Africa is overpopulated

Last week saw a conference in Atlanta for women entrepreneurs. There was a speaker who showed a demographic chart which seemed unimpressive. Until tonight. He was talking about entrepreneurial opportunities around the world in terms of populations and thus markets. He showed projections of world populations in 2010, pointing out that China and India would have the largest populations. He also showed Africa's population. As the only competitor to India's population. YES. Read Africa. Not Kenya, not South Africa and not Sudan. He compared Africa's population growth to India's population. Continent vs country.

No surprise?

Africa is the second largest land mass. That is 11,668,545 sq. miles or nearly 31million sq. km. If you are a visual person:


So we are overpopulated right? Hence why we are dying of drought right? Look at the following map:



It is distorted by the size of the population in that area, i.e. the thinner the area the smaller the population. Notice Africa and its neighbor India.

Kihumbu Thairu puts it well in his book African Holocaust (not online for sale - look for it in Kenya). As Africans we are opening ourselves up to depopulating our lands. And if you haven't read it either, get The African Civilization. I'm no longer smiling with the foolish naivety I had.

In my opinion, we need to be having more children. Have as many as you can take care of and don't fall for the myth that a two child family is a sign of progress. Our overpopulation comes from stretching our resources and not replenishing them. That is where our focus should be as opposed to birth control and curbing family size.

Think how empty Africa is. Think how resourceful it is. And think who will own it 50 years from now. If we continue at our current trend, our children, yours and mine will be a minority and squatters.

Guess who the land will belong to.

pounds

Heeehehhee.

I have put on a few pounds. But I don't notice it. until someone points it out. It is almost like when you grow breasts.

It happens so gradually that one day you look down and realise just then that there is an obstacle in the way of your feet. If you are so lucky.

So how fat is too fat to be cute...and on the flip side how skinny is too skinny to be sexy.

I have been both sides of the scale. A couple of months ago, I was being asked why I was losing weight.

Hey my jeans still fit, if anything, they fit better! And I have a nice parcel in the back.

moment of pause

Gladly I took a break.

Hopefully I am back for a while. I recently got back onto a flight labelled BA headed for my second home. Landing this time meant that I did not see the excitement I naively had when I first got here.

The roads are still wide and the cars even more rounded and longer. but it is second home...atleast it welcomed me that way the last time.

I was also going through the last few post, they has been alot of change.

A moment of pause.

So where's the next party?

Senegal

Nanga Def!

As I was beginning to settle into being back home, I was whisked away by a longing to a corner of the world called Dakar, Senegal.

But gladly. For about a month my life may chart a direct course toward my becoming more knowledgeable on Africa. It is different. HOT!! Infact I may have suffered from heat exhaustion hence a prescribed dosage of codine and paracetamol and mandatory rest.

I visited Goree Island and was torn inside by where my brothers and sisters were sent off to plantations. Standing at "The Door of No Return" I felt a growing anger at mine and my fellow human's forgetfulness at the classification of my family as animals.

No pictures. Go there.

There is a man there. Who knows alot about the origin of Africans and about the untold history. About the

Kebra Nagast

and places I have never heard of...I'm ashamed. I will be travelling back to listen to him.

Peace.

vjsdyruwivnrhifaflll

I could not think of a subject. I hope this does for now until further notice. Anyone with suggestions on a suitable title for today's post, please let me know.

I'm still hurting from June's death. But its funny how the world expects you to go on. Then again, who said it would stop.

I had a nice day today. The sun was shinning. It was cool, colder than I would have liked but nice nonetheless. I was taken out to lunch by a new friend. A young Kenyan man. Gorgeous. With locks on his head. MMMMM...

When I came back I told another gorgeous Kenyan man, dark skin and clear mind about my lunch date. We sat and talked about love, marriage and the stuff relationships are made of.

I believe in polygyny AND polyandry.

For one reason. It was not a denial of the fact that it is human to be interested in more than one person.

Both men, beautiful, in and out. Intelligent.

Then I began to think about expanding the boundaries, what small close knit communities do...in breeding. How islands are populated. Female companionship. More than companionship.

Who makes the limits to what a person can share with another? Is it me and the person in the relationship, my religion or my family?

Then I realised that I was wasting time thinking about this when I could be getting to know my two Kenyan men better...and maybe...

June Nyanchoka

Sometimes we take the ones we love for granted. Sometimes we take our love for them for granted. If I could go back to next week I would. I would so that I could see her again. Just so that I could let her know that the fight we had sometime back did not affect our friendship. To let her know that what she has done to keep our other friends together is remarkable.

My friend, my dear friend died in a car accident on Sunday morning on April the 2nd 2006.

