I am because you are.

"I am because you are” is the core belief of many of the continent’s peoples.
“I am because you are” is the foundation of most African culture, affecting everything from the healing arts and family life to politics. It is at the heart of a number of lessons that can be learnt from Africa.

Lately I've been wondering when the next 'WOW! person' would enter my life and alter my ideas and approach. I met him tonight. Kumi Naidoo

I attended the Oxfam reception at the Scottish Parliament and was pleasantly surprised by the difference in Scottish compared to African Ministers of Parliament. A few of the MSPs were there wearing jeans and t-shirts, no bodyguards etc ... though there were the obligatory jokes about not standing underneath the beams and so on. The head of Oxfam gave the first speech, Jack McConnell the second and Kumi Naidoo the last and most inspiring.

A fact which has stuck in my head is that there are more qualified Malawian doctors practising in the city of Manchester alone than in the whole of Malawi!

Afterwards I chatted to Kumi and asked him 'who is he?'. He told me if I wanted to do something meaningful for my country then leave the hobnobbing to the hobnobbers and rather find ways to educate the masses, eg teach someone to read, it's one of the most important gifts you can give. However (a word he's well known for using), he reminded me that this type of work is not a sprint but it is a marathon.

Recently I have been very unhappy in my work. I met another person this evening who's a qualified social worker and immediately after I told him my occupation he launched into a rant about how social care companies never take care of their employees thus he will not work for them anymore. I had to agree. Besides that, the parts that I struggle with the most in this industry are the health and safety laws imposed by the Care Commission. They take 98% of the humanity out of the work we try to do and they replace it with paperwork, which 'keeps you safe' in the system. I don't do this type of work to be safe. If there was more common sense rather than fingerpointing I'm sure it would have a much larger impact than it does at present.

However .....

I came across a news article on iafrica about a psychiatric asylum in DRC and these are a few of the photos that were taken there.

Grrrrrrrrrr. It reminds me that rules and standards are very necessary in our crazy world. I dream of happy mediums!

Question-aire

Do you have a soul mate?

Does everyone?

Does anyone?

Do they even exist?

Is there someone out there who just understands you? Do we all have somebody out there who can understand us?

Is it just a matter of somehow finding them?

Did you ever know anyone for a long time but not know them very well just because you never bothered, and then one day discover they're someone completely different from who you thought they were?

Did you ever look at someone for years as if they were a flat white piece of blank paper and then suddenly realize that they weren't plain white paper at all but rather a multitude of color and music and sound and eloquence, more like a novel or a film?

Did you ever look at someone and suddenly see them change from a simple black dot to an entire world or a field of stars and wonder how you never saw it in the first place?

Did the world ever change right in front of your eyes?

Did you ever...

and then realize it might not matter anyway?

Because the world doesn't worry about your revelations or your epiphanies or your soul.

It doesn't worry whether anyone understands you.

It just dares you to survive.

But can you survive if all there ever is to relate to is a plain blank white sheet of paper?

Something that fascinates me is how difficult it is to stop questioning and just 'listen'. I dare you to forget your own thoughts for a little while and listen to everyone and everything around you. Not an easy task ....

It's a load of politics!

Meaning of Bureaucracy .... (noun) the dumbest, stupidest, most idiotic system man has ever invented!

I am awaiting the Big Bang in my life. Each morning I hope the postman is going to deliver my visa application back to me and hopefully my passport will have a visa stamp in it. I am hopeful but am only human, thus my mind is buzzing with 'what if's'.

The Home Office's helpline rudely gave me four different answers to the same question I asked, 'What application form should I use?'. Finally on the fifth attempt I spoke to someone who sounded like he knew what he was talking about. But just to be sure I called back and confirmed what he'd said. Fingers crossed. I was sent a letter from them saying they'd received my application and I could check processing times on http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/ Well if you can find the waiting times page on that website in less than half an hour I'll give you a lollipop!
So I have my fingers, toes, arms and legs crossed that they'll process my application in less half a year and I'll be able to head back to Africa as already planned.

