“East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.” Or to para-quote a random Black preacher “Sin is sin is sin.” The Easter weekend made me deeply contemplative about the nature of sin, after all as a Christian I believe Jesus died for my sins on Good Friday and conquered the final frontier, not space but death. I had a deeply ambiguous relationship with God until recently when I became born again, but what does “born again” mean? Death takes many forms; the worst being “living death” like vampires, immortality can be a curse. Millions of people are zombies in a devilish world; like in ‘The matrix’ unaware of their plight. The story of Jesus is always being retold in modern popular culture because people need to hear it. The terminator is the story of the nativity with robots and cyborgs as angels, Superman is another Jesus rip-off, The matrix is another Jesus allegory. So you realise that Jesus was the original Superhero, more multi-dimensional than Zeus or Odin who used lightning and mutation as their main powers, while Jesus had it all; a shape-shifter, healer, faster than a bullet, ability to fly and walk on water. There were other gods before him but they followed our moral code, they didn’t define our own morals. Greek gods were downright evil, selfish, capricious and spiteful.
The Greek and Roman gods did all the things that people did; they fell in love, committed adultery, had gay relationships (Zeus was a bit non-specific), stole, cheated and destroyed lives on a whim. Indeed all they demanded was that you obey them and not commit hubris (this was to take the gods lightly and challenge them in some way) the Sacred and Profane were the same. Christianity was the first religion to set a moral code for behaviour; a religion of absolutes, the sacred and profane are as separate as black and white or night day, but like dawn and dusk there are times when there is a blur. This was brought home to me recently on Friday when a friend of mine (who shall remain nameless but you know who you are) was at our weekly basketball game that we hope to make a tradition. We were tired after some exertion and sought to quench our thirst, beer quenches thirst in a way that soda just can’t, so my friend who had a reputation as the biggest drinker among us, also known as the “party extremist” declined a libation. Much to the surprise of all of us, most of us were too shocked to comment, so he sipped on his Coke while we grudgingly sipped our pints.
I am very partial to Guinness, ever since I was young I was told “Guinness is good for you”, I was always allowed to drink it even as a child as I was given it by my Mum, watered down and mixed with Coke. I never considered Guinness a sin before, but my friend’s eyes were judging me or more precisely I was judging myself. I was saying to myself “Jesus drank wine at the last supper, didn’t he?” Wine can be sacred and profane but only at different times; in Church as a Blessing or in a drunken setting. Ancient people drank wine because water was more likely infected with germs but tea was discovered to be safe because the water was boiled; only then was beer and wine associated with drunkenness. I don’t think Jesus frowned on the odd pint but he didn’t like drunkardness; but where does the line get drawn? That’s why it is better not to drink if you don’t know the limit. The Christian is faced with the tightrope of “being in the this world but not of this world.” To stay focussed when the world around you is telling you do the opposite. It tells you to hate when you want to love, to be selfish, to destroy; it has never been so hard to be a Christian or belong to any belief system. This world is rational, only sees the tangible, and only serves the desires of flesh.
I admire my friend for withstanding the slings and arrows as they taunted him with the rhetorical question “are you a bitch or a ninja?” I interjected saying “ninjas don’t go to heaven, but bitches do” most people didn’t know what to say but I was backing him up as best I could. He assured them that it was just a temporary solution and he was detoxing but I hoped he was done for good. It is like in The Shawshank Redemption when he runs away but his friends are happy to see him escape. “Run Forrest Run!” is another analogy. In Africa Christians define themselves by what they don’t do “I don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t screw around, don’t swear, don’t do this, don’t do that.” I espouse to a faith that defines itself by what it does. I want to help the poor, live a balanced life, speak no ill, and do no ill, fight against the true evils of this world.
Most of those teetotal Christians never do the positive things in life; the hardest thing is to believe, it is easy to quit drinking, smoking, and all those things, but to trust and believe in God 24-hrs a day is harder. It is like jumping from a plane knowing God will catch you, a literal leap of faith; how many of us could do that? Life is a baby thrown from the sky, it takes your whole life to hit the ground but when you do better hope God is there to catch. I spoke to a prostitute recently and talked for a while before asking the $64,000 question; “why do you do it?” She said she had no choice “I believe in God and I go to church but I can’t get a job, I would starve.” Her faith was there but not enough, man can live on faith alone, without food or water. Mary Magdalene was a lady of the night but Jesus still believed in her ability to change. Circumstances make up 90% of our decision making; what would you do in her situation? What would you do if you didn’t know what you know? If you didn’t have what you have? If you weren’t in your situation.
