The fault in our society

Dear diary,

Yesterday I was in town and I decided to see a friend I hadn't seen in a long time. This friend owns a small shop where he sell movies. When I arrived at his shop I found him with another female friend. As usual he tried to convince me to buy movies that he thought would appeal to me. One of his first suggestions was a series titled “Be careful with my heat”. I knew this TV program because I had seen it before, my friend Cecilia like to watch it every time she visits my house. This series is basically about a house maid who later fall in love with her boss. When my friend told me to buy it, I told him I did not like the story line. He told me, it was a good movie to watch though it was responsible for tearing apart many marriages since house maids are now working so hard to win their boss’s hearts. The other friend (the lady friend) then said “If a husband heart is stolen by a house maid it’s usually the wife’s fault because she allowed her maid to do too much for her husband”

Now, am sure you are wondering what she meant by “too much”. Well her definition of too much is allowing your maid to cook for your husband, set a table for him, clean your room, make your bed, wash his clothes and any other duty that will make a woman seen as a responsible wife. Many Africans, will agree with her, they will say those are wife’s duties just because they have been done by wives for decades. But my question is, if these duties that make women responsible wives, in the world where both husband and wife participate in earning financial stability for their family what are the men’s duties as responsible husbands?? A thousand years ago it made sense to have wife and husbands specific roles, men would go hunting and bring home food while women would stay home and do all other chores. But in the 21^st century why do women have to help men in provide for the family and men won’t help women with their chores?

Even though I never really said anything to her, I was hurt by how she thinks. Not because she thought those were her responsibilities as a woman but because she, like many other African women make excuses for men’s cheating behavior. In other words, they think is okay for a man to cheat as long as his wife is not doing her wifely duties.

I have come across a lot of woman who make excuses for their husbands bad behaviors  some even went as far as saying men are like children and I will not understand it until when am married. What I don’t understand is why any woman would choose to be married by a grown up child instead of a grown up man. I do not understand why any woman would make an excuse for her husband bad behavior  flatter their fascinating graces, view them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood unable to do anything for themselves instead of treating him like rational creatures and the head of the house they claim to be.

One of my colleagues once told me it will be difficult for me to find a husband if I keep thinking this way. But if all people are born free, why is it all African women are born slaves to men? Why do African women have to shape their behaviors,  their way of thinking and everything around them to suits the needs of men? Why do we have to excuse men’s behavior or even being blamed for our husbands/ partners bad behaviors?  Why is it okay for men to be involve in casual sex with different kinds of woman and be liked or admired for it while the women whom he slept with are seen loose, prostitutes, irresponsible and unworthy?? Why does a man have to be ashamed of honoring their vows and their wives be blamed for not making them faithful? Why do our boyfriends/husbands cheat on us and the society blame us because we never gave them enough or we gave them too much??

Dear diary, people will say am a feminist, but why won’t anyone in his/her right state of mind be if you live in a society where a raped woman is blamed for her own misfortune? In a society where a woman being raped is the result of her misbehavior or bad dressing code?? Why can't we all call a spade a spade and punish those who did the injustice? If am man look at a woman and become caught up in her beauty and assent to sin, is a woman to be blamed or the beauty given to her by God be disparaged?? Why can’t we punish men for their despicable behavior of raping or cheating or better yet failure to control their gaze?? Why are men treated as if they these fragile creatures who have no self control and cannot reason when it comes to sex?

If you ask me, I will tell you we have been sleeping for too long and its time to wake up. It is foolishness to keep making excuses for men’s bad behaviors  to blame ourselves for their failure. It will be foolish to pretend we are equal to men while we treat them like children. It is time to take back the power we have given men over us. It is time to affect a revolution in female manners and make no excuse for their behavior  It is time to separate the unchangeable morals from local manners. It is time we decide their opinion on us will no longer define who we are.

I know this might seem difficult of even impossible but if we all change the way we think today and start with our children, if we start to praise our boys for their virginity the same way we praise our girls, if we start teaching young boys to cook and do other house chores the same way we do to our girls, if we do not make any excuse for their failure to control their sexual desires, if we teach our boys how to respect and care for their wives the same why we teach our girls before they are married, if we teach them to love the girl who stepped outside a very narrow lane that good girls are supposed to stay within, then we can make a difference for our future generations.

