects. It was like a play, life was reduced to eloquent elite debate laced with figures, colours, cars and talk; everyday I walked into that court I was tempted to spit at the fat security guards and even fatter bureaucrats.
But who wants all that narrative really?
A day in court
In other news; Naomi Campbell; she of the long neck, beautiful eyes, even more beautiful legs that stretch up to her shoulders and curves that only God can design. But you can put all that in past tense now.
Charles Taylor drools upon her at one party in Pretoria in 1997, they get cozy and flirt; looking deep in their exotic Africa eyes.
Taylor, in the game of wooing and perhaps even reveling in the benefits of wooing decides to gift Naomi Campbell with a diamond. Read that again; a couple diamond stones.
It is even juicier for us common folk. We talk about cars, houses, envy the fine people and even dream of having custom made women like Naomi. It takes diamonds my friend. Diamond.
I have never seen a real diamond myself and I can’t comprehend why the goddamn stone along with gold is used as a measure of prestige and power the world over. And why they attract women the way pollen grain attracts bees. Hell, I cannot even tell the difference between diamond and silver.
I hear they got the thing aplenty in Congo and it is traded in Goma for just two hundred dollars but true; haki ya mungu, even after visiting Goma many times; I have no idea what is the BIG DEAL. I see hustlers selling fake jewel on the streets in east Africa but I have never bought a stone other than those used in construction.
I have heard that stones have many movies about them, movies about guns, grim looking African chiefs, even grimmer muscled guys with machetes, as well as a couple massacred women and babies’ bodies putting in appearances.
True; in the name of God; diamonds are a HUGE DEAL. I have watched Tears in the Sun and Blood Diamonds both based on true stories.
Forget all that about the oil and its petro dollars ah well, maybe we shall keep the oil secrets for another day; there’s a possibility that Omar El Bashir of Sudan offered supermodel Tyra Banks an oil well; you never know!
I hear The Hague is also keen on getting the Arab man for torturing his black countrymen in the south; never mind that these ones have no stones yet.
Back to our story, think of a climax; no make that a threesome, VIPs and super beauties mingling and flirting a recipe for disaster.
That exactly leads to the scene in the International Criminal Court at The Hague where diamonds, superbeauties, powerful men and parties swing from possible one nightstand and its wits.
Naomi is asked to tell on herself in the court of law, the gift of diamonds from Taylor and their late night party in South Africa; she says: “seriously, I have never heard of Liberia and I don’t even know where it is on the map.”
Never mind the diamonds actually came from Sierra Leone; but that is a story for another day.
Damn it, Naomi must treat diamonds the way you treat your food.
Imagine the difficulty you’d face if you had to explain the details of the food served on your table everyday. Are you expected to know about fries, chicken, vegetables and milk? Who grows it, who is responsible for its constant flow, how is it planted? Are the planters paid anyway? Do they have children?
Hell; even my nosy neighbour would be cautious asking such many questions at every single meal!
Working class people getting along
In fact lets getaway with the questions about fair trade, imaginations and even the self-righteousness. Lets have a good conversation, lets talk about gender relations, a woman, a president=gender and power relations, a presidential backpack that carries dirty diamonds to a late night party and a super model. Working class people getting along
Imagine a black supermodel in England, with all the attention and attraction in the world, then Taylor an African corrupt leader walking about as a pimp.
Ah wait, he is a descendant of freed African slaves in North America who were forcibly returned at the end of slavery and resettled in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The former slaves in turn became kings and queens in the free countries; they even renamed one city Free Town. Many of the returnees became princes and chiefs in literal and figurative forms. Ever wondered why so many West Africans come with names such as Prince, King, and Chief? Just like you hear those arrogant British go around with Sir, Lord, viscount, Earl and my favourite duke.
The prosecuting team in the case against Charles Taylor is smooth; you have to give it to them for getting their case to the front pages and even hidden ones like the one you are reading right now.
Because would you really not give Naomi Campbell a diamond if you had some?
And; is it not ironical that the blood diamonds were sold and worn in Europe and now it is in Europe that their retribution is taking place?
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