Madagascar is one of the African countries that doesn’t pop up in the news all that regularly. It’s an island of incredible diversity - you can find animals and plants there that are found no where else in the world. However, one of their biggest problems is that their rain forests are being clearcut as people expand into some of the untouched regions.
4 African bloggers from there have united on a project to make a difference. They aren’t just talking, they are doing something. Their goal is to focus on one village in the Southeastern region of Madagascar, with one of their goals being to help save their forests, you can follow it on their new site called Foko. In their own words:
The project is multi-pronged with emphases on tackling environmental issues that directly affects the villagers, building sustainable infrastructures, empowering the villagers to seek manageable solutions, especially the women and providing an efficient health care program.
The underlying philosophy behind the project is that all programs initiated in the village will be able to self-sustain in the long run because emphasis will be put on an effective cost-revenue strategy.
It’s great to see bloggers networking and getting together to do things. It’s the power of the web at work - the ability to communicate easily. Of course, I believe that this culminates in offline interaction, which is exactly what Foko is.
The bloggers:
Andriankoto Ratozamanana (Harinjaka)
Joan Razafimaharo (the Purple Corner)
Lova Rakotomalala (the Malagasy Dwarf Hippo)
Mialy A. (Windows on the new World of SipaKV)
I used to admire the bigger boys swimming in the river, and I longed to have as much fun as they were having. One day, I asked one of them to teach me how to swim and he agreed. Since I did not know how to swim at all, we agreed that he would teach me one step at a time. Since I was afraid as well, we agreed that on the first lesson, he would let me hold on to his back and he would swim with me. That way, I would familiarize myself with the water and get a grip of my fear. That seemed quite reasonable and when I was securely piggybacked, the bigger boy slowly swam to the middle of the river. I have never had such a thrill, especially when he explained that this was the deepest part of the water.
My first swimming lessons were going quite well, and the bigger boy seemed happy with my progress. He then informed me that he wanted me to see how the inside of the river looked like. I said that was OK, took a huge gulp of air and he went under water while I was still holding on to his back. But then, he did something I had not expected. He swam straight to the bottom of the river and stayed there.
So, I found myself out of breathe under water, holding on to the person who was keeping me there and there was nothing I could do to make him come to the surface. And so, even though I did not know how to swim yet, I realized that if I kept holding on to the bigger boy, I would drown. And that is how I ended up coming to the surface and flapping my arms frantically until I ended up at the river bank. My teacher was to find me shaking uncontrollably at the shore with a big grin on his face and told me, “See! You can now swim without my help!” Apparently, his first lesson was to prove to me that I could swim on my own.
My first swimming lesson is similar to what happens when we ask God to help us increase our faith. The lessons in faith can feel like God has abandoned us. For example, if you pray for more faith and God takes away your job, it is so that you can build enough faith to learn how to trust Him with your daily financial needs. However, people often fail to see this and end up spending a lot of energy running up and down talking to people with ‘connections’. It is not until a person has exhausted all their contacts that they turn to God in resignation. I imagine that the first question that God would ask would be, “why did you take so long to come to me?” Consider a person who asks for more faith and gets sick instead. That person might exhaust all their strength and resources seeking treatment, and it is not until they submit themselves to God that he heals them instantly. Though often eccentric, God’s lessons are very effective.
When we turn over our lives to God, we realize that the things that used to offer us comfort are no longer useful. In fact, they even become the reasons why we are not making any headway. For example, many people already realize that they are holding on to jobs that force them to compromise their integrity, and yet cannot find the courage to walk away. What if a person decided to have faith in God, and resigned? This would be an excellent exercise in faith. Giving faith a chance is a challenge to God to come to our help. He never fails.
It is not until we realize that we are holding on to that which will make us drown that we let go and realize that we can swim.
Back in college, setting up a party on a student’s budget never used to be easy. However, we knew a few tricks that could make us throw a bash and make people party like it’s 1999. One such trick was that of putting cheap liquor in an empty bottle belonging to a more expensive liquor. One only needed have worried about getting the color right, for these ‘expensive’ bottles came out when everyone was quite drunk. And so, very few people even realized that the taste would be horribly wrong for a Jonnie Walker Black label, Captain Morgan rum, or J&B rare whiskey. When on the next day people raved about how sloshed they became, and accuse you of hoarding all the good drinks until the end, you knew it was a successful party.
That need not shock anyone since in the story of life, there are many instances where cheap liquor is poured into a bottle belonging to a more expensive liquor. Haven’t you ever dealt with a person based on the strength of their job title, only to realize that they are totally incompetent? A few years ago, one of my friends went to set up a site for an exhibition and was left doing the paper work while his driver was allowed to go ahead. The reason is because the driver was wearing a suit and my friend was in jeans and a t-shirt. The guards automatically assumed that of the two, the driver was the boss.
Looks are deceiving. Always take time to look past that fancy exterior in order to know the kind of a person you are dealing with. Don’t be fooled by the beauty, or the clothes, or the money, or the car. The more serious the kind of interaction, the more important it is to take time and look more carefully.
There is a Kikuyu saying, “Arũme maigananagio nĩ mĩbuto”. This translates directly to, “All men are equalized by their trousers”. It means that if you look at a group of men, you might assume that they are all alike. However if they were to each take off his trousers, one might realize that they are all not equal!
Last night, I finally got a chance to see the daily newspaper and was impressed by the half page colored advertisement of a four days even dubbed “Miracle Moments”. The Christian public gathering will be presided over by a preacher from Dubai and starts today, extending for the whole weekend. If I am right, the main feature of the event will be the portion where the preacher performs miracles such as healing sick people and making whole of the handicapped. These kinds of awesome miracle crusades happen in Nairobi once in a while.
