Pause for Reality Please

There is a sad silence about my soul these last few days; a pause of reality in an otherwise endless going of doing that makes no demand for understanding. Each day is a test of my strength to face my decisions, to deal with the consequences, to accept the changes and find the strength to mourn them. Putting ones head back into ‘doing’ finds the easy comfort of denial. Anyone who has ever said goodbye will know the heart-pulls of the days leading up to it. Days when ones stomach is warm inside, with the bitter feeling of anticipation; where hands shake with unsteady nerves and the heavy feeling of Lost follows you like a shadow.

My goodbyes have started, despite my anticipation of its coming. Last week, I sat with seven hundred others under the shade of acacia trees overlooking the Monduli hills. Hulda Ayoub Zelote, cleansed of wrinkles and shrouded warmly in her coffin, lay while we filed past, bidding farewell with a nod of our heads, aware of the crowd. Two older men, one supporting the other and his stick, walked slowly – painfully – up last. They approached the coffin in careful steps, aware of the uneven ground. One steadied the other and, slightly leaning forward, they bowed to her in perfect sychronisation. That mythical lump of cliché appeared in my throat: an incredibly moving moment to see men, whose age alone commands respect, honouring a woman, and a Maasai at that, when Maasai women are truly at the end of the political food chain.

Perhaps the pause of reality commanded by death strips away the prejudice that comes with doing life; perhaps prejudice is born when doing life makes no demand for understanding. Either way, the harshness of reality facing me now may be painful, but it is fresh and real and the doing of it will be heartfelt, demanding the thought and understanding it deserves.

To Live.

'How vain it is to sit down and write when you have not stood up to live.'

Henry David Thoreau

A Great Woman's Passing

A great woman died yesterday. She was, at a guess, as old as eighty, with her brown-skinned face so wrinkled and brown eyes turned blue with cataracts: she was a striking woman. She was the first woman from Arusha region to earn a degree, following Julius Nyerere to Uganda’s great Makerere University. She returned to Tanzania, a social-studies graduate, and became the first female appointed to a government position in the same region. Friends with Nyerere’s sister, she was recruited to the Independence party – TANU at the time – and fought for the freedom of her country.

Years, marriage and six children later, she fell in love with the words of Jesus and, walking hundreds of miles through the Maasai steppe, stopped to meet women and talk to them about Jesus’ take on gender equality, on love, on forgiveness and honour, on the difference between hope and despair and the power that knowing someone loves you can bring to your life.

She had an impact on hundreds of people’s lives. She had an impact on me: welcoming me into her home, offering beans and maize when 8 grandchildren also needed to eat; telling me with all the graciousness of a queen how she still remembered areas of Arusha town reserved for Whites Only, where dogs were trained to chase off anyone else and white farmers tied Maasai braids to the tailgates of their landrovers and dragged them out of town. She had the dignity to ask after me: what was I studying, did I plan to return to Tanzania, how was my mother, who she loved so much, and told me so.

Death is so final that, with its appearance, it is often a string of disappointed if-only’s that hold hands with our grief.

Terrorism: Help Us Defeat It

I left my luggage trolley for a moment, to buy stamps for thank yous to send to hosts with big hearts. The aisles of WHSmith threatened the width of my bags, filled with engine-parts for landrovers in Africa. In stamp-buying time (queue less, note), there he was, his black-vest a hard-shell, like the coat of a cockroach protecting its dirt. Gun, helmet, badge and radio.
‘Are these your bags madam?’
A cold-hand grips my warm-heart and I fear authorities who fear terrorists: there is no logic where panic burns up sense like fire on oil. But I know this game and I play it well and sweet innocence works like a power tool against men in armour who carry guns against terror.
‘Are you going to shout at me?’ I ask with a smile. ‘I was buying chocolate for my Dad. He likes the fruit and nut, you see. He’s convinced every bar belongs to him.’ I sell out to manipulation: woman's greatest weapon?
I show him the purple wrappers. A smile in return and I’ve won.
He laughs and jokes and warns me – officially, he says. He has to. I get a copy of the warning for future reference (it is not a record, I am told. I am assured I do not have a record for buying stamps.).

Seen outside WHSmith Terminal 4. Trolley unattended. Words of advice.

I am asked to identify the colour of my skin: I'm offered lists of PC terms for shades of tone and heritage and I tick the appropriate box: there’s a double meaning in that. We all know that sniffer dogs at airports are trained to target colour. He ticks the Stop Only box, as opposed to Search, or Arrest and the Outcome Code I am given is ‘2’ for Advised.

1 for No Further Action; 3 for Verbal Warning; 4 for Arrested; 5 for Other.

But I am not Other, where Other is Colour, and I know this and use it, despite my conscience. I chat on and he does too. He asks me where I am going, I tell him the details. He supports a child in Ethiopia through my employers. The irony is laughable. I say I must go – I need to check in. He says nice people like me shouldn’t be forgotten and writes down his details. He is PC 674D with the Met Police. Should I ever need any help, I should feel free to contact him. I do. I smile.

I walk away, knowing my soul will need forgiveness for its manipulative ways. I fold my copy of the report behind my passport, irony bleeding through the paper-white sheets. Terrorism, it reads. Help us defeat it.