Lifelines - African proverbs for daily living

When power overcomes hate

2010-09-16T09:21:00.005-05:00

What power does, hate cannot undo. (Uganda)

Dear Zayda,

Please remember the names of these girls: Addie Mae Collins (aged 14), Denise McNair (aged 11), Carole Robertson (aged 14), and Cynthia Wesley (aged 14). They were attending church in Birmingham, Alabama, when someone threw a bomb that killed them.

This incident took place on September 15, 1963.

At that time, Jim Crow laws existed in the United States. If you lived under those laws, you would have to attend a school for Black children only. These schools were never as good as schools for white children. The better jobs were kept for whites only, and most Black moms and dads worked as maids or gardeners in white people’s homes. Blacks who managed to become doctors, lawyers, or teachers, were also separated from whites.

Jim Crow laws affected where you could sit in a bus. Blacks had to sit in the back of the bus, and could not remain seated if a white person was standing. If you were out and wanted a drink of water, you would have to find a fountain that was meant for Blacks. If you wanted to use a bathroom, you would have to wait till you could find one that Blacks could use. Hotels and restaurants could turn you away if you wanted a room or a meal. Even Blacks who were in the army could not fight alongside whites.

As you can imagine, Blacks protested these unjust laws. In particular, Black soldiers returning from fighting in Europe could not understand why they could not have freedom when many of them had died in Europe (and elsewhere in the world) fighting for freedom.

Blacks therefore came together to oppose Jim Crow laws. They protested against being treated as inferior because of the color of their skins. In some places, they refused to use businesses and services that did not respect their right to be treated like any other human being.

By the early 1960s, Blacks were starting to see some results. For example, a change in the law allowed Black children to attend the same schools as whites. However, there was still a far far way to go.

Reverend Martin Luther King Junior and Malcolm X spoke out and led protests against the Jim Crow laws. Black people did not see why they had to wait any longer to be treated equally, and a Black Power movement started.

However, there were whites who did not want any change. They thought Jim Crow laws should remain and that Blacks should be their servants forever. The Ku Klux Klan, a group of racist whites, encouraged violence as a way of keeping Blacks from exercising power.

Addie Mae, Denise, Carole, and Cynthia were attending Sunday school classes at their church when the bomb blast went off. The Ku Klux Klan so hated Blacks that some of the Klan members attacked this Black church. Someone saw the person who threw the bomb. That person was at first given a hundred-dollar fine and a six-month sentence for the murders, because the courts still did not value the lives of Blacks. In 1977, however, this person who killed the girls was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.

Power proved to be stronger than hate. Because of the 1963 bombing, more and more people supported those who were seeking rights for Blacks. Demonstrations continued until the United States government changes the laws so as to allow Blacks to have the same rights as whites.

Zayda, the battle is not yet won. People might be able to drink water where they want, or to be a guest in any hotel or restaurant they can afford. However, pockets of hate still exist. But so does our power to do what hate cannot undo.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Finding happiness inside

2010-09-14T10:29:00.005-05:00

Happiness requires something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. (Swahili)

Dear Zayda,

Each of us can decide what happiness means to us.

We can be happy because of what we have, except that human beings never see to have enough. For example, if we have a new car today, we may be happy till we see a state of the art SUV that we think would make us happier still.

We can also be happy because of who we are. Since we are unique and special, we can always tap into ourselves as our source happiness. The challenge is to know who we are and to have the courage to be that person.

So we can add a little to the proverb for today. We might make it read, “Happiness is knowing ourselves to we find something to do, something to love, and something to hope for consistent with the vision we hold of ourselves and our world.”

Let us imagine you see yourself as a writer of children’s stories. You might have something to do as a top buyer of furniture in a big firm. That job might earn you a big salary and allow you to own a home and a car while you are in your early twenties. However, just having “something to do” might not make you happy.

We all need something or someone to love. However, we sometimes love with the hope that the person will love us back. We may expect too much of that person who, after all, has his own life to lead and his own dreams to try to fulfill. In error, we may be relying on that person to fulfill our dreams. We may then turn to something to love, perhaps devoting ourselves to some worthy cause. Love of plants and animals, love of books, cars, and music, may fill the gap for a while. Sometimes for a long while. But if our real yearning is to love another human being, we will need to first learn to love ourselves. Some may say that we cannot truly love even things, until we love ourselves.

Happiness can give us something to hope for, just as something to hope for can give us a feeling of happiness. If we choose to be happy, the world can look good to us even on the dark days. Faith in ourselves can help us to realize that morning always follows night just as spring always follows winter. At the same time, we can make ourselves happy by having a goal to work toward.

If we turn around this Swahili proverb, we can see that an unhappy person is likely to have nothing to do, nothing to love, and nothing to hope for. Usually the person reaches that stage because she has not learned how to love herself. The best gift to that person is not necessarily a job, a mate, or even an animal for a pet. Those may help in the short run. However the person may end up even more unhappy if she loses the things that came from the outside because she did not come to terms with herself inside. The best help is to love the person just as she is, so she can start to see herself as lovable. We may need to hold her hands for a while, being patient with her, till she can take over the job of loving herself. We can best give that help if we already love ourselves.

Happiness is complex, my grandniece. The Swahili are onto something important here, but we may need to add to the advice they give us. Happiness also requires loving ourselves. It needs first of all to be an inside job.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Running toward peace rather than after fortune

2010-09-12T09:31:00.004-05:00

He who runs after good fortune runs away from peace. (Africa)

Dear Zayda,

Money is very important. However, if you chase after money, it can become too important. It could become the most important thing in your life.

One of our relatives (I will call her Winsome) is an example of how someone can lose peace by running after good fortune. She once told me, “If I had a choice to be rich or to be happy, I would choose to be rich.”

Winsome was pretty and always looked about twenty years younger than her actual age. She enjoyed surrounding her self with beautiful things. She wore designer clothes, jewellery, shoes, and even T-shirts. I suspect she even wore designer underwear. Many of these items she bought on her annual trips abroad.

She loved to travel, and I think she visited every continent at least once. And she felt she needed lots of money to live the way she wanted to live. In addition, she wanted lots of leisure to do these things. She therefore had a plan to retire at fifty.

Winsome was bright and multi-talented. She studied languages, and was fluent in French and competent in Spanish. She qualified herself in library sciences before doing brilliantly in her law exams. She created desserts that would be the envy of a great chef. But she was not happy.

She earned well as an attorney, and was able to build her own house in an exclusive neighborhood. Rent from this house earned her a good income each month. She drove nothing but Mercedes Benz cars. But she was not happy.

Her parents were well off, and she wanted what they had. All of it. She had two brothers and a sister, but still she wanted the whole fortune. As an adult, she lived at home with her parents. She kept their company when they were well, and cared for them when they were ill. She therefore deserved to inherit her parents’ luxury home, and whatever else they chose to give her in return for her choosing to remain single and fully available to them. But some of the wealth was not enough for Winsome. She wanted all.

Winsome convinced her father that she was the only one who was faithful to him. The others had had differences with their father, who saw himself as a patriarch whose word was law. Winsome chose to remain under his thumb even as an adult, where her siblings had defied him at different stages in their lives. They had chosen careers of which their father disapproved; they had married persons of whom their father disapproved. They had not necessarily followed his advice on how to raise their children. They had had open quarrels with him when he tried to treat them as children even though they were middle-aged at the time. Winsome held her tongue, gave up her independence, and focused on the fortune.

Winsome’s father died and left all his wealth to his wife, on condition that on her death, she would pass on the fortune to Winsome only. Two of the siblings accepted the father’s wishes, even if they could not agree with his decision to favor one child over the others. The other sibling (I will call him George) saw how Winsome had played her game, and decided to outplay her.

After her father’s death, Winsome and her mother became like twins. They went everywhere together, wore each other’s clothes, and pooled their funds in joint accounts. Winsome could almost relax in her hunt for the complete fortune.

Then a roadblock developed. Winsome fell in love and her mother disliked the person so much that she would not allow him beyond her gate. This provided George with a chance to come between Winsome and their mother, and to put in his bid for the complete fortune.

George listened well to the mother’s complaints about Winsome, and he was happy to take Winsome's place as the mother’s constant companion. He helped his mother to remove Winsome’s name from most of her properties and from several of her bank accounts.

Nothing and no one, not even the man she loved, could comfort Winsome when she saw the wealth disappearing. She said she would prefer to die rather than live without all that her father intended her to have. She could not see life without the trips across the world and the expensive belongings.

She became an example of they way someone can die of a broken heart. She still looked young and beautiful when she died of a disease that caused her organs to stop working. Let us hope she has found peace in the next world where material possessions do not matter.

Just look at the trees in spring, Zayda, and you will know we live in a universe of abundance. We can follow nature by giving of ourselves, and opening up ourselves to receive. We can try to be at peace with ourselves so we attract the best to us.

We can decide if we want to risk our happiness by chasing after wealth. We know we are on the wrong track if we find ourselves competing, trying to deprive others so we have everything, or wanting to hoard for fear the wealth will run away.

I do believe we can have it all, if that all means most of all being happy. What do you think?

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Protecting chickens from hawks

2010-09-11T14:07:00.003-05:00

Do not throw an egg at the hawk who has just snatched one of your chicks. (Africa)

Dear Zayda,
Hawks exist in the world. They look for chickens not because they are bad people, but because they are hawks.

Many mothers learned to be chickens and passed on that message to their daughters. We think we must never talk back to those (usually male) who have power. We may believe that if we are nice, the world will be nice to us in return.

Hawks look out for nice chickens. They will tend to avoid the tougher chickens who will squawk and draw attention to the hawk in their midst. Hawks often don’t want to mess with hens that will peck at them and call down their barnyard crew to chase away the hawk. Most of all, hawks might not want to tangle with roosters who will use their spurs to defend the chickens.

So here is what some of the modern hawks do. They may be friends of moms and dads, and they may even be family members. They manage therefore to get between the chickens and those protecting the chickens. They may even get into the chicken coop and pretend to be just another chicken.

When the chicken cries out, a mom or a dad may say, “This nice person would never do or say that to you.” The chicken may also be told, “You are too sensitive,” or “You are being emotional.” Worst of all, those who matter most to the chicken may say, “You must be sick to be making up these stories. You are a liar.”

A hawk may threaten the chicken so she stays silent. He may say that terrible things will happen to the chicken or the chicken’s family if she ever talks about what is happening to her. He may even tell the chicken that it is her fault that he is attacking her.

Hawks often look for chickens on the Internet. In that way, the chickens don’t get to see what the hawk is like in person. The hawk can therefore pretend to be a chicken, gentle and sweet. Even if moms and dads want to protect the chicken, they may not know what is happening in an online chat room.

So what can you do to protect yourself, my grandniece? Trust your feelings. Act on your instincts. You don’t have to wait till the hawk has snatched a chick to know you could be in danger. You certainly do not have to do anything to placate the hawk, even if the person is a family member, your parents’ friend, or an online friend who says he is your age and in your grade at school.

Chickens need to learn to squawk. They may need to stop being polite as their moms and dad no doubt trained them to be. They need to yell, slap, kick, and bite if that is what it takes to scare off the hawk. If need be chickens need to risk going to the police to report the hawk’s behavior. The almost last thing a chicken needs to do is to hold the hawk’s secrets. The very last thing a chicken needs to do is to try to throw an egg to a hawk that shows signs of wanting to snatch a chick.

The world is a beautiful place, my grandniece, but we may not find all the people beautiful as they may seem. We don’t have to blame them for what they are, but we do need to protect ourselves by staying clear of danger, especially when our instincts tell us. “Watch out”.

I hope you will always listen to your instincts.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Forgiveness ends the argument

2010-09-10T09:48:00.003-05:00

He who forgives ends the argument (Africa)

Dear Zayda,

Two monks were once walking on a long journey. When they came to a river, they saw a young woman who wanted to get across, but the water was above her head. One of the monks lifted her up and took her to the other side in his arms. The second monk paid no attention to the young woman. The monks then continued walking and the young woman went along a different path.

Three hours later, the second monk said, “I don’t understand you, my brother. You know we have taken a vow never to touch a woman. You broke that vow when you lifted that woman across the river.”

“You are right,” said the first monk. “I held her in my arms for about three minutes. However, you have held her in your mind for the last three hours. And you seem set to hold her in your mind even longer. It seems to me that, until you let her go, you will continue breaking your vow.”

Jack Mandora, mi nuh choose none. [This is a way we end stories in Jamaica. The phrase means that I am passing on the story to you as I got it, but I cannot tell you whether or not it is true.]

The first monk did what he had to do. He broke a rule because he saw this young woman’s need and he could help her. He also knew that his vow was meant to help him stay focused on being a monk. However, he also believed in helping others as much as he could. He could forgive himself and move on, ending whatever argument he may have had in his mind.

The second monk could not let go of his view of what he saw. He had an argument in his mind that he kept turning over and over. To him, his position was morally superior. He was protecting the rules. If he were like many of us, he would not be able to resist telling others how right he was and how wrong his brother monk was. With each repeat of his side of the story, more and more persons would be likely to enter the argument and take sides. If he continued the argument, he could become unhappy and ill. In addition others could avoid him because he would not be fun to be around.

If the second monk is wise, he will learn from the memory and let it go. He will realize that he needs to forgive himself for what could be his own frailty in relation to women. He could have past experiences that cause him to fear touching a woman.

If the first monk had truly released all his would be able to forgive his brother monk his inability to end the argument. If he knew and trustws himself well, he would let go the baggage that rightly belonged to the one who decided to carry the load in his mind.

Sometimes people hurt us. Parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, close cousins and distant cousins may seem to fail us. We may feel friends have betrayed us. People may steal from us what we consider most valuable, taking away our jobs, our homes, and even the lives of our loved ones. The media seeks out those who are victims, so we may find fame and fortune in continuing to show how much another person's conduct makes us suffer.

At some point, however, we may need to choose between being happy and being sorry for ourselves. Old and worn stories may begin to affect the choices we make and the relationships we form. Those who want to be happy will avoid us. Those who at first welcomed the argument may become tired of it and move on to stories from more recent victims.

My grandniece, letting go is not easy, especially in a world that promotes getting our own back at those we think have offended us. I am not asking you to be a door mat, so you need never excuse what you do not wish to accept. You can remember, but not with hurt or desire for revenge. You can remember in order to make better choices in the future. You can remember so as to know whom to bring into your closest circle, and whom to keep your distance from.

Where you are the one who did wrong, forgiveness means accepting that you did wrong, and not trying to excuse or justify your behavior. Admit it, let go the baggage, repair any damage done, and continue on life’s journey.

Forgiving (most of all self-forgiving) is not easy, but it is the only way to go if you love yourself and want to keep yourself whole and healthy.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Learning how to lead

2010-09-09T09:50:00.003-05:00

The egg says, “I am like authority. If you hold me too hard, I break; if you let me go, I fall and break to pieces on the ground.” (Africa)

Dear Zayda,

Women are still learning how to lead. Since we know what we do not know, we may be better off than men who think they know. With centuries of practice, men are still making a mess for women to clean up. For too long we have accepted the work and expected none of the authority or even the credit. Increasingly, we women are demanding our share of authority not just at home but in the boardroom and in parliament.

Girls usually become leaders much younger than boys. When the new baby comes, parents usually give some of their authority to the big sister. Parents may blame the three-year-old girl for any harm that comes to baby under her watch. If she and a younger child have a fight when they are grown, parents will say, to big sister, “You are the older one, so you must set the example.” Perhaps some of us avoid authority because we link it to blame, sacrifice, loss of childhood, and loss of fun.

While the girls are doing chores and supervising younger children, the boys (certainly in Jamaica!) are usually outdoors playing games. They therefore learn about authority through games. So while women take authority seriously and often too seriously, men tend to see authority as a game. Where women may take a loss to heart, a man may accept a loss as the price for staying in the game. Women may think their power base is formed in discussions at meetings; men know the power base is formed over drinks at the bar.

Women with state authority used to be rare. The first female elected to head a government was Sirivamo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka, in a country where men usually lead while women follow several paces behind. From similar cultures came such leaders as Indira Gandhi of India, and Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan. Today we had many more women holding state power in countries such as Liberia, Germany, and Chile. Portia Simpson Miller was Jamaica’s first and only female prime minister, and this year Kamla Persad-Bissessar became Trinidad’s prime minister. You can see a list of women currently in power at: http://www.filibustercartoons.com/charts_rest_female-leaders.php

Women continue to search for positive ways to handle authority. Most women, such as Maggie Thatcher of Britain, have decided to hold the egg hard, often so hard that they defeat themselves. Some, like Eugenia Charles of Dominica, stay the course as a strong leader, not seeming to care if others think they are acting like males. Many more women avoid handling authority. They let go of the egg out of fear of being seem as trying to be a man.

My grandniece, you can begin to practice handling authority as soon as you have any kind of leadership role – at home or at school. Remember the lesson of the egg. Carry an egg around with you for a few days and see what you have to do to protect the egg.

Understand that you can be gentle without allowing the egg to fall. Notice that you can hold the egg firmly without crushing it. Remember that if you put down the egg, someone else may pick it up and act as if the egg belongs to him because that is what he grew up to believe.

And if you find no other sources to guide you, Zayda, remember the wisdom the ancestors have set down for us in these proverbs. Remember women such as Yaa Asantewaa and Harriet Tubman. They had the courage to take up the egg and nurture it. They could be tough and gentle, flexible and uncompromising.

Balance and self-trust are some of the qualities we need to feel at home with the authority that belongs as much to us as to anyone else.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Letting go of pretence

2010-09-08T09:52:00.004-05:00

No matter how long a log stays in the water, it doesn't become a crocodile. (Mali)

Dear Zayda,

We can admire people, and we can even pattern our lives on the lives of others. But only one original exists, and all else are carbon copies.

Singers on talent shows, like American Idol, have weeks when they perform songs by well-known singers. However, they judges are always looking for to see where the performers are bringing their unique talent to the song.

Fantasia, the winner a few seasons ago, sounded to me like Aretha Franklin. If she continued to sound like Aretha, Fantasia could have been no more than an Aretha imitator. She needed to find her own voice and her own personality on stage. Besides, even if she spent a lifetime trying to be Aretha, she would still be Fantasia. She would have failed at being Aretha, and failed at being herself. For the record, Fantasia has been herself, with all the challenges that can come from letting others see us as we are.

Our unqualified success in life is in being our true selves. We can do that better than anyone else.

Howard Daly was a dancer, singer, musician, and personal coach. He loved life and he loved people. A doctor commented that when Howard was on the hospital ward, his presence brought about changes nurses and doctors had never seen in the hospital.

No one is likely to build a monument to Howard. No one is likely to name streets after Howard. He died last weekend without leaving children by blood or any more than basic possessions. But all who knew him have a memory of a person who was true to himself and could therefore be true to others. He brought a sense of peace, because he was at peace with himself.

He was therefore free to show his heart, the unique part of all of us. Sometimes we want to be ourselves, but we are scared that others might see us without the masks that we think protect us. Many times other people have already seen behind the masks, but they may keep up the pretense because that is what they think we want. They may be wearing masks of their own, so the game might be that they leave our mask alone if we leave theirs alone.

Masks serve a purpose. Our ancestors had to wear masks to protect themselves. They had to pretend to be happy so slave-owners would not know they were planning to resist their bondage. Jonkunnu, Carnival, and Mardi Gras allowed people to relieve stress by pretending to be someone or something else. They could say and do things without being seen for who they really were. But no matter how long we wear the mask, we never can become the face of the mask. We may even forget who we truly are and find ourselves faceless.

So, Zayda, if we are a log, let’s be a great log. Let's seek the sunlight since the log that stays in water too long will probably rot. Others may be scared of the log for as long as they fear it is a crocodile, but the secret will be out when the log is exposed as having no scales or teeth or tail. Or life of its own.

My grandniece, you bring the unique you to this life. You have special qualities that your world needs. Mask when you have to or need to. But seek always to free yourself to be yourself.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Adding raindrops to the sea

2010-09-07T09:13:00.003-05:00

Even the sea accepts raindrops. (Ghana)

Dear Zayda,

You are free to express yourself freely and then some more. People in Jamaica will call you “nuff” [too much to handle] and perhaps even “boasy” [boastful]. Others may even think of you as an “uppity” with the N-word added to it.

President Barack Obama gets labeled “uppity” because, as a Black man, he dared to think big. He dared to dream of being president of the most powerful country in the world, even though he was a Black man raised by a single mother. To get to be president means usually that you have to be rich, and Obama didn’t have the wealth of George Bush, for example. Definitely not the wealth of a John F. Kennedy. So Obama became inventive about fund raising. He built a community of funders among regular people who could send him ten or twenty dollars at a time. He thought big, and then some more. He could well have thought that being a candidate for the presidency was enough. He could have thought that winning the primaries was enough. But no, he believed in himself enough to think he and his family deserved to live in the White House.

Some of us think that he may be limiting himself these days. Sometimes he may seem like a turtle that wants to play it safe and not stick out its neck too far. He may need to realize that we are always on a journey, so we can’t just sit back and decide we have arrived and all is well. Just as there is always room for raindrops in the sea, so there is always room for another leaf on the tree.

Muhammad Ali was always over the top. His sea always had room for more raindrops. He knew he was the greatest boxer in the world, even before he won any titles. By seeing himself as the best, he won his fights even before he got into the boxing ring. He would predict exactly which round he would knock out an opponent, and he was usually right. He believed in himself more than anyone could possibly believe in him. People criticized him for chatting so much, and some called him “the Louisville Lip” as he came from Louisville, Kentucky. He silenced the critics by proving the truth of what he was saying. Ali became a boxing legend for boxing with brains as well as fists. He had 56 wins and only 5 losses in his career.

Ali did not believe in war, and so he refused to be in the United States army fighting the Vietnamese in their own country. He said, "No, I am not going 10,000 miles to help murder kill and burn other people to simply help continue the domination of white slavemasters over dark people the world over. This is the day and age when such evil injustice must come to an end."

He knew he could damage his boxing career by standing up for his beliefs, but he would not allow money and fame to limit him. He had challenged the sports system with his confidence as a boxing, and he challenged political system with his confidence as a Black man.

Ali identified with militants in the Black struggle for civil rights. He joined the Nation of Islam, even though he knew his views on race and religion could lose him support from boxing fans and therefore his career.

My grandniece, you can never be too much of yourself. There is always more to do and more to discover. People at the top are bound to slide down if they just sit there. If we stop dreaming (and dreaming big!) we stop living (when we could be living big!).

So live, Zayda, live fully and then some more!!

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Knowing when to stop pushing

2010-09-06T09:15:00.003-05:00

Pushing ends at the wall. (Sierra Leone)

Dear Zayda,

No matter how hard we push, we need to recognize when we hit a wall. We can go over, under, or around the wall. We can stop and think what we can do to break down the wall, or we can leave that wall for now with a plan to return when we are stronger or have more help. At the very least, we need to step back before the wall does us damage.

Many of us would like to be popular. However, pushing can create a wall between us and others. Then the harder we push is the more others pull away. If we appear too needy, others may push back at us, and we may feel even more crushed by this wall. We may also blame those who do not like us, thus making the wall even higher and wider.

If pushing makes us feel hurt and unhappy, we need to stop and think about where we are and where we want to go. For example, being popular is more about liking ourselves than about having others like us. If we have to push to start a friendship, we are likely to have to continue pushing to keep the friendship. However, if we are good friends with ourselves first, we are more likely to attract those whom we don’t need to push.