Cheers!!

I will marry in future

Dear diary,

Recently married people have started to get to my nerves, I don’t know why but suddenly they are so interested in my love life, for some reasons they cannot stop bothering me with a question as to when I will get married and to whom. Sometimes it sound like being unmarried woman is something I should be ashamed of yet am still in my twenties. I am beginning to think those who are dismissive of my singleness are those who have settled, those who got married because that was what was expected of them and they don’t seem to understand is that am the kind of person who would rather get my hopes really high and watch them get crushed into little pieces than wisely keep my expectations at bay and hope they are exceeded.

I don’t know why, but people have forgotten that the point of getting married is not just to have a ring on it but to spend the rest of your life with someone who makes you want to be a better person.  Yeah I know no relationship is perfect but who wants to be married to a person who makes you have dutiful sex, who settles for a football over a picnic with you , who believe in a husbandly capitulation... yes baby, okay honey, I love you honey but does not mean any of it. He just does it because he wants to pretend your marriage is working but really how long can that go on before both of you are so tired?? Do people even stop to think how much effort will be required to sustain the feeling between two people who don't really have a chemistry together but they have to get married because they are pregnant or what ever excuse they have?

We all want different things, and I know I have a right not to settle because this life is so difficult at it is why would anyone want to be with someone looking forward to a life of hardship and routines for the next 50 years just because you married that nice good-looking-rich-perfect on paper man who make you feel like a stranger in your own house trying so hard to keep it together before he runs our and screw another woman. And before you know it you start saying you wish you waited a little bit longer before you got into the whole marriage and family life.

May be am over thinking all this. But really what is it with the whole marriage thing that everyone who is not in it wants to get to it and everyone who is in it wants to get out of it? I think most people would not get married if they could see the future of their marriages. Many marriages falls apart sooner than anyone expects, not what we can see on the outside but what is really happening behind closed doors. Sometimes it scares me to think how many people would smile, hug or even kiss in public yet when they are home they cannot bear to hear the sound of each other, it is sad you when you are married to the person you can’t really talk to about anything and more sad if you are married to the person you can be quiet with, and all you do is argue.. I think of those couples who make babies out of their loneliness and boredom and it saddens me. Those couples who would see themselves growing further apart each day than they ever imagined when courting, and before they know it they begin to ask themselves, when did everything go wrong, but the real question is when was it ever right??

Dear diary, don’t get me wrong, am not saying marriage is a bad thing nor do I say I will not get married someday for I too know happiness is only real when it is shared with another person that means the world to you. But until I find that person I am willing to take may time and continue to explore the world I live in. I wouldn't want to join so many people who live in unhappy marriages and will not take initiative to change their situation because they feel trapped in their own lives.

I think I am one of those people who are looking for something more than just a ring on it and a bunch of babies to take care of. I am aiming high as I wait for my right wrong person, I know for sure he will not be perfect but what really matters to be is if he want to evolve and become a better version of himself, if he will love me and will respect and honor me, if he will absolutely be true to me give me my freedom of expression and let me fly in the development of my own talents. If he will not try too hard to be someone he is not just to impress me. If he will not over think every little thing I say just to make sure he proves me wrong at the end of the day. When I find that person I will know for sure the rest of my life has arrived. But until then I will enjoy my life as it is.

Cheers!!!

A letter to my 18 year old self

Dear 18 year self,

I am still trying to find the right words to appeal to you, to find a connection to you. A decade is yet to lapse and yet so many things have happened; so much has changed that I find it hard to recognize you. If you saw me today you probably won’t like me but may be, you would be proud of me.

First of all I want you to know I don’t hate you, you are a part of me, you are the reason I am who I am today. I have no regrets whatsoever for anything that happened up to the point I sat down to write this letter. You are a young brave woman who is torn between her past and her future, the confusion you are going through, the pain of not being able to let the world know, the pressure building up in you day after day is just temporary. Some day, it will be just a story, one that you can use to encourage others.