June I love you and miss you...yet you don't feel too far.

petition

Dear President Kibaki
On March 2, 2006 government forces raided the headquarters and printing plant of the Standard Group. In addition to destroying equipment and newspapers, beating up innocent employees who were doing their part in building the nation, they shut down the KTN news station. This latest attack follows the jailing of three journalists from Standard Newspaper, attacks on Citizen Weekly, and ongoing harassment of journalists by government-sponsored forces.
I would urge you to ensure that the perpetrator of this injustice to press freedom is ordered to apologise to the Kenyan public and the Minister who's jurisdiction he has stepped into. Mr. President please request his resignation in light of he's militant behavior and misuse of power entrusted to him by the Kenyan public.
Sincerely,
A registered voter.

it ain's over

So just when I think that I have cooled down...I flare up again. What am I talking about? Well it's the man of the hour. Having have recently read the report I am proud of one thing. The guy leaked the document to the whole world.

I am terrified by the fact that no one is in the right. Even the ones questioning the theives are theives themselves.

Since no one is going to say it, I feel abit told on. Like a kid who was doing wrong and I had a little brother who ran off to tell my Mom. Sure I shouldn't have been doing wrong. But this only works if we are 5 year old. What happens when those telling on each other are adults? Some in their 40's... I feel like the fact that he told England, through Edward Clay first, as a betrayal of his own interest, that being Kenya.

Let's face it. do not be fooled into believing that any white person, let alone a white politician has any interest in a poor black country in AFRICA. No listen. By virtue of being a citizen of a particular place, my loyalty is to that place. Right?

So the question arises, why then the great push to try the theives if the great mother has no intrest in Kenya.
She does.
And it is in her resources as she has kept it as a colony, nestling in her skirt.
Take a closer look.
It seems like a great admission that Africans are "incapable" of leading themselves...they have to get help from outside to tell them what's wrong. They should have remained colonised. Atleast then we would have control over the situation and would not have to bail them out. They steal from their own.

Then they run to us to undo the mess...well since we can't interfere (certain things like a paper saying they are independent, we'll use our seeds - their rulers).

It will take time. There is a call for a "critical mass" to effect change. It won't be in the next elections. And probably not those after. If the thugs who were stealing were stealing to campaign for the next elections, they only see that far.

In a world where there are people who think of future generations, what of the country's development? Will we always be slave labour for resources that are on our land that we end up buying at higher prices? No wonder we are poor. It's not the stealing from us but the admission that we can't stand up. Alone if necessary.

These are our leaders. They want the next elections. 2007. Then what? That's only 1 yr and a half away.

Is this foresight? Vision?

2007 then what?

growth

I think I have grown alot in the last couple of months.

I sometimes wish the growth was height wise since I am blessed with a rather short frame.

This evening I sit at this computer, with all the tools that i did not have when I was pushing myself to "do." I have everything at my fingertips to blow the minds of many and leave no doubt about what I am capable of.

Yet I stand, almost paralysed with the propects of what such an "uncovery" could do. I fear myself.

And wonder if this, this is really growth or has my brave outer shell become what it really is...a shell.

There is alot of work to be done. Within me and without me. I stand in awe of what has been placed before me, the land I have been lent for tilling, until the next person comes to take over where I leave off.

There is alot of work to be done.

that one moment

You stand outside.
Black velvet sky lit by millions of stars.
The air is still.
Filled with the smell of burning firewood.

You are too far from the city to hear the cars

Too far for your eyes to be blinded by the lights
that promise false security.

ALL you have is that star filled sky and the crickets in the bush.

The silence is stabbed by their chirping.
You are small.

You are the speck of the furthest star you see.

You are so small.

That one moment.

I want to do it standing

I had a nice New Years. A sober one. As I mulled over my cranberry juice and chilled with my friend J7.

Stood in a crowd of "Atlantians" and watched a peach drop. Yes. A peach. Then I hugged everyone I came across and hurled insults across the street. I screamed Happy New Year to any and everyone. Until I lost my voice. I was waiting to get shot.

I even learned how to say Happy New Year in Spanish. I won't write it lest I slaughter the language.
I also can now say "Stupido" thanks to the gracious Latina who taught me how to tell her boyfriend the word...teeehehe

The cranberry juice wound itself down to my bladder fast and since we were using the metro, it could only go as far as my bladder. J7 was in the same predicament but managed to sneak behind bushes. Aaahh Adrienne Rich. Woman doing woman. Simone Beauvoir, you are not born a woman...

I want to piss standing. I know I can. But sadly my tight jeans and pretty panties were not made with a hole. Unlike men's. The whole affair of pissing in bushes takes too long and it can be tricky. Especially with your butt being swiped by the crisp winter air. Then you have to stand and wiggle the jeans on again. Short of tripping and falling into the light with the jeans still wrapped around your ankles. Too much. I'll hold it.

Vent.

I stood staring into the darkness at the bush which was J7's relief, hoping that it would speak to me and say "Go ahead."

2006. You are not going to restrict me.

Watch out.