In a competitive world, pushing for a promotion at work seems like the only choice. A man named Don was good at his job, and so he was disappointed when Cynthia got the promotion he thought he deserved. He decided to do his best to push her out of the job, in the hope that he would replace her. He spread gossip about her, claiming that she was dishonest. Now, what people say about others is often true about themselves. After a couple of years, Don lost the job because he changed a company check and kept the money for himself.

Cynthia continued to face the wall of gossip that Don had started. So she resigned from her post when she felt life had more to offer than daily battles at work. When she left, someone else got the promotion as Don had wanted so badly.

We can push by improving ourselves, and by doing our best always. However, our best ideas can come to us when we are not pushing.

For example, Debbie may be working 16 hours every day to try to complete a project. However, the harder she works is the more tired her brain becomes. The long hours at the computer may cause Debbie's eyes and her back to ache. She may need to know when to stop pushing because she has reached a wall. Lying down in bed or going to the beach may seem irresponsible with so much work to do; however, the break is likely to help Debbie to find ways under, over, or around the wall. Fresh ideas will almost certainly come to her after a nap or a swim. She may relax with friends who, to her surprise, can provide her with answers that will shorten her work.

Balance is key to knowing when to push, and when to stop pushing. Balance and wisdom.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Setting sail on our own star

2010-09-05T12:10:00.005-05:00

Don't set sail on someone else's star. (Swahili)

Dear Zayda,

Our star will guide us, if we let it. However, we sometimes allow other people’s stars to outshine ours. For example, we might follow the stars of those we want to please. We may ignore our own stars in an effort to win the approval of parents and teachers. Later we may follow the star of a spouse, employer, or even politician.

Moms and dads will have ideas on what they want their children to be. The usual choices are professions linked to status and money: law, medicine, accounting, or engineering. A spouse may need us to support his career; and children may claim our attention. Parents may need us close by so they feel more secure as they grow older. Following someone else’s star may seem safe or dutiful, but we can never set sail on that person’s star.

Althea was a teacher whose parents were also teachers. She seemed settled, with a husband, a child, and a job in one of the best high schools. But she yearned to be a model. She was very dark-skinned at a time when the more light-skinned models seemed to be in demand. She was already 28 years old – close to retirement age for models who usually start on the runways at about age 16. Althea struggled with remaining in a safe harbor, but her desire to find herself remained. So she set sail with just a glimmer of her own star to guide her. She entered a modeling competition with girls little more than half her age – and she won! Althea went on to a career in modeling that took her overseas. She even made the cover of Essence magazine.

Until recently, Juds worked in sales. She did well enough to support herself and her son, but she also knew she was treading water. With an uncertain economy, she was glad to have a job. Still, she wanted to do what gave her the greatest joy: cooking. When she got a chance to go to China to teach cooking for a year, she agreed right away. Sometimes, even when we can see and know our star, we are scared to leave port. Juds could have decided that China was too far away. She would need to adjust to people and places and tastes that were foreign to her. The Chinese would find her as unusual as she would find them, as Blacks are unknown (except for Usain Bolt) in many parts of China.

Juds is now in China, having the best experience of her life – except for when the Chinese insist on touching Juds’ locks for the hundredth time! She had to step away from all that is familiar to her, but that is the price we pay for setting sail and following our own star.

As we grow older, we may wonder why we are in a rut, why we feel so unfulfilled. We may have traveled far, but not yet reached our own destination. Fortunately, our own star is always waiting on us, and it is never too late (or too early) to set sail.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Power of love to overcome evil

2010-09-04T07:58:00.003-05:00

Without retaliation, evils would one day become extinct from the world.
(Nigeria)

Dear Zayda,

Jamaica has more churches per square metre than any other country in the world. Jamaica also at the moment has the highest murder rate in the world. The link between number of churches and the murder rate may well be Jamaican’s love of the Law of Moses. “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth” says that law.

Mahatma Gandhi said, “An eye for an eye will soon make the whole world blind.” That belief in retaliation certainly keeps bad things happening in families, in communities, in nations, and in the world.

Gandhi wanted to free India, but he chose peace over violence. Britain then ruled India and occupied much of Africa and the Caribbean as well. But India was at the centre of Britain’s empire. India provided Britain with riches, power, and control over land and people. Britain also had a strong army, and the best navy in the world. Gandhi had little more than a desire to see the backs of the British, and to see Indians rule their own country. Yet Gandhi’s refusal to hit back led to the end of the British Empire not just in India, but in Africa and the Caribbean as well.

If we feel we have to do to someone what the evil have done to us, or worse, we give away our power. That other person is now ruling our life, and may later rule our children’s lives as well.

Today in Jamaica there are communities at war with each other. Often the reasons are not clear, just that someone from this side once injured or disrespected or disagreed with someone from the other side. The wars break up families and friends, and isolate people who have to avoid the war zones. Battles take place in which people lose their homes and sometimes their lives.

When the fighting wears down people enough, peace might come for a while. People wonder why they chose to fight when life is so much easier when they care for each other, and when they can walk freely on streets that used to be no man’s land. If the will to give up “an eye for an eye” is strong enough, the peace will last. Too often, however, the mistrust does not go away. A small incident – such as an argument in a bar - can start up the war again.

The desire for retaliation seems never far away, especially when it seems to have support from the Bible. Jesus said his teachings of love were to replace the Law of Moses. He told his followers to love their enemies and to do good to those who hurt them, but Jamaicans seem to prefer to follow the hate teachings of Moses.

Nelson Mandela had every reason to hate those who kept him in prison for 27 years. Like Gandhi, Mandela wanted to do what seemed impossible at the outset. He wanted to free a country where one group enjoyed life at the expense of another group. The white South Africans had all the power, and did all they could to ensure the Blacks had no power at all. They were shot down when they tried to march peacefully to resist unjust treatment., but later took up arms to defend themselves. Blacks tried to use Gandhi’s methods

Nonetheless, when Mandela walked out of prison as a free man, and white rule ended, Mandela insisted there should be no retaliation. He did not wish evil to continue under Black rule. He set an example by making peace with his own jailers, and with those who had mistreated Black people so badly and over so many years.

My grandniece, we will be tempted to hit back when others hit us, so as to give them a taste of their own medicine. Even as we do that, we need to realize we are giving away our power to those persons. The best we can do then is to re-take our power as soon as we can. We can step back for a while to think about what we want most of all.

Is our goal to hurt someone today and risk retaliation tomorrow? Is the loving thing to move away from that person (if we can)? Could we try to love ourselves so much the person’s words and actions cannot hurt us? Could we bring ourselves to understand that the other person is acting out of his own pain, and that his behavior has nothing to do with us personally? Could we re-focus on our goals rather than stay focused on the person’s conduct?

Taking the peaceful road is not easy, Zayda. It takes more courage than fighting back, and it certainly leaves us with less evil for even the new-born to deal with.

We can choose. So, like Gandhi and Mandela, let us choose to love and forgive.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Crossing rivers to reach success

2010-09-03T13:05:00.005-05:00

One does not cross a river without getting wet. (Zulu)

Dear Zayda,

Someone once said, “Whatever is worth doing, is worth doing badly.” If we want to stay dry, we might never leave one side of the bank for the other. However, getting wet is the price we pay for crossing the river. If we manage to cross the river and remain dry, whatever or whoever carries us across the river will get wet.

In life, as Jimmy Cliff points out in his song, there are many rivers to cross.

Every time we attempt something new, we risk getting wet. However, many of us want to play it safe, especially as we grow older. Mistakes are the price we pay for crossing rivers. Courage is the reward for learning that we can be dry again after we have reached the other side. If fear keeps us stuck on the river bank, we risk feeling unhappy in our lives. We live with regret that we did not allow ourselves to get wet so as to explore other sides of life.

Those who love us may think they are doing the best for us when they try to keep us dry. A parent might say to a child who wants to be a dancer, “Why don’t you become an attorney or a doctor instead, and dance as a hobby?” We need to be ready to defy well-meaning family and friends so as to cross rivers that beckon to us.

“Cornbread, Earl, and Me” is already a classic, and I am sure you will see this movie before long. Madge Sinclair plays the mother in the movie. She is an example of someone who was determined to keep going toward her goal, no matter the hardship. She was a Jamaican primary school teacher with the dream of becoming a movie star.

Few other Jamaicans had made it to Hollywood by then – that river seemed to broad, wide, and deep for someone like Madge to cross. She spoke with a Jamaican accent that she wanted to keep; she had no contacts in the business to open doors for her; she had no trust fund to keep her going while she tried to get acting jobs. As a Black woman, she had difficulty getting roles to match her talent. In addition, she was thirty years old when she started out in an industry that favors the young, white, and conventionally beautiful.

Madge had left a family behind in Jamaica – one of her sons was in the same class as one of my sons. So she must have been tempted many times to return to the side of the river that she knew best. She could have stayed safe as wife, mother, and teacher. But she chose to remain in New York even when food and money were short, and jobs were nowhere in sight. However, she was already in the water, already getting wet, so she continued to push for the side she was determined to reach.

If you watch re-runs of the Roots mini-series, and of Trapper John MD, you will see Madge. You will hear her voice in The Lion King. As far as possible, Madge kept her Jamaican flavor. For example, in Trapper John MD she plays the role of Jamaican nurse working in the USA, and periodically she bursts out in broad Jamaican.

Our dreams are always within reach, Zayda. We will get wet crossing rivers. We may even slip and feel as if the currents are taking us with them. We may need help to get across safely. But the other bank is always awaiting us. New horizons. A chance to fulfill dreams.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Giving everyone credit for what they know

2010-09-02T11:01:00.004-05:00

He who does not know one thing knows another. (Kenya)

Dear Zayda,

Even as a baby, you know things that others do not know and need to know. There is so much you do not yet know, but you are the expert on when you are hungry or soiled, when you need attention or just want to play.

Parents and teachers are wrong if they think children are empty vessels waiting to be filled. A child may not yet be able to do calculus, but the child knows mathematics long before reaching school. He knows that two sweets are more than one; she will know if she has fewer wooden blocks now than a moment ago.They both know the difference between a small ball and a large ball.

Children are born knowing a lot. The job of adults is to help them to be aware of what they may know by instinct or by childhood experience. Teaching a child can be easier if we help them make sense of what they already know. On the other hand, teaching can be a battle if we insist on filling the child with what we decide the child ought to know. The word “recognize” really means “to know again”. So we can assume a child already knows, but we are helping him to “know again”.

We, not our doctors, are the experts about our bodies. We do not need to have passed medical exams to know how our bodies function.

Zayda, our elders lived in deep rural villages where they reached doctors only in the most serious of cases. They had to learn how to be in harmony with nature and at peace with their bodies. Elders learned from their elders how to eat foods that helped them to be healthy. In contrast, today’s junk foods are linked to diseases. Our elders also knew which herbs and bushes to use to promote health. In contrast, today’s medications may help in one way, but have side effects that may harm the body. Our elders' connection with nature and with their inner spirit helped them relieve stress. They had limits on what they knew about health, but their knowledge survives today as “alternative medicine”.

Many assume that someone who has a doctorate knows more than someone who cannot read and write. However, that highly educated person is mistaken if she thinks the illiterate person knows nothing. Many who cannot read and write need to be extra sharp to survive. One grandmother hid her reading “disability” so well that her family knew about it only when she died and they saw she signed her will with an “X”. She had supervised homework, discussed world politics, sang her hymns, and had the longest memory of anyone in the family. She may not have known how to use a computer, but no one anywhere could match her sweet potato pudding with the custard on top.

We gain a lot, my grandniece, if we accept that each person knows things we do not or cannot know. We need always to respect others for what they know and can teach us.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Keeping ladders in place

2010-09-01T08:57:00.005-05:00

Kick away the ladder and your feet are left dangling. (Malawi)

Dear Zayda,

We are never alone unless we choose to be. Those who have gone before and many who are present have helped us to reach where we are now. If we forget them, we will be like those who climb a ladder and then kick it away. We may have reached the top, but we have no way of getting back to the ground that nurtured us.

People are more likely to kick away the ladder when they feel ashamed of whom they are. Sometimes people are ashamed of what their parents did to help them succeed. For example, if someone is a doctor, he may be ashamed of his mother who cleaned people’s floors, washed people’s clothes, and sold goods in the market to pay for his schooling. Those who are still at the bottom of the ladder may think others arrive at the top by magic. However, if the doctor would admit to the ladder, he could show others how they could improve their lives even if they are poor now. Worse still, the doctor may find that his children learn the lesson of disloyalty only too well.

Blanche K Bruce was the first African American senator to complete a full term. He was light-skinned, and he married a woman who was even lighter-skinned. He was the first African American whose signature showed on US currency. When the US government honored him in 2002, there were virtually none of his descendants to celebrate his achievements. Over time, they had passed for white. With the ladder to Bruce kicked away, almost none of his family was aware of or could admit to being Black.

Just as some of us want to forget we were every poor or Black, some of us forget we were young. For example, we may criticize the young for their styles, forgetting the styles we wore no matter how hard our parents objected. Some of us may indeed have worn these styles because our parents objected. Yesterday’s parents were perhaps as outraged by sons who wore earrings as are today’s parents by sons who wear braided hair. Today’s skimpy skirts may well offend those who forget the micro-minis they wore in the 1960s. If generations kick away the ladder, elders are sidelined and young people miss out on the benefits of learning from their elders.

Rich and poor, Black and white, young and old all have much to learn and to teach each other. Let’s work at keeping the ladders standing upright. If the ladders happen to fall, let’s work together to get them back up again.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Giving help without wasting away like soap

2010-08-31T12:37:00.004-05:00

If you try to cleanse others - like soap, you will waste away in the process! Malagasy)

Dear Zayda,

Those of us who think we can cleanse others need to think again. First-borns like you and me may start out with the job of “cleansing” younger brothers and sisters, and we may want to continue the job for life. Some of us may even find careers – as nurses, teachers, social workers, and even human rights activists – that help us to feel we are cleansing others. Those who waste away, without succeeding at cleansing others, risk feeling angry at themselves, at the still uncleansed, and sometimes at the world.

Try as hard as we may, we cannot cleanse anyone who wants to keep his dirt. The best help we can give is to point the person to the soap and the water and show them how to cleanse themselves. Babies need people to cleanse them, but children need gradually to learn how to look after themselves. We have to be careful not to make babies of grownups, not to keep doing for them what they can do for themselves.

Still, many of us seem unable to help ourselves. Perhaps we know that deep down we are the ones that need the cleansing, but it seems easier to cleanse others than ourselves.

For example, Marie had some self-esteem issues when she married Tom. When she was growing up, all Marie knew of her mother were the occasional phone calls from New York and the barrels that arrived on birthdays and at Christmas.

Her friends thought Tom was a bit clingy, but Marie loved being needed. Tom abused drugs, but Marie was sure that she could cleanse him of that habit. She believed her love would make up for Tom’s mood swings. She had to go to hospital once when he hit her and made her ear bleed. However, she married Tom as soon as her bruises healed. Within two years of the marriage, Marie was abusing drugs as well.

When we help others, we need to keep asking ourselves if this help is helpful to the other person or to ourselves. Is our help making others dependent on us? Does our help give us a change to feel superior to others who seem weaker than ourselves?

Patrick was a bright man who spent several years in prison for fraud. He wanted to write about his experiences so as to help others who might be tempted to break the law. Sarah, who also had dreams of being a writer, decided to help Patrick. She did not want to give Patrick money just like that. She therefore hired him to work in her garden in exchange for as much as she could afford to pay him. In the mean time, she arranged for him to attend writing classes, free of charge. She also set up counseling sessions to help him overcome the trauma of the years he spent in prison. In addition she introduced Patrick to friends who might help him earn money that would at least keep Patrick's landlord from throwing him out.

Janet was proud of the strides Patrick was making. Her garden was the talk of the neighborhood, and Patrick got jobs looking after other people’s gardens. His creative writing teacher reported that he had talent and was one of the best in his class.

One day, Janet received a call expressing sadness at the passing of Patrick’s mother. As far as Janet knew, the lady had died almost ten years earlier. Gradually, Janet realized that Patrick had returned to his old life. He was, for example, getting Janet’s friends to pay for his writing classes several times over. He begged them not to tell Janet about his appeals to them for money, because she was already so good to him. At first he was asking for small sums, but he needed a lot more money to “bury his mother”.

Fortunately, Janet did not spend too much time wasting away. She turned her energy into writing, and became a published author.

Zayda, even if we try to cleanse others, we do not have to keep going till we are all wasted away like soap. We can stop. We can learn. We can decide to cleanse ourselves instead. Only then can we help others to help themselves, and let them go if they if they want to use us as props.

By being healthy and whole, we increase the chances that people around us will at least moving in the direction of being healthy and whole.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Finding peace with what runs inside us

2010-08-30T16:05:00.004-05:00

You can outdistance that which is running after you, but not that which runs inside you. (Rwanda)

Dear Zayda,

Michael Jackson is one of many examples of people who have the means to outdistance what is running after them, but still become trapped by what is running inside them.

Michael had a lot of what many of us imagine will make us content. His songs – like “Ben”, “Man in the Mirror”, and “Billie Jean” – will remain popular for generations to come. Michael was so famous that his concerts were certain to be sold out. When he died, he was rehearsing for a tour in which all fifty concerts were sold out. At the height of his career, he had so much money that he could probably buy the most expensive item in the most expensive shop, and not notice the difference. His main home was a mansion on a ranch, where he wanted that money could buy.

This man had the talent, money, and fame to outdistance whatever ran after him. However, he could not escape what ran inside him.

Peace comes when we no longer feel as if we have to run away from what is inside. Perhaps, like Michael, we had an unhappy childhood. Perhaps, like him, we did not feel loved, cared for, or protected. Michael could be excused for thinking he had no childhood at all, because he was filling concert halls when most little boys are batting balls in the back yard.

If memories of a lost or stolen childhood keep running inside our minds, we may become ill, unless we get professional help. These memories can cause us to angry at ourselves or at others. We may then act in ways that harm ourselves, harm others, chase others away, or try to bind others to us by force or threat. Some may try to re-live their childhood through children.

Michael tried to revisit his childhood by creating a giant play space with its own zoo and amusement park. As an adult, he invited children to play with him. He had the overnight stays and the pajama parties he never could have had as a child. The child in Michael must have been amazed that the adult world thought he was harming any of these children. Perhaps he was indeed acting like the child who fulfills its own needs with no thought for what may follow.

Like Michael, we may dislike our looks because of what others say about us. Most of have to live with our looks, but Michael wealth gave him choices. So he could afford the plastic surgery that changed him from being black, curly-headed, broad-nosed, and full-lipped to looking almost like a white female.

In trying to outdistance what was running inside him, Michael might have become like the child who has no adult to guide him. He had the money to buy whatever he thought he needed. No one seemed to be able to say, “Michael, stop! That is not good for you.” Therefore, when Michael needed more and more medication to ease pain and help him fall asleep, he found those whom he could pay to bring him what he wanted.

Michael was only fifty years old, and days away from his concert tour, when the medication took his life. With the fame and money that seemed to run after Michael, he was unable to come to terms with what ran inside of him.

The best way to deal with what runs inside us is to love ourselves as we are. The best favor your mom and dad can do for you is to help you to be confident in who you are, how you look, and what you do. What you can do for yourself is to realize that the person who is unknown, penniless, and homeless might be more at ease with himself than Michael Jackson managed to be.

Coming to terms with what runs inside can be a gateway to finding peace.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Sea and waves: accepting uncertainty

2010-08-29T09:26:00.011-05:00

There is no sea without waves. (Swahili)

Dear Zayda,

One of the biggest favors your elders can do for you is to show you that life will have ups and downs.

Many societies promote a lie that there can be a sea without waves. Parents may believe that if they do more or less of this or that, their children will have an easier life. As we become adults, many of us believe that we can reach smooth seas if we get a college degree, become a top executive, and earn millions a year. We feel certain we will be happy if we are rich enough, slim enough, good-looking enough, and lucky enough to marry the person of our dreams.

Advertisements are usually based on the myth of the sea without waves. We are told we will have the body, the job, the home, or the spouse that will provide us with a life of smooth seas. All we need to do is to use this deodorant, drink this beverage, or buy this face cream. We may then believe we are to blame when the waves keep coming despite all do and all we buy. So we do more, and buy more, and wonder why we still cannot be happier.

If we flow with life's lessons, we learn that the sea is what it is. Sometimes it is smooth and wonderful for paddling. Sometimes the sea is angry as in a hurricane or destructive as in a tsunami.

We may choose to stay in a protected harbor and try to enjoy smooth seas all the time. However, we may become bored and even envious of others when we see them become stronger after facing rough seas.

The challenges you face as a baby will help you learn to trust yourself. You will spend many months crawling, standing, and falling down. Even when you think your legs are strong, you will still fall sometimes. If your parents tried to protect you from bruises, you would probably never be able to be a runner like your dad.

When the seas are very rough, we may decide to remain on shore for a while. We need to judge when the sea is safe for us so we do not take unnecessary risks. We may also develop surfing talent, so we have reason to welcome the high waves when they come. Sailors have discovered amazing skills when they are caught in hurricanes that create waves as high as mountains. Those who live near the sea know that waves can be their friends and their teachers, as well as their means of surviving. The uncertainly of waves can build confidence that we have the ability to handle the unknown. We may even trust ourselves create waves!

So, my grandniece, whatever you do, please leave the shore if you want to grow. Paddle, swim, surf, and sail through life, learning and growing with each new wave.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Lessons from travel and food

2010-08-28T12:21:00.005-05:00

A child that has never been in a strange town thinks her mother cooks best. (Togo)

Dear Zayda,

Many of us travel to all kinds of strange towns and still think our mothers are the best cooks. However, travel will also help us to see that other people have a right to feel that their mother's cooking is also best.

Jamaican food is spicy, so Jamaicans have a hard time adjusting to bland British food. Jamaicans will wonder how the British can expect to eat meat seasoned with just a dash of salt and pepper. For Jamaicans, meat has no taste without a generous amount of onion, garlic, hot pepper, and thyme. Curried goat is a favorite Jamaican dish, but people in some cultures would as soon eat goat as horse.

To Jamaicans who love spicy foods, Ghanaian food can seem too hot, too heavy, too peppery, too great a mix of tastes. Where in Jamaica people will cook fish and meat in separate dishes, Ghanaians will have beef, pork, chicken, fresh fish, smoked fish, and snails in the same stew. So a host might honestly answer, “I don’t know” when a guest asks what is on a forkful of meat.

Some who travel want to continue eating the food they always have at home. So tourists from the USA may prefer eating pizza, burgers, and chips while they are in Jamaica. British tourists might want to see roast beef and Yorkshire pudding on the menu in Spain.

However, others use travel as the chance to try the unusual and experience what is unique in the culture of the country they are visiting. One of the best ways to get to know people is to try the foods that tell them their mothers are the best cooks.

The Chinese swear by bird’s nest soup. Cooks use nests that are made from bird saliva and harvested in caves. This soup is in high demand in China, despite the cost – up to US$100 for a bowl.

Some tourists will go to Cambodia especially to try the fried tarantulas. This dish costs just a few cents, and this delicacy tastes like crickets might taste. The spiders are crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.

People in Korea eat live octopus. The tentacles are still moving on the plate when the dish is served. The live octopus will stick to the chopsticks, so dining can literally be a fight.

When we travel, we learn there is not always one way that is best. We can learn to be open-minded about the ways of other people, even while holding to what is best for us.

We may also discover what it was that made our mother’s food the best. Mother’s soup might have been a little to watery, her porridge a bit lumpy, and her turkey dry at best. However, the difference between mother’s cooking and cooking in a gourmet restaurant is the ingredient that no one else can match.