I know you swore to yourself that your 18^th birthday will be your turning point; a time you will start a new chapter in your life and leave behind the old notorious you. You want to be what everybody thinks you are; in your own way you think it will make you a better person. May be it will transform you to the better. But what you don’t realize is you were not born to be like everyone else, you were born to stand out of the crowd and I wish you didn't try to fit in. My dear, life is too short to waste any amount of time wondering what other people think of you. What is important is not others opinion of you but your opinion to yourself.

I hate to see you wet your pillows with tears every night. I hate the pain you keep inside yourself. You have to find a way to let it out or it will destroy you. I know you have hit several rough patches in your life, we all do and this will not be the last, that is why you have to find a way get it out of your system. If you must know Pain is a part of human life and cannot be escaped. At times it will get worse and you will feel as though someone has stabbed your fresh wound over and over again, something I wish you could do without in your life. Well, the trick is to keep living one day at a time and eventually it gets pushed into the background of your life. And then one day you know you are okay, yeah may be it will still hurt but you will realize the details of the horrible past have begun to fade away.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your mind. You really have no idea how powerful and creative you can be. I don’t know why you admire people who are so inferior to you. You have a lot better and you could do so much more than what you think you have. I want you to find your own voice, to be what you really want to be. I want you to be the best you could ever be, because the longer you wait to begin the less likely you are to find it all and enjoy it. When you find your path, you should not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes. Disappointments, defeat and despairs will come, but they are tools God uses to show us the way. Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone’s life, don’t let the noise of others drown out your inner voice; always have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

Freedom; it is something you have been hoping to feel when you are 18. Do you feel it?? No you don't! To tell you the truth, you don't feel it  because you still don’t know what freedom is. My dear, freedom is not found in money like many people think, freedom is not in a piece of paper, it is not in the liberty to express your opinions or thoughts or believes like your civics teacher had taught you. Freedom is not even outside our prisons. Freedom begins with the decision to be what you really are. True freedom is found in righteousness. Until you understand this you will not know what freedom is. 

Love; I know you keep saying you can’t love a person and probably you will marry just because it is what the society expects of you. But do you know what I think?? I think you are scared of giving your heart to someone because you are scared of being hurt. Here is what I tell you, Expose yourself to your deepest fear, after that, fear has no power over you anymore and you are free. You will be cheated on, lied to and betrayed by those you love the most. Broken hearts are inevitable in the path to love and the only way of avoiding them is by deciding not to love at all. But it also means you will miss the joy of loving and being loved. It is like removing your own eyes not to see bad things that happen in this life.  When you find your prince you will be glad you endured all the pain to get to him, you will be capable of learning everything and knowing things you had never dared to even think because love is the key to understand all the mysteries.

In all this don’t expect anyone else to support you but yourself. All these people around you might be willing to support you but you never really know when either of them might run out. Trust me; you don’t need anyone else to bring a new kind of life light in your life. It is simply waiting out there for you to discover and make the best out of it. All you have to do is make a decision to be true to yourself. The only person fighting you at this moment is your stubbornness to engage in new circumstances.

Last but not least, memories are dangerous. They will pull you back to your past every time you try to escape it, and every time they will weigh heavier. Each day they will drag you down a little bit further. Find a way to make good memories and you won’t have to deal with the bad ones. Be careful with those who advice you but be patient with those who supply it.

By the way, do not miss use your beauty, not that you will understand but beauty is power, the same way money is, the same way a gun is. 20 years from now you will look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibilities laid before you, how fabulous you were but it will be too late.

Love you

me

P.S Don’t you worry about the future after all the real problems you will face are part of the things that never crossed your worried mind.

An Angel Came Along……………….

Some men scour the depths of the world to find that very person that gives them purpose to live, a shoulder so big and soft to lean on. I don’t know about you and quite frankly I disregard your opinions pronto. The 20 something years I have been in existence has taught me more than what I could have anticipated in another life. A few years back, if you told me that there were angels in human form I would be the first to scoff at your ignorance and seemingly blurred way of thinking. Don’t get me wrong, am not about to increase your levels of disdain for me by insisting that there are some humans who are actually angels. On the contrary, I wish to take you to a different line of thought; one skewed towards a once in a lifetime experience as opposed to the largely held views of the masses.

