Live Simple, Give Much_Gogo Rashieda Kotobe

Bismillah

Tonight (14 August 2013) with sadness and with heavy hearts we bid farewell and laid to rest one of the mothers and grandmothers of the present Ummah (community) of Islam.  I cannot account for the youthful years of our beloved Gogo but I can account for the impact she had on my youth. Meeting her at a young age before my teens was joy, as my own Gogo had just passed away. She was selling snacks and sweets and she gave me some for free.  A sweet Gogo full of smiles and generosity. A busy Gogo who still cooked with the old coal stove, chopped her own wood with an axe and still managed to make tea for you no matter your age. I am talking about a Lady who managed to complete the Hajj (Holy Pilgimage to Mecca)on her own feet. This is a Lady whom her much younger Hajj companions drew strength from and forged on because of her zeal to carefully and devotedly complete this Holy Pilgrimage.  

Live simple, give more are the first words that come to mind when I think of our beloved Gogo Rashieda. She looked after her children and grandchildren with dedication, and extended her complete love to the community.  Living  a simple lifestyle, she managed to welcome my family in her home so many times that it became our meeting point when we are around that area. If I am waiting for my parents I would go to her house and they would do the same if they are waiting for anybody else. Tea, biscuits, sweets and sandwiches are what she would prepare, and when I complain that I can prepare this myself, she would tell me that I am her guest and i should sit down.

I will never forget the day that I had to go for a job interview and she decided to babysit for me, I will not forget her kindness in my time of need and I hope and pray that I am always inspired to do the same for others.

I will miss her saying “Susho?” (really?) when she was surprised at what you were telling her. 

I thank Allah for all the kindness she had in her and May He make her journey in the next world a blessed and easy one. We will miss you dearly Gogo Rashieda.

Bad boys are just that, BAD!

Bad boys are just that, BAD!

Bismillah


Your Mama warns you about bad boys because she’s afraid you will lead a more exciting life than hers; how boring is your good father? Working all day and coming home to read the newspaper, make silly jokes and call you mother the Lady of the house! No ways! That is not your ideal man. Bad boys are exciting, adventurous, fun and full of trills. Bad boys steal kisses, own babes and ask for no permission to touch you, how exciting! Bad boys burp out loud and know how to curse, how flattering! Bad boys have an amatory way of sitting as if their spine is rubbery, they walk like they have been shot nine times and lean again buildings to prevent them from falling, how charming! They drive racy cars, and only choose the best babes to ride in them; they smoke the best cigarettes and nip on the coolest drinks, how sensual! Nevermind your heart, mind and soul! Bad boys are the ultimate fulfillment of your desires!  Let me introduce you to a different male specie, the Good Guys. They say “please” &” thank you”, greet you respectfully with a smile, and call you a lady. They talk gently and worship the ground that you walk on, and not forgetting to give way for you to pass. They take their plates to the sink after eating and burp in private. Their mothers mean the world to them and are not embarrassed to show it. They sit up straight and have a humble walk. But you… have been laughing horribly in their faces and calling them names such as ‘weirdoes’ and ‘mama’s boys’. You have been busy playing pranks on them and break their delicate hearts. You have been mocking their clean and neat clothing, and rolling your eyes when they try to talk to you. So here you are babe! Standing weak and dry like an Autumn leave, broken in may ways and left at the petrol station by that bad boy, and the stillness in you reminds you of that Good Guy who called you a lady and you ignored him. Here is your heart now, whispering a prayer.

Bags

This article was inspired by a baggage article written by a dear sister: Luyanda Sibisi This (these) luggage that we carry with us prevent us from being whole and sometimes they even exhaust us. Baggage weighs us down, and wears us out so much that we cannot completely give ourselves to the ones we love. Fear of being hurt again is one of women's favourite bags. It makes us hold back so much when we are supposed to be giving, and makes us incomplete beings thereby creating a mental barrier or even a spiritual wall between us and ultimate happiness and prevents us from reaching Allah Himself. Have you ever noticed that positive thoughts are so weightless? Hope, love and peace are so valuable but light on the heart. They do not weigh you down or wear you out. Unfortunately we have because fairly comfortable with carrying these bags that we hardly see the direct harm on ourselves. Bags come in all sort of sizes and styles. Let’s talk about physical bags and how our packing reflects on our personal & physical lives to spiritual bags. One of the huge items that we carry in our spiritual bags is fear. What type of a packer are you? There are many types of packers out there. There is the just in case packer (more fearful than cautious packer). This type of packer is literally a step away from traveling with her entire house, everything is essential! She is fearful and does not feel comfortable without her huge bag i.e. the house. It is highly possible for her bring her own pots to the trip, and if she is your visitor by the time you get to her room to offer her some tea, she has already taken out her own kettle and cup. Precaution is important only when done in moderation. The good thing about the fearful packer is that her clothes are neatly packed and categorised. Everything is labelled and no matter how trivial, it has a purpose just in case she might needs it. She similarly does not open her heart easily, just in case you hurt her. This type of baggage is very heavy as it comes with a tight lock with numerous codes by the time you open the first lock you find other lock connected to other baggages, what am i saying. sister loosen up a bit, the more baggage you have the more difficult it is for another person to help you unpack, yes I know you have a name for all your stories but you do not need to carry them everywhere you go. Life sometimes offers us many days on the beach, where you just need to bring your water bottle to enjoy, & in your screen a sunscreen as well will be good, just in case you run into pure thirsty joy that will need your help. To be continued…

