How to make Condoms Cool for men in Tanzania

In spite of the impressive economic and democratic gains Tanzania has made over the last 5 decades since independence, there still exist gaping holes in the issue of morality and sexuality. Sex education is yet to become main stream and debates concerning safe sex are discussed in hushed tones. In fact, its correct to say that condom use and safe sex talks are looked at upon as a taboo by the largely conservative natives whose views on sex education is more or less informed by a misrepresentation of facts. The scourge of HIV aids is real as the air we breathe and as such it is time that major emphasis is placed on safe sex and taking responsibility.

Though there have been massive campaigns on HIV aids awareness and the need to practice safe sex, little progress has been made towards making condoms seem cool and fashionable. The campaign has suffered a massive PR problem as much emphasis is placed on the dangers that come with non-use of condom rather than the underlying benefits that come with it. Practicing safe sex is not only a responsibility but also an obligation that each and every Tanzanian should embrace wholeheartedly. The truth of the matter is we all are victims of the HIV aids. We ether are infected or affected by the scourge and it’s about time we took the bull by the horns and address the issue head on.

Of course, stressing on abstinence seems to have hit a snag especially with hormone raging teenagers who are quick to throw caution to the wind and engage in unprotected sex at whim. With this in mind, there is a need for a massive campaign to encourage the youth and Tanzanian populace at large to embrace the use of condoms. Considering that condoms have been around for a long time, one might be wondering what new can condoms do to whip the Tanzanian citizenry into engaging in safe sex. The long held perception and belief that condoms hinder sexual satisfaction is nothing more than a fallacy that has been effectively propagated by ignorant men and women in the society.

Condom indeed can be made cool and effectively used towards fighting sexually transmitted diseases and ultimately the scourge of HIV aids. With this in mind, it has become instrumental for all stakeholders in Tanzania and beyond to ask themselves the one million dollar question; how can we make condom cool for men? What is it that can be done to make condoms cool and spark an interest in them for the male populace in Tanzania? Of course, making condoms cool for men requires a commitment, a different kind of thinking outside the box and a need to address the concerns of Tanzanian men as relates to condom use.

There is need to eliminate the perceptions and fallacious beliefs that talking about condom is a taboo. Considering that men hold an upper hand in many sexual relationships, it would be foolhardy to discuss about condom use without factoring them or looking at ways through which condoms can be made cool for men not only in Tanzania but also far and beyond the borders. How then do we make condoms cool for men? Below is an incisive and objective look at the various ways through which condoms can be made cool for men.

·        Using celebrities to advertise condoms

It’s common knowledge that majority of the youth look up to celebrities for inspiration. The youth love to be trendy, to spot the latest fashion attires and to imitate what celebrities do. Of course, no one wants to be outdated and there is no better way to make condoms cool than using popular celebrities in the local scene to advertise condoms. Celebrities such as Diamond Platinum or Joti who command a massive following among the youth would do a great job towards changing the perception on condoms. These celebrities can be effectively used to pass across the message that condom use and safe sex is the way to go. Given the fact that many youths idolize their celebrities and more often than not imitate what they do to the letter, condom advertising by various popular celebrities would surely go a long way towards making condom use by Tanzanian men cool.

·        Using the right message during condom advertisements

When setting the mood for sex, emphasis needs to be on pleasure rather than the morbid fear for diseases or pregnancies. Condom advertisement needs to adopt pleasure as a focal point rather than approaching condom advertisement as a reactive measure. Condom advertising should be proactive and be effective in encouraging most Tanzanian men to see condom as cool and inadvertently buy condoms. A majority of the Tanzanian men look at sex as a pleasurable activity and as such the emphasis should be on pleasure rather than on the need to prevent diseases or unwanted pregnancies.

With this in mind, condom advertising should put greater emphasis on sensuality and the benefits that come with condom use. For instance, the advertisement should focus more on how condoms can be effective in making a man last longer and by so doing ensuring that his partner is satisfied. Emphasis should be on the features of the condom that serve to make it cool and enjoyable rather than simply preventing pregnancies and other venereal diseases.

·        Design condoms of various flavors with enticing packaging

Condom fatigue is a real issue that afflicts most Tanzanian men. Having used the same kind of condoms over the past 4 decades, there is need to address the issue of condom fatigue by designing condoms of different flavors that appeal to Tanzanian men from different walks of life. Designing condoms of different flavors would surely go a long way towards making the act of sex enjoyable. It also provides a window through which men can try condoms of different flavors hence making the act of love making more pleasurable.