You will never know because you know what you know, you think what you think and you are in your situation and you can’t change by your own power. Ever since man has been on this Earth his first questions were; what am I doing here? Who made me? What happens when I die? And the biggest one; what is the point of it all? Modern society has bypassed those dilemmas by many diversions.
What am I doing here? You are here to consume products.
Who made me? You weren’t made you were evolved from amoeba – to consume products.
What happens when I die? You just live once and enjoy it as much as possible, with these products,
What is the point of it all? To buy these products that can make you happy.
Most people are too engrossed in their consumerism to take notice of the moral and spiritual void in their life. In UK it was tragic to see people who were just lost and being led like sheep to the slaughter. Being told they were oppressed and needed sexual liberation and if they were to have the right kind of sex then their problems would be gone. Sin is sin is sin; sin is not bad just because God said so, sin hurts people and all the consequences of sin carry on through the ages. Think of a sin; be it gluttony, adultery, drugs, alcoholism and the like, they affect wives, husbands, children, brothers, sisters and friends. I tried to think of a sin that doesn’t affect others and I came to the conclusion that unless you live on a planet alone, then you affect others. We are always trying to re-define what sin is, if we all do something then it is fine, if we are open about it then it is fine. The age of the individual means we define ourselves but in reality we are being defined by those trying to sell us stuff. Saying that; I can’t wait to get the new Apple Mac that is thinner than an anorexic Somali refugee.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Radio Ga-Gaga
RADIO GA-GAH
Rwanda is the most densely populated country in the Milky Way Galaxy, apart from a few wealthy City-States which can handle their situation; Rwanda is struggling under the weight of its growing population. It is cheek to jowl; I recently talked about travelling to the North and seeing the inch by inch farming aimed at mass production. I went to Novotel to use their internet and I met a fascinating Texan woman who had just recently become a mother; she showed me her blue-eyed son called Kwizera or Faith in English. She said “He 100 % Rwandan!” I laughed, She made some joke about “He’ll never be president of America, he was born here, he’ll have to be president of Rwanda one day.” We both stirred in the dream of the Blonde, Blue-eyed President Kwizera. We talked about a lot of things but we were adamant that Rwanda is the best country in the world; I was embarrassed coz I am not as patriotic as this Texan lady, for my own country. Rwanda stirs deep emotions in those who see it for the first time; I imagine the first herders who stumbled on this land high up in the mountains with lush peaks, deep valleys a mile deep. Eventually the herders became Rwandans, as did farmers from Congo; who joined the Pygmy Twa who are the only original Rwandans. Time will see if we have that White president and this shows the progress we are making.
A symptom of such density is sheer proximity to everyone; we number 8.8 million yet somehow all related or close in some way. Kigali is chocker block as the English say; packed like sardines; Rich slum, poor slum, give a dog a bone. I have the best view in Kigali in the photo you see but I just imagine how beautiful those houses in Nyarutarama would be if they had gardens or space. Space defines the edifice; if the White House was stuck in a congested area it wouldn’t look as good, but because it is nestled in the splendour of the White House lawn and the Rose garden it is the pride of USA. A result of this boom is the proliferation of enormous houses, totally inappropriate for the users need. It is common to meet a professional young couple living in a 15-bedroom house with just one kid, a nanny, a cook, gardener, guard, and that’s all. The quality of space is not yet developed; therefore quantity of it is more valuable. In UK you can buy a 3-bedroom house for £350,000 that is more valuable that a mansion in another area. Houses are really looked after and are constantly being renovated, with quality added to increase the sale price.
