He is quite a fellow; in fact I have never met him for the two years we have been neighbours, but I know he is a mid level to senior peace officer in investigations circles somewhere in the Citi.
Perhaps that’s is the reason we have never met despite occupying the same block; I harbour not so good feeling towards people of uniform. He may have heard that I am a journalist as well; a sleazy one at that and one he would rather avoid.
He has some children but since there are so many children that play in my courtyard- just like they do in all the courtyards in the neighbourhood-I cannot tell which ones are his and which aren’t. I assume that the ones that appear healthier in the bunch are his kids.
He drives a car or his is driven in one. I don’t know which kind because I have not seen it. I hear it once when by coincidence we both happen to be in the neighbourhood.
But it is good that the policeman and me have not seen eye to eye. I harbor many suspicions about his trade just as I assume he detests mine too. Since by calling, God had stationed us on opposite sides of the street-considering the not so cordial professional relationship between the police and the media –Citi was determined to set us straight.
SHITZENS
But telling you about the policeman neighbour without introducing the neighbourhood would tantamount to giving you the bone rather than the meat of the story.
CLAIM TO FAME
It is located just behind the famous penitentiary in Citi where inmates are serving time for participating in war crimes and crimes against humanity in Citiland as recently as 1994.
A large prison enclave populates the suburb, it hosts over 7,000 inmates serving time for their role in messing up Citiland; they are known as shitzens.
The prison is our only claim to fame, commerce and is symbolic of the Citi, it is also a large presence in all our stories.
large presence
Shitzens as the inmates are known wear a bright colour uniform and in the evening they watch TV; passersby hear the sound of Citi TV news in the evenings. And we are irritated by it.
There is no water connection and the electricity is also very shady in thevillagebehindtheprison, but the large prison makes its own electricity from the shit of the war criminals hence the name shitzens. They call it biogas and when the villagers see the shitzens walking about in the street with their colourful outfits they cannot help some envy.
Behind the fence of this gigantic structure lies semi detached houses where yours truly and some other people working to oil the economic machinery of Citi reside. The suburb is simply known as theVILLAGEBEHINDTHEPRISON.
Amongst those people is my closest neighbour, a policeman with whom we haven’t met but maintain an amicable relationship aided by a network of emissaries involving children, housekeepers and other neighbours.
I still cannot understand why said police officer chose to reside here; from the look of his house and the wall fence around it is clear that he could afford to reside elsewhere in the Citi. There’s a lot of irony on some days like today.
You see the shitzens have these schemes where they can work their sentences away.
Working Time
Say if one is in for 30 years for butchering his neighbours-and God forbid if said neighbourhood is this one behind the prison- works away at their chosen trade and the earnings are converted in terms of time. So if he worked for 10 years his sentence reduces by 20. So weekends like today the shitzens some of whom are engineers, masons, teachers and farmers are building a new modern residence.
A lone prison guard in full gear closely watches events and proceedings; my neighbour stands in his courtyard and lazily walks about not even aware and concerned about the close proximity of war criminals, children, house girls/boys, wives and motorcyclists.
In my mind I picture a scene where the shitzens turn on the guard and attempt an escape but they would be stopped in their tracks by the guards of said peace officer. Yet the shitzens cannot escape because they are in a tricky situation. First them colourful uniforms come off as signs of privilege; they are driven around the Citi like they are some important people.
Second because if the shitzens were to escape they would not survive beyond the warmth of the prison fence with its television and electricity. Shitzens would also be vehemently prosecuted by the kind of mob justice that I fear to imagine leave alone write.
To be continued
KAGAME.
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Sunday, 7 November 2010
Foreign hours, foreign people
The bright light in the bus shows all the tales,
Especially those of fatigue and to pay bills on the faces,
But I don’t see fatigue,
I see irony.
As we wait at the bus stand,
We stuff earphones,
In and on our heads,
We dance.
Some nod,
Some whisper to the tunes,
Others speak in foreign tongues,
We all might as well be thinking in some foreign dialect.
Foreign dreams,
Foreign jobs,
Foreign hours.
Visibly tired people,
yap away on cell phones,
In foreign tongues,
To people perhaps in foreign countries too.
A lone man walks about picking cigarette butts,
Burnt out and thrown away,
On the ground.
The Indians walk far off the Bangladeshi,
The Filipino away from the native,
The Ethiopian away from the Somali.
The awaited bus arrives,
Off go the cleaners,
Nurses,
Cooks,
Kitchen hands,
Factory workers,
More cleaners,
More foreign people.
Because the work shift is over,
And the bus shift must start.
Kagame
Especially those of fatigue and to pay bills on the faces,
But I don’t see fatigue,
I see irony.
As we wait at the bus stand,
We stuff earphones,
In and on our heads,
We dance.
Some nod,
Some whisper to the tunes,
Others speak in foreign tongues,
We all might as well be thinking in some foreign dialect.
