Ubuntu...

Clinton my black buddy in a white body refered to this system at a meeting in England...they are right--he is the first BLACK president! I wish i heard it pronounce the word... that would have been soooo funny!

Based on that, I was watching "Life and debt" the Jamaican documentary on the issues of debt and the IMF. One of the songs highly resonates with me..."circumstances made me who I am, was I born a voilent man?"..... are people born the way they are or does society make them who they become? some studies show that there are gene's for gay people and genes for thieves and murderers... who knows?

The Pope finally kicked Milingo out! I think pope John Paul had a bit of a soft spot for him, coz he seriously did like a million and one things that should have had his ass excommunicated long before he was. On the other hand, where is the church's forgiveness? didn't Jesus say for give as you would like to be forgiven? eh?

On a fun note... the Chinese believe men should eat penises of other animals (dogs, TIGERS ...etc) to increase their virility....what happened to good old fashioned fertility pills????? There's a restaurant there that serves penises with prices up to $5000'ish.... now see, if you want to play with money...donate it to the foundation of Manena...and me love you long time! You wont need to eat any dog penises....

Brain drain

I picked up a story on Zambia's brain drain on the BBC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5362958.stm

quite honestly I commend all who do bed side health care work in Zambia, coz i don't think I could hack it!! My cousin(who is in medical school) and I were talking the other day about conditions of working in the health care industry in Zambia. The doctors have no real equipment to diagnose a problem and you're better off going to a witch doctor at times... because its all guess work! that's why the doctors leave the country for places where they can practice to the best of their abilities and make more money. The nurses aren't better off either. I can not imagine being the only person available for 10 patients or more. Well it happens in the USA too on really bad days, but atleast in Zambia i guess you can just delegate most of the work to the patients family members. You would have a huge law suit if you dared do that here in a USA hospital though:)

Domestic Violence

Last night the bloody people upstairs had a fight. Little did they know miss 911 lives right below their floor! Yes I said it! I have no fear of dailling 911. I called security on an 80 year old lady who said "you don't know me!" (implying i don't know what she's capable of), so i called security on her ass coz she didn't "know me" either!

So any shway, it took 911 10 minutes to get there even though I had told them, I thought someone was being hit, and they were shouting in loud voices. the people upstairs are Chinese/japanese/korean...etc u know what i mean! I heard mrs chinatown screaming in her language and things being knocked around as mr chinatown conitnued to shout things (and probably kung-fu'd her!). Well I hope I saved a life, or atleast he wont try to do it again because he'll be scared someone will call the police again. My only disappointment was that i was the only one who called it in, and i called 30 minutes after the whole mess started because i was hoping they could just stop at some point...and then i got scared someone would probably die on my watch...!

This week...

I have a flu/cold/allergies going on. So this whole weekend i spent sipping tea with honey, pumping my body with all sorts of pills, many warm baths, using breathe rites (because i've been snoring- and i doubt that they work...) and feeling sorry for myself!

well i did a lot of research for my papers, so i guess thats positive. T.V absolutely bored me...where is law and order when you need it????? Yesterday all the movies on Life time involved a lover killing their partner...etc, and today there was too much love going on...no healthy balance. So i threw in the pride and prejudice dvd for the hundredth time and ...oh Mr Daaaaaarcy!!!

In the news... a Kenyan author was in the new york times talking about how important using his language is... which is kind of like a follow up to the story i have below. He talks about how they used to be beaten in colonial times if they spoke anything other than English, and how the kenyatta and moi era's were also against using languages other than english. It reminded me of how we used to be fined or punished in my high school days if we so much as uttered a non-english word on the school grounds! Viva colonisation! Bwaana surely conquered us!
And as much as people like to go on and on about how bad Kenneth Kaunda (a.k.a KK, Super K, father Zambia). I think he tried his best. When he chucked out Zungu's and promoted "africanism" he was trying to preserve our culture. After years of the people being repressed and not able to practice their customs correctly... i don't see how this was "very wrong". As far as the economy... the man didn't know about running a country because he had no experience, and neither did anyone else. So mistakes were bound to be made, and they were.

