So Much To Say, So Little Time

         No excuses.  The world is spinning and twirling and I'm flying high.  Last performance of the play tonight.  It has been such an incredible ride.  This play has seen me crawl from depths of an unexpected despair; shed some drama, some weight, some bitter scars.  My heart is new and full and as courageous as fuck.  Everyone loves me, and I love me too....like WHAT! 


        This week and next all the jobs are finally coming through.  Spent a few days shadowing at a daycare.  It's kinda unsettling how easily little babies will accept you as an authority figure and will immediately seek your approval and love.  They are SO impressionable!! It would be a wondrous responsibility to have them in my guard, and actually I did just that.  I could do it; I could handle it. Still waiting for the final word, but as far as I'm concerned I've proved myself to myself, to God (who already knew), to the world. Funny, I suspect the world may be just as impressionable as those little babies.  It will believe anything about you, that you believe. BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU BELIEVE.  


         My daughter had another little breakdown after too much upheaval from her normal routine of waking up to find me there.  She admitted she does not yet believe we Love her; she still thinks we may toss her aside someday. Ha! Like God smiling down on his children, inside I smile even while I soothe her pain, because I know how false it is.  She will never lose me, and I will never let her go.  In my arms, she will ALWAYS fit.  But of course, I pray she will realize this Truth, just as I pray to realize the Truth of God's Love for me.  Nurturing and Patience are the seeds of Possibility.  

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         I am the only African in the play.  All along, this fact has been a non-issue, because of the wonderful and welcoming way the cast has treated me.  But on stage, feeling the audiences' confusion at my presence-hell at my perfection in the role, I feeling my skin is on fire with their projected marvel.  I feel isolated in my blackness-a feeling I have not had to experience in many years.  But the secondary result of this is even more startling.  My mother herself, who knew I was the only black person in the play, said it was not until she saw the performance that she realized that I am an anomaly in singular racial casting.  I am not the token; I am the Lead.  She could not believe the pride she felt, and those sentiments have been explicitly echoed by other Africans; they have stayed behind to thank me in reverent and sincere tones.  Shall I write my Oscar speech now? No, of course not; but the ironic reality of living this Expat African life can be so apparent in moments such as these, you feel as if you have slipped back to a time that is usually reserved for the stage. 

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        An aside: you would not believe how many servant women come to collect the little babies at the school dressed in full "Mammy" uniform, complete with apron and white head scarf. It is what it is. And if I am to represent a moment of pride in my racial community, then so be it; and what joy that it should be in something I truly enjoy doing well! 


       
            I am also full of pride.  My Love that Got Away (what a lovely term, yeah? I've never known what to call him until I saw this on someone else's blog.) has embarked on a month long road trip with his daughter. This is something he has been wanting to do for so long, and its occurrence represents so many grand achievements within him.  Though I only know all this from stalking, as I am not currently accepted into his life, I cannot help but to feel so damn proud.  You go daddy! I am there with you.  The last time he threw himself out over the ledge like this, he fell right into my arms, then I fell in Love.  God knows what He's doing with this one and that is all I can say about that.




                  Dear God, You're so cool!......
          


          

Racial Profiling

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          This weekend we went to a barbecue hosted by a colleague of my mothers.  It was a far better experience than I had expected.  I had expected a bunch of development people throwing acronyms about project plans involving players, all of which in no way clarify what it is they actually do.  Since this was a family dinner, I also expected children playing and significant partners chatting about.....partnering, or parenting, or some such things, which are subjects that, though I find much more interesting,  I have not much credibility in and therefore nothing to contribute.  Instead, I imagined I would have no choice but to awkwardly answer uncomfortable questions which would expose me as a fraudulent grown-up deserving judgment, condescension, and dismissal (it may be I have a skewed perception, but I have found myself in such scenarios enough to know that I am an annoying anomaly in the networking landscape).  

           It is true the small gathering did consist of five couples; my mother and I were the only singles, but as she is older than everyone, she rocks that whole token African grandmother shtick pretty well.  Almost everyone worked in the same field, and all, but I, had direct and mostly current experience parenting small children; I was an anomaly.  But none of my prophesied humiliations came to pass; instead I was fully and wholeheartedly accepted as: 1.) My mother's daughter 2.) My daughter's mother 3.) A grown up.  Huzzah! Individuals felt free to share intimate anecdotes about their lives as if we were......equals.     Having understood that I was jobless, everyone assumed this was a temporary and expected glitch in my transition, showed curiosity in my interests, and gave sincere advice to push me forward.  Similar things have happened while doing the play, but with the much more familiar tinge of judgment or at least.....wariness and disconnection (they are all British).