Condoms of different flavors and even colors will surely pique the curiosity of men who would want to try them out and find out what it is that they promise. Of course, the issue of appearance cannot be overlooked. An adage goes that men are visual creatures. As such, the packaging needs to be enticing in such a way that it would make a man want to buy it. The packaging, the wording and even the image on the condoms pack should appeal to a man’s innermost and wildest sexual fantasies. Proper efforts should be put towards creative designing and packaging and this will surely make condoms cool.

·        Manufacture of condoms with different sizes

It’s an open secret that many men shy away from using condoms because they rarely find the right size. This in many cases is frustrating especially when the condom is too tight/small or too big. Clearly indicating the size of the condoms on their packs will go a long way towards making them cool and spur them to buy condoms. As you already know, sex needs to be a pleasurable activity and as such the wrong condom size is a step towards the wrong direction. This inconvenience in terms of size makes many Tanzanian men view condoms in a negative way as something that reduces sexual pleasure. Designing condoms of different sizes and going a step further to indicate size would surely serve to make condoms cool for men. They will buy condoms based on their sizes and ultimately enjoy sex without any frustrations. The bottom line is; condom size does matter!

·        Condom test campaign

It’s essential to create a condom testing campaign that is fun and edgy for the condom users. The campaign should be focused on encouraging partners to try and test different kinds of condom and settle on one that will heighten their sexual experience with their partners. Such a campaign should stress on the need to use a condom that is comfortable, relaxing, and enjoyable and which makes the sexual experience with the partner exciting. The campaign should stress emphasis on the need for partners to test different kinds of condoms, flavors or even colors in an attempt to find the right kind of condom that would make the sexual experience pleasurable and a past time favorite activity.

·        Employing cool condom slogan

A condom slogan is indeed one of the most effective ways of making condoms cool. The condom slogan should be something that men can identify with and which is catchy and memorable. It goes without saying that most men cringe at the idea of buying condoms over the counter because of the stigma associated with the word “condom” in its literal sense. How about coming up with a slogan that will make the purchase of condoms easier for the ordinary Tanzanian man? A good, catchy and interesting slogan will make the buying of condom easier and even make discussions on condoms interesting and not awkward. The use of cool slogans such as “hakuna mechi bila jezi” or “usiseme condom sema jezi” would surely make it easier for men to buy condoms and look at condoms as cool.

Conclusion

To sum it up, the need for safe sex among the Tanzanian populace is something that cannot be overlooked. Considering that insisting on abstinence is more or less unsustainable, attention should shift on making condoms cool and much more acceptable to men across the divide. Emphasis should be on changing perceptions and creating a paradigm shift on what has largely been seen as a taboo subject over the years. Condom use should be seen as something interesting and part and parcel of a sexual act. This is the only sure way through which the scourge of HIV aids can be contained and further infections halted. It also provides a bright future where people are cognizant of the need for safe sex and living in a healthy society!

Born with a curse

Sadly, I cannot help but feel neglected by everyone in this planet. Until now, the only thing that has remained constant in Nyamangoro camp like all other camps with albinos is constant increase in number of people with albinism. It will be good, to say, finally, we are living in a community that accept us for who we are simply because we are all born with the same curse. But that, to say the least, does not make our lives any easier considering that all other perceptions and misplaced innuendos remain the same. Earlier this morning, the principal announced that the camp was intended as a temporal stay for 50 people. With the number skyrocketing to 300 people more than the intended number, occupants here have no idea of when they will be free to join their families again. We will have to share whatever is available amongst ourselves. In as much as I have no qualms whatsoever sharing, what I cant seem to comprehend is why we have to live like animals and be treated like second class citizens. It’s sad that we have to constantly deal with discrimination, nepotism, favoritism in a world that has largely embraced globalisation and civility.

The agony of being in this place is not that we do not have enough beds, mattresses, clothes or even food, it’s the psychological torture and the toxic shame planted in our minds since we were born that we are doomed and consigned to a life of misery for reasons beyond our control. Psychologists talk of codependency as good feelings of self validation that lie outside of ourselves and cannot be generated from within; but if you were born in a society where you were not accepted from day one, where do you find this happiness?? Sometimes, I wonder what we did so wrong that we had to be imprisoned in these camps let alone being hunted outside the walls of the camp. Those of us who have been here long enough have come to terms with the fact that seeing our family is something that probably would never happen. We have resigned ourselves to the fate dictated upon ourselves and have no option but hope for the best. The codependency happiness is something that we will never know. I was brought here by Aunt Sarah six years ago and since then; no one has come to visit or to know how I am doing. At times, it feels like they were relieved to know they finally got a place to dump me and at the same time keep their hands clean. I miss home, I miss my people and I wish they did the same.

