Take a look into the sky
‘Cause the world is not so pretty
Free myself from worries
So I can see
It’s just a beautiful day
It’s just a beautiful day
You could be sad
But I rather you not be
Don’t dwell on the negative
Just the positivity
And it’s a beautiful day
It’s just a beautiful day
We’re always trying to satisfy these wants and needs
Take you some time for that inner peace
When your eyes are open
You’ll see things differently
There’s so much gloom
Hiding the reality
It’s just a beautiful day
Yeah, It’s just a beautiful day
Take a look into the sky
Wake up
Take a look into the sky
Keep your head up high
Take a look into the sky
I take a look into the sky
‘Cause the world is not so pretty
Free myself from worries
So I can see
It’s just a beautiful day
(…)
In exactly one week my feet will touch African soil again, my spirit will be in even closer communion with those who walked before us. There are no words to express how it always feels for me as a Diasporan African to live & breathe & BE in Zion. Even in the concrete jungle of Jo’burg my whole being is renewed & I am transformed to a woman more at peace, more balanced & grounded then I ever witnessed my self to be in the European bubble.
I am a strong opponent to mystifying Africa & I know that we conscious people in the Diaspora often fall short to it. This does not pay justice to the realities within Africa that are as diverse & complex as life itself. Still…
Still, being on this continent means being closer to myself. No matter how much time I spend in prayer & meditation, in working on myself & confronting my demons, the destructiveness & death-orientation of Europe always alienates me from myself to a certain point.
Who feels it, knows it.
It can be compared to the way I feel since I am fueled on living foods or since I am born again:
I was satisfied with my old ways until I started to walk on the new path, until I had an experience that I could compare my old ways too. If you don’t have an alternate reality that you can compare your everyday life/blues to, you don’t know what you are missing out on; you don’t know how much more is still hidden within you; how much beauty, how much of the creator himself is supposed to be reflected through you.
Sesa Wo Suban: Transformation
It is the same for me with being on African soil: It brings out the best in me. It enables me to become an even better version of myself. Closer & closer to the divine being that God created me to be.
I never felt so connected & so much as an integral part of creation as the first time I stood on my Grandmother’s grave in Bangangté, Cameroon. It is a feeling, a reality that nobody can take away from me or separate from who I am today.
I am grateful the creator enabled me to go home. I am grateful for the path I have chosen, no matter how narrow it is. I am grateful for never walking alone, for the hands that strengthen me whenever I feel overpowered & that hold me close whenever I stumble over a stone on the way.
After my “Green Gold Celebrations“-post, peeps asked me about my green smoothie recipe.
In the raw world, everybody is rocking green smoothies BIG time. So much so that I tend to forget that there are actually people out there who have not yet embraced nature’s goodness in form of a supergreen supergood smoothay, yay. Drink one for breakfast for two weeks & you will float on that green wave with me. A super/natural high, legal, cheap & healthy.
Don’t wanna bore you guys with explanations of how I throw the spinach & the mango in the blender, so here’s a gastrotainment vid from Freshtopia.net with their lovely, afro-rocking host Tanja Andrews (always good to see some POCs in the veggie world).
One of the weapons of colonialism and genocide is the destruction of diet. The way that this is done is by adapting the ‘conquered’ to the S.A.D. (standard american diet). So even before we promote a plant-centric diet the first question we have to ask is a diet derived from Europeans appropriate for Original People.
C’BS ALife Allah in his post “Where the deer and the antelope”
"(Stop thinking) You deserve a break today!" - (c) ideagrove.com
Celebrating my personal Earth Day in ten days. Turning 24. My mom has recently decided to constantly remind me of the fact that she gave birth to me when she was exactly my age. Duh.
Wondering:
Is it within the (extended) boundaries of daughterly decorum to make my very own raw torte? Would that be a threat to the internal familial balance & harmony? What would be put at stake? Food is such a sensitive issue…
But who would not fall for a piece of this:
(c) therawchef.blogs.com
You find the recipe here, so treat yourself to some raw goodness & celebrate anything anytime anywhere!
Life is too good. Period.
This was one of the moments where I caught myself flat-footed, “boxing” this brother right away. Always a good experience to meet some of your very own stereotypes & kick them in the butt!
Black Man & Japanese Country Music - how?
Enka lyrics, as in Portuguese Fado, usually are about the themes of love and loss, loneliness, enduring hardships, and persevering in the face of difficulties, even suicide or death. Enka suggests a more traditional, idealized, or romanticized aspect of Japanese culture and attitudes, comparable to American country and western music. Wikipedia on Enka
Jero, Japan’s first Black Enka singer, was exposed to this traditional music by his Japanese grand-mother in the US & is currently becoming a big pop star in Japan.
How we always try to box people that exist outside of our social & cultural classifications is emphasised in the Washington Post article about him:
Part Public Enemy, part Sinatra, part schmaltz, it’s an act the Japanese public has never seen before, and it is making him a star.
Face your own conditioning [& have some tissues handy!]:
A star-crossed soul
Stands at the crossroads
There are two versions of insanity
Ours and theirs
Each required clarity
In the definition of identity
Guide me
I am your subject
Victim to your theories of subjectivity
My purpose depends on where you stand
Look beyond what you don’t see
Truth lies in the blindness of mystery
I’ve been around the world in theory
Does that make me less of me
And more of what you want me to be
I took the opposite path
Went from white to black
And have discovered I can’t really go back
I am the ‘other’ your mother told you about
Words have become as random as life itself
Are you still waiting for the great god to come from the sky?