            It was only when we were leaving that my mother commented on the common thread amongst all those present, which I had overlooked: all the foreigners (except us) were Canadian, the host was Tanzanian but has been working with Canadians for many years (and has family there).   

            Canadians (even the French ones.....in small doses) are so very nice, it can leave one confused.  I was confused: "wow! I had.....fun!!"  They possess quiet amiability, humble pride, sincere curiosity, and a genuine receptivity to others.  Canadians are unabashedly unaffected.

            It is a pity they are generally lumped in with American and European whites (who make it a point to distinguish themselves from each other).  They are actually very unique in the white population; I don't think they know how nice they are; I don't think it's ever occurred to them.... (Oops, did my own ignorance just show? I guess this whole time I was referring to White Canadians-though one of the women at the party was Mexican Canadian-anyhow, the disclaimer is in the title, so pffft.)  

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            It has come to my attention that there are certain organizations in Africa that are owned and operated by Black Americans who use their race as a badge of expertise and empathetic fraternity when bidding for money for humanitarian projects in Africa.  This is a load of shit.  Black Americans are invariably explicitly derogatory and condescending towards Africans (even worse than Jamaicans).   

            My sister always said, she never knew she was black until we moved to America. Guess who told her?  I was only five when we moved.  School, for me, was simply about survival, about adaptation.  I was willing to be accepted by anyone who would take me.  It was white people who accepted me (well at the time I thought they were white, it wasn't until I got to college that I realized was taught New Yorkers make a firm distinction between Jewish New Yorkers, and White New Yorkers; it was the Jewish children who were always the kindest).  It was almost as if they, the Jewish whites, already expected my "otherness", while the blacks took offence to it. They readily shamed me for not having personal awareness of their history and the intimacies of slavery.  Even what I did know was not enough, because I wasn't angry enough, I wasn't.....wounded; I acted like that history was not mine (which it wasn't).  


           The American slavery system and decades of systematic racism were known to me in the same way I came to know of the Holocaust, the Apartheid System, Australia's history of native decimation, and so forth.  This was very confusing and unacceptable to them (right through to university this caused a lot of tension with my black classmates; despite the fact that we otherwise had similar socioeconomic and education backgrounds, the absence of a chip on my shoulder meant I was a sell out-an Oreo. Sorry dears, I'm just AFRICAN). Perhaps they had been taught to think of themselves as related to Africans-a historical fact, but a cultural misnomer.


            When Black Americans talk about Africa, or visit the developing world (including the West Indies), they are far more disgusted by the inconveniences of daily life than any other visitors: the heat, the lack of certain modern appliances, the animals, all the dark-skinned people.....and so forth.  No, really! They make a very big point of these things and do so loudly, almost as if (psychobabble in 4, 3, 2......) they are instinctively trying to distinguish themselves for that which they've been conditioned to hate......in themselves.  Growing up in America, for sure the cruelest most disgusting jokes about dark skin came to me from the black children.  I would go so far as to argue that most middle class white youths (at least in New York) who become prejudice or racist as young adults, learn their hate-filled humor from their black classmates.

          I've been feeling romantic 
again lately.  This is a very romantic time of year for me, that's for sure.  And it helps that I am becoming more social in Dar, though everyone here seems to come in couples only form-minus that douche from awhile back.  Due to the supposed "threat" I pose as a single mother in her thirties, I have decided to create a boyfriend I've left back in Uganda.  Since we began dating before I moved or decided to become a mother, the relationship is fragile enough to leave room should something better turn up, but hopefully reassuring to the women I meet that I do not want to steal their husbands (the feminist adage of my generation still sticks: chicks before dicks, simple and catchy).


             There is something wonderfully fantastical about thinking about romance when you are in no position to have any of the real thing.  It really stimulates the imagination, brings one back to the "when I grow up" days of promise and unyielding faith;  It keeps one from going insane and/or humping the gatekeeper.  

              As it is finally clear to me that I will never be satisfied with dating someone who looks just like me (apparently I have been this way since I was child), I have been musing on what race I would like my fantasy guy to be, like in the Sims, or some other such online world (I am such a nerd I don't even need the Internet to live an alternate life). 