These humungous houses have a negative effect on the housing industry, the prices of basic products like cement, steel, and sand, all rise because these houses consume so much. In the end the house is impressive but impractical, luxurious but lunatic, a fancy statement but poor investment. Land in rural areas in available just outside town, only 15 minutes from the City centre; if they bought land in one of those areas at a fraction of the price and built on a nice spot with a rushing river, or impressive valley. When I build a house I want to build like my friend Alex Gatete; he built a house with his bare hands for the lady he loved, even though he hadn’t met her yet. “I am building her the best house she’ll ever see. Even if she’s one of those modern chicks, she’ll wanna cook and settle down, just because of the cosy house.” What that little romantic aside says is that people are still old-fashioned. In Kinyarwanda the word for marriage is Kwubaka, people ask you “Wubatse?” Have you built a house? (Kinyarwanda says long things with few word but says short things in long speeches) So to build is to be married, you can get engaged but no married woman is going to move into a rented old house, she wants her own place, planned to her specifications. So she’ll wait for you to build, when the house is nearly ready she’ll go through the formalities of getting pregnant to trap you and speed up the process.
This rush to build causes slums, I define a slum not by the quality of the houses but by whether or not they were built hapzardly. Rwanda copied Belgium in every way, the shoddy electrics, bad plumbing, everything is impractical. That might have been Belgium 30 years ago but nothing changed in Rwanda in 30 years until recently. So you are cheek to cheek; yard to yard, the house has to be as big as the land you have. These houses are expensive to run, hence the domestic economy is one of the biggest employment sectors; cooks, yard boys, gardeners, drivers, nannies, cleaners, guards, dog groomers. The abundance of labour means that you can employ someone just to look after your dog; to the point where it ain’t your dog anymore, it is closer to the Guard, listens to him, and obeys him, you just pay for the food. Your kids can also end up like this brought up by nannies, servants, this leads to negative effects.
You can go to MTN center and see this first hand, on Fridays every underage brat is there on cue. Kids who have been neglected by their rich parents and who have been brought up by servile houseboys. The classic illustration of this was when I first went there; these two runts were fighting hysterically, just grabbing shirts and not swinging, the crowd wanted a good fight but were disappointed. A valiant Guard armed with nothing but bad breath and a pump-action shotgun attempted to calm the situation but these runts knew their social standing; they both descended on the misguided Guard. Knowing these were kids of VIP’s he couldn’t retaliate and stood there as blows rained on him, I was shouting at him that this was a perfect opportunity to use his pump-action shotgun, to no avail.
So everybody has to have servants; the more the better, it is a basic economic weather gage. Pretty much like Scarlet O’Hara and such plantation owners wanted as many servants as possible. A sad result of this is the general noise and acrimony involved; 5 servants average per house, they are shouting, radios blazing, drumming, anything to annoy you. So radio; the bane of my life, locals can’t hear them, if you have 5 Rwandans in a space, then you have 5 radios blaring. A servant would sooner part with his leg than lose his Radio, and he knows it is his God-given right to play it as loud as he can. The servant also helps reduce the average life expectancy of their bosses; some of home haven’t stirred a cup of tea in years and would certainly sprain their wrists. I love to listen to BBC radio as often as I can but Rwandans listen to silly stations. Radio is intertwined with all aspects of life. Radio was integral is fomenting hatred and helped organise the Genocide. The basics include food and batteries, and water. This addiction to radio restricts productivity; servants are handicapped by having one hand, because one has to be holding a radio. It takes two guys to wash a car because each will be holding a radio; it takes two to cook because one has to hold the onion while the other cuts.
Rwanda is a cacophony of shitty radios; China and Taiwan have a lot to answer for, these cheap transistors cause me mental pain. If we stopped listening to Radio or drinking cheap banana beer, then we would be richer no end. The millions of dollars we waste on batteries would be put to good use and our brains would be clear enough actually do something. I used to argue with this houseboy next door, he used to blast his radio from 5am. His radio faced towards me so he would crank it up hear on his side, while it blasted towards me. One day things got out of hand; I went over and spoke to his boss, who was drunk, nonplussed yet issued a stern but half-hearted warning to him. Like a child he only increased the volume and giggled; I must admit I freaked out. (at one point death threats were involved) The poor guy was sacked as a final transgression after impregnating several maids and pissing off the neighbours. Just another episode in this series of life.