Mother does her magic by ensuring that we taste the love that comes down to her from her grandmothers, and that she wants us to pass on to our grandchildren. Love is the ingredient that makes mother’s cooking always the best - for each of us.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Stooping to achieve our goals

2010-08-27T10:37:00.003-05:00

The person who wants what is under the bed must stoop for it. (Swahili)

Dear Zayda,

People sometimes have to crawl on their hands and knees to reach a goal. The trick is to be so confident in ourselves that we can come down low and still stand tall.

In Jamaica, we tend to become locked into roles. We have some dividing lines between those who are supposed to stoop and those who must never stoop. I attended a boarding school where many of the girls were white, light-skinned and from well-off families. Teachers would punish us if we were caught washing our own clothes, because that was the job of the maids who were black and poor. The maids also cooked and cleaned, as the girls at my school were never expected to polish a floor (by hand in those days) or sweat over a stove (no fast food in those days). We could never touch a weed or trim a branch – only the gardeners were supposed to get their hands dirty working in the hot sun.

When I was in my teens, I was one day in a group that included a girl who, like me, learned at school that she was not allowed to stoop. We were touring New York and took a break to eat because we were all hungry. The nearest place was a cafeteria. As we entered, the girl froze. She said she could not possibly eat there because she would have to carry a tray. In Jamaica, only maids carried trays. No amount of persuading would have her stoop even to have a meal. Since the girls in my group had also learned that ladies are supposed to be nice even when they do not feel like it, we all dragged our hungry selves to a restaurant where this girl could be served her meal.

In general, those of us who left Jamaica surprised ourselves at how low we could stoop and perhaps stand even taller when we straightened up. Many who went overseas to study found that they would wait in vain if they expected maids to pick up after them. Their homes would become forests if they expected gardeners to mow their lawns. No one but themselves would shovel their snow. Even if they had washing machines and dryers, they still needed to fold their own clothes and put them away. They could live on fast food. However, they could be slimmer and healthier (and have more money to spare) if they learned how to cook for themselves. Help was available but costly. Some therefore saw an advantage in stooping for others, earning a living abroad by becoming someone's maid.

However, barriers still exist in Jamaica between those who refuse to stoop and those who don’t want to be the ones expected always to stoop. For example, the manager of a business will feel entitled to an air-conditioned office with everything he needs for his comfort. At the same time, a guard might be lucky to have shelter from sun and rain when he is checking on each car entering the business place. The manager might believe it is beneath his dignity to pour himself a cup of coffee. His secretary must leave the heap of files on her desk to serve him. The manager's wife is still likely to expect her maid to keep the house tidy and make sure the meals are on the table.

If we cannot stoop for what is important to us, we risk harming ourselves in the long run. The person who does the stooping can charge what he likes for the job, mislead us about what is under the bed, or keep for himself some of what he finds under the bed. As honest as the person might be, he will not be do as good a job of checking under the bed as we could, if only we would stoop and see what is really there.

Grandniece, we may not always have to stoop, but we must never be too grand to be able to stoop.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Never too short to see the stars

2010-08-26T08:07:00.004-05:00

No matter how short you are, you will always see the stars. (Africa)

Dear Zayda,

Some of us are physically short, and some of us are short of something else. We may think we are short of status, money, shelter, health, friends, or education. We may think we are short of peace, wisdom, justice, and freedom. However, we will never be too short to see the stars. No matter where we are in life, we can always have big dreams. We just need to look up.

Lynn kept her eyes on the stars even when her life seemed short of everything that had meaning for her. In the 1980s, she lost her home and became separated from her husband George and her young children. One child was little more than a baby. Lynn and George were blamed for someone’s death, and they both were sent to prison for life.

Lynn could not see George, unless at the rare times when those in charge of the prison allowed them to visit each other. Relatives and friends abroad took care of their children, so Lynn could not see (let alone raise) her son and two daughters.

In the prison, Lynn was sometimes beaten. For seven years she was locked up in a cell alone. When she was finally allowed to speak with lawyers, she had almost forgotten how to use words. She worried about her husband and children, and she became sick. When it seemed she would die if she did not get medical help, those in charge of the prison allowed her to leave. However, they said she would have to return to the prison when she was healthy enough to continue serving her time. She and George were supposed to be locked up forever, so that only death was supposed to free either of them.

The medical treatment took Lynn overseas. She was free in one sense, but this time her illness was her prison. She could finally see her children who were now adults and living in different countries. She was able to meet her first grandchild. However, she was too far away to have visits with George any more. From having at least food and shelter inside the prison, she now had to fend for herself in a world that had changed a lot in the sixteen years she was locked away. She could not work because of her illness, and so she depended on family and friends to help her meet her needs.

Although she seemed short of everything, Lynn kept her eyes on the stars. Not for a moment did she doubt that she and George would be together again in this lifetime. Although she was only free till she was well enough to be a prisoner again, she worked to make George free. Since he was never supposed to leave prison, Lynn’s task would have seemed impossible to all except her. She never stopped listening for the phone call that would say George was coming home. Wherever Lynn lived, George’s spirit also lived. She would therefore choose spaces where he would be sure to enjoy. She decorated her bedroom so it would always be ready for George when (never if) he returned.

After Lynn and George were separated for 26 years, the courts finally freed George. Lynn worked with lawyers who persuaded the courts that a life sentence did not mean someone would be locked up all his life. It meant the person could be free after a certain time, if he showed he was responsible. George spent his years in prison helping prisoners to read and write, as well as develop business skills. As a result, George helped to reduce the rate of persons returning to prison time after time. At one time when a hurricane blew down the prison, and George could have walked out, he remained behind. The lawyers said George had earned the right to be free.

Lynn never thought of giving up on her dream. Asked if waking up with George in bed beside her did not seem like a daily surprise now, she said, “It’s not at all surprising to me. I always knew we would be together again.”

My grandniece, the stars can seem far away, and many of the stars are very very far away. But as long as we keep looking up, we will never be too short to see them. And the stars will guide us to goals that would be impossible if we kept our heads to the ground.

Our faith in our dreams can make the impossible happen.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Overcoming "enemies" to achieve success

2010-08-25T09:17:00.005-05:00

When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you. (Africa)

Dear Zayda,

An important lesson in life is to have faith in ourselves. No matter who likes us or dislikes us, we will still like ourselves. No matter what people say we can do or cannot do, we will decide on our goals and set out to achieve them. No matter what other say is impossible, we will try to nurture even the grain of what is possible.

Any thought that limits us is like an enemy within. For example, girls sometimes tell themselves that they cannot do mathematics. Kay was like that. She surprised herself by getting good marks at primary school. However, she dropped back when she decided that high school mathematics was too hard. What really happened was that she asked her teacher some questions, and her teacher gave her a look that said, “Child, are you stupid or what?” The look silenced Kay, and she started to keep her questions to herself. As her grades fell, she became more and more convinced that she was bad at mathematics.

Even when she was grown up, Kay’s mind would freeze if anyone asked her to add (let alone multiply) numbers. The enemies had moved from outside to make their home in Kay’s mind. And Kay’s doubts about herself allowed the enemies to win.

Sydney decided not to limit himself, and he was ready to ignore anyone who got between him and his dream of being a coach. Sydney had polio as a child, and wore leg braces all his life. He could not run or jump. However, he watched sports, read about sports, and pretty much lived and breathed sports.

He became a French teacher in a boys’ school, mainly so he could be close to athletics. He didn't choose a girls' school because, in those days, classy ladies were not expected to sweat. This was long before the days of such outstanding Jamaican female athletes as Merlene Ottey and Shelley-Ann Fraser. Importantly, Merlene Ottey is one classy lady who is making history now by running in international meets at 50 years old. She is at an age at which athletes have long hung up their running spikes. But Merlene continues to listen to the voice that says, “I can.”

When Sydney taught at the boys' school, he spent almost all his spare time on the play field. He inched his way into coaching, and gradually became chief athletics coach. Thanks to his skill, his boys’ school became almost unbeatable in track events.

Despite his physical disability, Sydney is one of Jamaica’s legends in athletics coaching. He began a tradition that has benefited generations of athletes and led to Jamaica's outstanding record in sprint. Most of all, he is an example of what we can achieve when we do not allow the enemy within to make room for the enemies outside and keep us away from achieving our dreams.

People will tell us we are not good enough mainly because they believe they are not good enough. So what they say applies to them, because they cannot know us as well as we know ourselves. The “enemies outside” can make war on us only if we allow other people’s fears to become ours as well. On the other hand, people who tell us we are not good enough can help us. They can give us the drive to prove them wrong.

So, my grandniece, know that only the “enemies” of your making can hold you back. Only you can decide how far you go in life.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Using Internet to heal not damage

2010-08-24T10:05:00.003-05:00

One who damages the character of another damages his own. (Yoruba)

Dear Zayda,

I was excited when I was first connected to the Internet. Sure my connection took forever in those dial-up days, but it was all magical for me then. This was my chance to make Marcus Garvey’s dream come true. I believed that people of similar mind would come together, share their dreams, and create a family that would bring about peace and prosperity. I still believe that day can come, perhaps when we learn to use the Internet more to heal than to damage.

The first Internet group I joined was formed by Black activists. We all seemed united in wanting to fulfill Garvey’s mission. In one spot we could reach brothers and sisters from the US, Canada, Europe, and Africa. I imagined I would learn as much from them as they would learn from me. And together we would build a world in which Black people would respect each other, respect themselves, and be respected.

This group led me to some lasting relationships. I developed a sisterhood with Askhari, and we went on to become fellow writers, writing partners, and business partners. The downside of the list was the anger people showed to each other. Members and fellow activists turned their energies against each other. People damaged themselves while trying to damage others. Worst of all was the damage done to the cause we all said we believed in.

Too much character damage continues to take place on the Internet. To me, the abuse on message boards and networking sites like Facebook shows the number of people who damage their characters by their Internet posts. In the days before the Internet, character damage would spread by word of mouth, by hand-written letters, or by phone calls that were usually too costly for casual chat. Today, the damage can spread in seconds, with just one click of the mouse.

In the days before the Internet, people could see each other’s faces or hear each other’s voices. The Internet today allows people to post messages without letting anyone know their real identity. It is easier to be nasty to people we do not know and who will never know who we are.

But the same tool that can damage can also heal. Your mom and dad will teach you that lesson about about fire and about knives. Besides, if we turn around this Yoruba proverb, we can see that those who seek to heal will also be healed. This is the law of sowing and reaping.

I have just become active on Skype, Zayda, so the Internet is about to allow me to see you on real time. All I have had so far are your pictures and your voice when you babble to me in our conversations. But we are about to come face to face, showing the power of the Internet to bring people together as well as divide them.

The Internet is likely to play a much greater part in your world than in mine. I hope for you that you will use it to pursue Marcus Garvey’s dream of a world of greater peace and justice for our people. I hope you will understand the power of the Internet to damage, but that you will always use it to heal.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Choosing honesty to start the journey

2010-08-23T08:05:00.005-05:00

If you start a journey in dishonesty, you get lost. (Ghana)

Dear Zayda,

When I was a little girl, children had to learn what we called “memory gems”. This was one of them:

Speak the truth, and speak it ever.
Cost it what it will.
For he who hides the wrong he did
Did the wrong thing still.

If we start out the journey telling lies, we usually have to tell more lies to cover up the first lies. Now, telling the truth may get us into trouble at the outset, but the trouble usually does not last long. People may not like what we say, but they will know they can trust our word.

When I was about seven years old, my teacher wrote a note to my parents asking them to come and see her. In those days teachers would cane children for being naughty, but my teacher decided to tell my parents what I did and let them deal with me. I thought I was smart and “lost” the note at the bottom of my school bag. We may think we lie by what we say, but we also lie by what we do not say or fail to do.

I thought I was safe till one day my teacher and my dad happened to meet. Well, when my dad reached home, he was furious. He would have been angry for a while if I had confessed everything right away. But sometimes when we are caught in a lie, we hope half-truths will keep us out of further trouble. I cannot remember just what I said, but I suspect I tried to be smart and cover my tracks. Maybe I admitted I brought the note home, and blamed the wind for blowing it away. Maybe I said my baby brother tore it up. I might have suggested that I gave dad the note but he was too busy to read it. Or I might have asked, "Which note?"

Confessing the whole truth may have seemed hard at the time, but it was really easier than adding the lies. I might have missed a day or two (as against a week or two) of being allowed to go out and play with my friends. By trying to cover my tracks, I risked losing the trust of my dad and anyone else who fell into the web of lies that sometimes we are tempted to weave to avoid trouble.

Today, I am grateful to my dad for showing me (by his own example as well) that I needed to speak the truth, no matter the cost. I also learned that the wrong we do has a way of surfacing, anyhow.

Right now, the Prime Minister of Jamaica is facing trouble because many people find it hard to trust his word. First of all, he had refused to admit a wrong he did. When he the truth started to leak out, he admitted some of the wrong, but not all. However, more of the truth is coming out drip by drip, and the prime minister is beginning to look lost. Many people say they no longer trust him to be prime minister.

Our lies may seem harmless at first. For example, someone asks us to help them and we agree because we don’t know how to tell the truth and say we cannot help. In addition, we might want the person to think well of us. We may then “forget” or give help in a way that it is not helpful to the person. Better we had told the truth about our feelings, and allowed the person to find help elsewhere. Better we risk losing a friend than have a friendship we have to keep by telling lies.

The journey of life is not easy, my grandniece, but telling the truth helps you hold up your head along the way.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Letting go yesterday and living today

2010-08-22T08:27:00.008-05:00

Yesterday and the day before yesterday are not like today. (Swahili)

Dear Zayda,

Each new day is unlike any that has gone before.

This first year of your life is special for your mom and dad, because your daily changes remind that that nothing remains the same from one day to the next. Those close enough to you to see you grow can know that what is true about you, is true about us all. No day that is past can be anything like the day we have now.

Yet many of us feel weighed down by our yesterdays as we get older. We may see ourselves as stuck in old thoughts and old habits. We allow our yesterdays to dictate what our today will be like. We allow the past to decide the future.

But we can always take charge of today.

Uncle Mass (my mother's brother whose real name is Colin) has been a farmer all his life. Being with living things is a way to remind us that each day is different. Plants grow and change through different seasons. Our plants in Jamaica do not have a long winter sleep as yours do in Canada, but we have seasons just the same. So Uncle Mass has his time to plant seeds, to nourish his plants, and to harvest the fruit. He keeps cows and goats as well, and each day for his animals is also different from the days that went before.

Uncle Mass is now 93 years old. He continues to let go of the yesterdays and treat each new day like a gift. By eight o’clock each morning. Uncle Mass has completed about half-day’s work on his farm. He will take a break in the middle of the day when the sun hot, and then he is back doing his chores in the cool of the afternoon. He remains as slim and healthy as men young enough to be his grandsons. Recently, he was on his roof directing repairs. When I visit him, we discuss local and global politics, and he has opinions on all the events going on around him. He and his brother Bob are neighbours, but Uncle Mass is as independent as he was when I was a child.

Aunt Ettie (my father’s sister)is a special example to me of focusing on what we can do in the present rather than living in regrets about yesterday. On one of her trips to England, someone stole all her money at the start of her holiday. I am sure she was sad for a moment, but she did not spend her “today” feeling sorry about what “yesterday” put in her way. Aunt Ettie called on family in England for help. A cousin was happy to lend her the funds she needed, and Aunt Ettie had a great trip. Only when she returned to Jamaica did she even mention to family here the loss she had suffered.

Aunt Ettie showed us how useless it was to allow yesterday, with its joys or pains, to keep us from enjoying today.

Yes, the joys of yesterday can hold us back if we allow them to do so. Some of us, when we are at school, forget that the good report was about yesterday’s work. We need to know that today is a different day with new things to learn if we want to keep growing.

It seemed as if no one could beat Jamaica’s Usain Bolt after he broke the world record at the 100 metres sprint race. However, he recently had a reminder of how different yesterday is from today. A runner from the USA, Tyson Gay, recently ran faster than Usain in a race.

Today is the day, my grandniece. The Romans used to say, “Carpe diem”. That means “capture the day.” May we, like Uncle Mass and Aunt Ettie, live fully in the present.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Families crossing life's rivers together

2010-08-21T09:36:00.004-05:00

A distant relative can help you cross a river. (Ethiopia)

Dear Zayda,

I learned the value of extended family when I lived in Ghana. At first I wondered that one person could have so many sisters and brothers, uncles and aunts. I could understand Jacob whose father had eight wives and who had 56 brothers and sisters. Then later I found out that “brothers” and “sisters” could be distant relatives in the same age group. “Uncles” and “aunts” could be distant relatives who were elders. Sometimes, as in Jamaica, “uncles” and “aunts: were connected by friendship rather than blood.

In Ghana, relatives help each other. When I lived in Accra, I knew of no old people’s homes or children’s homes. A family would be ashamed to have strangers look after their loved ones. I grew up in a Jamaica where I do not recall seeing street people, let alone street children. Households always seemed to find space for another person, even if there was not a lot of money around.

We had a relative, Aunt Beth, who was my model of a family member with a loving heart. She adopted thirteen children whose parents left Jamaica to find better jobs. Aunt Beth’s adopted children saw her as their “real” mother, and she treated them all as if she had given birth to them. To everyone’s surprise, Aunt Beth became pregnant after 25 years of childless marriage.

Many Jamaicans used to take in children who might otherwise be unable to “cross a river”. A child would join a household to help with chores. In return the family would treat the child as a family member, and send the child to school. The down side with this system is seen today in Haiti with the “restavecs”. These are children who are sent to live in better-off households and are treated more like slaves.

In families, we need to be willing to give and receive help from each other. Problems arise when each person looks out for himself or herself only. Families break up when relatives treat each other like bank accounts where they withdraw but do not lodge. The focus becomes money rather than love. So younger relatives might value elders only because of what they may leave behind when they die.

When family members stop caring for each other, they may miss out on help in crossing life’s rivers. The young may need to know that others have crossed these rivers before, and survived. In addition, elders may miss the chance to help the young to see that life means more than money.

You will have many rivers to cross in this life, my grandniece. But there is never any reason for you to cross the rivers alone.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

Staying true to what was hatched

2010-08-20T10:04:00.004-05:00

What was hatched a hen must not try to be a rooster. (Grenada, Tobago)

Dear Zayda,

Accepting ourselves as we are seems to be one of the hardest jobs, for men as well as women.

Men often need to prove how macho they are. Even little boys can be accused of acting like girls if they show their feelings. Early on, boys find out that they are not supposed to cry if they are hurt, and they are not to give hugs or ask for hugs. Often, when Jamaican men meet, they show how glad they are to see each other by sounding and looking as if they are at war. They thump each other, slap each other, and shout insults at each other. Some of our men are so keen to prove their manhood that they don’t know how to show affection to the women closest to them, in particular their wives and daughters. Sons almost never qualify for affection, and the cycle goes on.

I recently went to a television studio where my make-up artist was a man. I am proud of him for doing what he loves, even if others might say this is “hen’s” work. Some years ago, I had an exciting outfit made for me by “Biggy”, a man who learned dress design from his mother and then specialized in dancehall outfits. Interestingly, men often become celebrities when they have the courage to excel at work traditionally done by women.

The society often decides what is “hen’s” work and what is “rooster’s” work. When I was a child, I loved to whistle. If my elders heard me whistling, they would say, “A whistling women and a crowing hen is an abomination to the lord.” They claimed this was a quote from the Bible, but it seems to come from some old Irish proverb.

Many times, a mostly female group will choose the sole male as leader, because they believe heading a group is rooster’s work. When one of our relatives was on her deathbed, she asked me to make sure no females wore pants to her funeral. Indeed, I was part of a struggle in the 1970s to allow women to wear pants to work.

Women still struggle for equal pay and recognition at work. Low-paying and care giving jobs like teaching and nursing are now mostly left to women. However, women can come across blocks to positions that men claim for themselves: engineers, construction workers, airline pilots, and corporate heads.

So, grandniece, it is important to know yourself and be yourself. If you are born a hen, you can only be a fake if you try to be a rooster instead. On the other hand, you don’t have to let anyone limit you with their ideas of what hens and roosters should or should not do. You only need to be your best self.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

Women struggle to be female and person

2010-08-19T09:44:00.004-05:00

Often a woman struggles to be a person, not just a female. (Ethiopia)

Dear Zayda,

As you grow older, you will probably hear a lot about what little girls are supposed to do and not do. You may wonder how it is that little boys can do all those things and get a smile or a pat that says “That’s my little man!”

Some of us are grown before we realize we don’t know ourselves as persons, even though the rest of the world may consider us as “nice ladies”, “good wives”, “great mothers” and “dutiful daughters”. But, beyond doing what females are supposed to do, we may not know enough about ourselves to celebrate the special gifts we bring to this life.

Most of us never learn to fight, because showing anger is not supposed to be ladylike. Boys thump each other all the time, and that is how some of them break down barriers and get to be friends. For the first ten years of my life, I had brothers and my cousins were all male. When they teased me, what was I supposed to do? As a nice little girl, I guess I should have cried and then complained to an adult. However, I knew that would mean even worse teasing next time. “Tattle-tale” would be added to whatever other names they decided to call me to get me angry.

My dad, to his credit, saw me as a person – just so long as he was not the one I was fighting! He told me to stand up for myself and not rely on others to fight my battles. So I learned how to fight with fists and with words. The result is that my male cousins would refer to me as their favorite female cousin. This was not so much a compliment when I was also their only female cousin, but at least they knew they had to treat me as their equal (at least!).

Perhaps women can be female if their men keep them at home having babies and doing the tasks that the society says females do and real males stay away from. Jamaican males of my dad’s generation would rather starve than be caught cooking a meal; they would rather buy a new shirt than wash and iron their own clothes. Many mothers encouraged their daughters to do all the housework while the boys were free to play cricket and football. And learn how to defend themselves and forgive each other after the fights.

Many Jamaican women today are working in jobs that require them to be persons. Well, up to a point. In Jamaica, as elsewhere, working women find that they are hired because of how they look. Those who fit the female ideal of the times – young, pretty, slim, blonde, light-skinned, and long-haired – can be well ahead of their sisters who are not beauty contest material. Once on the job, women can find themselves given female tasks, no matter the jobs they hold. If there is a meeting, women can find themselves expected to take notes, serve coffee, and leave the serious discussion to the men. A group will criticize a male boss on his qualities as a leader; people are more likely to criticize a female boss on her clothes or hair style.

The problem many women face today is in working the same hours as the males, but still being expected to do all the “female” tasks at home. Thankfully, some men have enough confidence in their manhood to wash, cook, clean, and look after babies alongside spouses or even as single fathers.

The challenge we face is to be the best of ourselves as females and as persons. We need to take care of ourselves so we can look in our mirrors and smile at ourselves because we like what we see. If others admire us as well, so be it, as long as we know we are more than our bodies. We need to learn to say “no” to tasks that ask too much of us, or make us feel as if we are allowing others to trample on us as human beings.

To be a person as well as female is to challenge patterns set by men and supported by women who accept their roles as just female. The road to being a person can feel lonely for a woman. On the other hand, those who deny themselves usually feel an emptiness that no amount of clothes, shoes, make-up, jewellery, or hair weaves can fill.

We can be who we choose to be, Zayda. Please know that I will support you all I can if you choose to express your gifts as a person.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

For Women: Freedom of Body and Mind

2010-08-18T10:23:00.004-05:00

Liberate the minds of men and ultimately you will liberate the bodies of men. (Marcus Garvey)

Dear Zayda,

If Garvey is right (and I think he is) we need to free our minds before our bodies can be free. So many of us have a long way to go to consider ourselves free.