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             Last week I apparently missed a Dutch throw down that had everyone but everyone there (thanks for telling me cast members).  I came home and lamented, "Damn! I missed my chance to make out with a Dutchie and find a husband!!"  My mother and Ms V were both sympathetic.  But I did the Dutch thing back in Uganda, and two years later I still can't get that man out of my system.  Dutch men are so casually complex and tiresomely enigmatic.  I don't think I'm up for it.


              American, British, (Canadians are too nice?) men would make sense, except, unless they are 60 plus, I would bet any man from those areas who relocates here would come with wife in hand.  Those men would be way too afraid to begin alone here.  Dar is a place to import a family; coming alone would be......uncivilized.


              The question then becomes, who would be likely to show up untethered and within an appealing age range?  Indians, for sure; South Africans, for similar managerial networking positions.  Both groups can be utterly racist, derogatory and oversexed, and hedonistically fun-I am interested in none of those situations.


               Then it hit me:  I want a man who is not bothered, nor even aware of societal conscripts about age and lifestyle; a man who easily immerses in other cultures without feeling an ounce of threat towards his own; a man who does much, thinks less, and knows everything worth knowing; a man who would find the intensity that I present an amusing challenge, and thus challenged by me, would feel committed by his own sense of loyalty; a man who believes in character not circumstance because that is how his mother raised him; a man who believes everything his mother ever told him.  He sounds deliciously fantastical, yes?  Well, it IS my fantasy! But the truth is, I have caught a glimpse of a more realistic version of this man a few times in my life, and he was always Irish.  


         I have never dated an Irish guy, these glimpses always happened at inopportune times when the subject could not be pursued, but this cowboy image has lingered in my memory.  I know little about Ireland, and obviously I don't want someone straight off the boat (though Irish men tend to get around anyhow).  Yeah, in my ideal fantasy world, I'd have to say, I want me an Irish bloke.  

          It's not like I'm losing my mind per se (my therapist is on holiday, but I'm sure she'd agree) but transitions, like grief, go in stages:  First there is the overwhelming physical stimulus of a new place-the way the light falls, the night sounds, the air smells, etc.  Then there is the nesting, the withdrawal into yourself, your home, your sanctuary, to clean, prepare, and make pretty.  And now I find myself in the level of emergence; I am not yet a part of this new world, I have not yet found my niche, but I have rested and rearranged myself for my big debut; the necessary step in finding where my prepared Self shall fit in-my niche-is to categorize this new environment in schemas based on past experience; it is with these schemas as my weapons tools that I shall brave this foreign jungle and conquer it as men women Expat Warriors have done time and again.  Thus Canadians: may seem bland, very nourishing, easy to find and cultivate; Pretentious NGOS: predatory, toxic, to be avoided at all costs.  Irish Single Men: potent, deliciously satisfying, though elusive, would be worth the hunt.

The question is, what is in season?

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Bonding Over Body Bits

              A few nights ago, I arrived home from rehearsal like a walking zombie (due to a previous late night youtube marathon of My Big Fat Gypsy's Wedding).  Ms V was wide awake still, having decided to wait up for me.  I sat on her bed and she blurted a question she had clearly been deeply ruminating in my absence:


              "What is this???" (points to her bellybutton) 


              Her angelic sincerity snapped me out of my lethargy.  I impishly tired to convince her that the bellybuttons sole reason for existence was to make that trumpet sound when someone blows on it (I demonstrated).  She protested my claim amidst much giggling, but her perceptiveness couldn't hold out to my insistence, especially as I had shown that neither the elbow, cheek, or shoulder were adequate places to make said trumpet sound.  And when she tried it on me, she could find no tangible fault with my irrational argument.  


            I could not bring myself to leave her so deluded and eventually admitted my treachery then gave a brief lesson on the true purpose behind the bellybutton, using her doll and a lamp plugged into the wall as props. Unexpectedly the conversation turned;  Never play with a child's imagination, unless you're in the mood for a trip: 


            "I wish I could see a woman with a woman or a man with a man; oh, I wish I could see how that looks like!" 


            (Uhmmmmmm, Pardon the Fuck?) "What? Why??"


            "Mukaka says they are there! Like in America or what.....I just want to see how they get a baby....or what....."


            We had, a couple of months ago, been forced (thank you much progressive parenting 101) to honestly respond to Ms V's classic "where do babies come from?" question with a brief synopsis of the biology behind procreation; we smartly used the broader example of the entire animal kingdom to keep things safely scientific (frankly, one would expect trying to imagine ostriches, giraffes, and lizards making babies would be overwhelming enough that there wouldn't be the time or imagination left to ponder same sex coupling-bah!).  Apparently Ms V's imagination had used these scientific basics as a diving board into the deep dark depths of Adult Content!


