My country

Is my country cursed? Helpless, people wade in the waters of the rain, children hung loosely over their heads. Their hope of travel, the rooftops of beaten buses and who’s to say these too won’t tiresomely succumb to the fatigue of the nation? Like the flooding year that passed, we drown deeper into the abyss of no return, of utter destruction that would take years to rebuild. And as the aid pulls into the realm of our catastrophe, we pile on our debt only to see a fraction of the aid we were in reality sent.

I do think my country is cursed. For now, the dengue feasts on the stagnant rain waters. It breeds and grows its bullish army and then unexpectedly forces its way into the blood of people. There is no stopping a pest of nature; it is a wrath that we can simply stand and watch.

The country has got to be cursed. The way we beg and plead for electricity, there is no denying that we have a system as warped as a hyenas laughter. Homes go for days without the flicker of a light-bulb, load-shedding they say. Upon which a few lucky ones invest in the generator and the many unlucky ones end up rioting, kicking up dust at the lucky ones.

There is no doubt that my country is cursed. Out of all nations it had to be mine that wore the terrorist’s badge. We proudly supported a super nation that turned around to hand us one tight slap. Taking into our fold some truly messed up folk, we gave them home, we gave them bread and we all soon became the khan’s that got held at airports.

Do you believe our country is cursed? We can’t even play a decent game. Drugged and devious, the men representing our country walk on to the field, bats in hand and gaalis on their tongues. The rest of the country sits in the crowd all ready to cheer, soon to find those heroes on the field sold us out. So the cheer that was starting out from within our bellies comes out in the form of an angry broil.

Don’t think it’s cursed? Let’s talk about the random shootings, lootings and vandalism amongst our own. Illiteracy looms and pair that with savage hearts, we have the stage set for some rasping crime. They do not know better, they perhaps have no choice but how does crime fit in the nation’s already perfectly disrupted state of affairs?

We are a country that remains cursed. We struggle to educate people when they don’t want to be educated. We struggle to vote for better men when our votes are disregarded. We struggle to introduce a better way of life when all they want to do is burn the buildings down.

Wanting to progress, we fall back by years. Calamity after calamity, crookedness after crookedness; we seem to be content with the struggle and life of mediocrity.

Fifty cookies just for me

She made me cookies! A full box of those gooey, chocolate chippy yums that tend to melt in your mouth so that, for a good few moments, you are unable to part your lips with the fear that some chocolate will dribble out. And God forbid it does dribble out, what a waste of such perfection.

So how did those cookies come to be? Not very easily I must say. My soul-mate aunt, and the name gives it away as to what effect she has on me, was finally flying down to see us all. It being open-house at hers the day before her travel, she had batches of cookies in and out of the oven. There was one box of dough though, that she had kept away with the beautiful and generous intention of baking them for me. After the evening was over and the guests had all left to their respective destinations, soul-mate aunt baked that last batch of cookies. Heard there were about thirty of them that she finally packed up in a cookie tin before she shut eye for the night.

That would have been the box of cookies I received, you would think. But here’s where there was a twist in the story. Throw in her tweenage son, our other tweenage cousin who also happens to be of the male gender and with the two of them put together, a big fat charge of appetite. In the middle of the night when all things evil rise, the two little devils snuck into the kitchen to devour my box of cookies!

Come morning, bright and early, ready to head to the airport in an hour, soul-mate aunt heads for the kitchen to carry the box of cookies she thought she had so proudly managed to save for me. Little did she know of the rats sneaking about her kitchen not too long after her head hit the pillow. Box in hand; she alarmingly realized it felt rather light. Open to see, five cookies apologetically staring back up at her!

A fuming soul-mate aunt and just an hour before they’re all off to the airport, she held the side of her kitchen counter, taking a moment to think of what it is that she should do. Any one of these could have been the answer to her troubles right then – tell her niece that she couldn’t bring her cookies this time, buy some cookies from the bakery on the way to the airport, say she tried and tried but the cookies just wouldn’t turn out right. But may I say, this is soul-mate aunt we’re talking about and with the heart and soul that she is made up of, baking up a fresh batch of cookies from scratch was the only answer out.

That’s right. That’s exactly what she was going to do. So, rolling up her sleeves as though going in for battle, she finally said, ‘now, let’s start with butter.’

Candlelight

Candlelight got me warm and fuzzy
It's shadow a similar tune

That flicker of light in the dark of night

A sudden calm that became of me

While tomorrow is another day in the making

On this night I drifted to some years ago

The sound of mum in the kitchen

Dad turning up Jim Reeves

My brother, a constant pest of a funny man

My sister, a sweet, little pumpkin pie

Those years are like the flame that twitched

Memories that danced away their feet

I sat there by the candlelight

A sudden calm the became of me