Foreign dreams,
Foreign jobs,
Foreign hours.
Visibly tired people,
yap away on cell phones,
In foreign tongues,
To people perhaps in foreign countries too.
A lone man walks about picking cigarette butts,
Burnt out and thrown away,
On the ground.
The Indians walk far off the Bangladeshi,
The Filipino away from the native,
The Ethiopian away from the Somali.
The awaited bus arrives,
Off go the cleaners,
Nurses,
Cooks,
Kitchen hands,
Factory workers,
More cleaners,
More foreign people.
Because the work shift is over,
And the bus shift must start.
Kagame
Friday, 29 October 2010
The message
first the communication went dead,
at first, the words came as torrents,
then they disappeared,
the music went dead,
then resurrected again
music always does.
the communication went dead,
the updates died down,
the hammock stopped swinging,
there was a STOP.
Then the silence,
the awkward moment,
the busy air,
the hard breathing,
the hard life.
then came the mind,
working,
the time.
life,
A day alive,
happy a moment,
the works of God.
gratitude and humility.
George
at first, the words came as torrents,
then they disappeared,
the music went dead,
then resurrected again
music always does.
the communication went dead,
the updates died down,
the hammock stopped swinging,
there was a STOP.
Then the silence,
the awkward moment,
the busy air,
the hard breathing,
the hard life.
then came the mind,
working,
the time.
life,
A day alive,
happy a moment,
the works of God.
gratitude and humility.
George
Thursday, 14 October 2010
From The Hammock: IMIHIGO superman
BY GEORGE K
Last week at the UN offices in New York world leaders were feasting in the guise of meetings, it was a big occasion for everyone interested in economics and world development aka networking.
The leaders were evaluating their own performance in regard to the eight Millennium challenges that they set in 2001 when they committed themselves to reducing human misery. The millennium challenges are set to expire 2015 bar a proverbial extension.
With the seriousness that attract precision skills of a seasoned photographer, the leaders in New York signed documents that committed them, individuals, corporations and business leaders to act passionately and reasonably with justice and generosity. Fighting poverty became a call; a duty, an industry, a guilt pleasure, gimmick, and Hollywood people took to the thing with the kind of passion that is espoused only by sports fans.
MDGs
Beginning with 2001 the reforms to tackle these challenges became a benchmark of respect among leaders across the globe. A Bangladeshi man that understood the economics of microfinance won a Nobel Prize and started a citizen bank.
Microfinance agencies and cooperatives then reappeared; some benefitted women exclusively and when the women started accessing the money they also taught about better home management skills. The women started being more trustworthy, more responsible, more important and more effective. The family was back.
With hindsight relevant reforms were undertaken to lay the foundation for a new world order; in Africa the leaders started the New Partnership for African Development-NEPAD-WHICH has since died and the African Peer Review mechanism, APRM.
People took these challenges very serious, not least of all the leader of my village. Mtupu circulated a document with a list of items that I was required to have in my house. He INFORMED me that the standing committee of the Akagari ka Kinamba behind Mhima had been presented with Imihigo.
The Mihigo would be a list of questionnaires that required information about the property in my house and the property in my head too. The results would be tabled in a league format and performances rated in percentages. At the end of the year the best district won a grand prize in the ceremonial Amahoro.
The Mihigo list also required me to give an account my average day and the information would be deduced in percentages not explanations and official statements. It also had a clause where my marginal propensity to participate in genocide ideology was determined.
Eliminating Genocide Ideology
In a related incident, As if the performance contracts were not enough, sometime in 2008 some crafty members of parliament visited a certain school in Gicumbi. They were horrified to find and report that one school was guilty of espousing genocide ideology by a whopping 97 percent.
The MPs aware of the challenges caucused and formed even more committees, draft reports and conferences; these led to the formation of the law against dirty ideologies. Mtuptu called them “Umwhukah mubbi,” in his list. The members were not satisfied with the laws; they also set up a commission appropriately named National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide.
Thankfully my village performed admirably in the reports of all Tureres, in no small part due to my having a radio, three garden chairs, cooking pans, a toilet, a bathroom and a good explanation about the nature and goal of my social and marital lifestyle.
But my neighbour was even better, he had a walled fence which was a requirement by city administrators.; even before the wall he had a nice hedge fence around his house and passersby never gazed in his courtyard.
The village won a prize and the local leaders also known as Bayobbozi organized a fete. All the homesteads in the cell were required to attend or be well represented; we had to make appearances that suggested the village was getting along quite well. And in case we were not doing quite well there was primus for the women and MUTZIG for men but that was only through the back door!
Virgins
It was always a good combination. We also took very good care of our children and ensured that they led responsible lifestyles early on; as a result we contributed our part in forming a national organization to encourage and promote virginity.
It is not clear whether the idea was from the church or the state though but the details withstanding; GLOVIMA promised a good reward and respect for being virgins and abstaining from sex until the wedding day.