            I still felt myself in somewhat familiar territory.  When I was her age there was a couple who lived across the street from us; a gay couple.  I used to sit in my living room and keep watch at the window hoping for a glimpse of the fabled pair. Once during my vigil I "caught" them in an intimate moment: they were both outside trying to change the bulb on a floodlight at the side of the house.  One man climbed a short ladder to reach it, and the other reached up and put his hands around his partners waist to brace him (to protect him).  I felt I'd caught a glimpse of exactly what I'd been looking for: evidence that, despite the negative connotation when the gay couple was ever mentioned in the neighborhood, there was nothing at all negative or mysterious about them.  They were good; they were right; they were Love.  This notion was amplified by the contradicting fact that the rest of the neighborhood, including my home, held dysfunctional, lonesome, and sometimes violent families in which Love was a barely contrived facade.


           In any case, wherever my curiosity led, from the lofty ideals of universal romance to the more carnal realms of Danielle Steel imagery (I was a young and avid reader) I had the prudishness, fear, and wherewithal to keep my musings to myself; the Little One has no such filters:


            "I also want to know how they put their cho-chos (vagina) together, or..... what. And they have like holes-?"


            "Vannesa!! Where did you get these ideas from?!"


            "Eh! But you said I should tell you all what's on my mind!"


            "Ah, yesss," (damn you psychobabble degree) "but who told you all these things? Why are you even thinking of them?"


            "Uhmm, I think television or something." (we don't have a t.v-hmph!) "So do you have a hole in your cho-cho?"


            "Oh for Gods sake!" (For FUCKS SAKE!!)   


            I then launched into a Progressive Parent 101 spiel which supported her right and desire to be curious, affirmed my commitment to be honest and open with her, and redirected all such detailed-oriented questioning for when she will be old enough to understand the answers. (Whew!)

ARTEMIS (DIANA) OF EPHESUS

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     Ms. V also has a running joke (that only she finds amusing) that slightly varies each time but basically involves my acquiring (sometimes at through her direct effort) an extra set of "buttocks", one or two extra sets of "bleasts", and (of course) a spare "cho-cho".  Sometimes though, she is the one (usually by taking mine) who gets a secondary set of female fertility organs (Yes, in Africa this most definitely includes the buttocks!).  She will choose the most innocuous conversations to intercept with this imagery, and will giggle adoringly at her fantasy.  At which point I thank God for my highly pretentious academic background which is steeped in the social sciences.  In these instances, images of ancient (and not so ancient, depending on the source) fertility God and Goddess statues come to mind; the classic Greek tragic hero, Oedipus also occurs to me (but that's probably my psychobabble training reminding me of Freud's say in such matters).  In the end, though, my daughters "joke"  seems more a ritual in which she uses these images to substitute our bodies having never been joined in organic creation; in mother-daughter coupling (a thing, I'm afraid, dear Freud would never have been able to understand).  


            Lucky for me, I do.  My daughter is my muse, and I use her stories, her words, her ways of seeing the world to guide me on my path as a storyteller; it is an odd thing to do; though she does not fully understand this ritual of mine, she accepts that it is my way of learning her, knowing her, and thus knowing myself.  It warms me to think that this ritual she has developed, of amplifying my femininity and then (rightly) claiming it for herself, is her way of learning me, knowing me, and thus knowing herself...... 


            Or maybe she thinks she's gay. Either way, works for me.  

Brigit Has Her Say

Brigit is said to have been born at the exact moment of day break, she rose with the sun, her head radiant with rays of luminous light, associating her with ascended awareness, enlightenment, new beginnings, sun beams and warmth. She is celebrated on Imbolc, falling on February 1 or 2, celebrating the return of the light and the coming of the spring.  Thus her solar aspects may also represent Brigit as the Promise of Spring, the Bringer of Light after the dark months of winter. This energy brings with it HOPE, renewed enthusiasm, renewal, and new beginnings.

Brigit is considered a Triple Goddess, yet many references distinguish Brigit differently than the traditional Triple Goddess aspects of Maiden, Mother and Crone.  Rather Brigit is frequently referenced having three sister selves with three distinct roles, Lady of Healing Waters, Goddess of the Sacred Flame and Goddess of the Fertile Earth.  These roles are then multiplied through Brigit’s vast and varied responsibilities . . .

