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What An African Woman Thinks
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0:21
From: What An African Woman Thinks
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I’m ashamed to admit that I have an unhealthy relationship with money. I really should know better. Scratch that—I do know better, but I do not do as I know. (Judge me if you must. I’ve beaten you to it.) I’m clingy with money. I do not trust money enough to let it out of my sight. I fret about money not spending enough time with me. I worry that one day, money will grow tired of me, pack his bags and slip away in the middle of the night to idontknowhere. Then who will I be, what will I do, where will I go? It’s become this goat sitting on my head weighing heavily on me and preventing me from doing what I really want to do, what I should be doing. How do I get from here to a safe place? Anybody?And please understand that I'm a worrier about all things money, not a hoarder. Which is not a judgment on which is better or worse but rather a qualification of which I am and which I am not. Update: An anonymous reader pointed me to this performance by Poetri. It's all about money. Great stuff. (thanks anon). PS, I tried to upload the youtube video here and my blog just froze in shock at being asked to do anything but plain old words. I give up. This link will have to do. For a less technophobic blog, see Mama Shady It's my window, but I don't own the view.
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2:26
From: What An African Woman Thinks
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Over at Pambazuka News Mukoma wa Ngugi and Firoze Manji remind us that South Africa is all of us, lamenting that: The mythologies we have constructed around us are imploding. There is no point in running away from this. The edifices we have of Truth and Reconciliation, post-apartheid healing, rainbow nations and multi-party post-dictatorship democracies are coming down all around us.
Africa's problems are boiling onto the surface everywhere you turn this year. It grieves my spirit. What happened to hope for Africa and all that other positivity?
Still, we have to concede it was presumptuous of nations to attempt to 'move ahead' while leaving behind a majority of their people. What could we all have been smoking? How far did we imagine we could take this? Now the question is: are we learning our lesson, or do we remain criminally clueless?
I certainly hope time will have a redeeming story to tell.
When time tells. (And to be clear, I'm not excusing xenophobia and its deadly consequences in South Africa. It is what it is.) It's my window, but I don't own the view.
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9:20
From: What An African Woman Thinks
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There's much being made of the fact that Americans are paying 3.50 US dollars a gallon for their 'gas'.
Well, I see your pain and I raise you mine.
Or, hey look over here.
I drove into a petrol station this morning and the pump price was 99.99 Kenya shillings. A litre. At the current dollar exchange rate, that means I'm paying 6.10 US dollars a gallon.
This is madness. This is pain.It's my window, but I don't own the view.
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9:13
From: What An African Woman Thinks
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Gallup conducted a survey across sub Saharan Africa between 2006 and early 2008 on hunger and nutrition. According to the findings, only 36% of Kenyans said they or their family members had never had to go without ‘enough to eat.’ That percentage is lower than in sixteen countries across sub Saharan Africa. At the other end of the scale, 36 % of Kenyans reported that they or their families had had to go without ‘enough to eat’ several times or more, which percentage is higher than 15 other countries across sub Saharan Africa. We’re in 2008, and 36 % of our people are still languishing at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy. That’s as stinging an indictment on our claim to nationhood as I’ve come across lately. And it takes me right to the doorstep of something I’ve come to understand only recently: you cannot build political stability on empty stomachs. No ifs no buts. It is as it is. Which would explain why Africa is what it is today. There have been food riots in diverse countries across Africa lately, from Ivory Coast to Madagascar to Somalia. But even where the chaos has not overtly been about food, hunger and poverty have been the underlying themes. The chaos in Kenya at the beginning of this year was catalysed by botched elections, yes, but at its heart was the deep grievance of those who felt that others were feasting at the table of a ‘growing economy’ while they held no hope of receiving even the crumbs from that table. The xenophobic attacks in South Africa have the same genesis: poor disenfranchised people are channelling their frustration and anger at the innocents within their reach, but their real grievance is that they are poor and disenfranchised and they can see no means to secure their livelihoods. This is not a revelation to many, I know. But it’s hit home for me as never before this year. And it’s changing the way I read the headlines as they trickle in from around the world. Sometimes when I’m busy making my judgments from my place of relative comfort, I stop and ask myself what I really know about quashed aspirations, about eking out a miserable living from bleak to day to bleaker day and about real hunger and what it can drive a person to do. How stable a country can you boast, really, when 36% of the people have to go without ‘enough to eat several times or more?’ For more on that gallup survey, follow this link. PS, there's an African Union Food and Nutrition Security Conference scheduled to take place in South Africa next week. I wonder what will come out of that.It's my window, but I don't own the view.
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8:00
From: What An African Woman Thinks
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Ndumiso Ngcobo can become the kind of habit that’s very difficult to break. Just, the way he puts things. Anyway, about the xenophobic attacks in South Africa and the media’s treatment of the same he has this to gripe: When our “leaders” do not condemn stuff, we get really upset. Our president could take two minutes between the 17th and 18th holes of his golf game to condemn the burning of innocent people and do bugger-all about it and we’ll all let out a collective sigh of relief. “Phew! Well, he condemned it in the strongest possible terms.” These re the great analytical angles emanating from our newsrooms; compiling a Great Condemners’ list.