I had an accidental and chance meeting with an angel in the form of a human being; a woman of character, intelligence, poise, beautiful heart and above all, the most amazing woman I have ever crossed path with. Don’t get me wrong, I would repeat the same words even if a gun were pointed on my head. I don’t know at what point or instance I became this lucky. All I know is that every aspect of my life changed the moment she walked through the doors of my life. Something clicked in me, I was reborn anew, I felt happiness first hand and the very meaning of true friendship had a new definition in my life. I have always believed in the mantra that things happen for a reason; that nothing in this world happens in a vacuum. 

I don’t know why it had to be now, or why it had to be yesterday or whether I have to constantly live with my life long held fears. What I know beyond any reasonable doubt is that I have had a chance to taste true happiness, to spend time with someone who is simply out of this world, a beautiful heart, an amazing companion, the very definition of true happiness. To some, this might just be someone drunk with love talking. They don’t fathom how a person could be so brutally honest about a mere mortal. To them, these are signs of a sycophant of love, the very antithesis of reason.

To me, someone I am easy to be with, someone I don’t have to live a lie with, someone I can tell anything without having to think of the proper way of doing it, someone I can be someone more like myself with is my ultimate companion. I have been through some really difficult moments, moments that defy logic, moments that make ordinary mortals desert you and pass a death sentence on you. I have been at the lowest, I have wanted to give up many a times, I have been distant but she has always been there despite all my faults, my fears, my hallucinations and sometimes utter stupidity. She has exhibited the kind of love you don’t find in mere mortals, the kind of support you read in fictional books, and the kind of encouragement you only find in scriptures. She has literary gone beyond expectation and defied every reasonable thing I have ever held. 

I dare say again she is an angel: not because of her looks, her adorable smile or her infectious smile. She is an angel because her very existence personifies something out of the ordinary, something amazing and beautiful, something worth everything, something you don’t get every day. Yonas is her name-a great woman.

The untold story....

Dear diary,

For a very long time in my life I used to be this lonely person. With a good smile on my face I could deceive everyone around me that I was happy and okay but in reality, it I wasn’t even close to knowing what real happiness looked like. While my friends would talk everything through, analyze or even hypothesize, I knew deep in me that my life was not like their lives. I was different, lonely and a part of me that had nothing to do with the physical appearance was already dead. I remember there were days that I would get up, shower and get on with my life as if everything was okay but there were also days when I would like awake in bed wondering what was the point of me getting out of bed and pretend to be like everyone else.

With time I developed a hobby, every night I would sit on my bed, write a letter to Jesus, telling him everything about my life and how I feel. Most times I would write them with tears streaming down my face because it was the kind of loneliness that ate me up from the inside. Let no one lie to you, It is an awful thing to be battling with yourself because you feel you can’t not talk about it. Deep down you know you can never win the battle yet you fight it day after day and it wears you down and even if you try to ignore it the energy it takes to ignore it exhausts you. At the end of every letter I would say a prayer and burn it. I don’t know if Jesus ever received any of my letters but what I do know is it did help me feel better.

They say life is what you make of it but I think life is what you face. I remember how I used to hold on to my depression and loneliness because I was so scared that the worst part of me could actually be the whole of me, until one day he came along. I had never thought of myself as anything but plain, ordinary and sometimes a dead walking person until he came along. The way he looked at me, he pulled something out of me that I never knew existed. When I wanted to hide he would urge me forward, when I thought I wasn’t good enough he made me believe I was and every time I felt I was anything but pretty he would convince me that I am beautiful. Being around him made me feel special in a way I cannot explain. These are some of the good memories in my life that I would want to hold on forever though with them comes the pain of Knowing all that was done yesterday.

Today am here alone and lonely like a ghost, it feels like am in the worst place that I was before he came to my life... am like a girl who is lost in space and all the effort she makes to connect to the earth she once lived and enjoy end up in vain. I am like the girl that you see in a photograph with a big smile who will soon be gone and erased from the history of this world like a traitor in the Soviet Union. It’s funny how he is the one broken yet I am the one who needs saving. Sometimes it feels like this will never end, it feels like the world would never stop crushing me until there is nothing left of me.