Who is Goddess Brigit

             Today began on an ascending note.  One second there was come quiet grayness: I did not know who I was or what I felt for the future.  I was in a pre-dawn limbo, clinging to the dreams of the night before, shying from the nightmares.  

             My mother and I were both pulled to convene, but I'm not sure we knew about what or why. It felt like a ritual we had not meant to take part in, but that may be just the retrospective knowledge that a Goddess had arisen to claim her Authority and Bless us with her healing.

            Our communion began with an ironic discussion on the subject of communication. It didn't go well, and "we are NOT communicating" became the pat phrase to explain why we were getting heated as we tried to analyze how better to communicate, especially vis a vis disagreements had in front of the Little One and especially those that are about her.  I would have thought all this pathetic and never dared to mention it, except somehow during it, something happened.  The sun rose and so did Vannesa, and the exchange shifted to one of personal revelation.  "I am afraid," I blurted through unexpected tears, "that no one will allow me to express negative emotion."  I had become so raw seeing how the slightest scolding from me would shut Vannesa down into a frighted, trapped, broken animal-whereas the same. exact. words, from my mother would inspire an assertive, receptive, good-natured response.  And there was that same look...in my mother's eyes and body, during what I believed to be a simple, mildly uncomfortable exchange.  "I don't know how to be heard" I groaned, "without having to make a big deal of it."

        The way it goes, the way it's always gone, no matter the form-letters, jokes, broken dishes-I use to express negative emotions, is that people scrunch up and pull away.  And that is, in and of itself, So. Very...lonesome; but it gets traumatically worse that the very same people, the very same ones, yearn, demand, and nurture all that is healing and nurturing in me, never understanding, never accepting that the latter comes from the same source as the former.  I am one being, yin/yang, positive and negative. And my passionate expression of one  is the very same flame I use to fuel the other.  That is the conflict I bare; my confession to share.  I am revered and rebuked, nurtured and negated for things that come from the very same place deep within me.  The conflict is in the reception (expression); I feel faithful in the belief that the source is one whole...holistic being.  

      My confession left a feeling quite different from resolution, there was none of that. There was a gentle meditation on the Truth behind my revelation.  It was sacred, even if we didn't know we knew it.

     Somehow this bright sunshine day led us to take charge, the Little One was strangely drawn to me-well strange as there is usually a balance or her affection slightly favors Mukaka when Mukaka is around (but this isn't so terrible: I'm understandably more childish around my mother, and anyhow they hardly get to see each other, and lastly I would do the same if my grandmother were around).  But today her beaming eyes shined directly on me, like I was...well...a Goddess; and she was beautiful for her attention, though it frightened me to think how I would...manage such fierce light for the next 9 hours or so...

            We went back to the school that has given us our last hope for getting her placed; we went determined to communicate our position: "yes, you do want her, forget what the papers say, she is a light and we need a fireplace to nurture her; here, she. will. thrive". Brigit had spoken for us, it had already been decided, "yes, we do want her, we know she can thrive; we just may have to wait..."  It was good, it was very good.

           Today was a day were the sunshine seemed to burn our fears up, then bathe us in healing light of faith and inspiration.  I gave Vannesa "work" to do, "we all have to work don't we?"  and so forth, she tried to shrink in; she tried to not believe in herself-but the light was too strong for her to hide.  When she was finished she sighhhed, "I could have never believed I could do so much, Ahhh God."  I laughed, "I always knew it," I replied, "Ehhh? Since you met me?" she questioned. "Since I've gotten to know you, more and more I think, look how much she can do when she just tries!"...

             The Malaria kicked in around 5, I had to give in and lay down.  When my mother came I hadn't started dinner, she went right to it, and it was only hours later that she realized I was ill.  She had a huge report she swore she would do, and she never even mentioned it once.  The flow by evening was as if we were all one; there was no longer a need to speak. 

            Three Goddesses are we still searching for the right, the authority, to be in our power, but today we were Brigit in her 3 potent Selves; she didn't ask us to be bright, or cool, or nurturing, she just rose with the sun and in her light, we thrived.