I remember laughing off the whole thing, it was possible to abstain from sex but even the holy bible before Glovima did not add a wedding to the already tough requirements.
So at the party boiled corn was served and some crazy brew that tasted as if it was prepared by a middle aged guy high on marijuana and the brew. It was a nice sunny evening, children played about and women gossiped about each other as the men cursed there being no Mutzig at the party.
reporter
Being a reporter I have attended many events and can predict their itinerary the way insurance experts predict death; so I had carried my water bottle filled with the water, which I had fetched on the way to church earlier on in the morning. This is when I played my superman card and offered to share my water with the men who were not tied on the petty coat of the women that were not participants of the gossip circuit.
donuwagiwabo@gmail.com
Last week at the UN offices in New York world leaders were feasting in the guise of meetings, it was a big occasion for everyone interested in economics and world development aka networking.
The leaders were evaluating their own performance in regard to the eight Millennium challenges that they set in 2001 when they committed themselves to reducing human misery. The millennium challenges are set to expire 2015 bar a proverbial extension.
With the seriousness that attract precision skills of a seasoned photographer, the leaders in New York signed documents that committed them, individuals, corporations and business leaders to act passionately and reasonably with justice and generosity. Fighting poverty became a call; a duty, an industry, a guilt pleasure, gimmick, and Hollywood people took to the thing with the kind of passion that is espoused only by sports fans.
MDGs
Beginning with 2001 the reforms to tackle these challenges became a benchmark of respect among leaders across the globe. A Bangladeshi man that understood the economics of microfinance won a Nobel Prize and started a citizen bank.
Microfinance agencies and cooperatives then reappeared; some benefitted women exclusively and when the women started accessing the money they also taught about better home management skills. The women started being more trustworthy, more responsible, more important and more effective. The family was back.
With hindsight relevant reforms were undertaken to lay the foundation for a new world order; in Africa the leaders started the New Partnership for African Development-NEPAD-WHICH has since died and the African Peer Review mechanism, APRM.
People took these challenges very serious, not least of all the leader of my village. Mtupu circulated a document with a list of items that I was required to have in my house. He INFORMED me that the standing committee of the Akagari ka Kinamba behind Mhima had been presented with Imihigo.
The Mihigo would be a list of questionnaires that required information about the property in my house and the property in my head too. The results would be tabled in a league format and performances rated in percentages. At the end of the year the best district won a grand prize in the ceremonial Amahoro.
The Mihigo list also required me to give an account my average day and the information would be deduced in percentages not explanations and official statements. It also had a clause where my marginal propensity to participate in genocide ideology was determined.
Eliminating Genocide Ideology
In a related incident, As if the performance contracts were not enough, sometime in 2008 some crafty members of parliament visited a certain school in Gicumbi. They were horrified to find and report that one school was guilty of espousing genocide ideology by a whopping 97 percent.
The MPs aware of the challenges caucused and formed even more committees, draft reports and conferences; these led to the formation of the law against dirty ideologies. Mtuptu called them “Umwhukah mubbi,” in his list. The members were not satisfied with the laws; they also set up a commission appropriately named National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide.
Thankfully my village performed admirably in the reports of all Tureres, in no small part due to my having a radio, three garden chairs, cooking pans, a toilet, a bathroom and a good explanation about the nature and goal of my social and marital lifestyle.
But my neighbour was even better, he had a walled fence which was a requirement by city administrators.; even before the wall he had a nice hedge fence around his house and passersby never gazed in his courtyard.
The village won a prize and the local leaders also known as Bayobbozi organized a fete. All the homesteads in the cell were required to attend or be well represented; we had to make appearances that suggested the village was getting along quite well. And in case we were not doing quite well there was primus for the women and MUTZIG for men but that was only through the back door!
Virgins
It was always a good combination. We also took very good care of our children and ensured that they led responsible lifestyles early on; as a result we contributed our part in forming a national organization to encourage and promote virginity.
It is not clear whether the idea was from the church or the state though but the details withstanding; GLOVIMA promised a good reward and respect for being virgins and abstaining from sex until the wedding day.
I remember laughing off the whole thing, it was possible to abstain from sex but even the holy bible before Glovima did not add a wedding to the already tough requirements.
So at the party boiled corn was served and some crazy brew that tasted as if it was prepared by a middle aged guy high on marijuana and the brew. It was a nice sunny evening, children played about and women gossiped about each other as the men cursed there being no Mutzig at the party.
reporter
Being a reporter I have attended many events and can predict their itinerary the way insurance experts predict death; so I had carried my water bottle filled with the water, which I had fetched on the way to church earlier on in the morning. This is when I played my superman card and offered to share my water with the men who were not tied on the petty coat of the women that were not participants of the gossip circuit.
donuwagiwabo@gmail.com
Monday, 4 October 2010
From the Hammock : World Challenges
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.
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.
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.
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