Do you have one of those days when you have been doing too many things for too long that it feels like you are operating on auto-pilot? Yesterday was that kind of a day for me. And when I think about it, it is a miracle that I am alive and well today, given all the things that could have gone wrong yesterday. Before even the day started, I was driving in a mad rush to the airport to take a friend who was running late to catch a flight. Just a few hours previously, we had come across a police roadblock along Kiambu Road, and I had casually remarked to my friends, “Maybe a car was hijacked or a person was shot by thugs”. While I was saying that, I was making a return run on that road for the third time that night.
Do you ever wonder at the chances of survival in one single day? On a brief 30 minutes that you are on the road, how many other people perish or are injured while doing the same exercise? On a night that you go to sleep and wake up, how many people die or wake up horribly sick? On a lunch break, how many people will die from starvation of go hungry for another day? My friend was flying for the umpteenth time to Somaliland in one of those tiny planes that make a person feel as if they are floating in a rubber duckie during a child’s bath time. What keeps that plane up in a turbulent sky for hours?
Instead of cursing at the time that we spend in traffic, how about talking to God in thankfulness? Instead of giving dark looks at the driver who dared cross our path, how about being grateful that they never swerved a moment earlier? Instead of waking up to just another day, how about rejoicing at the opportunity of being alive? Instead of scowling at the lunch that looks exactly like what we ate yesterday, how about thinking about how we can help the less fortunate?
That we are alive today, that we are able to walk, that we are well fed, that we are able to read about an upcoming miracle crusade, that we are able to travel by land, air and sea and live to tell about…is all a miracle!
The preacher from Dubai will be able to heal a person who has been suffering from a terrible disease for a long time. That’s a miracle. But isn’t it a bigger miracle for a person not to be suffering from any of the myriads of diseases that are catalogued in all of many copies of the voluminous medical encyclopedias? The preacher from Dubai will be able to restore eyesight to a person who lost it. That’s a miracle. Isn’t it a bigger miracle for a person to have eyesight and all the other senses and all parts of the body functioning correctly? And that is on top of the all inclusive miracle of being alive, that even the preacher from Dubai needs in order to performs his miracles.
Between this weekend’s “Miracle Moments” crusade and the next event which might be weeks away, we can choose to experience our own private miracle moments each time we choose to.
My Zimbabwean friend who lives in Kenya recently came from his country after a two weeks holiday. For the last few days, he has been narrating incredible stories of hardships that Zimbabweans have to endure as a result of a prevailing national economic crisis. For example, as a result of a severe shortage of commodities in the markets, people have to queue for almost everything; from fuel to building material to even foodstuffs.
Zimbabwe’s is a case of too much money chasing too few goods. What makes the situation unique is that unlike in the classic case where the prices of goods would automatically shoot up, the Zimbabwe leadership has maintained stringent price controls on all goods and services. As a result, the astronomical rise in the inflation has made everything dirt cheap and driven most traders out of business since it does not make sense for them to sell at a loss. And so, it is daily becoming a case of more money chasing fewer and fewer goods.
My friend tell us that the situation is so bad that whenever a person comes across a queue, he or she automatically joins it without even bothering to find out what is being queued for. The reason is because one will most likely not have whatever is being sold, or they decide to buy since it might not be available in the market the next time they need it. And so, able bodied men and women are spending hours armed with millions of Zimbabwe dollars looking for queues to join in order to make purchases of much needed commodities. Incidentally, landing in Zimbabwe is guaranteed to make you have more money than you have ever imagined. At the rate of 200,000 Zim dollars for 1 US dollar, you are guaranteed to be a millionaire with just 5 US dollars!
It was in that spirit of ‘join the queue first and find out what is being queued for later’ that one gentleman spent some time along the line religiously shuffling forward on his feet. And then at some point, he realized that he had joined a queue to view a dead body! He must have been too preoccupied to see that everyone was sad and that even some were crying, but my friend adds that in Zimbabwe things are so bleak that that being in a commodities queue is no more uplifting that being in a queue to view a dearly departed.
This set me thinking of the various situations where people subscribe into ventures without having a clue of what is going on. Have you ever met a friend and both of you started walking and then after some time, you find yourself in a strange neighborhood, stop, look at each other and ask simultaneously, “Where are we going?” That happens when each assumes that the other knows where they are going. When it becomes apparent that no one knew, both people feel pretty silly, especially given the simplicity of the situation, and laugh it off.
Unfortunately, people find themselves lost even in much more complicated joint ventures. It is not uncommon for a woman to join a man for a lifetime walk in a relationship, only to realize that the man has no idea where he is going. The reverse is also true. In such cases, one partner might blame the other for misleading them, but the truth is that the person joined a queue without even bothering to find out where it led. People have lost their savings in shaky business ventures, become mislead by dubious religious leaders, and even found themselves in questionable social associations, all in the name of joining first and asking later.
When a person knows where they are going, he or she can only walk with a person who is going in that direction. So, decide where you are going, and you never have to ask another, “Where are we going?”
On 20/08/2007, after the 6th ordinary session of the EAC Heads of State, I waited with bated breath for the announcement of a fully integrated East African Economic Union, a union redeemed from the fear and suspicion that previosuly led to breakup.
It goes without saying that abortion is not an easy procedure for all parties
involved, however, in instances of violence it is a crucial step on the journey
of healing for the woman.