Showing posts with label africa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label africa. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

African Proverbs.




A man on the ground cannot fall. (South Africa)

Never mind if your nose is ugly as long as you can breathe through it. (Zaire)

There is no pond that the sun cannot dry up. (Kenya)

To borrow is to spoil a friendship. (East Africa)

God exercises vengeance in silence. (Burundi)

However kind a man is, he will never his wife as a gift to his friends. (Ghana)

Monday, January 23, 2012

From A lazy Intellectual African Scum


This piece has stemmed from another piece that has been circulating alot today and you can view it here:
and I put myself to task of answering a few difficult questions that are posed in this article...which I think anyone who wants radical changes for themselves and our countries, nations as a whole then we need to keep this article pinned somewhere the eyes can easily find...it offends, it hurts, it questions, it enrages and when you are done feeling all that eruptions inside when you read it, you have to ask yourself, is it false? Or too alarmingly an accurate description of how we are "lazy intellectual scum"

I have to agree with how the piece starts, "they call the Third World the lazy man's purview; the sluggishly slothful and languorous prefecture. In this realm people are sleepy, torpid, lethargic and therefore indigent - totally penniless, needy, destitute, poverty-stricken, disfavored and improvised." Yet  I feel the need to add that all that laziness is set in a painstakingly beautiful place, where the wild animals walk free, the sun warms the heart everyday, the lands are rich with food and anything grows, the grounds - a horde of minerals accrued, the seas - a bountiful of blessings, God went out of His way to make sure we have everything that we can ever need and we are too blind to seek beyond the fullness of our stomachs. 

Sadly true that the poor uneducated people are the most hardworking people in Africa. It is the intellectual that are lazy. We are content with a false notion of the notoriety of our education bestowed on us - by hard working parents/entity who gave up every joy so that we can have it better. When we finally make it better for ourselves, we are arrogant enough to forget - forget what it was like before and ashamed of the very people who got us there. We work hard to create a phony sense of entitlement, of knowledge, that we are more deserving and better than everyone else - so we stop. We become contented to have risen above the mass where we can see the fruit dangling at the top but we don't bother striving to get it. 

Lords of Poverty - Indeed. One of my Economics teacher used to call it the "Big Man" effect that we all suffer from. So immersed in having the grandest car cruising on a road full of potholes, living in a mansion with neigbours from scum, having the newest accessories with relatives who have nothing to eat, spending  money we haven't earned to to but things we don't want so we can impress people we don't like-  living large but not living a life that matters. 

The Lazy Intellectual African Scum is a bold from the blue that blows up our unsuspecting sense of comfort. I believe that we need the to take the momentum of being flung back and flabbergasted to catapult ourselves into something different. Into change. Each one of us can relate to the article, we know what we must do, we know what we must change. As a person, you are but a drop in the ocean but if each drop took a stand, made a difference, something will give. Not everything will come to pass at once - but we can say that at least, as a  generation - we tried. 

Thursday, November 24, 2011

I heart this place :)


An African Elegy - Ben Okri


We are the miracles that God made
To taste the bitter fruit of Time.
We are precious.
And one day our suffering
Will turn into the wonders of the earth.

There are things that burn me now
Which turn golden when I am happy.
Do you see the mystery of our pain?
That we bear the poverty
And are able to sing and dream sweet things.

And that we never curse the air when it is warm
Or the fruit when it tastes so good
Or the lights that bounce gently on the waters?
We bless the things even in our pain.
We bless them in silence.

That is why our music is so sweet.
It makes the air remember.
There are secret miracles at work
That only Time will bring forth.
I too have heard the dead singing.

And they tell me that
This life is good
They tell me to live it gently
With fire, and always with hope.
There is wonder here

And there is surprise
In everything the unseen moves.
The ocean is full of songs.
The sky is not an enemy.
Destiny is our friend.


By: Ben Okri
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