Rwanda is the most densely populated country in the Milky Way Galaxy, apart from a few wealthy City-States which can handle their situation; Rwanda is struggling under the weight of its growing population. It is cheek to jowl; I recently talked about travelling to the North and seeing the inch by inch farming aimed at mass production. I went to Novotel to use their internet and I met a fascinating Texan woman who had just recently become a mother; she showed me her blue-eyed son called Kwizera or Faith in English. She said “He 100 % Rwandan!” I laughed, She made some joke about “He’ll never be president of America, he was born here, he’ll have to be president of Rwanda one day.” We both stirred in the dream of the Blonde, Blue-eyed President Kwizera. We talked about a lot of things but we were adamant that Rwanda is the best country in the world; I was embarrassed coz I am not as patriotic as this Texan lady, for my own country. Rwanda stirs deep emotions in those who see it for the first time; I imagine the first herders who stumbled on this land high up in the mountains with lush peaks, deep valleys a mile deep. Eventually the herders became Rwandans, as did farmers from Congo; who joined the Pygmy Twa who are the only original Rwandans. Time will see if we have that White president and this shows the progress we are making.
A symptom of such density is sheer proximity to everyone; we number 8.8 million yet somehow all related or close in some way. Kigali is chocker block as the English say; packed like sardines; Rich slum, poor slum, give a dog a bone. I have the best view in Kigali in the photo you see but I just imagine how beautiful those houses in Nyarutarama would be if they had gardens or space. Space defines the edifice; if the White House was stuck in a congested area it wouldn’t look as good, but because it is nestled in the splendour of the White House lawn and the Rose garden it is the pride of USA. A result of this boom is the proliferation of enormous houses, totally inappropriate for the users need. It is common to meet a professional young couple living in a 15-bedroom house with just one kid, a nanny, a cook, gardener, guard, and that’s all. The quality of space is not yet developed; therefore quantity of it is more valuable. In UK you can buy a 3-bedroom house for £350,000 that is more valuable that a mansion in another area. Houses are really looked after and are constantly being renovated, with quality added to increase the sale price.
These humungous houses have a negative effect on the housing industry, the prices of basic products like cement, steel, and sand, all rise because these houses consume so much. In the end the house is impressive but impractical, luxurious but lunatic, a fancy statement but poor investment. Land in rural areas in available just outside town, only 15 minutes from the City centre; if they bought land in one of those areas at a fraction of the price and built on a nice spot with a rushing river, or impressive valley. When I build a house I want to build like my friend Alex Gatete; he built a house with his bare hands for the lady he loved, even though he hadn’t met her yet. “I am building her the best house she’ll ever see. Even if she’s one of those modern chicks, she’ll wanna cook and settle down, just because of the cosy house.” What that little romantic aside says is that people are still old-fashioned. In Kinyarwanda the word for marriage is Kwubaka, people ask you “Wubatse?” Have you built a house? (Kinyarwanda says long things with few word but says short things in long speeches) So to build is to be married, you can get engaged but no married woman is going to move into a rented old house, she wants her own place, planned to her specifications. So she’ll wait for you to build, when the house is nearly ready she’ll go through the formalities of getting pregnant to trap you and speed up the process.
This rush to build causes slums, I define a slum not by the quality of the houses but by whether or not they were built hapzardly. Rwanda copied Belgium in every way, the shoddy electrics, bad plumbing, everything is impractical. That might have been Belgium 30 years ago but nothing changed in Rwanda in 30 years until recently. So you are cheek to cheek; yard to yard, the house has to be as big as the land you have. These houses are expensive to run, hence the domestic economy is one of the biggest employment sectors; cooks, yard boys, gardeners, drivers, nannies, cleaners, guards, dog groomers. The abundance of labour means that you can employ someone just to look after your dog; to the point where it ain’t your dog anymore, it is closer to the Guard, listens to him, and obeys him, you just pay for the food. Your kids can also end up like this brought up by nannies, servants, this leads to negative effects.