Bags Please! We all have baggage but at some point you have to start unpacking. By Luyanda Sibisi

Bismillah this article was written by my friend and sister Luyanda Sibisi. She is a published Writer, Her article inspired me write the Bags article of my own. Whether it’s a new marriage, new career or being a new mom, baggage is the one bag you want to pack lightly on. I’ve always loved the song Bag Lady by Erykah Badu, I always thought I was the beat but the older I got the more I realized that there was more. ‘I guess nobody ever told you, all you must hold on to is you.’ This is my favourite part of the song. She reassures you that whichever situation you come out of all you need to have held onto is yourself. Your identity. Your faith. Your spirit. Baggage is when you take all the stuff from a bad experience usually the negative stuff and you carry it around with you. What is unclear to me is why we feel we need to own this stuff, make it our own. We expect our current situation and all those involved to understand that you’ve arrived with an excessive amount of luggage they whether or not they have space for it. We’ve all seen how kids love to show off their scars to their friends after a nasty fall. Once the scar has healed they still try to endlessly search for this scar almost to show off to their friends that they survived a dreadful fall in the park. We do exactly the same thing with our baggage, even though the contents of the bags are things we packed twenty years ago we insist on carrying it along with us to show people what we’ve been through and how far we’ve come. Why can’t we take our bags, acknowledge what we’ve been through but let them go when time says its ok to let go. There’s a prayer I love to read out whenever I feel my baggage overflowing it’s the well known serenity prayer; ‘Lord give me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.’ There are scars in my bag I will always keep with me like scars from childbirth. The scars from the incision the doctor made bringing my child into the world are scars I wear with pride, I know that this is something I should carry and even look at as a beautiful reminder of that day. There are the scars I know I should not be packing in my bag, things that prevent me from building meaningful relationships with people and growing as a human being. So let’s take stock, start unpacking our bags and really look into the things we would much rather do without. Trust me you’ll feel so much lighter! “I guess nobody ever told you, all you must hold onto is you”

The games that people play Part 1 The Discreet Show-Offer

Bismillah
The more I interact with human beings is the more I think of my favourite IT lecturer Mr Joshua Phumlani Mkhize, Mr van Aardt please do not get offended. Other than being an absolute Programming Genius & lecturer, he was a Life Coach. Often when I was in high school I used to fantasise about being an adult. Why? Because these fantasies were mostly fuelled by my garbled insights of what adulthood really meant. Peer pressure, bullying, self-loathing, jealousy, arrogance and the rest, I thought were all illnesses that haunted the young and the restless aka teenagers. I thought that when we become adults we finally come to ourselves and become calm being whose spirits constantly float in a bubble of peace. I was aware that there were a few adults who suffered from these illnesses from time to time, but my mother chose not to expose me to such people; moreover she did not allow me much TV time, so I could not witness such behaviours in adults even on Soapies.
Mr Mkhize began by educating us about the “Discreet Show-Offer”. The Discreet Show-Offer begins by creating or sharing with fellow friends or other audience a crisis, such as crying profusely to catch the attention of friends or the audience, obviously the next would be to ask her “What is wrong?” try and catch it in the response if you can. Here goes… she responds “you know guys, I am so angry with my mother! She took my credit card and just used it everywhere as she wished; I just got my credit card, you know the bank doesn’t give a credit card to just anyone.” Did you catch it? The crisis was created to inform the audience about the credit card. Let’s take another incident and see if you will be able to identify the “Discreet Show-Offer” amongst your circle. “Guys I am not sure if you can help me, I need your advice. I borrowed a colleague my iPad for just a week that I was on leave as his laptop is gone for fixing; now he keeps on saying he is still busy with my iPad. I only borrowed him my iPad because he had an emergency” did you get it?
The discreet show offers will often have sickness such as gout so that you know they have plenty of money, respiratory problems because of the expensive perfume they wear, depression because of a colleague who can’t handle their intelligence, a rash because they are only supposed to wear pure cotton. The list is endless.
Now as an adult I have realised that these illnesses if not curbed at an earlier stage take another turn and become detrimental, not just to oneself but to the society as a whole. May the Almighty continue to bless Mr Mkhize for his Programming lectures and Life lessons and May the Almighty help us overcome these illnesses to that we can be better humans towards one another.

