Mari, Tartu, sept09

Mari´s place, Tartu, sept09

]]> http://bianka.wordpress.com/2009/04/13/there-is-something-rotten-about-denmark/ Mon, 13 Apr 2009 23:08:48 +0000 biankab http://bianka.wordpress.com/2009/04/13/there-is-something-rotten-about-denmark/ http://bianka.wordpress.com/2009/03/26/bill-hicks-another-dead-hero/ Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:26:18 +0000 biankab http://bianka.wordpress.com/2009/03/26/bill-hicks-another-dead-hero/ http://vibergboot.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/viberg-scarecrow-japan/ Wed, 04 Mar 2009 08:33:02 +0000 vibergboot http://vibergboot.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/viberg-scarecrow-japan/

Rita is 38 weeks pregnant when she crashed her car against an SUV one rainy night. She was rushed to the ER with a ruptured abdomen, a broken rib and a shin bone. It was not a good site. She was literaly broken up into pieces. They tried to save her baby but the trauma was too much for the little fellow. He didn’t make it.

Rita was rush to us in the OR bleeding to her death. Her adomen open. The source of the bleeding has to be found to stop it. 80 units of packed Red Blood Cells had to be given to her one after the other to save her life. If you will ask me, it’s a miracle that she was still breathing.

The medical team had to fix her up good if they want her to survive but everything has it’s limits. They had to take her ruptured pancreas out and they had to take her uterus, fallopian tubes and ovaries too. Rita is only 25. It was her first baby and it will be her last. She was brought to the ICU after the five surgical procedures she had. I prayed that she will make it.

The sight of her stayed with me for days. The thought of her being so young and going through all these still occupy my thoughts. At times I wonder if she made or not. It’s another reminder for me that I should cherish life more. I should love more… and to think, with all my problems now, I thought I had it bad.

I dread Mondays like everybodyelse. The crazed commotion of the start of the week drives me nuts. It reminds me that my very short weekend is gone and I have to go back to “reality”.  On the other hand, I’m loving Tuesdays. Yes! I look forward now to getting my two younger kids from school and bringging them to the library every Tuesdays. That’s our new special place. For an hour or two (sometimes more) we can get lost in our own worlds and we get to choose what world it will be. We can do time travel or be in another person’s shoes. Then the best part of the afternoon is when we share and talk to each other about what we read. Sometimes we tell jokes and tell stories on the way home. Times like these absolutely beat crazy Mondays!    

I found my old diary and I read some pages from it. I found this entry that I’d like to share again. It’s about some of the stuff I learned when I first became a “Ms”.

“First, I was married for seven years to my first husband. Seven years! Seven short and long years, depends on how you look at it. It was a climb from love to rejection and I’m glad I survived and came out alive. I learned a lot during that time and made a lot of discovery about myself and of others around me. Here it goes…

1. ‘You can never give what you do not have.’ After this, I never expected any individual to love the way I love or to learn the way I learn. SOme people are just not equipped to love or learn because they simply don’t want to.

2. ‘Change starts within us.’ Not with others. It’s good to know that some things do change, some things do not. Just pray to know and accept the difference.

3. ‘Do not expect people to understand you because you have a problem.’ Many will help but some will insist that you change overnight. I was a hard time but I taught myself to watch out for them. Then I found those who are willing to stand by you all the way.

4. ‘Cry if you must.’ A very salty but therapeutic activity but everyone will agree that releasing your emotions is a good balancing act for the homeostasis.

5. ‘Keep the channels open.’ Absorb all the positive energy you can. I got mine from a friend’s hearty laughter, an enthusiastic co-worker, a warm motherly individual and from my innocent children full of fantasy and dreams. I was definitely lucky to have my children around to give me the later energy.

6. ‘Reach out for a hand, an ear, a shoulder.’  There’s nothing like a “true-blue” friend during this time of adversity. Again, I’m thankful I have such friends a round me.

7. ‘Get on your knees and pray.’ Asking God to help you carry your load rather than asking Him why He let it happen to you is more effective. Do not overload your conscience. If people are upsetting, ask for guidance. It these people are fortunate, they will learn what you mean in their own time.

8. ‘Use the power of the big Cs — Calm, Clean, Collected.’ Keep yourself calm after the storm, it will help you survive the rigors of being alone.  Keep yourself clean, it will help you move on with confidence and with a tidy conscience.  Keep yourself collected, it will give you the power of concentration and effectivity. After all this you will be in-charge.

9. ‘Let yourself flow naturally to forgiveness & acceptance.’ This has been the hardest of the rules by far. But relax! Give yourself time and space. I know there’s nothing like a woman scorned. Remember to keep that critical mind working. Be realistic rather than emotional. Allow the feelings to run deep but let it go out of your system. The last part of your grieving process is always acceptance. It will happen when you allow it to.