Garvey was probably too busy fighting issues of race and class to consider gender. If he were alive today, he might rephrase what he said to include women. But no matter, we will include ourselves.

Let us not forget, however, that there are many in different parts of the world who still do not want women to be liberated in either body or mind. I had a conversation on a radio programme last Sunday with a Muslim sheik last Sunday, and was amazed that he favoured a world where people are not equal. He had a list of all who are better than whom. He thought, for example, that God sees people with university degrees as better than people who can’t read or write, and god-fearing people as better than the godless. The “god-fearing” were the Muslims, and the godless were the non-Muslims. Of course, he believed that God sees Muslims as better than everyone else. The Muslim sheik believed all Jamaica’s crime problems would be solved if we had Sharia law.

Well, grandniece, if ever you hear someone mention Sharia law, you know already what they think about women’s freedom. In Muslim countries with Sharia law, women cannot speak to any man who is not husband or relative, unless a male relative is present. So you can see what that would do to a woman who tries to have a job outside her home. If women give evidence in court, they are considered as half a man. Courts can rule that a woman be given 100 lashes or be stoned to death if she has a relationship with the “wrong” man. Women are not allowed to marry non-Muslim men, but nothing stops men from marrying non-Muslim men.

I told the Muslim sheik that, from the way he spoke, I probably needed to get myself a burqa. This is the Muslim outfit that covers women from head to toe, just allowing them room to see. Control of women’s bodies and clothes is a way of controlling their minds.

So, little girls in many Muslim countries have a far way to go. Some are not allowed to go to school, and they certainly cannot go to schools that any boys attend. If they like sports, men can’t coach them, unless by cell phone at a distance. If a girl from a strict Muslim country wants to be a runner, she must still be fully covered – legs, arms, neck, and head. In some Muslim countries, women are not allowed to vote or drive cars.

It is not only in Muslim countries that women have to liberate their minds and bodies. Countries in the West, who say they follow Christian values, may allow women greater room, except at the top. Christians will say that their God created all equal, but they will still insist that the man must be the head of the household. In some churches, women are not allowed to hold leadership positions except in the Mothers’ Union.

What the law does in some Muslim countries, ridicule and isolation can do in countries where women are supposed to be free. For example, women who hold or want to hold top positions can find all kind of roadblocks. They can be accused of acting like men, wanting to wear the pants, or neglecting their families. People will exaggerate the woman’s weaknesses, real or imagined. They can be criticized for their hairstyle of the clothes they choose to wear. The result is that few women aim for positions as powerful as President of the United States of America.

However, Muslim girls manage to find freedom even when they can barely show their faces. Women risk their lives to be themselves, to go to school, to wear designer clothes under dresses that look like shrouds, to marry whom they like, and to work in meaningful jobs. If their minds are free, they know they are free, Sharia law or not.

In our countries, Zayda, we can be free as well. We can take no notice of the pressure to let men tell us what to do, what to wear, what to say, what lower-level jobs to fill and leave the more profitable jobs for the men.

We have a way to go to free our minds, but only we can enslave ourselves.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

Garvey's message on self-confidence

2010-08-17T08:28:00.003-05:00

With confidence, you have won before you have started. (Marcus Garvey)

Dear Zayda,

Today is Marcus Garvey’s birthday. He was a Black Jamaican who created a movement among Blacks all over the world. He went global long before the Internet and the cell phone. In those days, travel was expensive, and people rarely made overseas telephone calls. If someone called long-distance, we would hold our breaths for the bad news we were sure was the reason for the call. But Garvey achieved what many would be proud to do with all we have to help us today.

Garvey was confident in a time when Black men had little to be confident about. Like my dad who is your great-grandfather Allan, Garvey had only primary school education. He left school at age 14 and went to work with a printer. Like my dad Allan and other Black men of that time, Garvey made the most of what he learned at school. Garvey then taught himself whatever else he thought he needed to know. For example, he taught himself to make speeches that drew crowds to him.

In Garvey’s day, whites were rulers of every Black country, except for Ethiopia. This was the day of the British Empire, and other countries like France and Portugal “owned” colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean as well. The rulers therefore expected Blacks to accept that they were not and could never be equal to whites. Garvey challenged that kind of thinking. He considered that Blacks were members of a “mighty race”. He believed we had a lot to be confident about, and only self-confidence could help us take our rightful place in the world.

Marcus Garvey, a short Black man with African features and limited education, became so powerful that the white world feared him. A way was found to lock him up in prison on charges of fraud. The government of the United States, where he lived, deported him to Jamaica after he served time in prison.

Jamaica is still short on tolerance for Black men who have confidence in their blackness, look to Africa as home, and encourage others to do the same. Black men still find it easier to be accepted when they mimic how white men act and speak, what white men they wear, and whom white men marry. Black men who are poor still find themselves without jobs and without much schooling. As in Garvey's day, prisons are full of Black men.

Many in Jamaica therefore rejected Garvey and all he stood for. Garvey, disappointed at the way his own people treated him, left Jamaica for England where he died.

But Garvey’s message of confidence lives beyond him. He inspired African leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah, and worldwide movements such as Rastafarianism.

My dad Allan’s legacy of confidence also lives beyond him.

Allan wanted to be a lawyer. Since that chance was not open to him, he worked hard so his children could be lawyers if they chose. He didn’t approve when they chose other careers, as he believed only law and engineering were worth studying. He loved going to court. One of his pleasures was to be a juror and then play all the roles in telling us stories of court drama.

Allan was a realtor. He had such deep knowledge of land law that attorneys would consult him on land matters. One of his close friends was a judge. To hear them argue law, you would not have known which was the judge entitled to dress up in his wig and gown for court.

Allan’s confidence served him well in business. Career choices for Black men were limited to being farmer, teacher, shopkeeper, pastor, policeman, tradesman, or unskilled labourer. Allan wanted to be a businessman in a time when only whites had the money to own businesses. Blacks were not getting bank loans to allow them to start a business. Allan therefore had to work with whites who definitely did not share Garvey’s view of Black people. Allan knew that if he spoke his mind or showed his confidence, he could lose jobs. So he kept his pride and lost jobs till he discovered his joy helping Black people to own land and build their homes. He knew what it was like to have his family on rented property, and he never forget the joy of having his house title in his hands.

So Zayda, Garvey carries the message of confidence.

In addition and your own great-grandfather Allan gives you an example of where confidence can take us. And you won’t have to look hard to see the lessons of confidence that your mom and dad learned from their families.

Let nothing stop you from being the winner you were intended to be, my grandniece.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

Finding God in the heart

2010-08-16T13:15:00.008-05:00

Adinkra symbol of the supremacy of God

Man looks only on the outside of things; God looks into the very heart. (Nigeria – Efik)

Dear Zayda,

Most of us cannot even imagine God. Many of us make up for that by creating God in our image.

I grew up in the Anglican Church. The God I learned about was old, white, and male, so where was there space for me, young, Black, and female. I knew I could become old with time. I could adopt all things white and try to be white in my mind and my view of the world. But being female would always be an obstacle to identifying fully with the God of the Anglican Church. Until very recent years, the Anglican Church did not allow women to be ministers.

Now, I could have considered joining the Roman Catholic Church. True enough, their overall leader was a Pope (always male). In addition, heads of their churches were priests (always male). However, Mary had a very special place. Sure she was female, but all the paintings and sculptures showed her as very white. I could never be sure how she remained so pale if she was supposed to have lived in a desert climate. However, little girls in my day were not supposed to ask those kinds of questions. Mary was also a virgin when her son was born, a definite challenge to me if I wanted to have a family. Unless I could be sure to meet an angel like Gabriel, and Mary was the only person I heard of with that good fortune. Besides, not even Mary would be allowed to be a priest (let alone Pope) in the Roman Catholic Church.

When I was a child, Anglicans were at the top of the social class, because this was the church of the planter class. Almost every single Anglican minister was white and from England. One Sunday, one of my brothers made the mistake of sitting in a church seat that “belonged” to a white person. The usher tried to make him give up the seat.

Catholics were perhaps next on the social scale, because they supported slavery and didn’t give Blacks any ideas about being equal.

Baptists and Moravians, who reached out to slaves, sometimes found their churches burnt down. Two of Jamaica’s National Heroes, Sam Sharpe and Paul Bogle, were Baptist deacons. They believed that God looked into their hearts and found them equal to anyone else whom God created.

People who belonged to planter class churches tended to look down on people who belonged to churches with Black members and even Black pastors. Some of these churches even had drumming and clapping taken from ways in which Black people worshipped God in Africa.

My great-grandmother Priscilla Brown left the Anglican Church to join the Salvation Army. I think part of the reason was that she wanted a change from the dead music of the Anglican Church. She wanted some rhythm in her soul. Priscilla was light-skinned, so her family was shocked that she would go and worship with villagers whom they employed on their farms. But Priscilla didn’t care.

I could have joined one of the newer churches where the leaders and the members looked more like me. But I still had some issues with the image of a God that relied on man’s view of the outside of things. Even today, I would need to be silent in some of these newer churches. The reason, they say, is that Paul told women to be silent two thousand years ago. Now, Paul might have had a wife who was nagging him, or he might have been bossed around by an older sister or other women in his family. Or maybe he told the men to be silent that day as well, but the man who was recording the message somehow left out that part of the advice. Whatever the story, I find it hard to believe in a God that doesn’t want women to express themselves.

In some of these churches, women must wear hats, but men can have their heads bare if they want to. Now, I love hats and headwear, but I don’t see what part God has in what I choose to put on my body. I hold the same view for churches that say women must never wear pants (not even at the gym), or makeup, or jewellery. Interestingly, none of these rules apply to the men.

Rastafarianism attracted me because of its links to Africa. I loved the emphasis on natural hair, natural looks, and natural food. However, when I checked more closely, I realized that the freedom from the white man’s world applied to the men. As in some of the new Christian churches, Rastafarian women were not allowed to wear pants, short dresses, or even sleeveless tops. Even today, Rastafarian women can be set aside at certain times of the month when the men consider them unclean.

I respect those who rely on the outside of things (and people) to find God. However, my choice is to find a route that leaves my dignity and self-respect intact. I believe God lives within my heart, just as I am. He is therefore already and always within my reach.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

Helping the youth to have roots

2010-08-15T09:03:00.004-05:00

A youth without a link to the elders is like a tree without a root. (Africa)

Dear Zayda,

A tree might stand without roots for a while. However, the tree like my ancient Bombay mango tree has roots so deep that the trunk and branches can heal from damage. In addition, the roots are so strong that the tree suffers from neither flood or drought. More than twenty years ago, a hurricane shook up that mango tree badly, tearing off most of its branches. Still, the roots kept the tree alive, even if the tree was not strong enough to bear fruit for three years.

My ackee tree also teaches me some lessons about roots. The hurricane that tore up the mango tree brought down the ackee tree. Half the roots remained in the ground, so I sawed off most of the tree and left back a stump. In a short while, the leaves started to grow again, and three years later I had ackees around the same times as the mangoes returned. The new ackee trees grow like branches out of the stump, so they are not rooted directly in the soil. These trees therefore come down with each hurricane. However, the roots that remain on the stump keep providing me with ackee crops, no matter what. I learn from my ackee tree that even a portion of the roots will give new life to a tree. And bear fruit.

My sons were born in Africa, the place I consider as the source of my roots. They were born in Ghana, the land many of our ancestors left behind when they were forced to come to work in the Caribbean and the Americas. I was happy that they were born on the continent of Africa. However, I also knew that my current roots were in Jamaica. I had no name, language, known family, or ancestral village to help me to claim my African roots.

When I moved to England, my two-year-olds were in a place where none of us had roots. I spoke knew all the English kings and poets from my schooling, and I read more about daffodils and strawberries than hibiscus and breadfruit. But people who looked like me and my sons were called names, like monkeys who needed to get back to their trees. My sons were babies living in a country where, according to a song by Big Bill Broonzy:

"… if you was white, should be all right,
If you was brown, stick around,
But as you's black, hmm brother, get back, get back, get back"

As soon as they started school, the winds of racism started to toss my sons around. At times they talked as if they were ashamed of being Black. When they saw mothers come to pick up their children after school, they asked me why they didn’t have a white mummy also.

I saw around me Black people become strangers to themselves when they tried somehow to identify as white. I therefore took it as my duty to create for my sons the kind of roots that could stand up against the racism. I wanted my sons to be whole, proud of their roots in Africa and in Jamaica.

They therefore grew up with elders such as Haiti’s Toussaint L’Overture, and Jamaica’s Marcus Garvey. They heard often about America’s George Washington Carver, and South Africa’s Shaka Zulu. In addition, bedtime stories were the tales my Jamaican elders passed on to me, such as our Anancy stories.

My sons came to Jamaica when they were seven years old. They were happy to see around them so many people who looked like them and their parents. They could also connect my stories to ancestral roots that they could see and feel and touch. In addition, they had the privilege of having first-hand contact with elders, including their great-grandparents who were born in the nineteenth century.

Zayda, I want to pass on to you the strength I draw from links with my elders. I want to help you make your roots so strong that you always have the means to rise again no matter the challenges facing you when you grow up.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

Remembering to mend your own fence first

2010-08-14T08:15:00.003-05:00

Do not mend your neighbor's fence before seeing to your own. (Tanzania)

Dear Zayda,

If ever you are a big sister, your mom and dad will expect you to help with the baby. That means you may find yourself protecting someone else even before you can really protect yourself. A lot of us big sisters are asked to do the impossible, and some of us continue doing it all our lives. Our own fences may be broken down, but we think we have to go mend someone else’s fence first.

It may take a lifetime to see that we have a duty to take care of ourselves so we can take care of others. Where big sisters feel they have to take care of younger ones, little sisters often get the job of taking care of parents when they get old.

Somehow, boys seem allowed to look about their own fences first. Or better still, boys often have sisters, mothers, wives, and later daughters to mend their fences for them. At work, many men will expect women to continue doing their fence-mending.

A lot of us may shout “unfair” when we get loaded with so many burdens that we don’t look about ourselves. Or we feel guilty if we don’t do what others want us to do.
Many of us suffer in silence, especially when people tell us how wonderful we are to give so much to others.

One of our relatives (let’s call her Sally) is the first of ten children. She was therefore her mother’s right-hand person with caring for nine babies. As soon as Sally got her first job, she stretched her salary so she could rent a house. She wanted enough space for her younger brothers and sisters who came from their home in a country village to work or attend school in the city.

Sally’s sisters and brothers all got married, and most went to live overseas. Sally stayed single. She lived abroad for a few years, and after that she mostly traveled to visit her brothers and sisters and their families. Part of her yearned for a family unit of her own, and she met a man whom she loved. He loved her too, but he was not free to marry her. Still, he wanted her to join him overseas so they could be closer to each other.

By this time, Sally’s parents were too old to live by themselves in the country village. Sally’s brothers and sisters supported their parents with money, but were mostly too far away to offer personal care. So Sally remained in Jamaica to take care of her parents in their last years.

Sally deserves every medal for mending other people’s fences, but what about her own? On the other hand, I may ask myself why I am judging the state of her fence when I have my own to mend.

Like Sally, I am a first child, with habits of mending other people’s fences first. I think I may have even mended people’s fences when they did not ask me to do it. Then I would be surprised when those people were annoyed that I was giving them help they didn’t even ask for. Some might even be rude (and candid!) enough to point to my own broken down fences and advise me to mind my own business.

But it is never too late to learn, and I think I am a better person for mending my fences. If others invite me to help them mend their fences, I can say “yes”. And sometimes I say “no” and let other people get the chance to learn to protect themselves. I am still learning how to accept help from others, but that will come.

If ever you are someone’s big sister, Zayda, I hope you will remember to take care of yourself first so you can take even better care of that younger one.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

Strengthening weak fences

2010-08-13T10:46:00.004-05:00

Cow know weak fence to jump over. (Jamaica)

Dear Zayda,

As little as you are, you have a right to protect yourself. You do that by crying out when your needs are not met, when you are hurt or when you are angry.

When you are around two years old, you will learn an important word: “No.” You might say “no” even when others think you should say “yes”, but you are exercising an important right. Grown-ups sometimes allow their fences to be so weak, that they forget how to say “no”.

Cows will know the weak fence and jump over it. One weakness in the fence is when we need other people to approve of us. We will then leave room for people to come into our space and treat it as if it was theirs.

Let us imagine you are old enough to be playing with a ball. Along comes a child who wants to take the ball from you. You can say “no”.

The other child might say “You are mean!” or “Last time I let you play with my marbles, or “I won’t play with you again if you won’t let me have the ball,” or “I am going to tell you dad and he will make you share the ball with me.”

If people can’t just jump over the fence, they will beg, plead, promise, or threaten so as to weaken the fence. No matter what, you still have the right to say “no” if you consider that is the best way to protect yourself.

I am not talking about being mean – that is another issue we will discuss at another time. This is about not doing something that will make you feel angry at yourself, or angry at whoever forced their way over your fence.

Moms and dad need to be very wise to help children to protect themselves so they don’t put themselves in the way of harm. Sometimes “no” is just the child’s way of testing how serious the adults are about discipline. For example,

“Do you want to eat your vegetables?”
“No!”

Or,

“Do you want to do your homework?”
“No.”

Sometimes “no” is not an option, because adults have a responsibility to train children so they become healthy and responsible adults. Still, adults can try to persuade rather than force. So vegetables can be look more attractive and taste better, and children can be invited to share homework problems. Adults need to help children understand that “no” can lead to deeper understanding.

Mostly, however, “no” leads to conflict that the child is almost sure to lose. The child therefore learns, as an adult, not to risk saying “no”. At least, not directly.

So we may learn unhealthy ways of keeping people from jumping over our fences. We may lie or try to get someone else in trouble. We may ignore our feelings, or we may stay away from any kind of contact that could weaken our fences. We may build walls so high and so thick that no one can get in, and we certainly cannot get out.

If we want to be happy, Zayda, we will have boundaries that protect us and yet leave space so others can be close to us. We won’t need to blame others for jumping our fences, because we will make it clear to them where the fences are. If they can't or won't respect our space, we will stay away from them. So we won’t allow anyone to weaken our fences, and we will not feel offended when others say “no” to protect their boundaries.

We will then be free to be ourselves, and to live life to the fullest.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

The long road to honesty

2010-08-12T16:22:00.004-05:00

Long road draw sweat, shortcut draw blood. (Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St Vincent)

Dear Zayda,

This was one of my grandmother’s favorite proverbs. I still think of this when I am tempted to take a short cut because it seems easy at the time. Getting into bad habits usually starts with trying to get somewhere without taking the effort we really need to get to that place.

For example, last year taking a shortcut looked like one way to keep my car on the road. My car is a 20-year old BMW that is now a classic. This car has been faithful to me. Besides, people are always stopping me on the streets to find out if I am willing to sell the car. Some say newer BMW models are not as good as this one. Whatever the reason, my car is like a magnet for BMW-lovers, and I have no immediate plans to part with it.

Last year, my car gave me a difficult choice. If I didn’t have a paper to prove the car was fit, the police could fine me and stop me from driving the car. To get the paper, one mechanic told me I had to pay a huge bill. Then someone else gave me a shortcut to keep the car on the road without paying the huge bill. I could cheat. That is, I could pay someone a fraction of the size of the bill, and that person would so something illegal. He would give me the paper that would convince the police the car was in order even though it was not.

Well, Zayda, it’s all right to be tempted, just so long as we don’t yield! So I saw my car parked in my garage when I needed it. And I saw myself having my car to use whenever I wanted. I saw a big expense to take the long road, and a small cost for taking the shortcut. And then I realized that the shortcut could indeed draw blood. In the first place, the rule that the car must be in good order is to protect me and others who use the road. I also realized that if I did something dishonest today, I could hardly refuse if people who cheated for me then asked me to do favors (and perhaps cheat) for them.

Besides, my grandmother’s words were as fresh in my head as if she was in the room with me. So I decided to fix the BMW so it would be fit enough to be on the road. I was not able to find the mechanic who had told me I would need to pay a lot of money to fix the car. So I checked with someone with a lot of experience. As a result, my car was fixed an amount of money I could afford - about one-third of what the first mechanic told me. So, the long road didn’t draw as much sweat as I feared it might, and I didn’t have to worry about the “blood” that the shortcut might have drawn.

This week, in Jamaica, a woman lost her job. It seems she may have just taken too many shortcuts. As a result, she is now branded as a thief even though she might not have started out intending to steal.

Shortcuts are often like being on a slope where the grass is smooth and slippery. So we may intend just to go down the shortcut just this once, then there are two times and three times. Gradually the habit forms, and we convince ourselves that shortcuts are the sensible person’s way of shortening the distance.

This woman now has not only lost her job. She has also lost her reputation. Others who should have known about the shortcuts have also lost their positions. Shortcuts can draw a lot of blood. And for a long time. It is possible that no one will want to give this woman (or people who were closest to her) a job again.

This is a matter of trust.

So, Zayda, you may need to remember to tell the truth even when it seems a lie would do. Or do your homework even when a friend may make it easy to copy her work and present it as your own. Like all of us, you will be tempted, and the choice – between the long road and the shortcut – will be yours.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

Power of little axe over big tree

2010-08-10T08:41:00.005-05:00

A little axe can cut down a big tree. (Jamaica)

Dear Zayda,

We always have more power than we think we have. A little axe may take a while to bring down the biggest tree, but the tree will come down if the axe keeps going. At the same time, the ax is connected to the tree, so we also need to learn that giving away even a little of our power can come back to harm us.

Let us remember the words Bob Marley sang about the power of the "Small Axe":

Aesop, the African storyteller, also noted the power of the small axe. I re-tell for you his fable of the trees and the axe.

A man came into the forest and said to the trees, “Will one of you please give me a handle for my axe? I want the hardest wood.”

The old oak trees and the great cedar trees agreed to help the man, even though they said they had no branches to spare. From their height, almost touching the clouds, these trees pointed to a little ash tree. “Take that one,” the oak and cedar said to the man, “It probably won’t amount to much, anyway.”

The man was grateful. He fitted his axe with a new handle and went to work. In a short while, he chopped down oak trees, cedar trees, and the biggest giants in the forest.

“Look at what the ash tree did to us!” a cedar tree said. It still had its trunk, but had lost a lot of its branches.

“No,” an oak tree said. “We did this to ourselves.”

“Are you saying we cut ourselves down?” the cedar tree said. “That’s ridiculous!”

“The man cut us down,” the oak said. “But we gave him the handle for his axe.”

“And your point is…” the cedar tree said.

“Well,” the oak tree said, “If we did not give up the rights of the little ash, all of us might still be standing.”

We make a big mistake, my grandniece, if we assume that what is little has no power. You will already have found out how much power you have to change your parents’ lives, even though you are just a few months old. Jamaica, for example, is like a dot on the map compared with the United States of America, but we have some of the fastest runners in the world.

We make an even bigger mistake if we think we are safe when we give away someone else’s rights because we think that person is little and therefore of no great importance. We need to remember that all our rights are connected. If we allow something bad to happen to someone else today, the same thing can happen to us tomorrow.

We put ourselves in danger when we ignore who or what we decide is small stuff. It makes sense to love and care for others (however big or small) just as we would want others to love and care for us.

What do you think?

