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Give an ear to the pleas of the Albinos in Tanzania

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Friday, March 30, 2007

The injection

He, in a white coat,
With a slight twitch of his lips,
Looked me dead in the eye and said,
“You have Pneumonia.”

Amidst wracking coughs,
I looked at him weakly,
Hoping against hope,
He’d say something to clear the air.

“You need an injection real fast;
Four shots of BenzylPenicillin Sodium,
Will do you a world of good!”
Benzy…? Four shots? I was bewildered.

He tied my wrist tightly,
And with the precision of a marksman,
Injected the Benz… substance into a vein,
That clearly stood out on the ‘strangulated’ hand.

The prick is one I’ll not forget for a long time,
As the needle wend its way into the vein,
I shut my eyes and waited for the worst,
All this time my hand was trembling slightly.

Finally, the needle was pulled out of the vein,
The nurse with a reassuring smile said,
“You’ll be alright, my friend;
Remember the second shot’s in six hours time.”

All Thanks to You, Mama

Dear Mama this is for you,
Oh, how I wish you only knew,
What I feel in my heart,
Why? You are a mother so smart.

In darkness I walked,
In darkness I moved,
But you, with ‘loads’ of pity,
Lifted me from the pit.

Darkness fled when to school you took me,
You did sacrifice just for me,
From Primary School to University,
Your care has surely been proven.

In my heart of hearts, I know,
All this I cannot repay,
But my gratitude knows no bounds,
Dear Mama, you’ve really made me bounce.

Brighter Side?

A thought comes,
It makes a fog,
And a mist to match,
In your clear mind.

All things seem useless,
All thoughts baseless,
And all ideas worthless,
In your now foggy mind.

You’re pessimistic, they say,
Look at the brighter side,
Life is not always a rough road,
It’s got a bright side to it.

I do say, verily,
Optimism or pessimism,
Are just big words,
For life, surely, is your own doing.

Obituary

Lying here,
In this big body bag,
Is our friend, comrade,
Who passed away the other day.

He stood, when with us,
With lots of confidence,
And talked sheer sense,
That made us feel good.

Our friend, dear comrades,
Was a man of virtue,
With no vice in him,
He did good to everyone.

Now as is custom,
The evil one, death,
Reaps where he’s not sown,
And that’s what he did.

We loved him,
Old and young,
Boy and girl,
We did it well and truly.

Now as we send him off,
Let us shed a tear,
A warm tear of love,
That will make him smile.

Let us say we love him,
We’ll always do,
And he shouldn’t worry,
Let us say it this once.

Anyway, we are headed that way,
Our friend has just gone before us,
So take heart, my comrades,
For we’ll see him on that day.

Monday, March 26, 2007

EL-NINO: Proper or Misnomer?

Rain droplets peered from the clouds. What they saw, made their hearts break. They saw dust, dust everywhere: the earth was hungry and thirsty. Its lips were cracked, parched and lifeless. It needed water to save its soul. The water droplets, out of a sense of duty to help, held an emergency meeting at the expansive plenary hall in the clouds. They were so small and many that their silvery colour blended to become one big dark mass.

They reasoned that it wasn’t good to make merry while earth was so thirsty and disgruntled. The mother of all water droplets moved closer to the peering hole and peered down to the earth. With all the energy it could muster, earth lifted its eyes and looked up at the clouds. It saw mother rain wearing a long face that bespoke of the compassion it felt towards poor earth. With one last snap at the nerves, it lifted its arms and pleaded earnestly with mother rain to send at least two of its children to wet its cracked lips.

The children heard this plea of the earth to mother rain and, out of an uncontrollable ‘goodwill’ emotion, pushed their mother with all their might down to the earth through the peeping hole in the clouds. The children followed suit.

Great rumbles and arguments ensued as the droplets fought to get a chance to jump to the earth. The earth, in return, gave a belch as a sure sign of the respite brought about by the ‘goodwill’ action. Its intestines came to life once more as water washed down every dirt and dust on its path.

Satisfied, it raised one of its hands to signify that the droplets could now stop jumping from the clouds and that it was very grateful. The droplets misunderstood this motion of the hand and came tumbling down a million fold.

Fear set in. Great fear. The earth foresaw the repercussions of being misunderstood. It tried to open its mouth to speak but as it parted its lips water gushed in; so all the sound it could make was a muffle as more water made rushed down the gullet. In essence, nothing could deter the rain droplets from jumping off the clouds. Rumbles traversed the lengths of the sky as more water inundated the face of the earth.

Rain clouds were all smiles as they gleefully jumped from the opening in the clouds. Least did they know that by doing so they were endangering the life of their friend, earth.

The inhabitants of the face of the earth called this ridiculous jumping of rain droplets from the clouds EL-NINO. Whatever that means I know not! But I know how it came about.

You know this rain thing left a number of things in its wake. People came down with coughs and colds. Their shoes were left in a horrible mess. They were gaping, yawning, name it. People died and houses were either destroyed or their roofs blown off. All these things wrought by the rain meant that the inhabitants of the earth had to dive into their pockets to buy medicine and also ‘cajole’ the cobblers to restore their shoes to their once good condition. New houses had to be built and the dead had to be buried.

One question was clearly written on their scowled foreheads: Why did it have to rain with such continuity here while there were places that needed water of such immensity more than us guys? The Sahara, for example!

That’s why, in one last bid to rave mad, they cooked up a name that befit this midsummer madness: EL-NINO. I think it’s a misnomer but let it rest at that.

A Bad Dream or...

(The “I” in the poem is “me”. This really happened to me!)

Went home one day,
Everything was tranquil and quiet,
Everything beautiful and sweet,
But for my mum.

She just sat there,
Cabbage-sack style,
Not moving,
Just staring and muttering incessantly.

Her body so worn out,
Her bones all showing,
Her eyes sunken,
And hair dirty and ruffled.

‘was awe struck,
I didn’t expect this,
To happen to one of my family,
At least not to someone I knew.

Her words incomprehensible,
Her actions intolerable,
She took the baby by the hand,
And, unfeelingly, threw her out.

Sped out of the room, I did,
Went out and wept,
Hoping that all along,
It was only a bad dream.