FEEDING THE GOOD TO EAT THE BAD: A Method towards Positive Progress

             It's all networking and hustling today, my friends.  The hustle is back on, my faires tell me learning from the past and standing my ground is going to be a challenge.  Since life at home is currently in it's repetitve cycle of chaos, I am nowwehere near centered enough to even begin to figure out what that means.  What ground? I am floating over an abyss and trying to keep my breath shallow, not quite holding it, but reserving what oxygen there is, cause this might take awhile.  Am I supposed to cynically believe that nothing will come of these meetings today, which is what happened in Ug? To think positive and invoke my ambitions into reality, though they are very Ego-based ambitions, really? Shallow breaths, shallow breaths...but in any case, I think I got something here no matter what happens.  What say we:

PREMISE:  The link between “development” (donor countries-developing countries) to “foster parenting”

·         Corruption, internal conflict, disease epidemics, perpetuated poverty, etc all are comparable to a child’s past history of possible abuse, genetics, infant neglect, infant addiction, etc.

QUESTION: How to “parent” a “debilitated child”-how to deal with a history we cannot control whose influences perpetuates into the future of our “parenting” (e.g. program policy-making and implementation)?

ANSWER: FEED THE GOOD TO EAT THE BAD

DISCOURSE: 

            When caretaking for a foster child, you can drive yourself crazy trying to play detective, scientist, and psychologist; trying to retrospectively trace the cause and effect of your child’s past; trying to root out what went “wrong” and what effects it’s had on the child: Is this his/her personality? Is it biology? Did something happen to cause this behavior? OR (as is often the case) is this just one of the phases your child-like any other human, under any other circumstances-is going through during his/her personal journey?

            The true insanity comes when you are doing this detecting, experimenting, analyzing, not as some removed theorist with time to calibrate for multiple variables and adjust hypotheses accordingly, but instead right in the throes of everyday parenting, constantly interacting with the “subject” just as she/he influences you. And so forth.

            The same scenario exists in the countless development programs found throughout the developing world; the same insane struggle, futile results-oriented determination, and naïve heroism.  And always, for those who take a moment to pull their heads up out of the rut they’re determinedly plowing, there is the question: how do we not f*ck this up?

            The answer, for both parenting and development, lays in Ego-less Faith, an apparent paradox, it’s true. But having achieved that rare and heroic achievement of checking our Egos at the door, we must have faith that if we use all our skills, lessons learned, and resources to nurture the Good- that will create the most potent and sustainable force in fighting the Bad. 

            Imagine a child who, since coming into your care, has increased age-inappropriate or destructive behaviors such as thumb-sucking, bed-wetting, and tantrums, despite all the careful love we have bestowed on said child.  With all our ostentatious beliefs that we have introduced elements of far greater quality vis-à-vis food, shelter, education, environment, etc, than what they had before, there will be an instinctual need to panic: “But this can’t be!” we exclaim, “What’s happening? How can things be getting worse? There must be something we missed??!” And we quickly run to don our Sherlock Holmes chapeaus in such haste that we will not even notice our Egos tucked underneath the brim.  We will rush to figure it out, to calibrate the various variables, re-hypotheses, and begin new experiments…

            The answer to that question-the one we asked in our previous moment of grace-the answer is to have faith.  Let us slowly take both hat and Ego off, place them, gently, back at the door where they belong, and understand that this war-this insane struggle can only be won if we resist the urge to fight the Bad and focus our energies in what is Good.  Let us continue to bestow that careful love, re-invest our attentions in any and all positive changes in our child, and have faith that all the Good we put into our child will, in due course, reduce or even eliminate what Bad the past, present, and future may bring.

            Perhaps one could argue that a development program in a developing country is a far more complex process in a far more complicated entity than the parenting of a foster child; this is a moot point.  The achievement of both parenting and development-the goal- has no guaranteed definition, no standardized parameters of completion.  The achievement thus lies in how we decided to proceed and in whether or not we can relinquish our results based vision, stave off our instinctual panic, resolve NOT to INSIST on answers as to the causes and effects of past happenings, and focus on what we can do to nurture the positive with faith that it will be the Sole Hero in defeating the negative.

AN EXAMPLE:

1.      Problem: As programs designed to alleviate malnutrition target the poverty-stricken population of a country and attempt to “re-condition” habits of proper diet and lifestyle, the developing middle class in the same country is concurrently targeted by the private sector (through local and foreign industry-usually foreign) to develop “consumer habits” that often rely on imported and processed foods and goods.

Result: Despite efforts by these programs to implement sustainable changes, the poverty-stricken population will naturally aspire to rise up within their societies into the developing middle class, will thus mimic the developing middle classes lifestyle behavior, will hence be indirect victims of private sector marketing which inadvertently supports habits that result in malnutrition (as evidenced even in the developed world).