Blessings,

Your shangazi

Independence means trusting yourself

2010-08-09T09:19:00.003-05:00

His opinions are like water in the bottom of a canoe, going from side to side. (Efik)

Dear Zayda,

I imagine that you already have opinions of your own, deciding when you want to eat or when you have had enough to eat. Most of all, you probably have clear ideas on when you want to sleep and when you want to play. Babies are good at knowing what is on their minds. By the time we are grown up, however, many of us stop trusting out opinions. We may then change our mind depending on what the last person told us to do. This is when we go from side to side, confusing ourselves and others around us.

When I was a little girl, I learned this fable that was first told long long ago by Aesop who was an African.

An old farmer and his young son were taking their donkey to the market. The two of them walked along a path with the donkey beside them. They didn’t ride the donkey because they didn’t want the animal to get tired.

On their way, they met some people who laughed at them.

“You and your son are so foolish,” they said. “Why are you both walking when at least one of you could ride the donkey?”

The farmer thought those people were right, and he made his son ride the donkey. They went on a bit further and met a group of older persons.

“You are so foolish,” they said to the farmer. “How could you let your young son ride the donkey while you walk? Tell him to get down and let you ride instead.”

So the son got off the donkey and his father rode the animal. A little further along the path, they came across a group of women going to market.

“You are foolish and hard-hearted,” they said to the father. “How could you ride the donkey and leave your poor son to walk?”

The father then made his son ride behind him on the donkey. They had not traveled far when they met another group of people.

“You are cruel,” a man shouted at them. “How could you treat a dumb animal like that? Do you want to kill the poor donkey with all that weight?”

By this time, the market was close by, and the farmer wanted to get a good sale for the donkey. So he and his son decided to carry the donkey the rest of the way. They tied the donkey’s legs together and slung it from a pole that they hoisted on their shoulders.

When they reached the town, people laughed at the sight of these two men carrying a donkey.

“You are both so foolish,” the people said. “Don’t you know the donkey is supposed to carry you?”

The people laughed so hard that the donkey started to bray and kick. The rope that held him to the pole broke, and the donkey ran away. So the farmer and his son walked back home without the donkey and without the money from the sale of the donkey.

My grandniece, we can’t please all the people all the time. We can’t have opinions that go from side to side like water in the bottom of a canoe. We need to be open to changing our opinions, but not just because other people think differently. And we also need to know which views are not open to change because we hold them so deeply and for reasons that are important to us.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

Understanding pain others feel

2010-08-08T17:49:00.006-05:00

Adinkra symbol of understanding and agreement

The rock in the water does not know the pain of the rock in the sun. (Haiti)

Dear Zayda,

Haiti suffered a terrible earthquake seven months ago. Those of us who do not live in Haiti could watch news reports that filled our newspapers and televisions at the time. Some of us felt sad for Haitians, and others blamed them for putting up buildings so poorly that even a palace came crashing down. However, none but the Haitians knew the pain of losing everything. None of us knew the pain of not having food, or of losing loved ones and not even finding their bodies. None of us know what it is like even today to live on the street or sleep at every night in a friend’s car.

For many, the Haitian tragedy ended when the news reporters left Haiti and started to talk about other news, like the oil spill in the US. But for the Haitians, rocks in the sun, the pain continues.

A city like New Orleans suffered Katrina five years ago, and now had the sadness of oil spilling in the sea and killing fish and birds. I visited New Orleans a week after your mom and dad got married, and I fell in love with the city. The seafood was fantastic; I enjoyed the crab, shrimp, and couldn’t; get enough of fried catfish nuggets. New Orleans is in fresh pain today, but many of us can move on to the next big news item.

Moving on and forgetting is bad enough. What is worse is when those of us who are rocks in water add to the pain of rocks in the sun. For example, last week, a Jamaican businessman said that Jamaica needs more prisons to lock away people who break the law. I have no doubt that many of the rocks in the water agreed with him. However, the rocks in the sun would have different stories.

Now, people like this businessman (in the comfort of the water) and poor people (in the discomfort of the sun) are just as likely to break the law. Those in the water have a good chance of not being caught. The police are unlikely to search their houses or cart their young sons off to jail, beat them, and keep them locked up for weeks or months. Those in the water can afford lawyers to defend them if any heat reaches them and they are accused of doing something wrong.

Those who are like rocks in the sun have a good chance of being taken to jail even if they have done nothing except be found in the sun. Often, by the time the police release them from lockups, the scars from the beatings have healed. Anyway, this young man does not want to do anything to make the police angry at him. Therefore he gives up his right to getting money to make up for losing his freedom without having done anything wrong. If he had a job, the chances are he will lose it because he did not turn up for work all those weeks he was locked up. Or his boss (from the cool of the water) might decide the police would not have locked up this young man if did nothing wrong. In any event, the young man will not have the money to get a lawyer to take his case to court.

Now, if this businessman had an idea what was happening to people who are like rocks in the sun, he might want to be as sure as he can be that those (from water or in sun) who are locked up deserve to be punished. It seems, however, that it is easier to talk without seeking to know.

I hope, my grandniece, that you will be one of those who are rich and those who are poor are still human beings. I hope you can see that rocks in the water and rocks in the sun are still rocks, just with different stories to tell. I hope you will be able to tell your story and to listen to the stories of others, and try to understand.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

Coming together to run far

2010-08-07T12:58:00.003-05:00

When you run alone, you run fast. When you run together, you run far. (Zambia)

Jamaicans have run fast when they seem to run alone. Usain Bolt, fastest man in the world, proves how fast we can be. True enough, Tyson Gay ran faster than Bolt yesterday, but I have no doubt that Bolt will be back charging into the tape faster than any other in his race.

We Jamaicans run well in almost every race we enter. In athletics, we have won more medals than countries much bigger than we are. In music, we have Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Jimmy Cliff, and a long, long list of others who are famous in every corner of the globe. Some have made their mark as doctors, soldiers, and politicians. For example, we have Ben Carson (neurosurgeon), Colin Powell (former American chief of staff and Secretary of State), and Yvette Clarke (American congresswoman), and Diane Abbott (aiming to lead the British Labour Party). So we know we can run faster than anyone else, when we choose.

In our communities, we have seen that we can run far when we run together. For example, when Jamaicans first settled in England, they met racism. Whites didn’t want to rent or sell them places where they could live and raise their families. It was hard for Blacks to find an apartment in a safe area with its own bathroom and kitchen, let alone its own front door and space for children to play.

So here is how many of those Jamaicans decided to run together in order to run far. They piled up in the slum apartments and saved their money together. This is a system in Jamaica known as “pardner”. People form a group in which each person contributes a set amount of money. One person is the banker, and this person makes sure all the money comes in and one person each month gets a “draw” – the total sum handed in by all the others in the “pardner”.

The first person who had enough from the “draw” would buy a house, and the others would move into rooms in that house until they had a “draw” that allowed them to buy their own house. The “pardner” would run until everyone had shelter that gave them a feeling of dignity. Before they had their homes, no banks would lend them money. However, with their own homes, they had a better chance of getting loans from banks.

“Pardner” schemes have worked for years, and many Jamaicans still rely on “pardner” to help them do what they cannot do alone. However, these schemes are really for individual benefit. As a result, individuals have run fast, but Jamaica as a whole seems left behind.

I hope, my grandniece, that together we can find ways of running far as a country, even while helping individuals to continue to run fast. And let us remember that those who run fast, like Usain Bolt, never really run alone. They have a team that helps them to run (and win) race after race.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

Finding independence when fingers stop quarreling

2010-08-06T11:04:00.005-05:00

If the fingers of one hand quarrel, they can't pick up the food. (East Africa)

Dear Zayda,

The British let go of Jamaica 48 years ago. Mostly we think of 1962 as the year when we got independence, but we still seem to be working out what independence means. So far, we seem unable to “pick up the food” because the fingers of the hand keep quarrelling.

Jamaica copied Britain’s habit of having two main political parties. The ideal is that people can vote for the party they choose, but after that the two parties work with each other for the good of the whole country. What actually happens is that the parties fight with each other and the country keeps losing.

When Jamaica became independent, one Jamaican dollar could buy more than one US dollar. Today, one Jamaican dollar can buy about as much as one US cent. We became independent when we left a federation of Caribbean islands. At that time, we were doing so well that we felt joining up with other islands would slow us down. Today, some of those other islands own pieces of Jamaica. I chose my bank because at the time Jamaicans owned it; today Trinidadians own my bank. Barbadians own at least one major insurance company that used to be fully Jamaican-owned.

Countries like Trinidad and Barbados have their differences, but they seem to unite when the fingers need to “pick up the food.”

Jamaicans seem to find all kinds of reasons to quarrel with each other. The two political parties, one with green shirts and the other with orange shirts, seem most united about splitting up the country between them. If green is in power, then green will eat. The same thing goes for orange. No politician seems to think we could have a system where all can eat: green, orange, or people who don’t care about either.

Both parties hardly ever work together for long, unless in a matter where politicians as a whole win and the people as a whole lose.

The people will unite for a little while. However, that is often about what they don’t want, rather than what they want. For example, in May the people were all angry with the Prime Minister for telling a lie and trying to cover up for a wrongdoer. So the Prime Minister had to apologise and try to correct his behaviour. That was like the fingers rejecting the food they do not want, but not being able to agree on what food they want. The people will come together at election time to vote out the party they do not want, but fail to demand what they want of the other party.

Some groups of people will also unite around other negatives. For example, far too many wish death on gay persons and persons who speak to the police (“informers”). Many are united in wishing extreme punishment (such as death) on those who break the law, or are even suspected of breaking the law.

But Jamaicans can unite around positives as well. We were one nation when our football team played in the 1998 World Cup. We are one nation when our athletes (especially Usain Bolt) do well. We are one nation in our love for the food of our ancestors. Many times Jamaicans return overseas with suitcases packed with roasted breadfruit and fried fish. Christmas is not the same without sorrel and dark fruit cake laced with rum. Easter is not Easter without spicy bun and cheese.

Let us hope, my grandniece, that Jamaica can find ways to bring the fingers together to pick up food by the time we celebrate our half century of the end of British rule. Perhaps we may then be truly able to claim independence.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

Paying attention to other people's wisdom

2010-08-05T08:44:00.003-05:00

Other people's wisdom often prevents a chief from being called a fool. (Yoruba)

Dear Zayda,

You are never too little or too young or too anything to have wisdom. Indeed, our African ancestors believe that infants come with special messages for elders. So even if I don’t understand your language of babbles, I know you are passing on to me information I need to be wiser.

People who see themselves as chiefs often think they are supposed to know everything. Children try to teach adults all the time, mostly because children speak their thoughts from their hearts. Many of us adults speak other people’s thoughts – what we read in books or newspapers, or what we see someone say on television. Or what people in power (like parents, teachers, doctors, or presidents) tell us we should think. One of the problems adults have is in not following their instincts. So often they will argue themselves out of their inner wisdom. They want to do as the “experts” tell them.

Years ago, I worked in a light and power company. Canadian experts came to re-build a power plant, and man who swept the floors told them of a part they needed to replace if the plant was going to work again. Well, this man had no university degree. In fact, he could barely read and write. So why should these experts listen to him?

The company spent a lot of money on the power plant, and the experts did a great job. Except that the plant would not work when they tried to switch it on. Yes, the man who swept the floors was right. He not only followed his instincts, but he was bright enough to see what had worked over the years. And he was confident enough to express his opinion.

This man’s wisdom could have saved money and helped the experts to seem wise.

We need to listen to each other, Zayda. When I was a teacher, my students protected me from looking foolish. I tried to clear space on my timetable to give my students time to teach me. I learned about the music they liked, the movies they watched, and the sports they enjoyed. I also found out about things in their lives that bothered them. As a result, my students were more inclined to listen to me.

Sometimes I would slip up and forget to listen, and I would be grateful if my students put me back on track. For example, once I was fussing with a teenaged male student because he had missed school for several days. Thankfully, he let me know he had a story he wanted me to hear before I punished him. He told me he had been absent because the police locked him up without giving him a chance to make a telephone call to his parents. So he was lost in jail for those days I didn’t see him at school. He taught me that I always needed to listen, even if wrong behaviour seems “obvious”.

Wisdom that does not rely on books will often come to the point with words that may not be well chosen or even in Standard English. To some, being direct may seem like bad manners. It may therefore be easy to ignore other people’s wisdom especially if we see ourselves as chiefs.

But being humble enough to listen to other people’s wisdom gives us the chance to be wise chiefs rather than foolish chiefs.

So, my grandniece, please speak your wisdom.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

Ubuntu and caring communities

2010-08-04T10:44:00.004-05:00

I am because we are; we are because I am (Ashanti, Zulu)

Dear Zayda,

Today’s proverb is at the centre of the Ubuntu way of life that Nelson Mandela promoted for South Africa.

When I was growing up, we practised “ubuntu” without knowing the word existed. My grandparents lived in farming communities with more food than cash. So people shared labour and food just as they shared joys and sorrows.

For example, no one needed to hire labour when time came to dig the fields. A farmer would announce his work day and people would come to help. The only “payment” was a big meal that usually featured dumplings (called “Johnny cakes” if fried, or “cartwheels” if boiled) and dishes like ackee and saltfish or mackerel rundung. The day was like a party, with mugs of coffee and chocolate, often made from beans grown right there on the land. There might also be glasses of lemonade, and usually the men would insist on rum to wet their palates.

This practice went by different names, such as “morning sport” and “day fi [for] day. Farmers helped out each other so everyone could benefit even if no one could pay for the work in cash.

Births, weddings and funerals were special events that everyone shared in.

Babies belonged to everyone. People would pamper and discipline neighbour’s children as if they were their own. On the one hand, children could have treats from any home they happened to visit. On the other hand, anyone could punish any naughty child, and parents would often punish that child a second time for bringing about the first punishment. Sometimes we wished the grown ups would look another way (except when they were offering us plantain tarts, gizzada, or sweet potato pudding!) Only when we were in our teens or older did some of us realize that Aunt X or Uncle Y and their children were not related to us by blood.

No one needed to be invited to a wedding. People would contribute food – from a goat to yams – as well as food. In addition, there was a game played at weddings, where people would bid to unveil the wedding cake or keep it hidden. Naturally those who bid for it to be unveiled would “win” but not before the bride and groom had money to set up their new home.

Funerals were (and still are) huge social occasions, once the sad part was out of the way. For about a week after the death, the community would visit the home every night to keep the family company. Nightly eating and drinking would come to a climax in a wake that was held on the ninth night after the person died. On that night, people would dance and sing to send off the dead person. There would be lots of food, especially fried sprat and hardough bread, and white rum had to be present. People would spend all night chatting with each other, telling stories, sharing riddles, and playing games like dominoes. The community would contribute food and drink, apart from moral support, to celebrate the dead person’s life.

Today, Zayda, some of the practices survive. For example, a wake was held when our relative Trevor Rhone died last year.

Jamaica has changed a lot since I was a child. However, just as Ubuntu helped South Africa to come together after a war between races, so I think Jamaica can benefit today from re-visiting the spirit of Ubuntu. What do you think, Zayda?

Blessings,

Your shangazi

Loyalty to Ubuntu principle

2010-08-03T09:41:00.007-05:00

One can't make a pact with the slave and make a pact with the master and not betray one of them. (Yoruba)

Dear Zayda,

The blood of slaves and slave masters runs in our veins. If they wanted to continue living, our female ancestors could not say “no” to their owners. Children of mixed blood often had an easier life than Black children - lighter work, better food, and a chance to read and write. Lucky ones got their freedom. The question then, as now, is who will have our loyalty, slave or master.

Some ease their minds by making a pact with the master. They speak the master’s language (sometimes with the master’s accent) and consider slave-derived language as “bad”. They wear the master’s clothing, intended for cold climates, even in tropical heat. As best they can, they try to make their hair and skin colour resemble the master’s. What they can’t do for themselves, they may try to do for their children and grandchildren by choosing spouses who are white or near-white. Some may go so far as to refuse to acknowledge relatives who look or act “too Black”.

Those who make a pact with the slave could be considered as “too Black”. They will wear their hair long, but in dreadlocks or natural braids, not straight hair weaves. They are proud of having smooth chocolate skin and generous lips. They take every chance they can get to celebrate with the drumming and dancing and stories of their African ancestors. Persons such as Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X inspire them.

But we live in a world together - Blacks and whites, children of slaves and slave masters. We need to make pacts with each other and with ourselves. Even if one side or the other thinks we betray them, we must never betray ourselves. That means, Zayda, that we allow principle to guide us.

Nelson Mandela is an example of someone who tried to make pacts with slave and master while respecting the rights of all. He tried to follow the principle of Ubuntu. He explained it in this way as:

“A traveler through a country would stop at a village and he didn't have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food, entertain him. That is one aspect of Ubuntu but it will have various aspects. Ubuntu does not mean that people should not enrich themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to be able to improve?”

One of my heroes, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, is also someone who tries to find principled ways of making pacts. This is how he explains Ubuntu:

“One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu - the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality - Ubuntu - you are known for your generosity.

“We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.”

To me, the essence of Ubuntu is love. So we have to love ourselves enough to find peace between the masters and slaves who may at times seem to be at war within us and around us.

We have to love others to see beyond the slave or the master to the humanity that we all share.

It’s not easy, but we can do it. We have to do it for our survival.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

No peace without freedom

2010-08-02T12:00:00.003-05:00

You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom. -Malcolm X

Dear Zayda

Today, we have a public holiday in Jamaica. On August 1, 1838, slaves got their freedom – on paper, anyway. Many still await the peace that should come with freedom.

In May of this year, Jamaica had a State of Emergency (SOE) that took away our paper freedom for a while. Many seemed so relieved to find themselves slaves again, that they begged for the SOE to continue. People seemed to want the SOE to be spread everywhere in Jamaica, and to continue for months (if not forever).

Now we deserve to have peace in Jamaica or anywhere else in the world where we find ourselves. However, most of the last fifty years, Jamaica’s murder rate has kept climbing. Last year the murder rate was the highest here and I think the highest in the world as well. So we have a problem. A big problem. People feel afraid in their homes, at their jobs, on the streets, in their cars – just about everywhere. So you can understand why a lot of people welcomed the breathing space that the SOE brought.

Under the SOE the police could lock up people or demand that they stay inside their homes. If people thought the police were treating them unfairly, they could not go to a court to get justice. Even without an SOE, the police can stop people from leaving their homes. The police say they don’t want people getting in their way when they search for guns and wrongdoers. In some other countries, police realize they need the people’s help to be more pointed in their searches. Not surprisingly, Jamaican police seem to find few guns and wrongdoers even when people give up their rights for these searches.

Those who are enslaved often have no voice. They may be afraid to speak out for fear of what might happen to them, or they try to smile and seem happy to keep on good terms with the slave master. Many keep silent (and insist on silence from others) while they plot revenge. However, some stories do manage to get out.

For example, William works as a gardener. His job is important to him as he supports includes his mother, his children, and a wife who has lupus. Last Saturday, the police locked down his community, and they would not allow anyone to leave for any reason. So William and others lost income they would have earned that day. Apart from putting food on the table, many also had school fees to pay by the end of this month,

Two weeks ago, when the police last locked down William’s community, he risked his life by defying police orders. He jumped fences and gullies to leave his area and reach work. One of his employers needed to call the police to make sure William could return to his family without being arrested. Anyone who did not have an identification card (like the “free paper” in slavery) could be locked up.

Another young man, Jason, was about to be interviewed for a job when the police held him. He spent days in a filthy cell where there was barely space to sit on the floor and none to lie down to sleep. He lost the job because he didn’t turn up for the interview, and because the business place didn’t want to hire anyone whom the police locked up.

As in slavery, thousands of young men lost their freedom before, during, and since the SOE without proof that they did anything wrong. The police took them by the truckloads, fingerprinted and photographed them (similar to the way slaves were branded with hot irons). During the SOE, the police held 4,200 persons, and charged about 20. We do not have any way of knowing how many of those charged will be found guilty of any offence.

Young men like William and Jason are not at peace because they are still to know what freedom means. They feel afraid of the police. In addition, they have no way to protect their homes – no grills, heavy doors, or private security services. Gangs can break down their doors or catch them on unlit streets. So they are afraid of gangs as well.

The slave masters, for all their wealth and protection, feared slave uprisings. Similarly, those who act like modern slave masters fear the anger that shows itself in Jamaica as crime. The better off and the worse off are indeed united as well as divided by the fears that have both sides in chains.

So after 172 years, we still need to emancipate ourselves. This time, as Marcus Garvey said and Bob Marley repeated, we need to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery.

Be free, my grandniece. Be free.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

Sam Sharpe: One person changes a place

2010-07-30T09:51:00.005-05:00

A changed place can't transform an individual, but a transformed individual can change a place. (Africa)

Dear Zayda,

Any change starts with just one person who believes change can come. On August 1 we celebrate those who believed slaves deserved to be free. Many, like Sam Sharpe, gave their lives to bring about change.

Sharpe was born in Montego Bay in 1801. Because he was able to read and write, he found out that people in England wanted to end slavery. He became a Baptist deacon, and believed in what the Bible said about all being equal. He therefore preached messages telling people they had a right to be free.

Now, it is one thing to talk and another to act on a belief. So Sharpe suggested to the slaves that they refuse to work till they got paid. He knew the best time to carry out this plan was at Christmas when the planters needed to reap the cane or they would lose money.

Sharpe’s plan was peaceful, and some followed it by just stopping work. However, many slaves felt too angry to protest by sitting still. So in late December 1831, slaves burnt down some sugar estates, and some estate owners were killed.

British soldiers were sent to the estates to protect the owners. As a result, slaves were captured and killed. Others were tried and hanged. Sharpe gave up himself and was tried and then hanged in the market square in 1832. Just before he was hanged, Sharpe said, "I would rather die in yonder gallows, than live for a minute more in slavery."

Although this Christmas rebellion seemed to have failed, Sharpe still managed to transform a whole country. The British, who governed Jamaica at the time, realized that slaves were determined to be free. They saw that slaves were willing to come together to fight for justice. As a result, the British abolished slavery not just in Jamaica but in all parts of the world where the British ruled.

Sam Sharpe’s vision of freedom transformed his world well beyond Montego Bay.

Remember that, like Sharpe, your vision backed up by passion can give you the power to transform your world.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

Not dwelling on mistakes

2010-07-29T10:09:00.003-05:00

Aunt Ettie and me

People who love one another do not dwell on each other's mistakes. Kenya (Gikuyu)

Dear Zayda,

Your great-grandaunt, my Aunt Ettie, was born on this day in 1904. She lived fully till she was 96 years old. To me, she is an example of someone who did not dwell on mistakes whether made by others or by herself. So she freed herself to love others, and to enjoy life.

She loved to travel, and I learned a lot from the way she responded to when things (that most of us would call ‘bad’) happened to her on her trips. For example, once when she went to Miami, a hit-and-run driver hit her down. The accident left her with a fractured pelvis, and she had to remain with a relative in Miami till she was well enough to return to Jamaica.

Well, if I were waiting to hear Aunt Ettie complain, I would be still waiting. Did she have bad things to say about the driver who injured her? Never. Did she blame herself and decide to stop traveling? No. Did she tell herself that continuing to go on trips at her age (she was then in her eighties) was a mistake? Not at all.

Aunt Ettie loved herself too well to spend time blaming anyone. She just focused on getting better as quickly as she could. She was too upbeat for anyone to even whisper to her that bones of older persons didn’t heal quickly if at all. Her one concern was not seeming like an invalid. So she was relieved that the plane bringing her from Miami arrived at night so no one she knew could see her leave the plane in a stretcher. She always wanted to stand on her own feet.

