For reasons that are hard to explain, I try and stay away from African Films. They are hardly educational to someone who has seen all of Africa’s devastation, wars and horror stories first hand. I find it hard to sit through a showing of sick babies so thin that they are all head, of children dying of hunger, their stomachs bloated with malnutrition. Of young boys made to grow up too fast, touting guns and fighting for things they don’t know or understand. If you watch most documentaries on Africa, all you get is an impression of a continent dying of every natural and man-made disaster conceivable, and of course the wild animals.
While all that suffering is a part of Africa’s reality, it’s not the entire picture. Most of Africa is recognized by its trouble spots. We know of the Sudan because of the devastation happening in Darfur. We know of Somalia because of the Mogadishu issue of Blank Hawk Down, and we know of Nigeria because of the scams Nigerians are so famous for running – oh yes, and they also have oil.
Zambia, on the other hand, is never in the news. Since our independence in 1964, we have only ever had one coup – which was highly unsuccessful and only resulted in a handful of deaths. The rest of Africa likes to tease us that we are lazy cowards. When someone calls for a public protest, no one shows up. Zambians love their peace too much to be bothered with things like marches and protests and riots. Probably why we’ll never make it into international news. Also probably why, when I tell most Americans I’m from Zambia, the first thing they ask is if it’s in South America or an Island in the Caribbean. No one has ever heard of us. We are too peaceful. We are never at war. Nothing ‘bad’ ever happens in Zambia. We are not worth talking about.
But that doesn’t mean we don’t know poverty, or hunger or experience the ravages of AIDS. We do. But we also have a lot of wonderful things happening there. Just like everywhere else, people wake up everyday and go to work at regular jobs. They drive cars, they send kids to schools, they date, they get married and throw huge 500 guest weddings, they have kids, and grand kids, they buy little plots of land in the village and keep chickens and grow vegetables and grow old and die happy and content. This happens in Africa too.
One of my major pet peeves is when they make a movie in Africa and only tell one side of the story. They have stereotyped the entire continent to such an extent that it is inconceivable to some that I can speak and write better English that many Americans. People still ask me if I learned English when I got here three years ago. ‘Yes’, I say, with an earnest expression on my face. ‘I took a crash course on the 20-hour flight to JFK.’ The weirdest thing is that they actually believe me!
Even more annoying is when they use an American to play an African role and the idiot hasn’t even bothered to get the accent right. I am from Zambia, so I can tell an African accent from almost every country on my continent. It’s like how you can tell the New Yorker slang to the Southern drawl. If you’re really good, you can even tell if the Southerner is from Georgia-Alabama or from Texas. Most Africans can do that about their people too. So when you are trying to sound South African and instead put on a questionable Australian accent, Leonardo Di Caprio, I can spot it right away, and you ruin the whole movie for me. Or when I’m watching the Broadway play, ‘The Color Purple’ and the Africans start talking, I know right away it’s a fake language and it pulls me back to reality and breaks the flow of what was turning out to be a good show.
I think now that Hollywood is looking to Africa as a source of good stories, ie The Last King Of Scotland, they really should make an effort to get to know the continent better. We may be a continent, just like Europe is a continent, but we are many different countries, many different tribes and many different peoples as well. It’s not fair to lump us all together. We are different, and diverse, and if you look hard enough, you’ll find a lot more than just another sad story of survival.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Sunday, April 8, 2007
The Silver Linings
Last Sunday, Brooklyn Tabernacle Church in Brooklyn New York, hosted a viewing of a documentary called “God grew tired of us” about the Lost Boys of Sudan. Narrated my Nicole Kidman and produced by Brad Pitt, the story is about a group of boys between 7 and thirteen who fled death in the Sudan and marched thousands of miles to Kenya, then Ethiopia. About 400 of them were lucky enough to be adopted by American charities and brought to the United States. The story is about four of these boys and their experiences.
I never would have watched this if I had not been tricked into thinking I was coming to church for a praise and worship service. Usually, I try and stay away from gut-wrenching African Stories. Actually, I usually try and stay away from movies that might make me cry, or scared, or scream. But I was in church and it would have looked awkward to leave right after I got there. So I sat.
