Mama Shujaa

Swallow me whole without sedation. Sample the truth my heart's vibration. Limb by limb take me in. In every crevice you will find Hints Teetering, dancing around life's rim. Swallow lest the precipice invites me in. Swallow me whole Smack your lips Seal them with my single wish Brimful, the Marrow Of My Love. Mama Shujaa. **First published on July 8, 2009** Copyright © Mama Shujaa 2009. All Rights Reserved

Whatever the intentions of an action, everyone responds in their own way. Recently President Barack Obama announced that 100 troops would be sent to assist the Ugandan government in its fight against the Lord's Resistance Army, a rebel group that has committed heinous crimes of murder, rape and the kidnapping of children for over two decades. Invisible Children - History of the Conflict Child Soldiers of the Lord's Resistance Army Juxtapose this against a March 21, 2010 Economist article entitled " Uganda's Oil: A bonanza beckons . And the weakness that consumes America -Oil and Money - dramatically reveals itself. Iraq Libya Now Uganda Elevated integral members of the oil family. To the some it may represent a humanitarian effort, the benefactors being third world citizens. My questions with regard to Uganda: For how long has the LRA been around? When did the State Department discover the heinous crimes? Why are they acting now? The March 20...

There is no room for interpretation When dealing with parents of talented 13-year-old soccer players. Everything is bold and simple. Play my kid and get team results. The vigor and tension With which this sentiment is communicated, Exhausting. "Talk to the coach," I advise softly. Each parent has their own imaginative eye As eloquent as the other It moves beyond the scope of their own Inadequacies. My boy is a natural this A real that! The composition of the team Must inevitably emerge as I see it. It matters not what germination and growth occurs and what the surrounding fertility may have to offer. Their appreciation and interpretation is limited to only what bears close affinity to what is personally satisfying to them. What an exposition, frankly, of individualistic machinations. From, One Tired Team Manager, Mama Shujaa. Nevertheless, Bon Weekend.

Characters - BIG CAHUNA FUMILAYO VERA Scene - office hallway containing cubicle stations. Fumilayo and Vera are neighbors, hunkered down behind computer screens. (Enter Big Cahuna with a stack of college-ruled sheets ridden with his leisurely scrawl.) "Fumi, I need to get this letter out ASAP!" his booming voice addresses the air. Vera: "I can help. Give it to me." Fumi (working on transcribing a deposition): "Thanks Vera." (Exit Big Cahuna, face red.) Vera:  "Don't know how you do it, Fumi. His writing is awful." Fumi: "What would I do without you?" (Half an hour goes by, tempered by Vera's grunts and groans through the cubicle wall.) Vera (walks into Big Cahuna's office): "Here is the letter. I hope I did not mess it up too bad...I could not read your writing." Big Cahuna: "Couldn't read my writing??  Fumilayo is not even from this country, and she can read my writing!" ...

I am unresolved about the article. Feelings of annoyance and guilt stir within; a tension stronger than my usual polite appreciation of such articles. As I write about it, I struggle, thoughts glued together, bound up as if in an outdated textbook. The casual tone of the article irritates me.  Potential, Poverty, Politics & Parties: Why Kenya Attracts America's Best & Brightest Young Social Entrepreneurs makes comment on the development of my country as if it were just another accumulation of spectacles. It starts with the dubbing of potential as "the people, not just their fellow expatriates, who seem to keep coming [to Nairobi from Wall Street, Harvard, Stanford and MIT] in droves...but the young Kenyans...craving something different." It cites a slowly improving education system; an increasingly robust sector full of entrepreneurial ideas; Diasporans eager to be a part of Kenya's movement; and the budding microfinance institutions, M-Pesa, Ushahid...

Grand! This feeling, a vital source of my being. Warm orange and red beneath my mocha-toned skin Coursing through. His eyes Deep pools flowing, irrigating my soul Rich and fertile. "Nawa for your ass," the text reads as I walk into the train station.  "Lord do u," another text reads. This no-rigmarole-kind-a-guy. "U makin' me smile." Swamped with love. Elevated, stretched across the Atlas Mountains.  My African Passport still rises. Weekend njema! Mama Shujaa.

Unbroken forests. Acres and acres, flowing across shores and national borders. Making every inch count. The sights and sounds of the U.S.A. Packed, everywhere. On shelves, on mannequins, hordes have migrated en masse. In search of new growth in lush pastures. Under the lens. Every tag checked by the consumers' eyes. Made in Honduras. In Egypt. In Colombia. In Mexico. In Taiwan. In Guatemala. Landscapes beyond these eroded and depleted shores. A mosaic of products that blend into each other, each with the rule, to explore the face of America. "Have you bought any souvenirs?" I asked our Chinese students. "No. Everything is made in China!" they laughed. Siku Njema! Mama Shujaa.

It is Wednesday morning and my shoe box story still lives. In the universe of my imagination, with more people in it now.  New bosses, wayward soccer parents, egotistical 13 year old soccer stars, kind coworkers, court filing deadlines, to-do lists at home and abroad. All locked up together, teaming, screaming, bundled up life. And yet, I've been blogging less and writing more - in my head. Ideas running through, vibrant on the colorful stinky local bus, gigantic scoops of pot stirring ingredients, simmering on the stove that is my brain. Cook. Trace. Weave. My shoe box story, unedited. Rolling in a place of promise.