There’s been a great deal of talk about 'condemning' in the world press lately, no? I’ve wondered too. Condemn and then? Talk is so ‘dime a dozen.’ Where’s the walk? Talking about talk: there’s been a great deal of it going on in Kenya’s political circles lately. Not much walking, far as I can tell, but a whole lot of talking. Still, I should be grateful: better people talking than people fighting. Which takes me back to what is happening in South Africa: it's difficult to think what to say except, Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika. Because really, I worry.It's my window, but I don't own the view.
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4:40
From: What An African Woman Thinks
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So, finally, I've discovered, unravelled, bumped into, discerned (insert your choice of terminology here) the junction where my bliss resides.
To explain:
I've been poised to leave my current gig, but I haven't been able to define what I want my next gig to be. It's a very 'wandering aimlessly in no man's land' sort of feeling. Most of the time it's been relegated to the background by a lot of other urgent stuff that's been happening around me and to me. But it's been there.
I've been lucky: I've had an offer on the table for a while from a group of people I love and who have been absolutely patient with me. And I've attended a couple of job interviews besides.
But I've just had the sense that none of these opportunities are right for me. And, over the years, I've learned to trust my instincts.
Except whereas I've had a very strong sense of where I don't want to go and what I don't want to do next, I haven't had a good sense at all of what I want, what the right step to take from here is. Which has been frustrating me no end and making sound like a rudderless bungling idiot to me. Just so you know, I don't much like to sound like a rudderless, bungling idiot, especially to myself.
Then yesterday: Aha moment.
Driving home, turning it over in my head for the umpteenth time, I was able to boil down to a list of four my musthaves for the next gig. And to explain to myself, clearly and concisely, why. With examples and illustrations where necessary, thank you very much.
And I have Nairobi's notorious traffic congestion to thank for it.
Four roads bringing traffic from different aspects of my experience, inclination, personal style and preference, and worldview. And me standing right there at the intersection, at the point where these roads meet.
(If you don't see it, maybe you just had to have been there.)
Sigh. Progress. There's hope for R, yet.
It's taken me only eight and a half months.It's my window, but I don't own the view.
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16:08
From: What An African Woman Thinks
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It's ten after midnight.
I'm still at my desk, at the office.
I've just finished working on a project that has a deadline of tomorrow, noon.
I had ample time, really, but I procrastinated. Like fourteen weeks of ample time. I hear that gasp and I raise you a sharp intake of breath.
This will not do.
I'm hungry and tired. And my eyes are red from staring at the screen.
I'm posting this stick-it note here to remind myself how I feel right now.
And to remind myself also, how faint I felt when I tried to convert the final document into a PDF half an hour ago and Word said it couldn't open it. Twice.
And how all this needn't have happened this way. Really. Really, really.
I know better. I'm annoyed with myself mostly. And disappointed.
Get my act together already.It's my window, but I don't own the view.
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12:42
From: What An African Woman Thinks
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Ok, I was trolling in cyberspace looking for something, anything to distract me from this most urgent thing that I really ought to be doing and I found this quote by Josh Marshall over at Talking Points Memo: We seem to have arrived at an equitable compromise: Sen. Clinton is staying in the nomination race while Sen. Obama drops out to move on to the general.
Cute. And Clever. Made me smile. Those of you who called to wonder at my ode to Clinton, does this absolve me in your eyes? (because it absolves me in mine.)It's my window, but I don't own the view.
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10:25
From: What An African Woman Thinks
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You know, sometimes I feel like the only way I'll get into heaven is by hanging onto someone else's coat tails and refusing to let go.
Faulty theology, I know. Let's not get into that.
Those of you who know what I do for a living will find this a tad ironic. Just so you know, I do too. I think my life is living breathing walking proof that God has a sense of humour. At least, I laugh. And somehow I think God let's out a chuckle or two too.
To segue in a different direction:
Anyone in their late thirties out there? If there is, are you increasingly experiencing the 'blurt effect'? (© R, 2008.)
You know, where you find yourself expressing thoughts you used to think but wouldn't allow yourself to share? And no, this is not a euphemism for rude. It's just, you know, a growing tendency to call it like it is.
I tell ya, these are the best of times.
(I'm high on I don't know what, and I still have a termpaper to complete. By tonight. Yikes.)It's my window, but I don't own the view.
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3:50
From: What An African Woman Thinks
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I’ve been pro-Obama in the US presidential race. I will continue to be overwhelmingly pro-Obama. Not that it matters, of course, because I do not have the right to vote in the upcoming elections, being a Kenyan citizen, resident in Kenya. Still an opinion is an opinion and I have one.
But I have to say that I’ve developed a healthy respect for Hillary Clinton. She is a very intelligent, very formidable woman. Such grit. It is not easy to be her right now but she’s doing it with courage and dignity. I cannot remain unmoved when I watch her stand wearing her best smile before a crowd on whose faces she can read a sense of resignation, of futility. Here, where the clichéd rubber meets the road, this woman has substance, is substance.
Hillary Clinton is an incredibly gifted woman, and no one can take that away from her.