I was in tears ten minutes after the camera started rolling. To me, this was not just a movie about a bunch of boys. It was about kids that could have been my brothers. It was all too close to home. Zambians have never had a war to be refuges, but we’re surrounded by warring countries on 5 of our 7 borders. We see refugees every day. This brought it all home. The scenery, that horrible red dust that clings to everything, the hot dry air that parches your throat and sucks moisture from your pores was all too familiar. The endless walking. Once, my father dropped my siblings and I at his village to bond with his father and the land. We were left in the middle of the bush, half a day’s drive from the nearest town. My youngest brother, then about 8 years old, had an asthma attack one night and the next day, my uncle and I had to walk all day to the next farm to use their phone to call home. I remember we started off around 4am in the morning and walked constantly, up and down hills. My legs were so sore. I remember the dust clogging my throat and my tongue feeling so heavy. In retrospect, it hadn’t been so bad, the walk had really only been a couple of hours, three at the most, with constant stops because I kept whining. I was a city kid. I was sure I was going to die from fatigue.
The terrain the boys had walked, although not my backyard, looked familiar. For me, these kids weren’t just little African boys far far away. They could have been my cousins, my relatives. I watched as they came to America and marveled at electricity and wowed over the fact that they would all get an entire bed to themselves. I watched as they talked about getting ready to work, to do whatever work they could get here in America. ‘Even digging pit latrines’. It was funny, but it was sad too. I watched as, in the end, when a mother of one of the boys finally meets her son again after almost fifteen years, after thinking he was dead, then lost. I watched her do the welcome dance at the airport and saw how everybody looked at her strangely. It was funny. The church laughed, even as I wept into yet another Kleenex. I could imagine my own mother doing that dance, making that noise, being that happy.
It was more than just a documentary. It was a slice of life. It was different, because, even through all the gloom and doom, the hope was there, a little flame. Soft, but never wavering. For a change, Africa had been portrayed to have hope. Something of the innate joy and eternal optimism and drive that is so much a part of every African had been captured. In the end, I was glad I had seen it. My grandmother used to say that there is a silver lining even in storm clouds. I had stopped and forgotten to look for life’s silver linings. This movie, as much as it made me cry, made me homesick, made me laugh. It also reminded me about hope, about never giving up. About walking even with no end in sight. It reminded me about silver linings, and about how I can find them, if I just stop and look.
I never would have watched this if I had not been tricked into thinking I was coming to church for a praise and worship service. Usually, I try and stay away from gut-wrenching African Stories. Actually, I usually try and stay away from movies that might make me cry, or scared, or scream. But I was in church and it would have looked awkward to leave right after I got there. So I sat.
I was in tears ten minutes after the camera started rolling. To me, this was not just a movie about a bunch of boys. It was about kids that could have been my brothers. It was all too close to home. Zambians have never had a war to be refuges, but we’re surrounded by warring countries on 5 of our 7 borders. We see refugees every day. This brought it all home. The scenery, that horrible red dust that clings to everything, the hot dry air that parches your throat and sucks moisture from your pores was all too familiar. The endless walking. Once, my father dropped my siblings and I at his village to bond with his father and the land. We were left in the middle of the bush, half a day’s drive from the nearest town. My youngest brother, then about 8 years old, had an asthma attack one night and the next day, my uncle and I had to walk all day to the next farm to use their phone to call home. I remember we started off around 4am in the morning and walked constantly, up and down hills. My legs were so sore. I remember the dust clogging my throat and my tongue feeling so heavy. In retrospect, it hadn’t been so bad, the walk had really only been a couple of hours, three at the most, with constant stops because I kept whining. I was a city kid. I was sure I was going to die from fatigue.
The terrain the boys had walked, although not my backyard, looked familiar. For me, these kids weren’t just little African boys far far away. They could have been my cousins, my relatives. I watched as they came to America and marveled at electricity and wowed over the fact that they would all get an entire bed to themselves. I watched as they talked about getting ready to work, to do whatever work they could get here in America. ‘Even digging pit latrines’. It was funny, but it was sad too. I watched as, in the end, when a mother of one of the boys finally meets her son again after almost fifteen years, after thinking he was dead, then lost. I watched her do the welcome dance at the airport and saw how everybody looked at her strangely. It was funny. The church laughed, even as I wept into yet another Kleenex. I could imagine my own mother doing that dance, making that noise, being that happy.
