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to ZARA with love: joy and peace in the flower
Walking through a parking lot after a mini retail therapy, Zara catches my eye because she is just standing there looking at me and she hands me this! I look around to make sure I do not look like I am stealing flowers from a child. Zara is about 4/5. We do not know each other.
Zara’s mother turns around, sees us and walks back to see what is happening. She sees Zara offering me the flowers and frowns a bit. “Do you want to give her the flowers?” She asks. Zara nods her head and places them in my hand. All through the mother’s intervention me and Zara are looking at each other. She, in her cute white short jump suit. Two buns of thick long African hair on each side of her head, smooth skin and a perfect set of teeth, with the most amazing wide set eyes, gracing her oval pretty face. 
I am suddenly overcome with emotion, bended down and reached out to hug her and thank her. I then realised,maybe hugging is a bit showy. “What’s your name I ask”? “Zara” she said. Her name was much more beautiful than the sorry hug I nearly gave. I bended down further, looked her straight in the eye. “Thank you Zara, these are beautiful!” Choked with emotion I stand up, look at the mother and she says, ” I do not know why she did that, she just got them over there” she points to a flower bush nearby. I nod, smile and she is smiling too. I thank her,told Zara she is beautiful. She smiles. We all smile and part ways.
A few minutes later I go through the gate of where I live. I cut some part of this and give it to the security guy at the gate. He beams! “Hey I got flowers, she gave me flowers”! He shouts over to his counterpart across the street at another gate. His friend smiles and waves excitedly! Zara gave 4 adults smiles this evening. All strangers, but they shared something humane and wonderful. Why should I take a picture of obviously wilting flowers because the rains are holding back? Zara saw something beautiful with these flowers shared them to spread a smile. The most beautiful flowers I have receieved. May I share with you my joy today. To ZARA WITH LOVE
Creation of the Illusion. Beyonce’s Formation causes a stir!
Creation of Illusion: Cross Cultural Issues are blaring the lines between white and black. Is this the beginning of a colourless society? Cutting the racial umbilical chord, painful as it may. Beyonce has been in the media to some; bad media for others good press. Admittedly she is pushing cultural, sexist and racial boundaries. Has she become a modern day activist and advocate for correction of social ills in an unconventional way?
Academics are uncomfortable with her “theory-less” encroachment, might she be getting disdain even? This is not a surprise, the academia has for ages engaged with its self, if you want to go any further it is in the library in case you may have missed one of the many conferences where they get intimately and animatedly intellectual. Practitioners are at loss as she is taking all the limelight from them by not only being a music super star but occupying their space. Beyonce’s audience is vast across the globe, she engages with anyone who cares to and maybe even those who chose not to care because she is into your face! Your TV, your radio, your internet, your magazines and newspapers, she is like a pest, a needed but unwanted pest!
Beyonce sparks discussions and dialogue through performance and art,(even when it is a an awkward less than super “starish” show of the Indian dance moves! Really Beyonce!!) an occupation for centuries that has been regarded as lesser and not worthy of abstract attention and normal intelligence and brilliance unless its Shakespear, Soyinka, Achebe, Rashdi. The new breed of females; your Chimamandas and Beyonces are challenging the space. Does this spell a scary journey forward for you know who…?
Is Beyonce not only challenging, culture, race and gender norms but the education system as well? Defiance that the classroom is not the only place a girl child is assured to succeed in life given the chance. Is Beyonce proof enough that creative industries offer an alternative robust space for girls and women to silence the guns and raise their “voices- less” aggressively in tackling social ills?
By far, these are interesting times, depending on which side of the dialogue you are on…lets continue talking!
THE YOUNG, BREASTED AND THE MIGHTY
Pessimism and cynicism are the lenses preferred to look to our women. Or black people because in all fairness. When development breaks take place in technology, stock markets and better social innovation for human life. A Woman is not the first thing that pops to mind. Women catch up to be part of.
Lately there is a surge of young women intent on making their mark in the space of social innovation. They are fearless in challenging the status quo. The likes of Bare E ne re, a story telling and educational platforms that pushes the imagination of Basotho through generations.
Stories once upon a time by the fire have taken a sharp turn as a writivism movement across Lesotho. Story telling by Bare is now swag, hip and the it of sharing stories of struggle in the era of youth bulge and unemployment, the stories of perpetual inequality of gender and economy. Classicism and intense intolerance of race, age and gender.
The brevity of the new age breasted ( Khofu tse matsoele) as one infamous Lesotho leader would attest amidst ululations. Be aware they have not changed form, they are still breasted but fearless, gogetters, competitive with a cutthroat, edgy and innovative social solutions ever imaginable. Their silence does not mean they are not there.
geminstitutels.org 