Join the line
There are no short cuts
Who you are today is rarely who you are tomorrow
* About Kojo Baffoe:
Fascinated with the world behind the words, Kojo’s poetry embraces the spectrum of human experience and brings together a range of emotions and thoughts in free flowing verse. Uninhibited by boundaries, he is constantly learning and stretching his craft.
As a performer, Kojo struggles to make peace with exposing elements of his soul, while driven by the need to interact and share with his environment. It is a love/hate relationship. The voices in his head still speak, and the words still come.
He shares his poetry at his blog Imperfect Poetry.
In about ten days it is time for the annual highlight of our social schedules here in Black Germania:
The Bundestreffen of the Initiative Schwarze in Deutschland ISD (Organisation of Blacks in Germany) offers a weekend long get-away from an everyday life of being the exotic, the other or the cool black kiddo in a suburban hip hop posse.
Black, um, Germans?!
Yes, there are black people in Germany! The Nazis haven’t gotten hold of all of us yet & the Black Forest ain’t as dark & dangerous as many may think. Actually, the history of Blacks in Germany can be traced back for centuries but, well, guess, that will be subject of a post yet to come.
If you don’t believe me, start reading up here or have a look at pictures from previous Bundestreffen.
And if you need an audio-visual proof - listen to Afro German by Weep Not Child from the early 90s:
The challenge & value of the Bundestreffen lies in the heterogeneity of people. Although Afro-Germans are often portrayed as an easily definable non-German minority, we have so many different up-bringing & backgrounds, agendas & political views, motives & interests.
There is the black mother who wants their children to be amongst other kids that look like them for once.
There is the black teenager who reads up on Malcolm X, Black Power & the Five Percenters.
There is the young black woman who somehow finds her way to the gathering but cannot stop emphasising that she has never experienced racism outside of this setting as it is totally racist to prevent her from bringing her white boyfriend.
There is the brother who grew up on the continent. There is the sister who never even met her African father.
There is my posse of vegans & vegetarians, Christians & Hebrews, healers & helpers. Always afrocentric, conscious, on the journey to the best version of themselves. Weirdos in the eyes of others as well.
Am I biased? No doubt. Am I sometimes struggling with accepting that other paths may lead to green pastures too, although they are so far apart from mine? Oh yeah!
But…
That’s the beauty of crashing exchanging with sooo not like-minded people: Lessons hidden in the most bizarre places.
So if you are part of Black Germania too (denial ain’t an option, bro!), here is information on this year’s meeting held 7 - 10 August 2008.
And here is the blog where you find information about all the presentations & workshops offered. If you read closely you’ll even find our workshop on “Conscious Eating”, yay.
Wrote my last but one exam today. Most probably my last but one written economic exam ever. Everrrrr. Yeah, baby, yeah!
Man, I just celebrated so appriopriately. Champagne is for rookies. Green Gold is the way to go. Today: True Royalty Mango & Sassy Spinach. Green smoothie celebrations, yay.
Besides that, am trying hard not to neglect the current priorities in my life. I am aware that I survived today’s exam on foreign trade jus due to God’s grace. I honestly cannot remember the last time I have zoned out that much during learning…
What I did instead of learning:
making these pseudo plans for the next months that lack substance & practicality plus
day dreaming big, big time.
The only thing of long-term value during my non-learning phases was my research on sustainability projects and permaculture organisations in SA. The indigenous nature of these projects is crucial for me. I do not need “Save the Africans!” actions & settlers [to borough a Kwesi term] teaching us how to treat our very own soil. We gotta question power structures & the denial of self-definition & self-advocacy in every aspect of our life.
Will get deeper into it in another post but my top three initiatives at the moment:
Tlholego Ecovillage
I was so grateful to come across this rural community that is based on the principles of sustainability & permaculture per se! Six families reclaiming the rural lifestyle, walking the walk & talking the talk. & guess what, the village is situated close to Rustenburg which is just a mere two hours drive away from Johannesburg, yay!
The GreenHouse Project
Too good to be true. Inner city Joburg: a place negating all energy forces. To be able to transform parts of a park in this area into an urban garden, integrating green building and design, efficient and renewable energy, recycling, organic farming and nutrition, is amazing. To show that this disenfranchised community is able to sustain itself by “utilizing the skills of rural South Africa” is more than just sowing seeds. This is the future.
Ukuvuna Permaculture
A young NPO offering courses on permaculture within the African communities.
Training + development = empowerment
Reclaiming our heritage. All we need is hidden within, waiting to be discovered. Literally, folks!
The Black Sinatra Manga Singer, Say What?
4 August, 2008 by chantalfleur
This was one of the moments where I caught myself flat-footed, “boxing” this brother right away. Always a good experience to meet some of your very own stereotypes & kick them in the butt!
Black Man & Japanese Country Music - how?
Jero, Japan’s first Black Enka singer, was exposed to this traditional music by his Japanese grand-mother in the US & is currently becoming a big pop star in Japan.
How we always try to box people that exist outside of our social & cultural classifications is emphasised in the Washington Post article about him:
Face your own conditioning [& have some tissues handy!]:
Posted in Commenting the current, I write what I like, Music, Sounds & Syllables | Tagged black issues, enka, japan, jero, music, stereotypes | No Comments »