When she was recovering, Aunt Ettie’s only talk was of the progress she made. So we had a celebration when she could move her toes and when she could bend her knees. The day she made it to the dining table was like Christmas Day for her. The accident took place in September, and by early November, Aunt Ettie was well enough to return to her own home. She lived by herself in a townhouse with stairs to climb, but she tackled those seeming obstacles with the courage that marked her life.

You many find, Zayda, that today many people go to all lengths to pick out and dwell on other persons' mistakes. What that hit-and-run driver did may have gone beyond just a ‘mistake’. The police could have charged him with a crime. At times, people also treat it as a crime if someone doesn’t say a word correctly, or cooks a meal that is not tasty, or wears a colour that is not in fashion. If people are looking for mistakes, they will find them. One of the main reasons is that we are only truly living when we make mistakes. That’s how we learn and grow. Just the same way as you are going to fall down a lot of times before you learn how to balance yourself on your legs.

Aunt Ettie showed how useless it is to blame others, even when bad things happen. Picking on others for their mistakes will make us unhappy. Picking on ourselves for our mistakes will make us even more unhappy. And who wants to be around unhappy people, except for other unhappy people?

So let us love ourselves just as we are, and love others just as they are. Perhaps then, as with Aunt Ettie, how we treat mistakes can make us bless the lives of all who can see us as love in action.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

Balance between stone and water

2010-07-28T08:34:00.003-05:00

To be hard doesn't mean to be hard as a stone, and to be soft doesn't mean to be soft as water. (Kenya)

Dear Zayda,

When you start to make your first steps, you will discover balance. You will fall many times before you trust your legs enough to start running. But even adults fall when they lose balance. So we don't have to be always hard, or always soft. But we can always let love direct us on how best to act.

I was balanced (or thought I was) when I first went to live in England. I had gone to a school were I had British teachers and learnt from books written for English children. I also had a British passport. So when I got to England, I felt at home. I could eat strawberries and cream, and in spring I could enjoy the “host of golden daffodils”. In Jamaica, we would line up in the sun to see the queen on here rare visits to Jamaica. But in London, I could get to see the queen as often as I wanted to. Yes, I was at home, even with the winter damp and snow, and with long summer days that could be chilly and bleak.

Then I discovered that I was too Black. Too Black to get a decent place to rent or buy. Too Black to feel welcome in some restaurants. Too Black to be treated as just another human being. I had to decide what to do to save myself while I lived with people who just needed to see my skin colour to dislike me. Being hard seemed as stone seemed a better choice than being soft as water. And if took me a while to see that I didn’t need to be either stone or water.

I fell in love with the children I taught. I didn’t see them as Black, brown, or white. They were just my children. At first some of them saw me as Black only, and carried into the classroom their parents' fears of blackness. But as we grew to know each other, I was just “Miss” who sometimes couldn’t write straight on the blackboard. I was a fun person whom my students wanted to sit next to at the lunch table, or whose music class my students wanted to be part of so they could catch some tropical sunshine in the drum rhythms. I needed to know when to be tough with my students, and when to be soft with them. But most of all, I knew they needed me to the best of me. Authentic.

I still left home every day ready to be a hard as stone with any of the adults who got on my wrong side. If they treated me as “less than”, then I was ready to teach them some tough lessons. I found out how much English people hated tantrums, so I learned how to be yell and cry foul to get their attention.

One day I went to a white doctor’s office and cried foul at him. The office was closed when I got there, but the patient in the waiting room opened the door for me. When the doctor came to call his patient, he was angry to see me there. So he and I exchanged some hot words for a while. He said I had sneaked into his office, and I said he had closed his office ahead of time. I thought of walking out, but I needed to see a doctor that morning.

When I got into his surgery, the doctor and I started to behave like human beings. Not Black and white. Not male and female. Not doctor and patient. Just people. Somehow we started to talk with each other and not at each other as we had been doing. He admitted he may have closed a few minutes early because he had such a busy day ahead. I admitted I may have arrived a few minutes after his official closing time. He treated my complaint, but the lessons of that morning remain with me more than forty years later.

No, we don’t need to be so hard that we can’t feel anything any more. And we don’t have to be water so anyone can push us around. We can be tough where we need to be, and flexible where we need to be. Most of all we can act out of love of ourselves and others.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

Preventing injury from sharpened knives

2010-07-27T08:08:00.008-05:00

Being involved in conspiracy can backfire; too much sharpening of the knife can result in cutting oneself. (Ethiopia)

Dear Zayda,

Families can choose to be happy. On the other hand, they risk unhappiness when they allow anything to turn them against each other. Some of the worst wars occur when family members sharpen knives for each other.

Sometimes children get caught up when those they love begin cutting each other. As a child, you will find it difficult to tell the grownups to behave themselves and not bring you into their quarrels. It will probably be easier to go along with those who are closest to you, those whom you think you need most to protect you. But warring adults seem to forget that sharp knives will cut even a small child who has nothing to do with the war.

You can expect people you love to have differences. Sometimes they differences can be so deep, that these people may stop talking to each other. They may want to have you on their side. When you are little, you may have no choice but to believe what adults say about each other. However, as you grow older, you will need to learn to trust yourself and make your own judgments. One important way to judge is not to judge at all until you can hear all sides of the story.

People sharpen knives for each other for many reasons. They may be afraid of those who look or act different; they may be jealous of someone who is popular; they may be afraid of someone who seems to have power. Many times, in families, the knives come out over land and money.

When I was a child, my dad didn’t have much money. He didn’t seem to be able to hold on to jobs and keep his pride as a Black man. And he didn’t seem to have much luck doing business (shop keeping, farming) on his own. He always loved the land, and he began to make money when he went into real estate. Life was hard when he was struggling to pay the bills, but in those years he and his siblings were close. For example, my father, his four sisters and their families would meet at least three times over the Christmas Season. We would come together at one home for Christmas dinner and at another home on Boxing Day. On the first Sunday of each year, we would all meet in Bellas Gate where my father and his sisters were born. The ritual fell apart when the family as a whole seemed better off.

There may have been many reasons for the splitting up of the family, but money features as a reason that knives started to be sharpened. I need you to note that money can also bring a family together, and we could do more of that in Black families. Instead, too often we cut ourselves by not working together for the good of all of us.

I often got caught in the middle of the conspiracies. If I refused to join in sharpening knives, one side or the other would decide I could not be trusted. Some knives would then be sharpened against me. You can see what a mess this can make. It is interesting that sometimes when family members wanted to put down a knife, they would come to me to ask me to help to make peace.

No matter what, the sharpened knives would cause hurt. I wanted my mother’s parents to be at my wedding, but that meant one side had to put down their knives for that day. By the time I persuaded the fighters to have a truce, the wedding date had almost arrived. My grandparents thanked me for the invitation when they finally got it, but decided not to attend my wedding. I knew they loved me, but they didn’t want to feel they were walking into a war to get to the wedding. So the sharpened knives can cut even those who are trying to end the quarrel.

So, grandniece, try as best you can to stay away from those who sharpen knives for others. Keeping your heart loving and peaceful might not always be easy, but it will be your best protection.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

Leaders need to be healers

2010-07-26T17:34:00.003-05:00

Sorry doesn't heal a wound, but it can clean a wound. (Africa)

Dear Zayda,

Shirley Sherrod heard a lot of people saying “sorry” when they wounded her. A lot of people judged her without hearing her side of the story. She got a phone call telling her to resign, but still no one had listened to her. Then, when people heard the truth about what she said, all (except for the most stubborn) hurried to apologize.

So the wound might be cleaned now, but what about the healing? If the wound is cleaned and left just like that, it might get infected again. Or it may just stay open and get hurt easily at the slightest touch. Or it might get people so pained that they stay angry all the time and want to hurt others.

Black people have had hundreds of years of wounds, and mostly we have not heard “sorry” let alone seen attempts healing. The wound to Shirley Sherrod, like all those others before it, is not just about a person. And every fresh wound gives another chance at healing that wound and the old wounds as well.

Not long ago, a policeman arrested Professor Skip Gates for breaking into his own home. Gates, a friend of President Obama, felt wounded at being treated like a criminal. White people wondered what the fuss was all about, and felt the policeman was just doing his job answering a call a robbery. Black people wondered what the fuss was all about, because they felt white policemen mistreated Black people all the time. But Professor Gates’ case was all over the radio, newspapers, Internet, and television stations. So President Obama invited both men to tea at the White House. The men shook hands, and that is the last most of us heard about that case.

But Black people are wounded daily. Race can determine who gets arrested, who gets sent to prison, who drives a fancy car without being stopped, who sits in a board room, or who gets a loan. President Obama could therefore accept Shirley Sherrod's invitation to visit Georgia. He could then see for himself how Black people live. He could get an idea of the problems Black people face because of unhealed wounds from the past.

Perhaps President Obama will invite Shirley to tea on the White House lawns. But after the drinks and the photos, what?

If Shirley gets to go to meet Obama in person, I hope she goes with company. I hope some Black farmers from the South go with her. I hope the farmers tell Obama what is happening to them and their families. I hope they tell him the challenges Southern Blacks have owning their homes, keeping jobs, and sending their children to school.

I hope they tell him about places in the South that are so poor they should be getting foreign aid.

Perhaps when the president is done trying to heal wounds of Blacks in the US, he might have a look at stretching a healing hand to Black people on his doorstep - in the Caribbean. In particular in Haiti where people still suffer more than six months after a terrible earthquake.

President Obama doesn’t have to do anything because he is Black. But he can do better than say “sorry” when he sees wounds that need healing.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

Courage to be happy

2010-07-25T10:59:00.006-05:00

If you hold your anger, it will kill all your happiness. (Gullah)

Dear Zayda,

I hope you will learn that it’s all right to be angry and show it. When I was growing up, lots of us got punished for showing that we were angry, so we decided to make ourselves feel safe by holding the anger. Adults praised us for being quiet and well-behaved. When we got older, we were praised for getting along well with others because we always tried to agree even if we didn’t feel like it. And then we wondered why we didn’t feel happy.

The anger goes someplace if we don’t express it, and sometimes it takes hold of our hearts. Our feelings go into a deep freeze, and that means good feelings as well as the feelings others tell us are not good.

Holding our anger can mean we store it up and take it out on ourselves or on others. When people go to war against themselves, they are almost bound to get sick. Sometimes, to make themselves feel better, they try to make others feel bad about themselves. In Jamaica, some of the anger shows as violence. People harm each other for reasons that don’t seem to make sense. For example, people in Jamaica can get badly hurt or worse because they disagree with someone over how to vote or even how to cook a meal.

When you express your anger, my grandniece, realize this is your feeling. No one else is responsible for your feeling, even though we are all tempted to blame others. If you take responsibility, then you have a chance of healing your anger. Often there is some past hurt that jumps out when you hear certain words, or when someone acts in a certain way. The more you hold in the anger, is the more the other person’s words or actions can control your feelings about yourself. We get peace when we realize that other person’s words or actions don’t have to affect us. The other persons are probably dealing with their own anger feelings that they are holding.

You may find that boys who get angry, have a fist fight, and then perhaps become friends. They didn’t hold back their anger, and they gave themselves a chance of happiness with a new friend. Mostly, girls are not allowed to fight with their fists, so at times they show anger with their tongues. Men do that as well, when they don’t have the chance to let out their anger directly, or the courage to confront the person who angers them.

We can safely let our anger out by speaking honestly about our feelings, and by listening to others express their feelings. We can respect and accept feelings for where they usually come from – how we are taught to look at our world.

Laughter helps to relieve anger, and Jamaicans are great at finding humor in serious matters. But laughter can also harm us and others.

If ever you are tempted to laugh at someone, Zayda, please think again. Perhaps a child in your class looks different, dresses differently, speaks differently, or acts differently. Others may make jokes at this child’s expense, and the rest of the class may laugh as well. Sometimes we laugh even though we are uncomfortable, because we know one day we can be the butt of the cruel jokes as well. We might not want to stand up for the person because taking a stand for that unpopular child might make us unpopular as well. We might not want to risk seeming different or sensitive to others’ feelings.

But this is what I would like you to remember. People who try to put others down are usually feeling angry at themselves and others. Or they want to look witty and cool, even while they are harming someone. They may not have the nerve to be playground bullies, but they can always use words to pick on others behind their backs.

If you feel uneasy even as you try to laugh, then you need to respect the feeling of unease. If you have been in the habit of expressing your feelings, you can say you feel uneasy without blaming anyone for your own feeling. If you value your own dignity, you need to stand up for the dignity of others. At the very least, you can move away from those who are putting down another person. You don’t have to be their friends unless you like what they do. You definitely don’t have to laugh at jokes that cause you any discomfort.

We need to be happy first with ourselves, and then we can be happy with others. That takes courage, Zayda.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

The difference a mosquito makes

2010-07-24T07:45:00.002-05:00

Shirley Sherrod

If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping in a closed room with a mosquito. (Africa)

Dear Zayda,

You will grow up as a Black girl in a country where most people are white. Being Black and being female can seem like good reasons to think we can’t make a difference. And if we believe that, we will let our lives slip away with thinking “if only…”

But one tiny mosquito can make a difference. Somehow mosquitoes know where our ears are, and they will zoom us and keep singing all night. If you turn on the light, you most likely won’t see the mosquito, but as soon as you lie down again, it will be buzzing your ear or biting any part of you it can find outside the cover sheet. Mosquitoes don’t give up easily.

Shirley Sherrod is a Black woman whose is right now making a lot of people think again. She is an ordinary, hardworking, Black Woman who is making a big difference. She was in the news because she didn’t keep quiet when people (a lot more powerful than she) treated her unfairly.

Shirley was born more than sixty years ago in Georgia, USA. At that time, Blacks in southern states could not eat in any restaurant or even drink from any water cooler they wanted to. They certainly couldn’t live where they wished, work where they wanted, or send their children to schools where they would get the best education. If they traveled on a bus, they had to sit in the back, or else stand up if some white person wanted a seat. If they talked back to a white person, they could die.

When Shirley was 17, a white farmer shot her dad to death, and a white jury set the killer free. Shirley chose to remain in the south to try to help Black people to have the same rights as anyone else. She studied in Ohio, but returned to Georgia to help poor farmers keep their land. Because of her work, the first Black president Barack Obama appointed her as Georgia Rural Farm Development Commissioner.

Well, about a week ago, she was shown in a short section of a videotape speaking about her attitude to a white farmer who came to her for help more than twenty years ago. The Black group that defends rights of Black people in the USA immediately condemned Shirley. The group said she had used her power against the white farmer, a man called Spooner. She was fired from her job.

All of that happened before people watched the full videotape and heard all that Shirley said. All of that happened before anyone asked Shirley a question. All that happened before anyone heard from Spooner, the farmer Shirley was supposed to have wronged.

Shirley did not stay silent. She may have been “small” but she did not decide to be insignificant. She spoke up for herself on television. When people saw the video, they could see she was just sharing her fears, but she didn’t use her fears to harm anyone. The white farmer said Shirley was his friend, and she saved his farm.

Those who condemned Shirley now said they were sorry. President Obama apologised to her personally, and she was offered her another job.

My grandniece, never believe you have to be silent. Never believe you are too small for your voice to be heard. We have power, and one of the best ways to use it is by speaking up for ourselves and others.

Blessings,

Your shangazi.

The courage to ask "why"

2010-07-23T09:40:00.005-05:00

This is Ra, the Egyptian Sun God. May we keep seeking to know so that, like the sun, our light can keep shining.

He who knows nothing, doubts nothing. (Brazil)

Dear Zayda,

As soon as you have enough words, you will begin to ask “why”. I hope nothing stops you from continuing to ask “why”. I can think of no way to increase what we know, other than asking questions about what others tell us.

Still, my grandniece, you will find that “why” questions will get you into trouble at school and later on the job. I hope your parents encourage your questions so you never get in trouble at home for wanting to know more.

When I was growing up, children were supposed to be seen and not heard. For sure, they were not to ask questions of adults. Today, too many adults still try to be seen and not heard, unless they are accepting all they hear, and doubting nothing.

“Why” questions can be scary for adults. They may have to think thoughts that they hide from themselves, or they may have to re-think what they believe to be true.

You may find that some questions are taboo – questions about sex and religion. And questions about politics. When I was a child and my dad was active in politics, it was a lot easier for me to dislike the side he thought was wrong. So I grew up believing that side had no sense and would beat up people who didn’t support them. I also believed that side was made up of rich people who cared only about getting richer, and poor people who didn’t mind if the rich people made them poorer.

My dad was about seventy years old when he was first able to face himself with “why:” questions. He knew enough about his political party to start doubting them. Then he asked even more “why” questions and decided that his party was no longer good for Jamaica. It took him longer to decide to vote for the party he disliked all his life.

Sex brought us all here, Zayda, but this is one area where you might find the most blocks to “why” questions. I tried to answer my sons’ questions about sex, but sometimes I would feel confused about what to say, and want to distract my sons. Sometimes adults get cross as a way of avoiding answers that they may not have or may not know how to give. So I talked with my sons about babies. It was easy to talk about babies being in their mummies’ tummies. But it was not so easy to answer how and why the babies came about.

Religion can be another area where questions are not allowed. “Why” questions about God means doubts, and for many church people doubts about God are not allowed. Be warned, one of the questions not to ask is, “Why does God allow bad things to happen?” I am sure you will think of your own why questions, and I am sure your mummy and daddy will answer them for you. But they may also warn you not to ask those questions around some family members.

Hopefully, you will feel so free to ask your “why” questions that you will ask them anyway, and let the adults take care of their own fears and doubts. I am sure, also, that your questions will help adults to know more. And perhaps to doubt more.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

Recognizing alligator's eggs

2010-07-22T09:05:00.005-05:00

Alligator lay egg, but him is not a fowl. (Jamaica)

Dear Zayda,

Things are not always as they appear. In a short while, you will be at the stage of questioning, and of saying “no”. You need to keep this quality when you are grown up. Sometimes people see one and one and they get two; at other times, people see one and one and swear they have 11 or even 1001. So fowls lay eggs, but not every egg was laid by a fowl.

Yet children as well as grownups can get into trouble for asking questions and saying “no”. And if we get into trouble often enough, we may start to say what others want us to say, rather than what we think and believe.
Jamaica’s State of Emergency ends today, after being in force for two months. The two parties continue to argue about who is to blame for ending this State of Emergency. It seems that most Jamaicans want it to continue, but those are not the Jamaicans like Leon.

Leon called me once when he needed someone to talk to. Actually, his uncle, a policeman, suggested that he call me. Leon was so angry at the police, that his uncle feared he might do something bad and get into real trouble with the law.

Leon was working with a man who refused to pay him what was due. One day, Leon decided to go to the man’s office to demand his money, but still had to leave without getting paid. On the street outside the office, the police came and arrested Leon. He spent a week or two in lock-up before the police released him. He was angry at the man who still owed him the money and caused him to be locked up. He was even angrier with the police who kept him in a jail cell that was smelly and crowded, where he needed to go to the bathroom in a bucket and the food was not what anyone should have to eat.

Well, Leon and I talked, and then I arranged for him to see a counselor. As a result, Leon seemed more hopeful, and decided to move on with his life even if he never got the money owed to him.

He lived in a poor community. Because he had no job and no money, he was sleeping the only place he found shelter – in a chicken coop. He was worried that he didn’t have the means to support his son whom he loved a lot. He talked with me about going back to Clarendon to work on his family’s land there.

He did return to Clarendon, and that where the police held him. He has been in lockup now for about three weeks, and the police have not charged him with doing anything wrong. The police could hold him for as long as the State of Emergency lasts, and no one could help him.

I will try to get Leon an attorney, and hope that he gets justice before he gets angrier.

The State of Emergency might look as harmless as a fowl egg to a lot of people. But young men like Leon see it as an egg that hatches an alligator with sharp teeth.

My grandniece, we need always to try to see the world from other people’s points of view as well as our own. We need to realize that truth can be a lot more than what we see or think we see.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

When sheep and goat need to unite

2010-07-21T10:35:00.003-05:00

When rain fall, sheep and goat does have to mix. (Trinidad and Tobago)

Dear Zayda,

Sometimes we need to get together with others even if we don’t like them or agree with them. We may need to join with them because that is our best way of dealing with a crisis.

Many of us get caught up with who we are, what family we belong to, what schools we attended, and where we happen to live. :Too often we find reason to stay divided even when we need to come together under one umbrella to shelter from rain. Jamaica has a history of being divided, starting with the plantation where even slaves were divided among themselves. Some slaves worked in the house and they thought they were better than those who worked in the fields. Those who were light-skinned with less curly hair and straight noses thought they were better than those who were darker-skinned with more curly hair and broader noses. Some of us continue to find it hard, even today, to come together on matters we need to stay alive.

Yesterday we had an example. Jamaica’s leaders met yesterday to discuss whether the State of Emergency should continue. When they met a month ago, both sides voted to continue the State of Emergency. Yesterday, the orange side was not sure about continuing. People on that side said they needed more information to be sure they were doing the right thing for the Jamaican people. The green side said the police and soldiers said they needed to keep the State of Emergency for another month, because it was working to reduce crime.

Now, the orange side said they would not vote for the extending the State of Emergency just because the green side wanted them to. They said they wanted to see reason to take away the rights of people. You see, the police held about four thousand persons on one side of the divide (those who were poor and uneducated). Most of them were let go after they spent days or weeks in filthy jails, and it was not clear whether the police had charged any of the others.

Well, the sheep and the goat just could not mix, even though the rain was falling. They could agree that crime was a problem, but what to do about it? The orange side offered a way out of the rain. They would vote for the State of Emergency to continue for 15 days instead of 30 days. During that time, the green side could give reasons to keep the State of Emergency. The two sides could then discuss the crime problems, and decide what best to do.

The green side said it had to be 30 days or nothing at all. That side didn’t have enough people to vote for 30 days, so they lost the vote.

Well, it is hard to say who won and who lost here. Green and orange blame each other, as usual. Both sides could try to discuss a plan to deal with crime, but that seems unlikely while each side decide it is right and the other is wrong.

My grandniece, no matter how strongly we feel, we need to be open to discussion and perhaps even change. In our own interest. And in the interest of others. Humility goes a long way.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

Climbing down from the high horse

2010-07-20T11:33:00.003-05:00

The higher the horse, the hotter the drop. (Jamaica)

Dear Zayda,

One of the important lessons I learned from Dame Nita Barrow was that very important people can still be humble. Dame Nita Barrow became the Governor-General of Barbados, but she never lost touch with people. I knew her for most of my life, when she was a hospital matron and when she was an international celebrity, and never saw her on any high horse.

She made marble cakes for me on my birthdays, and she made my wedding cake. Decades later, I came across someone who said Nita made her wedding cake as well. At that time, Nita headed an international agency in Geneva. Later, when she was Governor-General, she was still in her kitchen baking cakes.

She loved children, and any Barbadian child could go to visit her in the mansion where she lived as Governor-General. Whenever she visited Jamaica, no matter what the office she was holding at the time, she always took time to find out how I and my children were doing. She talked about herself if I asked her. She never boasted, even if she had a lot to boast about.

Hers is an example that other leaders could do well to follow. For nine months, Jamaica’s Prime Minister Bruce Golding rode a very high horse. He protected Christopher Coke, a man charged in the United States dealing in guns and drugs. When the public pressured him and demanded that he resign, Golding changed his mind. He said he was sorry for protecting Coke, and a warrant was sent out for Coke’s arrest. As a result of his actions, there was burning and shooting that led to a State of Emergency. Police and soldiers also entered Tivoli Gardens, an area where people set up barricades apparently to protect Coke. As a result of the action by police and soldiers, about 80 persons in Tivoli Gardens lost their lives.

