Africa what’s your story,

Where is your king,

Where is your glory,

A land so rich yet torn,

So filled with laughter and scorn,

Watoto wanavimbwa na hasira,

Upo enzini, huku kimya,

Teleza, teleza,

Jirani anauliwa,

We stand and heave a sigh.

I'm a witness,we're grinning,

The world is spinning, ooooh , we’re winning!

With no surprise , we shield our eyes,

No peeks...black dye...

My guilt, it will suffice.

The veil is cast, a reminder of our past,

I thrust shame under a blanket of dust,

Only burning coal, those millions of souls,

Covered now them with hope we stole,

Dreams we buried, lies foretold.

I must! I must! says my cynical child,

Stand and heave my sigh.

Africa what’s your story,

Where is your king,

Where is your glory,

Who will remove the stain,

These narcotics, what shots of pain,

You raise your fist seeking revolution,

But what of your heart ,

When does it beat with resolution

Teleza, teleza,

Matatizo huongezeka.

Why stand and heave a sigh.

come one and all...

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Art matters...?

My sister sometimes describes me as artsy. But she's my sister, bias is encouraged. A friend of mine describes herself as and artist trapped in the mind/body of a scientist (or was it the other way round) ...
Anyway, sometimes I do wonder about being 'artistic'. You see I can spend inordinate amounts of time drawing things and writing random things (I even have a blog) . I love cloth and colour and African crafts and I love singing and designing things and looking at pictures and taking them and I can spend hours walking around Nairobi in my mind sourcing my imaginary shop...the list could go on till tomorrow! But I've never really known if I was someone who could be called to use any one of these interests for others; they were mostly just for my own entertainment.
Funny thing is, I'm surrounded by many artsy, gifted people. Obviously after spending time with them, comparisons roll in and I find myself asking God if these are really gifts or if he was giving me his own version of a 'teaser/taster' . Ill comparison sucketh , wivu ni mbaya and God is no joke!So I need to try and find out what exactly he has put into my tool box , find out how I can use the few 'almost skills' that I do have.But then again, if I followed up on every little thing that I am interested in,I'd be a basket case...school , career, family, friends...maybe this is why our brains need more than 5 neurons. Sigh.

Anyway, I'm going to start with drawing. I've always loved to draw. Usually when I don't want to think, I draw, A little here, kidogo there, nothing too fancy. But now, its dawning on me that I might need to draw (no pun intended) on this resource a little more in the future. Which means I have to step out of my box, out of my comfort zone and just put my stuff out there in faith. Faith that I'll be refined by the criticism , encouragement etc etc or at worst, that maybe this isn't my thing.Then I'll turn around and set off towards the sunset in search of another dream.

As with most things, I tend not to finish my drawings...so heres a number of the unfinished ones.Just to give you an idea of ..I dont know what of. I've used chalk , charcoal, acrylics, pencil, biro... errrm, yeah I think thats it.What I hope to now do is to really work, properly, on one piece a month which I'll put onto this my space.So feel free to comment, criticize, give ideas.
heh!As in a complete piece...God knows where I'll fit in the time. But I will

hmmm

'In rural Madagascar access to market centers has been restricted by lack of roads , and the government has had few resources for road building or maintenance. With assistance from international donors the government has developed partnerships with local community organization and commercial road construction firms to create and maintain hundreds of kilometers of rural roads . In the Partnerships , private firms construct roads and instruct the community in their maintenance ; the government authorizes the communities to collect tolls from road users ; and the community maintains the roads with their own labour and funds from the tolls . The partnership utilizes the comparative advantages of the different parties to produce gains for all of them'

This was written around 1998...wonder how it turned out....seems like a good idea...wonder what it would take to launch such an initiative at home.....hmmm

BATHING!

Everyone has their bath time routine. Where you hang your towel, where you discard your clothes, where you put your soap, how hot you like the water, how high the shower head should be, window closed, window open...and so on, and so forth right?So when you're sharing a house with 4 others, theres bound to be some turf wars. I'm currently engaged in a battle that I must win! You see, one of my house mates, she moves my sponge from where I like it; on my side of the cabinet.After which she (bless her) then proceeds to put it on the top of the cabinet where I'm pretty sure all manner of nastiness reside, seeing as it one of those forgotten places that people just never seem to clean.

She moves it, I move it back.
Because when I think about it logically, I end up asking myself, 'Why is she touching my loofah anyway!? She has no right to move it, it is my property, I have paid rent in this house and therefore I'm at liberty to place it where I want,within the inchage accorded me on my side of the shelf!' C'est tres bizarre but actually quite funny. We are sensible adults you know, but something tells me that none of us is going to bring it up. So, a luta continua ama sio?Maybe, I'm enjoying it...No.

Anyway, back to bathing.I've constructed a scale. This scale depicts the number of times people bathe in the house. On the extreme right is roomate X, who bathes twice a day.That's pretty normal. At the other extreme , is roomate Y, who bathes every two or three days (Yeah, I know).Now, I've tried stopping myself, but whenever I'm in roomates Y's presence I sniff, cause I just find it amazing. How come she doesn't smell!!

Then I wonder...and I wonder many things.