You can go to MTN center and see this first hand, on Fridays every underage brat is there on cue. Kids who have been neglected by their rich parents and who have been brought up by servile houseboys. The classic illustration of this was when I first went there; these two runts were fighting hysterically, just grabbing shirts and not swinging, the crowd wanted a good fight but were disappointed. A valiant Guard armed with nothing but bad breath and a pump-action shotgun attempted to calm the situation but these runts knew their social standing; they both descended on the misguided Guard. Knowing these were kids of VIP’s he couldn’t retaliate and stood there as blows rained on him, I was shouting at him that this was a perfect opportunity to use his pump-action shotgun, to no avail.
So everybody has to have servants; the more the better, it is a basic economic weather gage. Pretty much like Scarlet O’Hara and such plantation owners wanted as many servants as possible. A sad result of this is the general noise and acrimony involved; 5 servants average per house, they are shouting, radios blazing, drumming, anything to annoy you. So radio; the bane of my life, locals can’t hear them, if you have 5 Rwandans in a space, then you have 5 radios blaring. A servant would sooner part with his leg than lose his Radio, and he knows it is his God-given right to play it as loud as he can. The servant also helps reduce the average life expectancy of their bosses; some of home haven’t stirred a cup of tea in years and would certainly sprain their wrists. I love to listen to BBC radio as often as I can but Rwandans listen to silly stations. Radio is intertwined with all aspects of life. Radio was integral is fomenting hatred and helped organise the Genocide. The basics include food and batteries, and water. This addiction to radio restricts productivity; servants are handicapped by having one hand, because one has to be holding a radio. It takes two guys to wash a car because each will be holding a radio; it takes two to cook because one has to hold the onion while the other cuts.
Rwanda is a cacophony of shitty radios; China and Taiwan have a lot to answer for, these cheap transistors cause me mental pain. If we stopped listening to Radio or drinking cheap banana beer, then we would be richer no end. The millions of dollars we waste on batteries would be put to good use and our brains would be clear enough actually do something. I used to argue with this houseboy next door, he used to blast his radio from 5am. His radio faced towards me so he would crank it up hear on his side, while it blasted towards me. One day things got out of hand; I went over and spoke to his boss, who was drunk, nonplussed yet issued a stern but half-hearted warning to him. Like a child he only increased the volume and giggled; I must admit I freaked out. (at one point death threats were involved) The poor guy was sacked as a final transgression after impregnating several maids and pissing off the neighbours. Just another episode in this series of life.
Monday, March 10, 2008
IBURAYI: A GUIDE
One of the most bizarre sights I have ever seen was that of our house-boy perusing through a glossy magazine; he is illiterate but the pictures in these celebrity mags tell the whole story. He was transfixed as if captivated by a demon; his eyes were like saucers, wide as they could go, I called out to him and he couldn’t hear me. It was like when an insect is blinded by light and keeps bumping into the bulb. He was salivating, with traces of self-hatred, under-lying narcissism and utter bewilderment. I left him there for about half an hour; he was “reading” Heat, Grazia, OK, Hello and seeing the total glamour and misery of celebrity. He explained the whole movie thing; he asked if I have been to the town where “Bafotora amafirimu” they “foto all the movies” called HORRYWOOD! Though he pronounced it “Horwud” but had to say very slowly. In African languages there is usually no L as we know it; it is interchangeable with R. Hence: Resbians, Porio, Radies, Rooking Rovery, and the aforementioned HORRYWOOD.
He was shocked and tried to do some work but he failed as he was still caught up in it, sweeping aimlessly in the same spot, deep in immoral thoughts of Californication. He asked me again if I had been in the magical place. I said no it is a bad place without money, worse when you have it and he wanted to have me committed. I told him that the people in those mags aren’t happy. He couldn’t believe me; it is hard for a man who struggled to get minor bits of money for his whole and has been happy doing it to understand. He never knew how much rich people earned but his estimates were low. “Even if I doubled my wages I still wouldn’t be able live that lifestyle.” I laughed inside. I told him that there are many people in the West who were poorer than him. That there were homeless people in the West; he contorted and closed his ears. I had shaken a major column of what he thought to be the truth, that everyone in Iburayi was rich. Our sense of geography is really bad; Rwandans have a certain notion as being central to the whole world. Our names for countries are really funny and basically involve mispronouncing the name.