Now, Zayda, you might Golding would have climbed off his high horse by this. But no. Just yesterday he was cussing out the media and any others who criticize him. He said that many of those who want him to resign don’t have any following. He said that membership of their organizations wouldn’t even fill a page in an exercise book.

So rather than climb down off the high horse, he seemed to look for an even higher horse. According to the Jamaican proverb, this higher horse is likely to give an even hotter drop. Time will tell.

You can choose which of these two leaders you would rather be like. Remember that if the ground is your friend, you won’t have to fear a fall. You will be free to ride the highest horse or walk on the ground, and still be true to yourself. You will be secure enough to listen to those on the ground, so they will be there to guide you when you need to climb off the high horse.

We can walk, ride, fly, my grandniece, but we need never forget that our origin is the ground.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

Replacing fear and hate with courage

2010-07-19T08:40:00.006-05:00

This Adinkra symbol is "Akofena". These two swords represent courage.

That which you fear most is likely to occur; the one you hate the most is likely to take over. (Ethiopia)

Dear Zayda,

If this Ethiopian proverb is right (and I think it is), we seem to be building up a lot of trouble in Jamaica right now. Whatever we fear and whomever we hate has power over us. On the other hand, faith and love have power beyond what we can imagine. Our strength comes from the courage to think our way to solutions, rather than simply react to problems.

People in Jamaica seem to fear crime so much that they don’t want to look at it. And if you don’t look at something, you can’t solve it. In fact, looking at something puts you have way toward solving it since you know what you are dealing with. Or at least you are willing to see what the problem is.

So at this moment we have a State of Emergency that has gone on for almost two months. The government is likely to renew this State of Emergency this week, and seem likely to continue renewing it for the rest of the year. The police like it, business people like it, people uptown and downtown seem to like it, and I can think of few people who think it should end now. But sometimes, Zayda, we have to stand up for what we believe even if we are alone or in a small group. It’s not a question if we are right or wrong, it’s a question of being firm in what we are convinced is true.

I can understand the public response to the State of Emergency, because living with crime and fear of crime can make people so stressed out they get sick. Living that way makes many of us prisoners in our homes and in our cars. We feel we must live behind grills and with our windows rolled up and car doors locked all the time. We panic if we hear a sound at night, even if it is just a neighbour’s cat hunting for mice. If the wind rattles a window we might freeze in our beds. Yes, it is that bad to live in a country with a high rate of crime.

So the State of Emergency gives an ease, at least for a while. However, it is like a band-aid over a broken leg. The State of Emergency gives the police huge powers, so every the police cordon and search areas – they surround a community and block it so people can’t just go in and out as they wish, and then they search for bad men and guns. The police can also arrest as many people as they like, and they don’t need to have a reason. Besides, they can hold the people for months, and they don’t need to charge the people with any offences. So crime is down, mainly because the wrongdoers are laying low for a while. The band aid is on, but the broken leg is not fixed.

At some point, the band aid is going to drop off or be taken off, and then what? That which people fear most is likely to return, perhaps all the worse for being allowed to get worse because we feared it so much we would not look at it and try to deal with it directly. The State of Emergency will end, even though I think there are those who would like it to continue indefinitely, so we never have to start healing what is admittedly ugly to look at.
At this time, people are saying how much they hate criminals. Some would like criminals locked up forever, and many say outright that they have no problem with killing criminals. Others compare criminals to cockroaches or other pests that the country needs to get rid of, even if some innocents die in the process. So, if the Ethiopian proverb is correct, the criminals seem likely to take over when the State of Emergency ends – what we hate most is likely to take over. Worse still, if our fears prevented us from solving the problems that were making people do bad things rather than look to what is good for everyone.

We probably can’t help all of Jamaica to turn from fear and hate, but we can help ourselves. So, my grandniece, let us look at life through the eyes of love. Let us look at people, no matter their actions, through the eyes of love. Love doesn’t mean we allow bad things to happen. Love means we try to prevent the bad things from happening. And if the bad things happen, love means we look for ways to prevent them from happening again. And courage means we take steps that may not make us popular.

Our solutions don’t need to be perfect, since we can keep learning how to do things better. What is important is that, no matter our fears, we keep growing. And loving.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

Not judging the meagre mule

2010-07-18T09:05:00.007-05:00

When fly bother meagre mule nobody see; but when the mule kick, everybody say him bad. (Jamaica)

My dear grandniece,

I knew the events in Jamaica of May 23 and after had an effect, but I didn’t think it would be such as to silence this blog for two months. I made attempts to write blog entries, and seemed to find no words I chose to publish. Perhaps I wanted to be hopeful in this space, but could not see my way these months. I am not sure what makes the difference today, but I think I am deciding that silence is not the way to go, no matter what.

On May 23, there was a kickback in Jamaica that took us on the edge of a cliff. It seemed for a moment that criminal gangs were truly in charge. Police stations were under attack, two police stations were set on fire, and security persons were being fired at and killed. Chaos.

So the government took strong steps – the strongest action a government can take – to control the conflict. The Governor-General declared a State of Emergency. This means that everyone in the country loses their rights while the security forces makes the country secure. As a result of this action, Jamaica quieted down in a few days.

The country felt relieved, especially as the State of Emergency created a breathing space that we had not had in years. People were being locked up, and wrongdoers seemed to be on the run. Most importantly, the security forces seemed to be in charge of the situation.

So the mule kick, and everyone say him bad, but were there flies bothering the meagre mule that nobody see? It is important to take action and serious action, Zayda, when a crisis occurs. Equally important, we need to see what caused the crisis. If we don’t address the cause, the incident is likely to occur again. We could cuss the meagre mule all we want when it kicks, but it will kick again if we don’t get rid of the flies that bring about the bad or the criminal behaviour. And if we tie mule’s legs together, he won’t be able to kick, so we will have solved the problem – up to a point. However, if the flies continue to bother the mule, we better be sure we tie the mule so it can never move again. The flies will make the mule more and more angry, and not being able to kick will make the mule more and more frustrated. So no one will want to be around if ever the mule gets a chance to kick again.

At present, most people in Jamaica feel so relieved to have been spared this kickback, that I think they wouldn’t mind getting rid of the mule altogether. Except that, in reality, we are talking about human beings who can talk and say what is wrong and what was the build up to what happened on May 23. Perhaps people need to be calmer to get to the point of listening to each other even if they don’t like each other, and even if some would want others to be permanently locked up or else removed from society.

Zayda, perhaps these messages can help. Maybe those who are fat can see that those who are meagre have reasons to kick. Maybe we will get around to seeing and listening. Maybe we will get around to removing the reasons for anger strong enough for some to kill and destroy. Maybe we will manage to deal with our own anger.

So I am back on the blog. With hope.

Blessings,

Your Shangazi

For Zayda: Truth over Force

2010-05-23T12:17:00.005-05:00

Force against force equals more force. (Ghana)

Symbol of Maat, Egyptian goddess of Truth, Balance, Order

Dear Zayda,

The police and the people of Tivoli Gardens seem to be getting ready for war. But force against force, as the proverb says, just ends up as more force.

In Jamaica, some parents still use force to make children obey, just as some teachers still use force to make children learn. But mostly what children learn is that if people are old enough, big enough, powerful enough, they can use force and get away with it. I talked to a young man recently, and he told me he believed in force because force had made him obey his parents and listen to his teachers when he was a child. He is grown now and he is a teacher who can now apply force to his students. Perhaps Jamaica has not left slavery that far behind.

During slavery, backra (the white plantation owner) could use as much force as he wanted against slaves who could not speak for themselves or protect themselves. But no one is ever really helpless, not even a baby. If babies choose, they can use their force to keep their parents sake all night; they can prevent their parents from going out when and where they want to go. Indeed, many babies act like tyrants even when they seem able to do nothing but eat and sleep.

Slaves also had their own force to respond to backra’s force. They slowed up the work in the cane fields, set fire to the cane fields, and were smart enough to act stupid enough to destroy machines and crops.

Many took back their freedom by running away to the hills where they set up communities to protect themselves. They organized themselves and armed themselves, and ruled themselves with their own laws. Now, from their Maroon towns, these ex-slaves could use force to drive back British soldiers sent to recapture them.

Force led to more force till the British gave in. Even with better arms and greater numbers, the British were forced to accept the right of the Maroons to be independent and free. Even today, the Maroons have their own government. They do not have to answer to the rest of Jamaica.

When all of Jamaica became free of British rule, the new Jamaican leaders still seemed to believe that force alone would solve problems. The police had the job of using force to control people who were poor, uneducated, and unemployed. Even today, poor people can be locked up for using certain words, smoking weed, or even for standing on the street in their neighborhoods. Worse still, they are often locked up for nothing at all. Some even spend years in prison when they committed no crime. Nothing much seemed changed from the time white backra was in charge.

Some therefore decided to seek the freedom they were still not enjoying under Jamaican leaders. This time, they set up their communities on the plains, with their own leaders, their own rules, and their own weapons. The new Jamaican backra (sometimes black but mostly brown) used force and more force. The new communities, now called garrisons, became more and more separate from the rest of Jamaica. They also became more heavily armed to keep their freedom and protect themselves against outsiders. Followers trusted their garrison leaders to look after them, even if sometimes these leaders acted like backra of the cane field – the punishment for disobeying a garrison leader could be injury or even death.

Today, Tivoli Gardens, the oldest of these garrison communities, has blocked itself off from the rest of Jamaica. The police have a warrant for the garrison leader’s arrest, and his followers seem ready to put down their lives rather than give him up to the police.

Force against force, over decades, has led to greater force. The black/brown backra government has not learned from the experience of the white backra government and the Maroons.

At this time, the rest of us look on. Some think was is bound to take place, especially if the government decides to use even more force than it has done in the past. Others hope that wiser heads will find a way to end the war without firing a shot or risking a life.

My hope is that all of us in Jamaica will choose being free and independent to using more and more force to maintain backra status.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

For Zayda: The Strength in Unity

2010-05-22T12:47:00.004-05:00

Cross the river in a crowd and the crocodile won't eat you. (African proverb)

Adinkra symbol for unity in diversity

Dear Zayda,

Many of us talk inside our homes or on the phone with our friends about how Jamaica is to move forward. We have solutions to our problems, but often we talk about what someone else needs to go. For example many people think Bruce Golding should resign as Prime Minister, and then what?

The challenge comes when we need to stop talking among ourselves and act. A lot of us are scared of being punished for acting on what we believe to be true. I saw some of that this week. People told Golding they did not want a leader they could not trust, and he had to say he was sorry even after claiming he had nothing to apologise for. But the next steps looked scary - like insisting that politicians make a habit of listening to the people.

Mostly politicians think they have power over people, but this was one time the people showed their power and the politician had to listen. We can still insist tht our leaders listen to us, but I think people are starting to feel scared of what might happen to them if they go all the way in demanding respect from politicians.

Someone called me to suggest that we have a demonstration to demand that politicians know they have to answer to the people. The idea seemed good, but most people did not want anyone (least of all politicians!) to see them on the side of the road holding up placards. Some may have worried bout what their friends would say about them, especially as better off people in Jamaica almost never take to the streets. The biggest fear, I think, was of violence. Human rights advocates received threats, and a youth activist's car was bombed, apparently because they spoke their minds about Golding's not telling the truth. That fear is real. In fact, all fears are real for those who feel them.

People are not brave because they feel no fear. Mostly they are brave because they act despite their fears. Often their fears make them more alert to possible danger, and so they try to unite with others who think as they do. Fear therefore has a role – it can lead or mislead us.

Right now, a lot of people act as if they want to step back to the bank, after they seemed to be at least putting a toe or two in the water. They may be afraid that the water might be colder and deeper than it looks. They may think people will be unreliable, and might say “I will be there next to you in the crowd crossing the river,” but fail to turn up for the action.

If we really decide to cross the river with crocodiles on the attack, we may need to find others who share our dream. The desire to cross the river will need to be stronger than fear of being eaten. The risk is always going to be there, but if we stay closer together, the crocodile might well swim away to find others who travel alone. And if we keep going, we will be on the other side of the river, rather than always wishing we were there.

Putting action behind our words will not be easy, Zayda. However, if we unite, it will certainly be possible.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

To Zayda: Not entering fire

2010-05-21T09:34:00.004-05:00

Even if you are brave, you can't enter a fire. (Ghana)

Dear Zayda,

Prime Minister Golding came out and apologized on Monday night. He admitted he misled the nation, but once trust is lost, it is hard to regain. So what is happening since Monday night is like a fire that is out of control. And the Prime Minister has gone absent, instead of doing what he can to put out the remaining flames.

My sons had a direct experience of a fire that got out of hand. They were about seven or eight years old and staying at my parents house for a day or so. One of my parents was not well, so my sons had time for unsupervised play. Well, there was a pile of rubbish in an outside room, and these two little boys decided to help out their grandfather by burning the rubbish. The flames were fine for a while, and then they just got bigger and bigger. If the flames are determined enough, a little water can see to make them burn even stronger. So finally someone had to call the fire brigade. Fortunately this was an outside room, and nothing much burned except for old newspaper.

Golding has a lot more at stake than burning rubbish. Telling the truth too late, suddenly doing what he had said was impossible had kept the flames alight. The man he was trying to protect is the gang leader in Golding’s constituency, a man termed a “don” This man is called Christopher Coke. The United States currently wants him for gun running and drug trafficking. This is the man Bruce was protecting for the past nine months. Now the police have a warrant for his arrest, but they cannot reach the street where they think Coke lives. The people in that community have put roadblocks on all streets leading into the area, so the police would have to remove the roadblocks before they can come to get Coke. A couple of days ago some soldiers in an armored vehicle tried to push past the road blocks, and gunmen fired at the vehicle. So the roadblocks remain. They are illegal, but no one has moved them for the past four days. The Mayor of Kingston represents this community. He has the job of clearing the streets, and one time he removed my car because I parked in a no-parking area. But he cannot or will not remove these old cars, old fridges, and other debris used to block these streets.

All because of lies. And probably because of fear as well – the bigger the lie, usually, is the bigger the fear.

We may not always tell the truth, Zayda, but we can avoid telling lies that cause as much damage as a fire gone out of hand. Even if we are very brave, not to mention very clever, we still can't enter fire without damaging ourselves.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

For Zayda: Telling the whole truth

2010-05-19T11:38:00.004-05:00

A fault confessed is half redressed. (South Africa)

Adinkra symbol of understanding and agreement

Dear Zayda,

Saying sorry is never going to be easy, but we can do best if we say sorry quickly and truthfully. The longer we wait is the more questions we are likely to need to answer. The more willing we are to answer questions, is the less people will think we still have something to hide. .

Last Monday night, Jamaica's Prime Minister Bruce Golding apologized after behaving for weeks as if he had nothing to apologize for. Up to Sunday night those closest to him said he had nothing to apologize for. I commend him for finally apologizing to the whole country on television, even if he was forced to change his mind. But that was just the job half done.

Let us suppose a girl, whom we shall call Betty, hid her school report from her parents because her grades were so poor. Her parents found out Betty lied when they called her teacher to ask when the report would arrive.

Betty could write her parents a letter of apology, confessing the fault. However, as part of redressing the fault, she needs to sit with her parents to clear up a lot of questions that go well beyond the hidden report. Betty’s answers to her parents’ questions might show many other problems that need to be solved. For example, Betty might need to move to the front of the class where she could see the board and hear the teacher better – perhaps she has sight or hearing problems and needs to see special doctors. Her brain might be showing her the letters of the alphabet the wrong way around, and so she will need help and patience. Perhaps Betty has difficulties with her teacher, or with her classmates. Perhaps something happened to Betty to cause her mind to drift away from schoolwork. She might be keeping a secret that is a burden on her mind.

If she doesn’t answer questions, her parent just have to guess what caused her to lie to them. They could most likely guess wrong, and Betty might lie again to hide her problems. Or next time around the cover up could be worse. In the meantime, Betty and her parents might continue to have problems trusting and understanding each other.

So Golding still needs to talk. He still needs to answer questions. Yesterday he had a chance to answer questions in Parliament, and he didn’t. People in Parliament could have questioned him the way you can’t question a face you are looking at on television. Often the way people answer questions can tell us if they are genuine or not.

Therefore, we are still waiting. A half-way apology is never enough to build back trust.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

To Zayda: Price of wisdom

2010-05-17T09:27:00.004-05:00

Only a fool believes everything he is told. (Ethiopia, Eritrea)

Adinkra symbol for wisdom, creativity

Dear Zayda,

We can be in big trouble if we believe everything we are told. That is why we need to ask questions. Children are great at asking questions, and I hope you remain a questioner for life. Children also have great instincts for truth, and I hope you always trust your instincts. Some of us as adults swallow our questions and deny our instincts. That’s when we open ourselves to being drawn into a cult.

Yesterday I thought I was watching a cult when Samuda and Baugh, two persons from Golding’s party, say Golding would neither resign nor apologize for telling lies to the country. They said the whole party believes Golding and supports him. They said people were being unfair to Golding to ask him to go when he was innocent of doing anything wrong.

Sometimes adults create their own fairy tales, and then try to convince us that the fairy tales are true. If we ask too many questions, the adults might find ways to punish us, whether we are children or grown-ups. It takes courage to stand up against a cult, and I am happy to tell you that one person (so far), someone close to Golding, has been brave enough to think for himself, even if he is alone. He has said openly that Golding should apologize.

You need to ask questions always, my grandniece. You need to learn to trust your instincts and your judgment. You have a right to your thoughts, to your own opinion. I hope you always remember that you don't have to believe all you are told, no matter by whom.

You will find cults everywhere – at home, at school, and later at work. You will hear words like “loyalty”, and “team work”. Loyalty is important in relationships, and teamwork is important because we can do so much more together than we can do alone. However, you will know you are in a cult when you have to:

• follow exactly what the group tells you, without asking any questions;
• depend on the leader and defend him even if he hurts others or breaks the law;
• avoid any sign of disagreeing with the group; and
• dislike outsiders and say bad things about them.

When I was growing up, adults wanted children to be seen and not heard. When there were family quarrels, I was supposed to take my parents’ side even if no one told me what the fuss was about. If they didn’t like someone, I was supposed to dislike that person as well and even stop playing with their children. Sometimes families act like cults, and prepare us to fall in with cults when we are adults.

Traditionally, boys get some room to be independent, but girls are often under pressure to obey without question. I hope your world is different from the one I knew. At that time, many of us girls believed that we belonged to our parents when we were young, and would belong to our husbands when we got older. I was grown with children of my own before I realized that I could belong to myself.

So you can love your parents and your elders, and still disagree with them. Parents, teachers, and bosses are human, so they are allowed to be wrong. And you are also allowed to make mistakes; you are allowed to be wrong as well. As you will soon find out, we learn to walk by falling down.

I do not think Golding’s followers do him a favour by treating him as if he were a cult leader who can do no wrong. He might be better of if his followers loved him well enough to ask all their questions, and trust their instincts to know when he is telling them the truth. They could then be able to help themselves and all Jamaica by showing him where he went wrong, and helping him to correct his mistakes.

Zayda, you can be sure that I will support you in thinking for yourself, asking questions, trusting your instincts, and coming to your own conclusions. We pay a price for being wise, but an even greater price to allowing ourselves to be fooled.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

To Zayda: On Saying Sorry

2010-05-16T08:45:00.004-05:00

Today's African proverb: Sorry doesn't heal a wound, but it can clean a wound. (Africa)

Dear Zayda,

Some people think Prime Minister Bruce Golding should apologize to the country. As today’s African proverb cautions us, saying sorry might clean the wound, but the cut still has to be healed.

When I was a little girl living in the country, a family came to visit us for Sunday lunch with their son. My memory of this boy is that he had a cap he loved, and that he teased me all that day. All day. I was a plump child, so perhaps he was making fun of my weight. None of the adults did anything about his behavior. I didn’t complain because my dad expected me to learn to look after myself with my mouth or my fists when other children bothered me.

So I put up with the teasing the best I could. All day. That evening, my parents walked the boy's family part way home. As we crossed a bridge over a river, I snatched the boy’s cap and threw it in the water. All the adults were then angry at me, and the little boy was crying as he watched his cap sail downstream.

I felt secretly pleased at what I had done, but I apologized to save myself worse punishment.

However, wounds tend to remain unhealed and may even get dirty again if left alone after the initial cleaning. I was still angry that I was the one to apologize after all I had gone through that day. No one had made the little boy apologize for mistreating me. In addition, I expect my apology did nothing to help the little boy get over the loss of his favorite cap.

For healing to take place, all the persons involved need to act and think differently. For example, in this incident I needed to be able to accept that being angry is all right, and then to know how to manage the feeling so I wouldn’t have to choose revenge. In addition, I may also have needed to contribute in some way – loss of pocket money or privileges - to restoring the cap that I threw in the river.
My parents could have taken this as a change to teach me healthy ways of dealing with teasing. They could also have helped me to love myself so well that this boy’s teasing could have no effect on me. The boy's parents could have realized that their child was a bully before he was a victim. Those are important lessons to learn.

Avoiding further trouble is usually one of the main reasons we say we are sorry. The test comes when someone wants us to follow up the cleaning with healing. We may then say, “Didn’t you hear me say I am sorry? What else do you want me to do?”

Sometimes an apology contains a sting that adds to the hurt. For example, we may say, “If this bothers you, I am sorry. But why do you have to be so sensitive? Can’t you take a joke? Besides, I spoke the truth. It’s not my fault that you are fat.”

The less we are ready for the healing is the more false our apology is likely to sound. Even if the apology is well meant, others might not accept it without seeing signs that healing will follow.

Prime Minister Golding might want to remain Prime Minister, or his party might want him to continue to lead them. Today they have a meeting where they will discuss his future. He might be persuaded to apologize to the nation. However, his apology is not likely help him or his party if so much damage is already done that people don’t trust his words. So there may be a problem at this stage even with the cleaning of the wound, let alone the healing.

So, Zayda, an apology is less than half a job done, worse still if the apology is empty and forced on us. The healing is the major part, the part that shows our good faith.

Apologies therefore need to come with reparations. If we are truly sorry, we also need to be willing to repair whatever damage we have done. Besides, when we act wrongly, we often need to start the repair job inside of ourselves.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

To Zayda: Truth and spilled water

2010-05-15T10:23:00.004-05:00

Today’s Proverb: When water throw away, we cannot pick it up. (Jamaica)

Dear Zayda,

What is happening to Bruce Golding now shows just how hard it is to to pick up water once we have spilled it.

Let us say someone lies, and then lies to cover the lies. The day he tells the truth, do we believe him? First thing we are bound to ask is why now? Why decide to tell the truth now? Can the spilled water return to the bucket?

Not long sago, a policeman named Lyn Sue admitted that his lie sent a man to prison. He arrested a man and could find no witness to say the man was guilty. Lyn Sue so strongly believed the man to be guilty, that he created a witness and wrote an imaginary statement. The case went to court and the judge accepted the statement because Lyn Sue said the witness could not attend court. That was actually true, how cold the witness attend court if he did not exist? The arrested man was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to spend several years in prison.

Well, Lyn Sue had a change of heart. Since the court case, he had become a Christian. He therefore wanted to confess his sins so he could find peace in his heart and with his God.