Dear diary, I wonder if anyone around me can tell just from looking at me that am the sum total of my pain that the wound in me is so raw and extreme that it might be terminal. I wonder if they can tell how lost I am without him, how soulless I have become, how I have become like a drifter without a home, a solitary bird in a flight to nowhere, how I long for him to show me how to live again. I am all these things and am nothing at all. There are times when I feel like I cannot maintain the facade any longer that I may start to show through and I wish he would just tell me nothing has changed.

You know, the worst part of loving someone is that there will always be things you can’t protect them from. You finally realise there is something worse than dying and its having something happening to them because It does not matter how much or how closely you keep your eye on things because there will always be things that you cannot control. The people you love can go missing right before your very eyes and there is nothing you can do about it. But again this does not mean one should not try to fight for his/ her happiness?  If everyone who thought they might fail didn’t try where would we be today??

I think about him and everything we have shared every hour of everyday, part of me is scared that there will come a day when he does not feel the same way. When he has somehow forgotten what we have shared and dreamed of together....

3 Lessons Employers Can Learn From Game Of Thrones

Post by +Jackie Kalyonge

Let me start by saying that if you haven’t watched this epic show or haven’t watched the latest episodes then you shouldn’t read this; it contains spoilers.

I must say that I am a huge fan of Game of Thrones mostly because the plot has plenty of romance, sex, backstabbing, sworn and broken allegiances, rumor mongering and whispers. The recently ended season had a twist of events; some we wished for, others were unexpected while others were just heartbreaking. But as I reflect back on it, I realized that the regal warriors and warlocks in this captivating TV series could actually teach employers a thing or two lessons about being a good employer. The series draws clear lines between democracy and dictatorship and manipulation and influence.

1. Being A Bully Gets You Nowhere

Ever met that employer who thinks his position of power gives him the right to demand his employees to do whatever he wants? He loves controlling his employees by using fear. His employees are forever walking on eggshells around him; you never know when you might tick him off and what the consequences will be.
In Game of Thrones, there was a character that we all loved to despise; Joffrey Baratheon. Frankly, I wished the little retard a slow painful death. He was a bully and would have done everything to make sure that anyone who crossed him suffered greatly.
He rarely listened to anyone including his own mother. He was a very ineffective leader and as such was despised by everyone. His irrationality made him start a war that he couldn’t end. With his cruelty, it’s a miracle he made it to the fourth season-but then, someone who couldn’t stand his sadistic ways poisoned him.
So what can we learn from Joffrey Baratheon? First, being a bully gets you nowhere. Your employees will only tolerate working for you because they need the money but once they find something better, even if it pays much less, they will bolt.
Second, being a bully makes you less of a team player. Your coerciveness will only doom your organization to failure. And do not be surprised if one of your employees takes you down with them on their way out the door.

2. Being An Inspiration Increases Productivity

So you may not be good at accounting and you’re not very good at writing your own speeches but nobody cares because you know your strengths. A good employer uses his strengths (and other people’s as well) to steer the organization in the right direction. He knows his weaknesses but he does not let them deter him from achieving the organization’s goals.
Tyrion Lannister portrays the characteristics of an inspiring employer very well. Despite the fact that he is a dwarf, he uses his sense of humor and charm to win over the ladies and to wiggle his way through dangerous situations. Despite his petite form, he has proven that he can still have a huge impact.
For instance, he led his men in the Battle of Blackwater while the King, Joffrey Baratheon, ran to hide with the women. He inspires the men with his words knowing full well that his small stature would present him with a serious disadvantage in battle.
Tyrion Lannister teaches us that employees will naturally put their best foot forward and become more productive when an employer makes them feel like they belong in the organization and they serve a purpose. Employers who focus on their strengths rather than compensate for their weaknesses lead more effectively.

3. Democracy May Earn You Respect

A democratic employer does things that benefit not only for the organization but also the employees. They step up and do what needs to be done. They know that acquiring the title of CEO is not enough; they need to earn the respect and loyalty of their employees.
Daenerys Targaryen portrays the democratic employer very well. She has earned her reputation as the Breaker of Chains. She frees slaves from their masters and urges them to follow and fight for her not by force but out of free will.
So there you have it, the three lessons an employer can learn from Game of Thrones. As an employer, do you have any of the above three traits? Do you agree with my list or just like Jon Snow, “I know nothing?” I’d love to know what other lessons you think employers can learn from the show by commenting below.