Stories have to be told or they will die, that is what my grandmother used to say every day before she would tell me one of the oldest stories about how my great grandparents fought for their freedom. My name is Matatizo, I was born and raised in Nyamagana village, Mwanza region in Tanzania and this is my story. It is a story about life, about survival; it is a story about an ache in my heart for the imagined beauty of a life I haven’t had, a life that I had been locked out from simply because I was born different, it is a story about denied freedom in a country that claims to be an island of peace.

I am the first born in the family of… am not sure how many siblings I have now. I, like many other children with albinism, never knew my father. People in my village say I was born guilty of a curse that I have never understood. The only thing I know is my biological father hated me from the moment I popped out of my mother’s womb. He told my mother I was a curse that I was born this way because the gods were angry with her.  Because of that, my mother named me Matatizo which means problems. My father told her to poison me, but my mother said she could never bring herself to do so. So he left her when I was still an infant.

Growing up, I kept wondering what I did so wrong to be born with a curse. If there was a way to make things right, if there was any other way for me to be like the others, I could have embraced the opportunity with two hands. Even today, as a sixteen year old girl, I still wonder if that possibility exists through science. I must confess that should there be a slim chance, I would give anything to have color like other people because I know I can never be happy in this skin. I have spent years trying to accommodate myself but it gets harder as time goes by. I remember how lonely I would feel every time the kids in my village would refuse to play with me or run away from me because they thought I was a ghost. My mother would tell me they were too stupid to know how special I was. There are times when I believed her but there were also many other times when I was skeptical especially on seeing the skeptical look of disapproval from her fellow women. Deep down I formed the notion that she was just being my mother and as much as it was difficult for me it was also difficult for her.

Even though my mother was a very beautiful woman, she spent years trying to get a man in her life after my father left. It is a shame for a woman of her age to live without a man. Not that she never had any suitors; every man told her he could not live under the same roof with a cursed child. It was either them or me, and she kept choosing me over and over again. Then one day, she finally got her prince charming; a man who never cared if I was a curse or not (Or so he pretended). They never got married; they just moved in and started living together as husband and wife. I was happy; finally I had a dad like all the other children in my neighborhood. I subconsciously harbored of being showered fatherly love like all my peers.

They say if you never received love from the ones who are meant to love you, you will never stop looking for it. I never had a father and it was for the very first time I experienced fatherly love. My step father was a good pretender; he treated me like a princess. He bought me toys and taught me how to write and read. He was my light, a father figure I had so much yearned for. Little did I know that a shadow is never created in the darkness but it is born out of light. One day when I came from school, I found him home. My mother had gone to the market to buy groceries. He then called me to his room. Took off my clothes and told me since he loved me so much, he was going to teach me the horror of this life and make me a stronger person. I hate to relive the moments of that day. It was painful and I felt like I was going to die. He then told me what ever happened was to be our secret or else he was going to kick me out of his house.  I was young but I knew it was wrong and dirty.

All I ever wanted was to be loved for who I was, to be accepted because I never chose to be born as an albino but to him I was just a ghost who never felt pain anyway. I wanted so bad to keep his affection, it felt nice to know I had a father but somewhere along the lines my inside became too cold. I hated everything and despised him for I knew all his affections were not honest. My stomach coiled every time I heard his voice, it reminded me of his breathe beside my ears every time he called me to his room or forced me to it when I didn’t want to go in. I cringed with hate whenever I saw other children playing because I knew besides being cursed and a ghost I was also dirty and didn’t have anything in common with them. I was jealous of their freedom, of the fact that they could just be kids and don’t have to harbor secrets that get heavier every day.

Over time, I got desperate. All I felt was pain in my chest and my heart. It was as if I was already buried deep and no one could hear my cry for help. I wanted to tell someone, a friend may be but I had none. I thought of telling my teachers but they too wouldn’t understand. So I went to the only person that I thought would, my mother. But instead, she reacted by sending me away to my grandmother; accusing me of wanting to end her second marriage. I remember her painful words because they cut across my heart like a sharp knife. She told me, perhaps I was really cursed and she would be damned if she let me ruin her life again. I left, confused, full of regrets, lonely and desperate for something I knew I couldn’t have. Someone to hold me and tell me it was going to be okay. I went to my grandmother’s house wondering if I could ever change or stop the curse that has been eating me inside out.

My grandmother was blind, she never saw how my skin was so she never really cared if I was an albino or not. Sometimes I wish all people were blind. At least we would not treat each other differently just because one is born with a different skin color. Even though my grandmother never treated me different, the burden I was carrying from my mother’s house never stopped weighing me down. I could not understand why my step father physically abused me and I was the one to blame for it. The pain of these events was unbearable at other times and I would try to imprison my thoughts hoping to feel normal and clean someday.