Still, Lyn Sue had done wrong. He had misled the court. Because of his lie, a man spent time in prison for a crime he did not commit. At least there was no proof the man had committed any crime, so he was entitled to his freedom. As a result, Lyn Sue had to pay a penalty. He was tried for obstructing justice, and spent about six months in prison for that offence. Some people thought he should not have been punished for telling the truth. However, Zayda, actions have consequences, and it is never all right to lie especially if that causes other people to suffer.

People confess to lies for different reasons. Let us imagine a little boy whom we will call Fred. He took some money from his mom’s purse, and bought ice cream. When his mom found out that the money was missing, she looked all over the house for it, and she decided she probably lost it when she went shopping. She didn’t ask Fred about the money, and he said nothing. Some may say Fred didn’t exactly lie, but he did. That was a lie by omitting to tell the truth.

Fred felt he got away with lying (as well as stealing) and he boasted about it to his friend Jimmy. “My mom thinks she is so smart, but I fooled her,” he said. Jimmy didn’t advise Fred to admit the truth to his mom. He didn’t tell him to try to find the money to pay back his mom. He said, “That’s a great way to have ice cream whenever you want it.” So Jimmy joined the web of lies.

A couple of days later, Jimmy came across Fred who was eating chocolate chip cookies, the tender moist cookies that made Jimmy’s mouth water.

“Give me a cookie.” Jimmy said.
“This is my last one.” Fred swallowed the last of the cookie and brushed away the crumbs.
“No, I can see you have another one in the bag.”
“That’s for my mom.”
“Tell her it fell and a dog ate it.”

Jimmy tried to grab the bag, and Fred held it behind his back.

“Well, I am going to tell your mom what you did to get ice cream.
Did you steal her money again to buy cookies?” Jimmy said
“She won’t believe you.” Fred’s upper lip trembled as he spoke.
“Try me.” Jimmy said as he walked away.

Fred realized that if his mom heard the story from Jimmy, she would probably ground him for life. When his mom came in from work that evening, the dishes were all washed up and the table is set. His room was tidy for once, with all the toy cars lined up and the books on the shelf. He had also done his homework.

When his mom was seated on the couch, sipping a glass of red wine, Fred sat down next to her, with tears in his eyes. He told her he found the money on the floor and put it in his pocket till he could give it to her.

“I just forgot about it,” he said. The tears are spilling now. “So I spent it with the rest of my pocket money. When I heard you asking for the money, I just didn’t know how to tell you without your getting mad at me.”

“You know you won’t watch any television this weekend. You can’t just take money and spend it without knowing where it came from.”

“I am so sorry, mom. I wouldn’t be in this trouble if it wasn’t for Jimmy.”

“What does Jimmy have to do with this?”

“He tells lies all the time. He told me not to tell you about finding the money. I don’t think I want to be around him anymore.”

“I agree,” his mom said. “You did wrong, but you are a brave boy to come and tell me the truth.”

Many people think Bruce Golding is brave to have finally told the truth. Many others wonder whether what he said was as yet the truth, or whether he was trying to excuse himself by pointing fingers at other persons. A few people wonder why he is telling the truth now after lying for so long. Was he converted to the truth by a baptism of some sort? Was he forced to confess before someone else spilled the story?

Your best bet, Zayda, is to tell the truth the first time around.

Peace,

Your shangazi

For Zayda: No short cut to honesty

2010-05-13T10:51:00.005-05:00

Better you lose time than character. (Jamaica)

Dear Zayda,

You will find a lot of short cuts in life, and you will want to avoid those that will place your honesty in question. Sometimes the rocky path up the hillside does us much more good than the smooth highway down the valley.

The Bruce Golding we see today bears little resemblance to the person who seemed to be taking a long rough road to honesty more than ten years ago. He said then that he would be a new and different politician, and many of us believed him. We wanted a leader we could trust. Perhaps we wanted to believe him so badly that we did not look beyond his words. Remember, my grandniece, that words are never enough.

Since the 1970s Golding had been like a prince expecting to become king in the palace. In 1995 he came out and said that palace was rotten inside even if it still looked great from the outside. So he left the palace and set up his own little hut outside. “A hut where you can be honest is better than a palace where you have to be dishonest to keep your place,” his action said.

Many of us fell in love with Golding’s little hut, even though we may have yearned to be in the palace where we could sleep on soft beds and eat shrimp and steak all day if we wanted to. Just calaloo and water (no wine in the little hut) could be boring after a while, but we had the great feeling that the hardships were building character. We would wait for the day when the prince would become king on his terms. He would never allow power to go to his head like those who entered the palace as mice and became tigers overnight. He would be neither a mouse or a tiger, but just a man who cared for people and would rule in their interest.

Many were shocked when Golding returned to the palace in 2002, especially as the palace seemed the same as it was when he left it seven years earlier. The king was then fighting a battle in a war that he had lost for 13 years. If he won this time, he would finally be able to rule the whole country rather than just the gardens around his palace. Perhaps life in the hut was moving too slowly. Too many years would pass before the hut could look like a palace and Golding could act like a prince again. Perhaps he could see no way to become king that year, the next year, or even 20 years after that. In addition, some of his followers wanted to get back to the luxury of the palace; and they thought Golding was the only hope of their being on the winning side again.

Golding took the shortcut. As far as anyone could see, the palace was indeed the same as it had even been - just as dirty and dusty and broken down inside. Those who questioned the king could still be cast into the dungeon, and those who did the king’s bidding were still sure to sit at banquets with him.

Golding and his followers captured the palace, took power from the king, and won the war. With the crown on his head, Golding promised change. He would be the chief servant of the people, not a tyrant as kings tended to be. He would be open and honest, not corrupt. He would clean up the palace and allow the people to come in to inspect it if they wanted to. Some people had doubts about this man. They were worried that he left his hut for the palace because he was hungry for power. However, many others wanted change so badly that they believed his promises and were happy to have him as their king.

Many of those are now insisting that he leave the palace and never return, because he took one shortcut too many and lied to the people about it for eight weeks.

As a Yoruba proverb says, Zayda, “One loses one's reputation in one day, but the disgrace is for all days.” Golding tried to gain time but lost character, and that loss might last for the rest of his days.

A lesson is here for each of us who is tempted to take a shortcut.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

For Zayda: Short Journey of Truth

2010-05-12T08:52:00.004-05:00

Daily African Proverb: Whereas a liar takes one thousand years to go on a journey, the one who speaks the truth follows and overtakes the liar in a day. (Ghana)

Dear Zayda,

The truth might get you into trouble, but in the long run telling the truth is worth the risk. Bruce Golding, Prime Minister of Jamaica, has been lying to the country for eight weeks, and today he is in big trouble.

Golding is related to us on both sides of the family. Some of his blood relatives are McCallas like you, and some of his in-laws are my mother’s cousins. In Jamaica, blood or marriage connects many of us. But lies take away trust, even in families.

The first truth we need to tell you, my grandniece, is that all of us lie at some time or other. Mostly we tell lies when we are afraid of being punished. Let us say that someone whom I will call Bobby breaks him mother’s favorite crystal vase. He might say, “The dog did it.” Since the dog can’t speak for itself, Bobby is safe for the moment. But what if the dog is not allowed anywhere near the crystal vase? Bobby might say, “Someone left the door open and the dog slipped in.” Bobby may well have to continue to tell lie after lie to cover up the first one.

Bobby, like Golding, will now have to remember all the lies he told. So Bobby might throw tantrums to cover up gaps in his stories. Let us imagine his mother says, “Who could have left the door open?” Bobby might add to the lie by naming his brother and getting him in trouble. Or Bobby might act upset that his mother would think he would disobey her order to keep the door closed. He may jump to defend himself even before he is accused of anything. He may become angry so as to push away any possible blame, so now he is lying not just in his words but in his action.

At the start, he could have said, “I broke the vase. I didn’t mean to do it, and I am sorry.” His mother may have fussed for a few minutes, and she may have sent Bobby on time out for a while. Bobby may have had a short period of discomfort, but his mother would know she could trust him. If, on another occasion, Bobby said, “I did not break the vase,” his mother would know she could take him at his word.

Bobby also needs to be able take his mother at her word. Like you, Zayda, Bobby was born knowing truth, and he learned lying from adults.

Prime Minister Golding could restore trust in his word by admitting that he lied. He could stop sounding angry in the hope of shutting up those who question him. He could stop blaming others in the hope of taking attention away from his own lies. He could come clean and take what comes from telling the truth.

Golding and the rest of us need to set the young an example of honesty. We need always to opt for the short (even if sometimes painful) journey of truth.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

To Zayda from her Shangazi: Walk Good!

2010-05-11T07:59:00.003-05:00

Today's African proverb: Where the runner ends, there the walker will end. (Nigeria)

Dear Zayda,

The runners in our family often outshine the walkers. You may therefore have to dig hard to hear about some family members. Like Aunt B, the first-born of my maternal grandparents. Yesterday I realized I had no photos of her in my photo album. A few quick calls to some family members did not unearth any bring me any luck, but I will keep trying because I would like you to see her.

Two of Aunt B's grandsons at the repast after her funeral

Aunt B looked African in a family where all her siblings had straighter noses, longer and less curly hair, and lighter skins. My mother said when she and Aunt B attended primary school together, children teased Aunt B and called her my mother’s maid. Aunt B did indeed work as a maid for most of her life – as a chambermaid in the upscale hotel that later became Couples, Ocho Rios.

So I cannot recall Aunt B visiting my parents’ home or being present at family gatherings (except at my grandparents’ home). No one dropped Aunt B’s name in conversation, the way relatives might mention our links to this doctor or that lawyer or some propertied person.

Perhaps Aunt B might merit a mention for some now that one of her great-grand-daughters has attended Harvard.

For me, Aunt B is a special example of someone who made the most of opportunities, however limited. She managed her money well, and was able to own her home as well as rental property. I am not aware that she ever asked any of her better-off siblings for help. Instead, she placed herself in a position to raise her child - she was a single parent – as well as two of her grandchildren and her two great-grand-daughters.

Her marriage went by in such a flash that I never knew her husband, and she always seemed content with having to answer to no one but herself. And her God. She was devoted to her church. Although she would have been raised with her siblings in the Church of England, the church of the planter class, she chose to worship where she could feel Africa. Her church, with its grassroots members, praised God with drums and dance and possession by the Holy Spirit. She wanted none of the sterile hymns, stiff prayers, and bland sermons that that a god from snowy Europe seemed to demand.

Aunt B and my grandmother Miss Annie were best friends. They were pregnant and had children at the same time. Miss Annie did not have enough breast milk for Bob, my youngest uncle, and so Aunt B wet-nursed him. In turn, Miss Annie helped Aunt B to raise Ran, Aunt B’s son. During their lives, I think Aunt B visited Miss Annie at least once every week, because they always lived no more than a few miles apart.

On one occasion Aunt B was walking on the country road between her home and my grandparents’ when a man attempted to rob her at knife point. At that time the road was more of a track for donkeys taking produce to market, and parts of that road are lonely even today. Aunt B, not much over five feet tall, had no way of calling for human help. Cell phones were then a couple of decades into the future. So she called on her God. By the time she prayed, went into the spirit, and spoke in unknown tongues, the thief fled.

Even if family members outside Aunt B’s immediate circle could not produce photos of her, she followed the progress of each family member with love and pride. I visited her whenever I was close to Ocho Rios where she lived, and I was always amazed that she kept such close track of what I and my children were doing. She could tell me what I said if I were a guest on a radio show, and she would know if my name or photo appeared in a newspaper.

I was honored to give the eulogy at Aunt B’s funeral. For me her strength rested in meeting life with a loving heart, and making the best of her abilities no matter the obstacles. She may not have run after medals, palaces, university degrees, or life in foreign cities, but she walked a good walk.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

To Zayda from her Shangazi - Breathing love

2010-05-10T09:16:00.006-05:00

Today's African Proverb: Where there is love there is no darkness. (Burundi)

Dear Zayda,

Love is like the air we breathe. No matter how long or how deeply we breathe, the air is still there. If we try to trap the air, it becomes stale and perhaps even toxic. Just as we can survive only by breathing, so I think we can survive only by loving.

Aunt Ettie

Aunt Ettie and I held back from breathing fully and openly. Nonetheless, anyone who knew us will say today, “What are you talking about? You were her daughter, and she was your mother. Anyone could see that!” Still, I think that until now, perhaps up to yesterday, I was making a distinction between those whom I “should” love, and those whom I feel drawn toward loving.

When we treat love as free as the air we breathe, some of those distinctions disappear. We find that we can do a better job of loving when we are simply drawn toward love.

Zayda, I hope you are always able to love all the members of your village. Some you will want to be close to, and some you may prefer to love at a distance. The more freely you love others is the more freely you love yourself and the more skilled you become at trusting yourself to make judgments about love.

From the time I went to live with Aunt Ettie and became her daughter, I was in a tug-of-love. My parents wanted to retain my first loyalty even though I was no longer living under their roof. Later, I learned that they thought I had abandoned them, even though I had no choice about leaving their home. I think that the more they tried to compete for my attention was the safer Aunt Ettie’s love felt to me. Still, I would try to placate my parents by doing the “shoulds”.

So I grew up believing that love was not safe, and that true feelings needed to be kept secret. I believed that the love that could show its face needed to be walled in by “shoulds” and by duty. I felt I needed to earn my parents’ approval even though I was already assured of my aunt-mother’s love.

But yesterday, I celebrated your first Mother’s Day by freeing myself to love Aunt Ettie without holding back, so I can pass on her love to you. If some persons think they need to hoard love or battle over if as it were water in a drought, we can love them but we don’t need to give in to their fears.

You don’t have to choose this family member over that one, my grandniece. You can have all the love from all the hearts of those who offer their love to you. And you can return love as freely as you like, because our love will help you to be wise enough to understand what love is.

Much love,

Your shangazi

To Zayda from her Shangazi - Mother's Day

2010-05-09T07:50:00.005-05:00

Child & Family
Letters to Zayda born April 30, 2010

Love is like young rice: transplanted, still it grows. (Africa)

Aunt Ettie and me in the 1980s

Dear Zayda,

Aunt Ettie, your great-grandaunt was a legend inside and outside of our family. I am proud to be her child and to celebrate her on Mother’s Day.

I was eight years old when I was reborn as her daughter. Just as you must feel tossed out of the comfort of your mom’s womb, I also felt torn from all that was familiar to me when I first joined my new mom. But any new birth has moments of pain, and sometimes the labour pangs linger on.

When I left my birth parents home that December morning, I fully expected to return. I was accustomed to visiting my grandparents and other members of my extended family. For example, before I started school, I would spend long periods with my grandmothers in Bellas Gate and Healthy Hill. But after I started school, these visits were always just for the holidays. So I expected to be back home in time for Christmas, and definitely in time to return to classes at my primary school in Linstead. In those days the school year started in January, so I was looking forward to having a new teacher, and to boasting to my classmates about the time I spent in Kingston. Some of them had visited Kingston, but none would have stayed with an aunt as rich as mine.

The Black people I knew as a child were mostly farmers, teachers, policemen, or post office workers. Some were pastors, but rarely of mainstream churches where the leaders still needed to be white. Business persons were always white or brown-skinned men, the kinds of persons who could qualify for bank loans.

Aunt Ettie was a Black woman who set up her own business in the 1940s. For 15 years before that, she worked as a chemist at P.A Benjamin’s, a manufacturing business that still exists today. I have no idea how she financed her own business – perhaps from her savings and from whatever funds her siblings could spare to lend her.

When I went to live with her, she manufactured wine, syrup, bay rum, and vanilla flavouring on the back verandah of her home. She had two employees – Mrs Mendez and Victoria (whom I named Queenie) - who had moved with her from P.A. Benjamin’s.

The night before I left my birth parents’ home I was sharing a bed and a bedroom in the rented half of a house in a country town. Less than twelve hours later I had my own bed and my own bedroom in a house my aunt owned. The wide roads, trimmed lawns sculpted hedges, homes set well away from the street, gardens with roses and poinsettia, all spoke of wealth such as I had never before seen in my life.

I discovered that a meal was not just a way of putting food in the stomach; it was a ritual. Until that first night in my aunt’s house, I thought knives and forks and plates were just means to an end. Now I had to make my way around spoons for soup and for dessert, forks for main meal and for dessert, knives for cutting and knives for spreading, plates for food and plates for bread or bones. This was my first experience of a live-in maid (or a maid of any kind) who arrived at the table at the tinkle of a bell, serving from the left and clearing from the right. In addition, I had to decide how and when to unfurl and use the white napkin that was tucked inside the napkin ring. I also had decide how and when to tip my soup plate. Still, I looked forward to telling my friends at school about my city adventure when my new school year started in Linstead.

But, Zayda, I didn’t return to Linstead. No one ever fully explained why I needed to be re-born as Aunt Ettie’s daughter, and for years I tried to unravel that mystery. Today I know that all questions do not need to be answered in the head, because the answers were written long ago in the heart.

From my heart, Aunt Ettie, I accept your mother love.

Honour to all the mothers, by birth or not.

Your shangazi

To Zayda from her Shangazi - Ashanti ancestor

2010-05-08T12:14:00.004-05:00

Child & Family
Letters to Zayda born April 30, 2010

Warm water never forgets that it was once cold.(Nigeria)

Zayda's great-great-grandfather Arthur Brown at Healthy Hill

Dear Zayda,

Stories about the Coromantee Woman come from my mother’s side of our family. Some history books talk of Coromantee as if it were an ethnic group, but captains of slave ships gave that name to those who came from the interior and left from Koromantyn on the Atlantic crossing. When I lived in Ghana, I visited Koromantyn.

So Coromantee Woman was most likely Ashanti. That might explain the warrior nature of some of my family members. The Ashanti set up an empire under the first Asantehene (Ashanti king) Osei Tutu, and the British didn’t mess much with the Ashanti people. When a British governor decided he was powerful enough to sit on the Ashanti’s sacred golden stool, a woman called Yaa Asantewaa led the Ashanti soldiers to war. The Ashantis didn’t win in the long run, but the British knew they had to tread lightly with these warrior people. The Ashantis therefore were able to rule themselves in their own way, even when the British had enough guns to force the Ashantis to obey them.

Coromantee Woman had two children with a plantation owner. In those times, slave women didn’t have a choice except to do what their owners wanted of them. Maybe she was beautiful, maybe she was strong, maybe she was strong and beautiful. Maybe she never accepted slavery even when her body was in chains and she could be bought and sold like a horse. For whatever were the plantation owner’s reasons, he freed the Coromantee Woman and her children. Freeing her was not enough. How as a Black woman would she be able to set up and support a household? She would have had no schooling, and no way of earning a living. Men who were freed might work as masons or carpenters, but no paying jobs existed for women. They could market their crops, but first they needed enough land to cultivate the crops.

The oral history does not tell us if Coromantee Woman negotiated terms with the plantation owner. However, we know that he gave her hundreds of acres of land. Zayda, when you come to Jamaica, you can drive from Eltham, near Ocho Rios, all the way to the road that leads to Fern Gully, and you will pass through land that Coromantee Woman owned. Apparently she also owned slaves, but that is another story.

Now that she had land, she still needed to feel protected in a slave society where Blacks had no rights, women had no rights, and Black women were the worst off. Apparently, just around this time an English man named Brown came to Jamaica. According to family legend, this man had been Queen Victoria’s lover, her coachman who was exiled from England for having an affair with the queen. In those days, England often exported its problem persons, even its convicts, to colonies like Jamaica.

Queen Victoria did apparently have a suspected lover called Mr Brown. What I cannot say for sure if the Coromantee Woman shared her Mr Brown with Queen Victoria.

According to the family story, Mr Brown was exiled to Jamaica. He, being a white male, came with ready made advantages in Jamaica’s slave society. However, not having land, he would have needed to work in a low-status position (for a white person) as an overseer or bookkeeper on a plantation. If he was indeed Brown the coachman, he may have been barely literate. He would therefore have had to settle for manual work and 'poor white' status. Now, Coromantee Woman was the wrong gender and colour for the times. But she had land.

We can only imagine how Coromantee Woman and Mr Brown each saw opportunities in defying society to become husband and wife. In those times, only the very rare Blacks and whites would dare marry and set up a family together.

Mr Brown gave his name to my mother’s family, but seems to have been no more than a backdrop to Coromantee Woman. Much of the family property has been sold over the years. However, if you go to Healthy Hill today, you will see many members of the Brown family still living on land that the Coromantee Woman was sharp enough to acquire and keep. Your great-grand-uncles Colin (better known as Uncle Mass) Brown and Bob Brown still farm the land left by your great-great-grandfather Arthur Brown.

Special hail to Coromantee Woman, founder of the Brown family and fortune!

With respect for our legacy of strong women,

Your shangazi

To Zayda from her Shangazi - burning passion

2010-05-07T08:45:00.005-05:00

Child & Family
Letter to Zayda born April 30, 2010

Man who carry straw cannot fool with fire.(Jamaica)

Dear Zayda,

You will find that family members have such different views about their elders and about each other that you will wonder if each person I tell you about both angel and monster. Yesterday I mentioned to two of our relatives that I had written about the love Aunt Lyn and I shared. One who is senior to me said, “I am not sure how you could say those things. As far as I was aware, she just made trouble and mischief.” The other relative, my junior, said, “Hmmm, you could get into trouble with some family members for talking about Aunt Lyn like that.”

So how will you know the truth about Aunt Lyn, or about anyone else? All I can say, Zayda, is to listen with ears of love, ask questions with words of love, and judge very very very slowly. And most of all I will ask you to remember that people have strengths and weaknesses, and sometimes their strengths are also their weaknesses. I need you also to remember that people sometimes see others through veils of fear, mistrust, self-interest, or inability to let go of a past that might never have happened except in the imagination. In addition, some people lie.

To come close to the truth, my grand-niece, you will need to realize that all the stories you hear will contain bias, because we all see our world differently for complex reasons. You can try to test the stories by using logic and reason, but you will be limited by what people do not or cannot say. You can also take the stories at face value and learn from them the conflicting ways in which humans think and behave.

Aunt Lyn loved fiercely. Her passion was a fire that could warm as easily as it could burn. If someone messed up, she would give you a piece of her mind and the story would end there for her. No carry-over. She would then give you all the support you need even if that meant offending other family members who were on the other side of some family quarrel. Some people were prepared to love her when she opened her arms to them, but not when she told them bluntly what she thought they needed to do to shape up. She was therefore an aberration among those family members who could smile even while delivering lethal back stabs.

Aunt Lyn didn’t smile just to bare her teeth; she smiled because she meant it. She didn’t tell stories behind people’s backs; she told you what she was thinking to your face. Unlike many in our family and in our world, she would never pronounce people guilty without giving them a chance to present their side of a conflict.

We have to understand, Zayda, that not all people like fire. As the proverb says, those with straw need to stay away from fire. So Aunt Lyn’s desire to protect her loved ones singed some people, and perhaps left others with blisters or burns that may remain unhealed even today. Such persons may have so feared the fire that they didn’t experience the warmth.

Passion is such a risk that many choose indifference instead. Feelings get locked up in a freezer for so long that they can no longer thaw out; or we thaw them out to find nothing solid is left. Passion needs warmth and light to keep it alive. Passion brings change in our world – passion frees us, preserves our lives, renews our spirits, saves our universe, and connects us spiritually with those who have gone before. Passion also creates discomfort in those who fear to dare, and label as “trouble-makers” those who step outside lines drawn by those who prefer to feel safe rather than risk giving and receiving happiness.

For better or for worse, Zayda, you have a legacy of passion. You also have a legacy of resistance to passion. I will support you with the fierce love I learned from Aunt Lyn, no matter your choice.

Blessings,

Your shangazi