Giputa – Egypt. We laughed at this with my uncle about how through biblical reference old Rwandans used to use the figurative saying “Yaguye mugiputa” “He fell in Giputa” meaning how the ancient Jews were in a bad way in Egypt; it could mean bankruptcy, alcoholism, adultery or any unwanted state. So if you went to see the pyramids then people would think you fell on hard times; but you tell them that the pharaoh was deposed and they have a new government now, then they relent.
Uburayi – Europe in General; some people think of it as a country with France, Germany as districts, so on.
Bufaransa – France; or Pari as most people would think Mariseh is next to Ryon or Borodo and all these are villages in Bufaransa.
Ubudage – Germany; they were the first colonisers of Rwanda with a general reputation for cruelty, for example they would leave spectacles hanging on a tree to watch lazy plantation workers while they were safely in the house. Hence they have a reputation as be hardworking, industrious pranksters and so on.
Babirigi – Belgians to me and you. These were the ones who took over from the cruel Germans. Belgians have reputation for …. Nothing really, too bland to elicit a stereotype, nevertheless they were the country that influenced Rwanda more than any other. We copied their mistakes as well and Rwanda is now firmly out of its shadow. They are divided into Baferema (Flemish) and Bawaruni (Walloon)
Abongereza – British; a corruption of Inglezia, they live in a country called Ubwongereza, Her Queen is revered as having strange powers as she closes parliament and kicks out the politicians until they get elected again.
Baspanya – Spanish
Baporotogo – Portuguese
Bahoranda – Dutch
Basuizi – Swiss
Baturuka – Turks
Batariana – Italians
Bagurika – Greeks
Basuwidi – Swedes
Banoroje – Norwegians
Bayiranda – Irish
Baboweri – White South Africans
On the other side of the big lake lies another land.
Bunyamerika – Good Old US of A; this is the place where everybody is rich and everybody has as much money as Rujugiro including street sweepers. This country has more money than Rwanda in excess of 10 times so people love it coz Rwanda is the Best country in Africa so USA must be really rich. This is the dream place in the world and as my friend to me; they shoot films and they can just call you off the road and photo you a film and you get millions. For example Eddie Murphy was Nigerian and his father sent him to study in America but he used to hang around in bars making people laugh till a rich man said he had to film him for the good of mankind.
Bukanada – Canada; this was a favoured destination for Rwanda as they both spoke bad or their own type of French. Their tribes include Bakebekwa, Bahontari, Bavankuva, and so forth.
All these are a people known as the Bazungu; a white tribe that divided into several tribes which are now countries. They have fought wars where millions were killed so now they made a peace treaty and they are all now rich coz they share everything. They rule the world and control all the other tribes; individually Bazungu are capable of great kindness but when they band together they are dangerous. Africans first called them Bazungu meaning “White devils” they though they were spirits from the past who were back to haunt them. White people never bothered to clear up this misunderstanding and actually fostered this myth and like Cortez and Pizzaro they marched through Africa slaughtering and infecting millions. When they tried to enter Rwanda they were always killed, the first white man set foot in Rwanda in the 1890’s one of the last countries to be exposed. My grandfather used to tell me how they would arrive in a village and tell the sinners to repent or face hell; the next day or so the village was nearly all dead from the pox or measles. So White men were thought to be bad luck and killed before they could approach a village. Later they came with arms and cannons and bibles and pacified the dark.
This how Rwandans and Africans generally see the world; now in this world of globalisation we are all in Hollywood. The lurid stories of the gutter press are published in our papers. Umuseso is a rabid tabloid in the mould of the Sun, National Enquirer, and various internet sites. It is visceral, biting, and partisan; it talks the language of the street, it is anti-government in everything said. It also has a healthy dose of football, gossip, and glamour. Izuba is another Kinyarwanda paper and it does the same. “Britney yarasaze!” was a screaming headline, Britney’s gone crazy, in a land where most live in a dollar a day or less you see ample distractions from daily life. When my house-boy wants to get away he likes to take a glossy mag and take a trip to planet stupid. He said he understood Britney “They drugged her and gave her very strong beer, then they stole her kids, no wonder she went crazy.” I realised we are global now, word gets round and quickly too in this global village.
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