Realizing you own a blog

About 10 years ago while attending Monash University, Malaysia, my journalism lecturer had the entire class start their own blogs. By 2012, I had graduated with a degree in international relations. In the bid to submit an assignment I opened a blog, posted a few stories and and forgot about it.

Having graduated, I moved back home where the parents had now concluded their investment and it was time to fend for myself. I struggled well well before nepotism landed me a juicy receptionist position at a printing firm. Life was starting to look up. It now felt like I could handle anything thrown my way. I was thriving at work, being given promotions east left center. I was the one, Abi. While I started to recognize the potential of building a career from there, I had little birds in my ears like all other "children of age". "when are you getting married??"

Well the pressure build up, oh not to forget the male species which was also actively participating in persuasion that finally paid off. At 25yrs of age, I got married. The older I get, the more I see how young, naïve and foolish it was for me to chose marriage thinking it would solve my issues. 

In this paragraph, I will share some of the terrible reasons that overshadowed my judgment at the time and enabled such a terrible discission. Before going further, you should know that I was born to a staunch Islamic family of four siblings with me being the fourth. Well, I had the pressure of being obedient to my parents so I got married. That's just the first reason, wait till you here the others. I was also sincerely tired of being kept. I felt gated and unable to explore who I truly am under my parent's roof so I applied marriage as a solution. Did I love the man? That's a story for another day. I wanted to try this birthing thing too so again my solution was marriage. As you must have figured by now, the marriage stood no chance and collapsed soon after I discovered my ability to birth.

Despite the dead marriage, I was left with a special heart champion. The beautiful angel, who struggled with a congenital heart condition known as Tricuspid Atresia 1C, succumbed to it in March 2018. By this time, I had quit my job to take care of my daughter. I can honestly say her two years on earth hold some of my most cherished memories. She will always be loved and missed dearly. Her names were Eshaal Eshmail. By the end of that month, results from the US green card lottery were out and "we" had been selected. It was a period of mixed feelings. I had just lost a daughter and was presented with a chance to go live in the US.

If you know anyone who has ever won this lottery, you know that the process also takes life to come to the end. For the entire 2018, I was working to see this process through. Interviews were scheduled in Nairobi, I was in and out of there three times before my passport was finally posted with a visa in March, 2019...one year later.

By April that year, I packed up and moved to the United states, solo mission kabisa. Its January 22nd 2023 and at 7pm I stumbled upon my twitter profile that gave me the link to this blog. I didn't know how much peace there was in writing but wow, am impressed and plan to keep this up.

PAIN, SHAME, HURT; LOVE

When disappointment creeps in like a thief in the night
Darkness blankets the heart
And pain oozes from the soul; like pus from a gigantic sore
When sorrow befalls your face
And joy fades
When the smile ceases
All turns bitter
All gets worse
No hope for the better

Like the grass blown by the wind
The soul is tossed to and fro
The heart regrets every second
The mind goes on stand still like a car that has just hit a wall
Fear flows like blood from a ruptured valve
Joy fades like the setting sun
The whole body becomes numb
Emotions freeze
Feet get stuck as though you will never move
The news come like a volcano
Unexpected
Like an earthquake
Forbidden
They shake you out of your roots
They shake you out of your comfort
Like a hunter’s spear
It tears through the body
And crushes the heart
It pulls out all the strength
Takes the hope
Kills the trust
And robs you of the peace
When life and love says to you....

“it is over”
“you aint good enough”
“you are wasting your time”
“just move on”
“you are not meant to be anything”
“just quit”

I hate to be in pain
I hate to be disappointed
I hate to be betrayed
But yet I surprise

All the time I can still smile
All the time I still arise
All the I still can
For I believe
If I still have the breath
I can still breathe on
If I still have the  eyes
I can still see
If I still have my senses
I can still sense, feel and experience

Arise, again I say arise
Don’t be crushed
Learn to look and smile
If there is no sunshine in your direction
Let the smile on my face be your sunshine
We are pressed down but not crushed
Persecuted not abandoned
Struck down but not destroyed
Arise, again i say...arise

Dedicated to you in love
Despite your pain I love you
Despite your hurt God loves you more
We can’t have the answers to everything
That goes wrong in our lives
BUT
Remember the caged bird does not sing because it has the answers to life
But because it has a song
If you haven’t got a song yet
Then join in my melody....