Solution: Donor programs should use part of their allotted resources in malnutrition alleviation (including their very real influence into government bodies such as Ministries of Health who can then influence private sector industry development) to target the developing middle class in order to reconstitute the lifestyle habits they are promoting in the middle class, which the poverty-stricken population will thus model; in effect, a double prong influence on lifestyle and habits.

Do not fight poverty, support prosperity!

NOTES:

·         Ego is an inappropriately vague and metaphysical term and I would need guidance on how to properly define the unfortunate  results-based, dogmatic, tunnel-vision way with which donor programs and persons of influences within said programs approach the work of development.  Yea, it’s Ego, but how can I academically elaborate on that term?

·         Faith is an equally esoteric term, but I think the only unfortunate thing is the fact that it draws religious associations it is often seen as a negative and therefore dismissing concept.  I do not mean it religiously, I mean it properly.

·         The final paragraph, before the example, needs to be properly and thoroughly elaborated on so it does not imply the exact opposite of its intention, which would be “go ahead and be dogmatic, tunnel-vision, and blind to all that goes against your desires and intentions”.  I would need guidance on this.

"Competition Coming Out Now. Load. Up. Aim. Fire, Fire Pop!" (part 1)

[Title Credit: Fire, Fire by MIA]

             You know that movie with Cher as the mother, Winona Ryder as the troubled adolescent, and Christina Ricci as the adorable youngster? It was one of my favorite movies growing up, I must have watched it a million, gazillion times (and I still can't think of the title, which i'm refusing to google on principle-old age here I come!).  So the story goes (Once upon a time...):

              (Told from the point of view of the adolescent) A young single mother is living in 60's American suburbia with her two daughters. She is self-involved, superficially neglectful, and careless, but sincerely loves her kids.  She moves them from town to town with each cessation of her numerous love affairs, until they come to a town where circumstances, timing, and auxiliary characters force them to grow up.

possessive-adjectives.html 

               Lately it has become a household topic (joke) of sorts, that it's time for me to find a husband. It comes from the sincere desire I have to find "true love", but curiously enough, the discussions have also developed in response to having to find a relaxed way to talk to Vannesa about men.  The thing is, she is only eight years old but she is...stunning.  Both my mother and I were also Pretty Little Girls (very pretty) and we know from personal experience that the world will make a Pretty Little Girl an object (of beauty, innocence, sex, power) no matter how young she is.  It is with these wise eyes that we quickly noted the compulsive way in which men gravitate towards the Little One-old, young, professional, hired hands-they actually reach out and GRAB her, not  sexually, but possessively, right in front of us.

               I walk with her around the supermarket, she insists on pushing the cart, and will try to maneuver this enormous thing in exact accordance with every step I take; this is cumbersome, to say the least, and after awhile, I cannot help but tell her to "Just. Sit. Tight!" I round the corner to grab a bag of her favorite pasta; in the time it takes to find it, stop to check the price of sesame oil (shit!) and double back, a man has materialized out of thin air to pester her , entice her, cajole her, trying to satisfy some inexplicable (even to him), instinctual need.  She is always doing her best to scrounge up her face in disgust and confusion, in a futile attempt to repel him the way one would swat at mosquitoes on a hot, humid, night by the lake; but the men are just as determined to seek out her light, as mosquitoes seeking out sustenance...

               I remember these interactions well as a little girl and as an adolescent (somewhere after 25, when I have finally owned my identity and my sexuality, I have become the seeker, not the sought-Bah!). But I have never had the chance to experience such an interlude as a third party observer-let alone as the designated protector.  So I round the corner, see the man, and come barreling down on him-realizing shrieking "rape" and hitting him about with my purse may only exacerbate the trauma of the situation, so instead I give my best scowl and throw WTF glares at him. Guess what happens? (And yes, in the two weeks we've been here this has happened enough times for me to standardize the behavior) Invariably, the man will simply wheel away from Vannesa, glide past me, and NEVER, ONCE, make eye contact with me.  Like I'm not even there, or more aptly, like he has just snapped out of his predator's dementia and continues shopping treating us like the random strangers that we are.

              In the times when this happens with my mother also there as a witness we cluck to ourselves about the creepiness of this phenomenon, speculating on what we can do to protect her-we've actually considered the merits of converting to Islam simply for the dress code as a solution to our problem.  Perhaps it is not wise to let the Little One hear us hemming and hawing over this problem, but in any case, she has begun voicing her own disgust at the male population, both child and adult, who all seem recklessly addicted to her against all her wishes; hence the need to discuss.