It was more than just a documentary. It was a slice of life. It was different, because, even through all the gloom and doom, the hope was there, a little flame. Soft, but never wavering. For a change, Africa had been portrayed to have hope. Something of the innate joy and eternal optimism and drive that is so much a part of every African had been captured. In the end, I was glad I had seen it. My grandmother used to say that there is a silver lining even in storm clouds. I had stopped and forgotten to look for life’s silver linings. This movie, as much as it made me cry, made me homesick, made me laugh. It also reminded me about hope, about never giving up. About walking even with no end in sight. It reminded me about silver linings, and about how I can find them, if I just stop and look.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
lay me down to sleep...
Just how do people fall asleep? What do they think about? Do they review their day's events or plan the next day's course? Do they sing themselves to sleep? Or think of their favourite places and things, and then using their imagination, transport themselves there?
I can't sleep. I mean, I can't fall asleep. Once I eventually fall asleep, I'm fine. But the time in between awake and asleep, for me, is think and deep, marred with peril, like a DMZ riddled with landmines.
I seem to come awake at night, my mind floods with ideas the minute I get into bed and try to sleep. It never fails. As a result, I'm not much of a morning person. My bouts of nocturnal energy, if followed through, can safely see me through to dawn and well into the next day. The day in turn, unless fraught with activity and not one moment of stillness, will be fine. But give me half an hour of silence in the hustle of the day, and I might just doze off on you.
I swear, sometimes these vampire tendencies scare me. The sun, I have come to conclude, somehow saps me of my energy, leaving me weak and sleepy. In the dead of night, when all other things sleep and seek rest, I think and labor on without a pause.
So I lay in bed. After an hour of trying to fake sleep. Apparently, the saying 'fake it till you make it' may apply to having faith or to the first weak on the job, but it simply doesn't work for sleeping. So I'm still trying to sleep, and in doing so start thinking about how people generally fall asleep. Do they make lists in their head and tick them off? Do they congratulate or bemoan the endeavours of the ended day and plot out glory for tomorrow?
Do they pray? Thanking God for the blessings of the day and the hope of the next? Do they think of family and friends? What do people think about as they shift around looking for a comfortable spot? As they close their eyes and exhale wakefulness away and ending the day. What do they think?
I can't sleep. I mean, I can't fall asleep. Once I eventually fall asleep, I'm fine. But the time in between awake and asleep, for me, is think and deep, marred with peril, like a DMZ riddled with landmines.
I seem to come awake at night, my mind floods with ideas the minute I get into bed and try to sleep. It never fails. As a result, I'm not much of a morning person. My bouts of nocturnal energy, if followed through, can safely see me through to dawn and well into the next day. The day in turn, unless fraught with activity and not one moment of stillness, will be fine. But give me half an hour of silence in the hustle of the day, and I might just doze off on you.
I swear, sometimes these vampire tendencies scare me. The sun, I have come to conclude, somehow saps me of my energy, leaving me weak and sleepy. In the dead of night, when all other things sleep and seek rest, I think and labor on without a pause.
So I lay in bed. After an hour of trying to fake sleep. Apparently, the saying 'fake it till you make it' may apply to having faith or to the first weak on the job, but it simply doesn't work for sleeping. So I'm still trying to sleep, and in doing so start thinking about how people generally fall asleep. Do they make lists in their head and tick them off? Do they congratulate or bemoan the endeavours of the ended day and plot out glory for tomorrow?
Do they pray? Thanking God for the blessings of the day and the hope of the next? Do they think of family and friends? What do people think about as they shift around looking for a comfortable spot? As they close their eyes and exhale wakefulness away and ending the day. What do they think?
Sunday, January 28, 2007
A crying shame
I'm rushing home right now and ticking off all the things I have to do. Hopefully, my roommate isn't home and I can have the house to my self. Today, of all ceremonial days, I need to forgo all that friendly chitchat and get on with the project of the evening. Dinner has to be something quick that I can eat between replying to all my e-mails and getting my books together for school tomorrow. Everything has to be multitasked and done in double time because tonight, I am going to do it. Yes, IT.
It is something lore says should be done once in a while, something every psychologist encourages. Today, I am running around to accommodate something that is an everyday occurrence for everyone else, but a once-a-year binge for me. Tonight, after all my chores are done, I am going to bed to cry. My one good cry of the year.
Anyone will tell you, I don't cry - except in church. Jesus always gets me emotional, and church done right can bring me to tears. I'm pentecostal, we're supposed to get all emotional when praying. But other than that, I never, ever, cry. I pout, I sulk, I go for runs, I yell, I go for kickboxing classes. But I never cry.