Life as Unusual

In my life, i believe if you live an ordinary life then you have got nothing to live for. some things, in fact most things, in life are unusual so stop getting too surprised at things that come your way. learn to embrace everything with arms wide open for that could be your last chance of seeing such...Dont be stunned, u might die this very minute and what you have is what you will go with. am sure if anybody wants to go to heaven from earth then they are gonna have to die, there is no short cut. this simply means that death is inevitable to all humans, be it an elephant, a cat or a man. when the unexpected comes in, embrace it and deal with it. have a plan in life, dont just keep waking up day to day without even noticing what constructive thing you managed to achieve the day before. or else your entire life will be a surprise. take time off, pray, plan, write a to do list if you tend to forget and count your achievements time after time, that way, you will be able to keep tags on what your life is about.

Right now am going through a unique chapter of life, feeling things i never knew i could feel, staggering across my options and still i cant get myself to see what lies at the end of the tunnel. it is a very frustrating and truthful moment where i feel like i have been given two options; either to be truthful to myself or to be pitiful to others. am not being selfish, but the first option is my best option, besides i cannot mange to please everybody so am going to take a leap of faith anytime from now, confidently i will tell this particular person what i feel and how i think things should be and maybe we will manage to flip the page to the next chapter of life....i dont really like this chapter...it sucks, so Ya Allah, please guide me through this one all the way to the end, you are my only hope.!!

Running through my mind: "If u were dumped, cry a river, build a bridge and get over it" 

believe me you can do it!

Karma

Sometimes I question what I truly have to lose,

And then I really see its not all about me.

I feel like am being pushed up and around this endless tunnel

Am stuck in rat, I keep scampering round and round

I can see the end of the tunnel, the sunset sharply

Severing through my eyes but I cannot get myself to reach out to it

AM STUCK!

One Unhappy Ugandan!

Dr. Kihura Nkuba

DR. Kihura Nkuba is a lecturer in classical African history, a writer and broadcaster. He believes Blacks are the mothers and fathers of the world as we know it today, and does not believe, therefore, that Africa is underdeveloped or that Africans are lazy. 


But it is well known that Africans are lazy… 
You get me from my bed at the age of two and take me to sit in class, away from activity and development and you want me to suddenly wake up and become vibrant? NO. All I did was sit! 

But you were learning useful things to help you get a good job… 
Do you know what I studied in school? John Speke. I studied that John Speke met Kabaka Muteesa in 1872. And that’s the only thing I know about Kabaka Muteesa. He didn’t have a coronation, he didn’t marry, he didn’t celebrate a battle, he didn’t commission a big lake... the only thing we know is that he met this lonely lost dumb white man named John Speke. Isn’t that sad? And they put his picture in Kasubi Tombs?I am sad Kasubi tombs caught fire, because they were was the pyramids of Uganda. But that picture of John Speke and Sir Samuel Baker... I am glad they caught fire. I haven’t found out if they really burnt them but I hope they did and their ashes can’t be reconstructed. What was they looking for to come and colonise us? To come and they own us? I don’t even know Kabaka Muteesa’s mother. I don’t even know who his chief commander was or the meteorologist who told him about the right season to plant. 
All I learnt in school was John Speke. You know, if the legal system was good in Uganda I would have sued the entire education system. What makes the African unable is that he has no confidence. And he has no confidence because of the education system. It’s our education system that teaches people that the degree of knowledge is enough to make you developed yet there are 306 degrees. 

So you think Africa will develop if Africans get very many degrees? 
No. Education has to add to existent knowledge instead of just opening someone’s books. I want people to get an education that involves practical application. I want someone to be given a task — say an acre of land that produces 250 bags of maize today and is told to make it produce 500 bags of maize. If you succeed, then you qualify to be called an agriculturalist. 
The world has moved on and this is the computer age but they are still studying the St. Lawrence Seaway, problems of New York as if I am going to be the mayor of New York. What do I have to do with New York? They don’t even want me there. Isn’t that madness? I wish I could go and remove the St. Lawrence Seaway so they don’t study it anymore. We need to study things that concern us, not the problems of New York but the problems of Rakai. It’s madness that we have the same education system we had years ago. We are doing exactly the same thing in the same way in the same environment yet we expect different results. That’s madness. 