I’m not pregnant; I’m just renting my belly for a while.

Bismillah
With the beautiful blessing of pregnancy comes a world full of people who have suddenly become expert gynaecologists, GPs, baby’s-sex predictors, psychologists etc. They all want in on this fabulous period.
The Psychologists...
When you express your anger, frustrations or anything with passion, they are there to explain that you are not yourself; it is the pregnancy hormones that are causing you act like this. Then they advise everybody not to take you seriously because you are just acting out a page from your diary of a mad black pregnant woman. Ok? Can I also kill someone & blame it on the hormones?
The baby’s sex predictors
Oh you crave for sweet treats? You are having a girl. Yeah! It’s definitely a girl. Oh! Look at your stomach? It sits quite low, it’s a boy! What? you feel all big and ugly? I it’s definitely a girl, she is stealing all your beauty.
The Physicians
You are still exercising? Do not strain yourself too much. Just rest, let your husband cook. Don’t run. Don’t sit on the floor; sit on a high chair with cushions. Always keep warm.
The dieticians
Don’t drink soft drinks; your baby will have yellow jaundice. LOL
With the exception of my husband and mother, who just know me too well to fall for my tricks.
During this delicate time, I have been hiking, taking 5km walks, entertaining myself with optical illusions, travelling, baking, cooking, reading, and solving mathematical problems. As I lay all my cards out, I do realise there are women who have tough pregnancies. Alhmadulillah my pregnancy has been progressing well. I do not feel like killing my hubby for “making” me pregnant, nor storming out and shutting doors behind a hot argument. All i feel is calm fabulousity. I love the baby kicking, i love this perfectly round belly, it has brought so much of joy and radiance in my marriage. I am tempted though to tell a few people a thing or two, and i know i will get away with it.
So, all the experts out there, I enjoy playing the many roles expected from a pregnant woman, however I am sorry to disappoint you all. I am not craving for beetroot juice with a grass sandwich.
All I am is SimplySakina who is renting out her belly to another creature for a while.
Peace

Fantasies of an African slave

Bismillah
Can you imagine what the world would be like if a conquest; colonisation etc was determined by a soccer match? Right now South Africa would have Spanish invaders instead of the Dutch. We would inherit all that which came with the world cup; given that we are already slaves to other exotic cultures we would be proud Black Spanish speakers. Furthermore, Paul the Octopus would in future be one of the symbols of our ancestral animals, or perhaps calamari would be Spanish South Africa’s favoured delicacy. Our blood would be red because it is Spanish. And how I wonder what stories our Coloureds would tell.

The discovery of the Timbuktu scriptures has brought Africa a new light, not complete sunshine but some light, as it was known as the Dark Continent that lacked civilization until all types of white men arrived. Perhaps it is this misconception that Africa lacked civilisation that Africans themselves find it hard to establish their own identity; therefore they assume the identity of their conquerors. The Congolese people are ‘French’ and do not mention the South Africans who did not want their Dutch ‘Master’ only to settle for an English one, so that they could walk about the townships with a twang stuck high up in their nostrils to put their township schooling equals down.

And what about the Xenophobic attacks? Which part of South Africa isn’t part of Africa? The argument is that “I am killing my fellow brother because he came into my country, took my wife and job” ok? I am not inciting a racial civil war here but what about the one, who came into your country, took your live stock, took your land, raped your sister and turned you into a slave in its plantations for his good and is still giving you a shilling for your day’s hard work? Do you not see that you are just fighting your fellow brother over a shilling?

Perhaps it is such incidents that question the African civilisation. It is such incidents that have got this African slave fantasizing about Arabian nights under Palm trees, and Chinese Kimonos. It is this slave that is filled with fantasies of the famous Spanish & Indian Spices because the African soil is too stained with blood to grow any of its own.
Or else time has come to re-write history and for every African to start telling the remarkable and courageous stories of Africa.
Peace.

Just because African civilisation was not documented it does not prove that it didn’t exist. Time to search and re-write history!
Timbuktu here we come!!!