I never told my grandmother of what had made me move from my mother’s house to her house. I wanted to forget but at the same time the “why me “questions would never stop nagging me. Why would a father do that to the daughter he claimed to love. Why did I have to be born with a curse? Why would any mother accuse her own daughter of such despicable thing? Too many questions ran through my mind but there was no one to answer. It is so much later I came to learn that my step father was infected with HIV/AIDs and he was advised by a witch doctor that sleeping with a virgin albino could cure him. Knowing the truth can be a curse just as much as being born with albinism because from the time I knew this, I lost a part of me. I lost my ability to trust men and people in general. I became scared of how many people would want to use me to save their lives. It was already a terrifying thing to be a ghost and a curse. Now I was a supposed cure too!!!

Some people think death is the scariest thing on earth, it’s not. Those of us born with albinism could tell you for sure that living is what’s scary. From the moment I learned about the myth of using albinos to cure Aids I no longer felt safe in my own house or skin. I could not fall asleep at night; I was scared of my uncles, of the neighbors, teachers and everyone around me. Every time I slept I had a nightmare. In my nightmares, people would come take me and do the terrible things I was so afraid of. I no longer awoke in the morning refreshed but tired and full of fear. I refused to let my imagination work during the day because all I could think of is how I would have a horrible death anytime just because of some superstitions. Every single night, I would tell myself I had made one successful step toward my grave.  At times, I felt like suicide was the best option. I didn’t want to go through another abuse but then again, I didn’t want to go to hell.

Before I woke up to the brutal world that kept reminding me I was a ghost every time I turned my head, I always thought I was going to be someone important, a chief justice maybe, a pilot or even a president of my country. It felt bad to know my dreams were just dreams, that the possibility of a ghost to be someone important was slim to none. At times I would cry until there were no more tears in my eyes and then I would scream and curse the gods. Other nights, I would pray to whatever god was listening but still I would wake up in the morning and I was still a ghost and the curse I was born with would still be hanging on my neck. There are times that I would wonder if I was ever going to have the life that was intended for me, or maybe this is what was meant for me anyway and I had to make peace with it.

You know, our parents often warn us about taking candy from strange adults but they never warn us about greeting them. In fact they insist on children to be respectful and greet adults all the time. Little do they know greeting strangers can be as dangerous as taking candy from them. Two weeks before I came here I met two strangers on my way home. I was a loner so I used to walk to and from school alone. They called me and since I was being a child I was raised to be, a respectful child I went to them and greeted them. They asked me my age and where I was living. I told them and they Iet me to go. That night before we slept they came for me. Up to that moment it had not crossed my mind that someone somewhere thought part of my body could be used to make a portion that would be used to make them rich. They came knocking on my door. My uncle asked who was knocking but no one answered. He told me to hide under the bed. I was terrified. All the nightmares and possibility of all sorts of things that could happen to me came running to my mind.

Before I knew it, they had broken the door and calling my name, asking where I was hiding. My uncle told them I didn’t live there but they silenced him with a machete on his head. He then fell down unconscious blood flowing on the ground. I could see what was happening from the place I was hiding. I began shaking uncontrollably and sweating and tears flowing out of my eyes. I knew I was going to die, then they went to the other rooms continued with their search and I got a chance to escape. I ran as fast as I could to the nearby forest. I was so scared but I didn’t want to die. I could not stop thinking of my dead uncle. For the next few days I never dared to go home or school, I was in the forest eating fruits and sleeping under trees until Aunt Sara found me when she was going to the stream to fetch water.

People don’t know but sometimes it is easier not to know things. You live with no fear, you are happy. Following these events, I knew my life was in danger. I wish I could undo that night and live a normal life but I knew my life was not going to be normal again. It is at this time that I learned there are superstition beliefs that parts of an albino body could be used to make people rich. How could the gods be so unfair to those of my kind? What did we do so wrong to deserve all this? I kept asking myself. I was not just scared but enraged, angry with all the humans, the gods and whoever was responsible for making me who I am.

After this attempt, it was no longer possible for me to continue living with my grandmother. I had to be taken away. The best option available was Nyamangoro camp for albinos. My aunt Sara brought me here. She had promised she would visit but she never did so. She lied.  Every time I got access to a phone, I would call her but just like my mother she would make promises of coming to see me but she never did. For the past six birthdays, the only thing I wished for, prayed for or even asked for was for them to come and visit me. They both promised they would and never showed up. Sometimes I wonder how they sleep at night. Why is it so easy for them to forget about me yet I have difficulties doing the same?