Do you want Africa can go back to the pre-colonial times? 
I don’t want it to go back to precolonial times because it had already fallen from glory at about 662. I want it to go back to that time when we had built pyramids though now we can build a bus that doesn’t need fuel; or we can find a way of making a man walk on water. I want our food to be restored, not African people eating rice from Vietnam. 
I want African people to call themselves African names not James and Barbara because a name identifies you with your language and culture. I want African people to project their Africanness and culture and to use culture to sustain themselves and develop tools and instruments that will take them forward. I want Africa to redesign and control its destiny. I want Africa to be free, and by that I mean the absence of coercion where leaders can choose their directors and ministers. 
I want our judges to stop taking trips to America — for what? How many American judges have you seen invited to visit Uganda? I want our people to stop thinking that if I go and study in Europe I will be better educated that the person who studied in Kiswera Primary School because it’s the same education system. I want them to wear our African clothes not clothes from Germany or hold bags by Gucci. I want them to dream freedom. I want people to believe in a black God because the first people He created were blacks. 

You have such grand plans for Africa! Why don’t you join politics and use it to as a forum to change Africa? 
Do you know that the President asked me to be a minister and I refused? I told him that if you want me to be a minister let us all (ministers) work for no pay so you can know who is really patriotic. But I remember the President arguing that if you take me from Rwakitura and bring me to Kampala you need to give me a house... but I told him that all those people already have houses. They don’t live in foxholes. 
That’s why Thomas Sankara became an icon. He gave all his ministers old volkswagens because they were lucky to get a job. But the people also have a problem. How do I come and put up a 14-storeyed building and you all keep quiet? You come and ask me where I got the money from. And that CHOGM thing made me angry, but Temangalo made me angrier. 

In your opinion, what is wrong with our country and leaders? 
Two things are making Uganda fail: the leadership is a leadership of plunderism. They are thieves. They are not nationalists. They are plunderers. But I believe that the President doesn’t steal because he has his cows. But he’s the only person I can say that for. His problem is that he shelters those who steal. I believe that he’s a genuine Pan Africanist but Europe pulling him. And I am not grateful that he closes his eyes at people plundering the country. 
The second problem is that they trust white people more than they trust their own people. I met the President in July and I told him that if he died now he would have died as the president of Asians and Europeans. He promised me that they will start giving contracts to the black people in this country. They have failed to build an independent nation, not an imitator nation. 

How can Africa get back her lost glory? 
We have to re-orient ourselves. We have to re-learn. We have to get an ideology that suits us, first of all by defining ourselves as to who we are, where we come from. 
If you are a black person, you need to know nobody else wants you in the world. Nobody wants black people, so it is ridiculous that we black people don’t want ourselves. They don’t want you in India. They don’t want you in China, Russia, Europe and America. So, the best thing you can do is like yourself as a black person, know where you have come from. Know your history. Know your culture. It’s revolutionary. 
I think that the first step forward is the first step backward. For African people to say ‘let us discover ourselves.’ Let us first know how unique we are, what distinguishes us from everybody. We have to use an ideology that uses our culture for technological advancement. And I think we can make it, but we have to make it on our own terms to create something in our own image. We can do it, but first we have to love ourselves. 


Published November 20 2010

Story of my life...

I thought i was in love but i definitely dint know what i was talking until i saw it with my own eyes. this is not gonna be too long a story so i will just cut it down briefly and go straight to the point.
I will with-hold the use of names because they are very confidential. so on to the story,

I have got a best friend, very beautiful, straight forward, funny and most importantly very loving. she has been in a three year long relationship with this guy and has given him everything only that he just threw it ryt back at her. she never wanted to accept it but in june 2010, she dropped the act and let the guy go. he came back begging and breaking windows but she was done.