              In her more frustrated moments, (Ugh- just one memory of walking around a children's store with my best friend and the salesman sliding up to me, running his finger lightly down the length of my arm, and slithering "I liiiikke youuurrr colorrrr" still brings up sparks of anger and revulsion that could ignite a forest fire), I tell it to her straight-there is NO romancing the woes of the Pretty Little Girl. So I tells her, I says:

              "Men EVERYWHERE, no matter their age, profession, or race, men have something weird in them where they have to..."have" a pretty girl: talk to her, befriend her, seduce her, condemn her, demand of her, "master" her...no one knows why.  If you have 100 men in front of you, including uncles, brothers, pastors, teachers, doctors-all the kinds of men in your life, about 30 of them will be men you can be friends with, but they are also a bit "weird", as in they may not hurt YOU, but they may hurt other women or girls or at least not understand how difficult it can be for women and girls.  Then there is another 15, okay well, let's say 20 men who will be men you can really trust, like Uncle G, or Jaja, or a teacher, or a doctor, or some friends who will never ever hurt you AND who understand that it is NOT a figment of your imagination that there are those other men who are out to...own you; these men will protect you no matter what, even against their own kind.  And lastly, out of these 15-20 men there will be 1, 2, maybe 3 men who you will love in a way that is different from the rest, and it is out of these 3 that you will find your husband.

alicexz.deviantart.com

 
The rest of the 100, well the rest are freakin weird, and       sometimes downright bad. In bookstores, at the clinic, in the supermarket, at school (here it has been the security guy on our compound who assaults her with friendliness whenever she takes out the trash) they are always around and they will always try to take some of your light.  But the trick me and Mukaka have learned (in this moment of frustration she was discussing reasons she was not happy) is to NOT stop SHINING just because of them. Don't try to hide your light, don't let them make you unhappy, because then... they win."

               Okay, perhaps most of this speech was said in my head as she had already drifted off into what we were going to have for dinner while we washed up the lunch dishes, but it was a good speech to make, even if it was just to myself...

                                                                                                                         

Safe Landing

(I wrote this when we came to visit Tanzania last month, to plan for this move, which I wasn't sure I was going to be apart of. Now, oops, I'm here. But as is often the case with transitions, this business of landing, jumping up and dusting yourself off-this "hit the ground running" shit, is a myth, an utter myth.  It's kinda like my brain's been scrambled by the ride: just Kampala to Dar-an hour and half by plane, but one lifetime has ended, and another one begins. And though I'm filled with hints of thoughts, associations, observations, and wonderings, any attempt I try to put them in some sort of wise-let alone-poetic analysis is utterly futile.  The most coherent thought I keep returning to is: "wait, so what day is it again?" So here's a little story I wrote in a brief moment of Zen. Once upon a time...)

Gooooood...
Mourn-ing meester fishermen
The rain don't seem so bad today
Catch me somethin sweet, yea
... My app-e-tite is rich-a
But my wallet is not so-oh
A favor for this gal, yo

Mama's off to work again
Big boss is up in drama
Development makes bizness sense-
Another day, an-other dolla

Morning Mr. President, staying just next door
Last night I thought your special guards
Were perverts on my floor
M'i'bad Mr. Man, hope you had a rest
Your guards were very dutiful
Cameroon, you are de best.

Dar, Dar, Es Salaam
In-sha-llah?
Yes I am!
Some mornings are so sweet you know
Makes this life a treat, you know?

Dar, Dar, Es Salaam
Inshallah, where I began

And now I make my way-ay-ay
Have yourselves a Blessed DAAAAAAYYYYYYY!!!!!
♥

HOW Did the Chicken Cross the Road?...With Her Head Held High

          I am a warrior.  I deserve this; I deserve to lose my Purpose and regain my Self; I deserve to know myself again.  I don’t know how that can make sense and if I think on it too much the Voice of Fear disguising itself as the Voice of Reason, of my mother, of the world, will rise up in my mind and shout, “SHAME, SHAME, SHAME-You are NOTHING; you’ve achieved NOTHING; you deserve only ME (Fear) as your- Punishment (?) Reward (?) Penance (?)-until you get your SHIT together.” But right now-just now, I am not thinking, only feeling and writing. And YES, I feel I deserve this; I deserve to not think, to not be afraid, and to know myself again; my heart shouts “I deserve this!!...Who gives a FUCK WHY?!?!”

            …And so do You?