Why, you might ask? I have always found it to be a rather awkward business. How do you start? Do you first sniff a couple of times? When do you know when to progress to full out bawling? And once you've gotten the hang of that, how do you stop? When do you stop? I always tend to feel awkward on behalf of those I'm comforting the crier, heaven knows I get uncomfortable with a crying person. So to avoid all the drama, I simply stopped crying. I don't know if it was a conscious decision, but either way, the tears dried up.
However, I think all those unshed tears go and build up somewhere because every once in a while, every year or two, I go through a session where everything tears me up. Cartoons, commercials, sappy love songs, things people say to me, things people do to it. It's like my eyes become leaky faucets. So for the last year or so, I decided to schedule crying sessions. I know crying is supposed to be spontaneous and all, but this is all I have to work with.
So now, all my chores are done, my teeth are brushed, my face scrubbed of all makeup, a box of tissues is strategically placed on the pillow next to me and I am in bed, ready for a good bawling session. And after today, I deserve it.
It hasn't really been crappy crappy, but heck, I'm menstrual, my hormones are up in arms and I really really need a good cry. I am indulging in a panic attack. Not that anything is really seriously wrong, but right now, the Earth is just not spinning right for me. I can't fix it, so I simply need to do the girly thing and 'cry it all out'. I know it won't really change anything, but it may just clear my eyes to deal with whatever curve ball life is slinging my way better.
So if you'll excuse me now, my scheduled crying session begins now...
It is something lore says should be done once in a while, something every psychologist encourages. Today, I am running around to accommodate something that is an everyday occurrence for everyone else, but a once-a-year binge for me. Tonight, after all my chores are done, I am going to bed to cry. My one good cry of the year.
Anyone will tell you, I don't cry - except in church. Jesus always gets me emotional, and church done right can bring me to tears. I'm pentecostal, we're supposed to get all emotional when praying. But other than that, I never, ever, cry. I pout, I sulk, I go for runs, I yell, I go for kickboxing classes. But I never cry.
Why, you might ask? I have always found it to be a rather awkward business. How do you start? Do you first sniff a couple of times? When do you know when to progress to full out bawling? And once you've gotten the hang of that, how do you stop? When do you stop? I always tend to feel awkward on behalf of those I'm comforting the crier, heaven knows I get uncomfortable with a crying person. So to avoid all the drama, I simply stopped crying. I don't know if it was a conscious decision, but either way, the tears dried up.
However, I think all those unshed tears go and build up somewhere because every once in a while, every year or two, I go through a session where everything tears me up. Cartoons, commercials, sappy love songs, things people say to me, things people do to it. It's like my eyes become leaky faucets. So for the last year or so, I decided to schedule crying sessions. I know crying is supposed to be spontaneous and all, but this is all I have to work with.
So now, all my chores are done, my teeth are brushed, my face scrubbed of all makeup, a box of tissues is strategically placed on the pillow next to me and I am in bed, ready for a good bawling session. And after today, I deserve it.
It hasn't really been crappy crappy, but heck, I'm menstrual, my hormones are up in arms and I really really need a good cry. I am indulging in a panic attack. Not that anything is really seriously wrong, but right now, the Earth is just not spinning right for me. I can't fix it, so I simply need to do the girly thing and 'cry it all out'. I know it won't really change anything, but it may just clear my eyes to deal with whatever curve ball life is slinging my way better.
So if you'll excuse me now, my scheduled crying session begins now...
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
New Year, New Me
Last year, I decided to get into this blog thing as a way of helping me to keep writing and to adhere to a deadline. For some strange reason, one that eludes me still, I decided to start TWO blogs, and not just one. Of course, this has led to nothing but disaster, as I dither whether a story should go into this blog or the other, and slowly and surely, my old Nemesis, procrastination swoops in for the steal. So, I am combining my blog and make a solemn vow to update it faithfully every Sunday evening. This Sunday, I will devote to combining the material from the two blogs and introducing it here. Fresh stuff will faithfully arrive every Sunday after that. I promise.
So please enjoy the read, and of course, all your comments and criticisms are welcome.
Warm regards,
Tory
So please enjoy the read, and of course, all your comments and criticisms are welcome.
Warm regards,
Tory
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