After she left tht whole r/p, she actually felt very alive,. he had separated her from her family and friends and she only realized tht a few months back. he had caused her so much pain to the point thyt she used to go to the bathroom in fear tht he myt call and she wont pick up. then Allah picked her up from her dreadful life and brought her ryt back on top. obviously she went thru the steps of a break-up but only by Allah does she know how tough this test was.

A few months later her mom called her and told her, "my dia, have you thought of marriage, u know u r almost thru with school..." she was totally surprised to hear this from her mum and was still in the final faze of recent break-up. A few days later she n her mum were talkin more often than usual. God stooped sending direct messengers and now send them  thru the people you know love you the most. over time her mum had reminded her of a guy she met at the airport and the conversation went on.

One week down the road, the guy she met once at the airport proposed but went straight to her mum rather than coming to her. Do u see how God can alter your entire life in a second?? so on  saturday tht weekend, the my friend's mum gave the guy her number and he called her 4 the 1st time. have you heard of love at 1st hear not sight! that was it i can say. they got along so well and now they are madly, deeply in love with each other. she is away, studying abroad but his plan to marry her still prevails. he went to pay her bride price even without having to spend time with her or anything close to what we call dating in the contemporary world.

As i write this, they are talking on the phone....lol....they talk for hours without getting tired. now she goes to the bathroom with her phone not in fear but rather hoping that he will call. she once said, some people just drop your spirits and others just rise them, just his name fascinates her!!! and to drop the final bomb, dates for the wedding have been set and they will live on as man and wife from the 1st of July, 2011.

To all the gals, dont give up, such guys still exist...and to the guys, jump on the elevator, we on the next level.
NB: If you like this, pls say MASHALLAH!

shukran!

Mystery

I don't know how it all started but i would be regretting had it not.

In 2008, around feb i met a gal by the names of Taslima Hassan. At 1st I thought, "woo, thats a weird name" and she is weird too. omg, what am i gonna do. she sleeps lots and has loads of visitors...(arrrgggg)

It was my first year away from home and felt pretty lonely. i dint know much about the outside world and at this point i was trying so hard to comprehend what was going on. I stayed in a 4 sharing room and for the first two or so weeks, i dint say much to no-one. those were days of serious language barrier and culture shock.

A few days down the road, i started opening up and making a few friends here and there. my first friends in Malaysia were actually Ugandans, Mudi and Brenda. so i felt like i had a lil family here. i soon started talking to my house-mates and they all turned out cool. the coolest was Taslima and thats why am  posting this.

Taslima and i became amazingly close and what made it even more comfortable was the fact that our beds were right next to each other. I cant forget the nights we woke at 2am in search for food. all the photos we took [lost them all :( ], all the stories we shared, the company! She became a part of me. So for the rest 2008, i was in my lil cattle not as the queen bee, but living with a fellow worker bee, just looking 4 what was left for life to be worthy. it was sad when we went off 4 holidays back to our respective countries but as God wished, we still kept in-touch.

Rock Cafe' at 3am

In 2009, i moved from being "single" to being "in a relationship" with her as per my facebook profile. our friendship continued to hold solid ground. we had never and still have never fought or even gotten into an argument. They say real friends fight once in a while but in this relationship, that aint the case. She is always right next to me be it i turn left or right. This might sound weird but she knows more about me than anyone has ever known. i feel like i have achieved a big dream. 


She left Kuala Lumpur (KL) to study in Sarawak for a year and she would fly all the way back to KL just to visit. Do u now understand what i mean by 'i have achieved a BIG dream'?  i have a friend.


friend:one attached to another by affection or esteem,  one that is not hostile, a favored companion
                                                                                                                     _merriam webster online dictionary

My 20th BirthDay

We are in 2010 now and she decided to move back to KL though not in the same area and still there are no humps in our friendship. Not many get this chance so let me take time and thank God for the beautiful creatures He has gifted planet earth with.  


I think this love is a family thing for i have met her mum and her sister too. the experience turned out way better than i had expected. Once again, Allahu Akbar!


NB: The love i have for her is a mystery. 

One of her crazy moments