Then yesterday i discovered that Fed-ex was supposed to be sending me a package from new york on thursday. How about my package went from new york, to new jersey, to BALTIMORE, MD, to new jersey again, then to Memphis tennessee as of yesterday. So i called to ask them why my package came to baltimore and had to be sent to flipping memphis? the guy on customer service told me it was "standard procedure". Dumb planning if you ask me. How do you transport something to where its supposed to go, then take it the opposite direction? That is not economically sound!

I had also hit an emotional pot hole this week, so i had to relax, relate and release some of that tension. Any way, that's what i get for worrying about other people's issues.

Malcom X just came on and i'm going to watch it. I need to get in touch with my "blackness" okay? okay. Go tribe of shabazz!

Are African languages important?

that was the topic for thursdays have your say on the bbc:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5072596.stm

its interesting to see African languages being fearlessly... ! If we as Africans can not defend and recognize our languages as important... it will only give enough reasons to the rest of the international community to not recognize them either!
As you can tell, i am still mad at my schools international studies/ development program for not having any mandatory African languages as requirements!

London

I am supposed to go to London tonight... still waiting on my passport to come back from the British consulate... so if i get it back by 4pm, i can go to the airport and fly out in good time to make it for breakfast with my mummy! I will be back on sunday though... i know it seems like a dumb trip... but it all started last friday when my mum decided she wanted me to go this weekend because she will be there. So i sent out my passport to the british consulate for my visa...forgetting that monday is a holiday and that my passport would only get to the consulate in new york on tue/wednesday. So i guess now i wait to see if they "expedited my order". I doubt it, but i'm still keeping the faith!

This is another reason why i want to work for an international organization coz that way, I could have a diplomatic passport and then i could just up and leave!

Zambian elections

The Zambian elections this year will be very interesting....

It turns out the Chinese amabassador made a comment about holding off on investments in Zambia because they are afraid of who might win...cracked me up! so ofcourse if the people they invest in want them to keep bringing money into the country, they need to vote for the person backed by the chinese government...woo hoo! forget democracy! Well if the country had oil or something of value, the USA would have stepped in by now to oust the Chinese and their bags of money!

and then... the western world was planning on putting economis sanctions on Sudan.... hahahahahahaha... what difference will that make????

Spontaneous!

This weekend i worked... i was supposed to go out friday night, but the weather was horrid! So the girls and I changed our minds. Then last night i came home from work, changed into my pajama's...then got a call from the gang who wanted to plan an outing for wednesday...and I in my wisdom was already on my second glass of wine and dancing around the house. So I declared that we needed to go out...and we did!

Padonia sucked, michaels sucked, and the still sucked, but we had fun talking and laughing and enjoying our drinks. It was a pleasant change from our usual outings. I was not hang over...which is great.

Crocodile Hunter

The crocodile hunter died... I felt a little sad for the kids... but really this is why i would never marry anyone who does crazy things for jobs such as hunting crocodiles... hunters get killed! I would never marry a person in the army, a race car driver, a mountain climber, a crocodile hunter...etc i can think of more!

that's just unnecessary heartache...wondering if he'll survive again. Well i guess if he made a couple millions here and there...i might now worry so much...:)

Sudan vs Sovereignty

The Sudanese government in their wisdom rejected a UN security council resolution to send UN forces to Darfur stating the governments "sovereignty" would be lost! exactly how much sovereignty should the international community allow Sudan to have? should we wait till a 1000 more people are dead? how about 200 000 more for good measure? If the US could go into Iraq to "liberate" the people, why not do the same for the Sudan?

A lot of people feel because Sudan is a million miles from America that they are not affected by what happens...little do they know that the displaced people have to become refugees somewhere, and there's nothing worse than forced displacement as we've seen with the victims of hurricane Katrina...

Now the African Union which is really not much at all has been asked to leave... Its surprising that the Sudanese government and the rebels can sleep well at night.

Glad Zambia doesn't have oil....