Every child has a dream; some dream many dreams and others just one dream. While other children dreamt of going to Disney world someday, most of children here at the camp dream of the day they will be reunited with their family and live with no fear. I keep wondering if it is fair to be given imagination of what our lives could be if we were not born different. Some of the children here will never know their parents names or how they look like especially those who were brought here when they were still toddlers. They spend a lot of their time wondering why they are here. They really don’t understand why they had to be separated from their families and they have no idea of how evil, merciless and heartless people outside these walls could be, but at least they will never know the pain of being abandoned by their family. I don’t think they understand the whole concept of family anyway. May be they think the whole world is just made of albinos and few colored people like our principal. It is sad to know that some of us will die inside the camps and none of our relatives will care enough to attend our burial.  

Despite all these, am jealous of these children. They don’t have scars in their hearts yet. They still don’t know to be an albino is to live with fear. Fear of death, fear of skin cancer, of loss of your limbs, of loneliness and isolation, fear of abuse and disease transmission or simply fear of losing your family, not just in the world of flesh and blood but having them disappear inside you. They remind me of my own younger sister who was born before I was moved to my grandmother’s house. She was so little and beautiful. She had a colored skin, more like what people will call normal. When she was born I was so happy, I knew finally I was going to have someone I could play with. Someone who will love me and will look up to me, I was determined to be the best sister in the world, but fate had other plans for me. That was six years ago she must be so grown now, she wouldn’t recognize me if she saw me, perhaps she will think am a ghost if she got to meet me today. I get so jealous of her every time I think of her. She has a family that loves and cares for her. She has a father that would protect her, she has a life and she can reach the future she wants to unlike most of us in these camps who can only dream of such a future.

I never liked my life as a child even though I had a family nor do I like it now. It is as lonely as it was back then. It will be too simple if I said I grew up feeling invisible like how real ghosts are but the truth is I felt visible and totally ignored. In this camp am not ignored but then am in the middle of many lonely souls every soul wondering if this is where it has to be, searching for answers that we might never find.

At times I wonder what the term earthly happiness is. For those of us who never knew happiness, finding it is akin to looking for a needly in a hay of stack.  Will there be a day when we also get to experience what the rest of the world is experiencing? For colored children, growing up was pretty much easy for them. I remember the first day I was going to school; I was so excited about meeting new people. I hoped to find new friends since the ones in my neighborhood did not like me. They thought I was a ghost, they said I would transmit a curse if I played with them. Because of that, I spent a lot of my time playing alone or helping my mother with different chores. When I got to school, my life got even harder, I was the only albino child in my class and no one wanted to sit next to me. I felt bad but what was worse was that, wherever I went, other children would run away. They made fun of me and called me names. I cried so many times but no one seemed to hear my cry, not even my teachers.

A lot of people struggle to be rich, successful or be whoever they were born to be. But for me and most other children in this camp; we struggle for just one thing, our freedom. The day that we will all be allowed and seen equal to other human beings, the day that we will be free to go wherever we want and be whoever we want without worrying that someone somewhere is hunting us and want to chop off our limbs or part of our body. A lot of people might think we are free inside these walls, but we are not. Yeah we don’t have to run every time we see a stranger following us, or lock the door of our houses as soon as we get it or sleep with a machete under the bed but no one can be free inside the cage. No matter how big the cage is.

It will be easy to end my story by saying I am looking forward to the day that I will be a free human being and make all my dreams come true, but am not. Not that I do not believe that such a day exist but I know like my grandfather I will not live to see the day of our freedom because for four years I have been on ARVs I don’t think I have a lot of time left on this earth but I hope my story contributes something toward the fight for the albino future generations. 

All beings want to be happy, free and loved yet very few know how to. It is sad to know people could create myths that could be used to hurt others. Identity is a prison one can never escape; it defines us, it makes us who we are but it should not be used to discriminate people. We are all human beings and just as much, none of us chose to be a male or a female. In the same breath, we also do not choose the color of our skin or our identity. There is nitrogen in our DNA, calcium in our teeth, iron in the blood flowing through our veins and our hearts longing for love and affection. What color our skins are does not make us ghosts, it makes us different.

There is more to life than the appearance of a person; there is more to life than being rich. The difference between a curse and a blessing lies within our hearts. It is easier to look at something different as a curse than a blessing because we are afraid of change. There is beauty in everything and one only has to look closely to see it. And if we let our hearts tell us what to do instead of or minds, then no one would want to see an albino being butchered like an animal or participate in the crime against humanity just because this person is different. I just wish everyone could see it.

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....