Besides, I cannot 'do a moving hope speech to galvanise a generation in the tradition of Obama' to save my life, not to mention the lives of my (yet unborn) children. In the public space, I would come off, in many ways, a lot like Clinton. I see me in her. I cannot help but empathise. (I also see my challenges of identity in Obama’s struggles, but that is not here.)
It’s been hard for me to distil the thought processes and feelings of African American women during this prolonged nomination process. Because they’re the point of intersection between Clinton and Obama. I think there’s been a lot of churning going on in the private place that hasn’t poured out into the public space. Or perhaps I just haven’t known where to look.
It’s been interesting to see African American women who are “women’s women” like Oprah Winfrey and Toni Morrison throw their weight behind Barack Obama. What does this mean? Is anybody talking about why it is and what it means? You get the strong sense, (especially in Oprah’s dipped ratings), that there’s a sense of betrayal in some quarters. Is this being tackled squarely or is it being sheepishly swept under the carpet?
I can't wait for this stretch to be over, and for women (especially African American women) to begin to narrate their stories retrospectively, as they slowly come to terms with what this historic race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton has taught them about themselves.
And I agree with the Clinton supporter who said the nomination race is "a marathon and she should be allowed to finish." Even if she isn't going to be the first to cross the finishing line. Let her finish. That's the kind of woman that she is, and I admire and respect that. Because that's the kind of woman I'd like to be.
Space, people. Let the woman do this on her own terms.It's my window, but I don't own the view.
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2:07
From: What An African Woman Thinks
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I found this article in the New York Times very eye-opening. Especially this: "...don’t bother trying to kill off old habits; once those ruts of procedure are worn into the hippocampus, they’re there to stay. Instead, the new habits we deliberately ingrain into ourselves create parallel pathways that can bypass those old roads..."
That definitely catalysed an Oprah Aha! moment for me. It made me realise that I'd been focusing precious change energy in the wrong direction. Instead of trying (with limited success), to block off "the old roads", I ought rather to be concentrating on building "new parallel pathways". Instead of concentrating my efforts on not doing things the old way, I should in fact be expending my energy imagining, inventing and learning new ways of doing things. And then there's also the bit about the three zones of existence: comfort, stretch and stress:
"...Comfort is the realm of existing habit. Stress occurs when a challenge is so far beyond current experience as to be overwhelming. It’s that stretch zone in the middle — activities that feel a bit awkward and unfamiliar — where true change occurs ... Getting into the stretch zone is good for you ... it helps keep your brain healthy. It turns out that unless we continue to learn new things, which challenges our brains to create new pathways, they literally begin to atrophy..."
We live, We learn. (I so love that we get to do that.)It's my window, but I don't own the view.
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0:54
From: What An African Woman Thinks
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So, I've a confession to make:
All this blogging business is really about expressing my wannabe novelist-ness. Well, OK, not all of it, but at least some of it is.
If my high school had a yearbook in my day, under my photo(in which I would have been smiling, I have a great smile and don't I know it), would have been the caption:
"most likely to write a novel someday."
Seriously. Back then, yours truly and (almost) everybody I knew thought I had a novel buried in me. It now turns out that the treasure was buried far deeper than anyone could have imagined.
Sigh.
Maybe I peaked in high school. Maybe I raised expectations a tad too high and the last decade or so has been a subconscious effort to lower the bar. Maybe.
Or maybe the novel will come to me in my seventies. There are people who have written their first novel in their seventies, you know. And it's turned out splendidly for them, I think. So why not me?
I bumped into Binyavanga some time ago. He doesn't know this is me, just so you know. He gave me this sage advice:
"You know what you need to do if you want to be a writer? Write."
Oh bummer. No way around that then? Because I find writing in a particular direction in a sustained way so ... tedious. I tend instead to follow my goat as she grazes and sort of bump into things to write about. Or write about things that have bumped into me. I'm very opportunistic that way.
Besides, all I want is a hefty advance, to be sort of famous, and to do a book tour or two.
Oh, and to have people crease their brow when they pass me on the street because they think they recognise me from somewhere but they can't quite tell where. That tickles me, it really does.
Do I need to write a whole book for that, or will a few chapters do?It's my window, but I don't own the view.
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4:11
From: What An African Woman Thinks
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I was at a talk by Bitange Ndemo, Permanent Secretary Ministry of Information and Communication, the other day. He closed with a very interesting thought.
He reminded us that you can only win the lottery if you buy a ticket. And he went on to say that he believes that we are poor in Kenya because we don’t have a culture that celebrates the people who try, even if they fail.
Instead, we vilify those who fail and cause those who would also try to hesitate.
Not Good.It's my window, but I don't own the view.
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4:06
From: What An African Woman Thinks
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We were so unabashedly ambitious that it made some people wince. From the very beginning, we were not afraid to say that we wanted to be the best, and to say, also, that we believed we had it in us to be the best.
We learned not to feel the shame of being small and wanting to be big, of being behind and wanting to forge ahead. We refused to let others tell us who we were, but instead, boldly declared what we knew we were in the process of becoming.
And O' look what we have become.It's my window, but I don't own the view.
Read the complete article at What An African Woman Thinks
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