On the up side!!!! ACTSA has suggested a project for me to sink my angry teeth into. 'Africans in Scotland'. There are many of them - last night I sat in a room with 15 or 20 of them, mostly educated with PhDs in international trade law, HIV orphans, one is an inspirational author from Rwanda, and so on. The head of Oxfam Scotland was also present to give our group a bit of guidance, and she's invited us along to an Oxfam reception at the Scottish Parliament this coming week. Anyways, back to the point, they want me to take portrait photos of Africans living in Scotland and tell their story .. where they came from, why they left, what their ideas and hopes for their countries are, etc. The second half of this will be to visit projects in Africa that are receiving Scottish funding and get some photographic evidence of the good work that is going on. Hopefully after that we will be able to exhibit the photos at fundrasing events and show the more positive side of a continent that gets so much (deserved or undeserved) negative media.

Clouds are nature's free art show

Confessions from 'us'.

Life is just like seasons. Sometimes happiness is bountiful just like spring, other times it's hard and dreary, and often (like if you live in Scotland) you will get all four season in one day.

So the continuing saga of my 'Zimbabwean' life ....

There are 2 of 'me'. The 'Zimbabwean me' who's carefree, has fire in her eyes, likes to be extremely sociable and will do anything for fun. And the 'Edinburgh me' who prefers to be by myself, is more serious, very thoughtful and philosophical. Geographically they are quite different lives. Whilst living in Edinburgh I keep in contact with family and friends from home but don't see any of them regularly. I work in a different field to when I was in Zimbabwe, I try avoid too much news from the country as it makes me very angry, the weather is different, so is the lifestyle, I say 'wee' and 'I didnae ken' (but never 'aye' - that's just too Scottish!) blah di blah di blah. If in Zimbabwe any Scottish friends of mine would complain about the heat and hide in the fridge, I certainly would not be working as hard as I do here and, in comparison, life would be twenty times slower.

Along with my beliefs in life, you're given what you get so make the most of it. Live it. Love it. Believe in it. So the past few years of my Edinburgh life has been fun, exciting, adventurous, busy, new and foreign. But my Zimbabwean life has been heart-breaking, lonesome, scarey, unsettled, helpless and disconnected.

Now that the majority of my family and friends are out of Zimbabwe I can enjoy a sigh of relief. Well until a few weeks ago I was doing precisely that, then everything went grey. Things that I enjoy didn't hold their normal appeal, I lost my motivation and making any decisions is just too damn difficult. Luckily Edinburgh-me ran to the rescue and is keeping both of us going (don't worry, I haven't become a schizophrenic. Yes, I always have been a bit mad). I saw my Doctor and she signed me off work for a week and referred me to see a psychologist. So then I saw Miss Psychologist, who is the slowest speaker I've ever met though it did have a calming effect, and she diagnosed me (the Zimbabwean me) with post traumatic stress. Wow!

This is her explanation of that diagnosis ...

Why do we react so strongly to trauma? There are many reasons why trauma leaves such a stronge impact on us emotionally.

It often shatters the basic beliefs we have about life: that life is fairly safe and secure, that life for us has a particualar form, meaning and purpose. It may be that the image that we have of ouselves is shattered, we may have responded differently in the crisis from how we expected or wanted to behave. It will usually be outside our normal range of experience and we are faced with not knowing what to do or how to behave. In the face of this danger our mind holds on to the memory of the trauma very stongly, probably as a natural form of self protection to ensure you never get into that situation again. The result of this is that you are left with the post traumatic stress reactions.

So this is grand news for me, it means I have relaxed enough to call it POST traumatic. It also means, along with a 7 week trip to Africa in April to June, the two of me can merge ... sanity at last, maybe.

This saying has usually irritated me “Life is not a journey to the grave with intentions of arriving safely in a pretty well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming ... WOW! What a ride!” A few years back I received it in a email along with photos of people out clubbing, getting drunk, going skydiving, taking drugs, etc. Now, personally, it makes more sense - with far more emotional depth!

....Wow! I love my life, and not only the bright side of it.

Great song! .... erm, is that what it feels like to drive an ambulance??

The footage for the promo is taken from "C'était un Rendezvous", a cult-classic short film made in Paris in 1976 by French filmmaker Claude Lelouch. This is the first time in it's 30 year history that Lelouch has granted permission to use the footage, though many have tried to acquire the rights to use this beautiful, hair-raising piece of film.

Soundtrack for the week