I weep for the future generations of my country...

Dear diary,

It is heart breaking, the fact that most Tanzanians cannot reach the international literacy average. Yet year after year our education slips down the list of important matters to be addressed head on. For a long time now I have tried to look back trying to pin point the exact moment when our education system started to fall apart. When it did become a cancer that is threatening the future of our nation and no one cares to find the cure for it. I am not sure when, but what breaks my heart even more is the fact that our leaders would rather sit in the parliament coming up with theories rather than action plans to change the situation

 Perhaps it’s a just “math” and other science subjects that most Tanzanians have never been good at. Perhaps it is the teaching language in our schools or maybe it is the syllabus we use. These are just some of the many opinions our leaders use as an excuse as to why students performances is becoming poor and poor. What no one seems to notice is; low performance is not limited to science subjects nor is it limited to secondary schools where the media for communication is English. As hard as it might be for anyone to believe; there are pupils who finish primary school and pass their national exams without knowing how to write or read. The question is.... how did they do the exam and pass?? Apologists will never get tired of finding excuses as to why this and that happened, but what they don’t seem to get it the “why” is not as important as “how and what” can be done to improve the situation.

Those who went to school on the 1990s or even before that would agree with me, education used to be important back then, teachers used to be more committed to educate students than doing businesses to sustain their families, schools used to be places where one will gain more knowledge on development, growth or new invention. But now days the education is more about cramming and passing exams. Everyone seems to forget education is not about passing exams but what you remain with after you have graduated. Our government is bent on making exams even easier for students to pass instead of improving the education system and methods. It is more determined in producing graduates who have big certificates but  little brains...

Dear diary, I weep for the future generations of this great nation, the generation that the government would opt to remark national exams to improve the results (does it even make sense? I mean how do you remark the exam to improve the results? Put a tick where there was a cross before?).  I weep for those children of ours who will be taught in Swahili from primary school to higher learning institutions, our poor government is limiting their employment opportunities to a country that is already flooded with unemployment... oooh what is even worse is their second option ; teaching everything in English form primary school to higher learning institutions, using teachers who cannot express themselves in English, the teachers for never passed form four National Exams because English language was too difficult for them to build the foundation of language.

I weep for those children who go to school to use a book that says 2x5= 25 and the teacher are too busy to notice since they are busy selling candies to students so that they can get food for their families. I weep for  more than half of all Tanzania children the will be chosen to join ward secondary school because these schools have no teachers, no classes, no laboratories, no libraries and yet they are expected to compete in the competitive economy of East Africa. They are expected to be the leaders who will take this nation to the next level.

Can’t anyone else see that the principle reason for decline and fall of our education is ignorance?  Our education is ignored; we have built more schools but we have fewer classrooms and no teachers. No laboratories and no libraries, yet the government will help to improve science education by giving full sponsorship (in higher learning Institutions) to science students. The question that I keep asking myself is, if a house has a really poor foundation can you improve it by roofing it with the most expensive roof?? And By the way who are these science students that will be sponsored, are they children from the poor family who never knew what a chemistry teacher look like or are they the children of the wealthy part of the country who went to study abroad and came back to sit for national exams??

Can’t anyone see the few teachers we have in these school are ignored to the fullest?? They are the only people who can change the future of this nation yet they have no salaries, no houses to live or even means of transport to get to work? Can’t anyone see that one teacher cannot teach a class of 200 students and make each and every one of them understand what he/she is teaching?

The more I listen to our leaders the more I weep for the future generations; all suggestions to improve education are based on selfishness, little thought for the future of children of the poor. I fear for the future of this nation, a nation that was once united being torn apart between the haves and the have nots because of our education system. The haves will send their children to expensive private schools( almost all our leaders already do this), to get the first grade education while the others will be stack in ward secondary school where there is basically nothing to learn for more than half the time you are in school. The children of the rich will come back; rule the millions of other young people who are alienated and with no hope of improving their children’s future.  

I see two societies, living side by side, in the same country, one preying over the other with no mercy. I see the foreigners coming to our countries taking all the good jobs in our own country while majority of us remain unemployed due to poor qualification. I see limited thinking, low exposure and poor decision making that might put this nation in a great danger....... I see the beginning of the end.