10. ‘Be patient’.  Another hard rule. The author Og Mandino once wrote, ’God’s delays are never God’s denials.’ When a door closes another one will open or we can always use the fire escape.

11. ‘Feel great. Look great. Do great.’. There are so many things to be thankful  for inspite of the odds. It was so weird but I had to sit down and list down my blessing. I found out I have so many good things going on in my life. The first three on my list are: my  kids, my friends and my senses. Don’t forget to look great! No one is created repulsive unless he acts and thinks it. As we were thought in Sunday school — God has created us after his image. Do great! We don’t have to be a super hero. We you touch lives in your small simple ways – Greatness is there. Just like when you smile 2 seconds longer than the person who smiled at you because the smile was sincere.

12. ‘Some things won’t come your way if you don’t need them.’ I learned several new skills during my pursuit for acceptance. I met new friends and went to new places. I even went back to the places I avoided because they remind me of my failures. I even learned to listen to love songs again. After all, Shakespear said, ‘ It’s better to have love than lost than never to have loved at all.’

It’s been an animated year. I know I have more to challenges to deal with. Maybe I really needed this experience to grow and get better. With this I end by saying… my “Ms.” Adventures showed showed me that failure in not the falling down but the staying down. 

After rereading my entry I felt great. I fell a lot after that year and I know I’ll fall again but I will never stay down. I will always find a way to get up. Happy Birthday to me!

Its yet another cold day in Jozi.I am reminded of my school days when I thought the reason we went to school in winter was a punishment for being children.For things we might still do which could be bad- OK a bit far fetched but I was a kid and I am pretty sure that this in the bigger picture made perfect sense.

Kind of like the way one may imagine their chances of having a big bite of the corporate pie.BEE came, BBEEE came and people like me still feel cheated.Not because we sit on our divine behinds waiting to be handed a token position,But rather that we keep knocking on all doors both proverbial and real but the keep getting slammed back in our face.

It would be nice to have the freedom to choose to do what my heart loves to do,sadly my social dynamics are such that, it is not yet possible.” Think big, don’t give up, knock on every door”,Ye ye I know its what I have been doing.I have the shattered knuckles to prove it.Its not easy wanting to be somebody you know you can be, you know you should be but…

Nonetheless life must go on.Each day should have a challenge to overcome to bring one closer to their destiny-when is my turn coming I ask.

The great minds of our time have concluded that culture is not a set of rules run by protocol; rather it is a dynamic concept run on the same pulse as any given society at any given time. Unlike tradition, culture really is open to interpretation. Growing up, my parents were staunch traditionalist and even though the 90’s came and went, they stood steadfast in ways carved at the beginning of the century.

Consequently I, along with my two siblings were the victims of this. Don’t get me wrong, I value the traditions of my people but I also value my sense of being in this day and age. Without throwing them aside, there are some rules I am going to bend or maybe even break. But incase, I do not make it through my parents torturous grilling about the importance of tradition this week-it has been real. 

Tradition is important to the identity of the urban youth. Tradition is stereotypically thought to be strictly Africa, however, Europeans, and white South Africans also have tradition. Defining tradition is not easy but I can say it is relative to a certain group of people then it can even differ per family. While one family can be very strict on lobola payment, another can simply view it as a formality. The significance lies in the respect or acknowledgement given to the practice. It should serve as a reminder of our roots and heritage.

 Moreover in this day, who is to say what is the right way, we have been divided by space and time, there is no real traditional council. Various customs from individual groups have become condensed with the move of people from rural areas to the urban areas. Let us use our traditional ways not to enforce a sense pf tribal authority but rather to augment the culture is comes from. Now that culture is ubuntu.Ubuntu is timeless, it’s like a universal law.

The mother of one of the victims from the Virginia Tech shooting spree said, “You can wake up tomorrow and everything can change.”

Just like that! She made me realized that there are a lot of things that can happend to us anytime, in any given situation. Most of these things we won’t know why they happen. Most of the time we regret the outcome of the situation and we wish we’ve done somethings a little different. We could have loved more, given more, saved more or laugh more.

Just a couple of weeks ago. I cried for the lost of a friend whose death was so sudden. I felt so bad for days that I never got in-touch with him more. I never even emailed him for many years. I knew I failed as a friend. I knew I could have done it differently.

So, we should spend more time with our loved ones and friends. We should talked to them more often. Enjoy every moment we can spend time with them, on the phone, on-line, with emails or visits. Reach out and share our blessings to others. If we can do more, we can join clubs and community outreach activities. Meet more people. See more places. I know there’s more to learn out there and there are still wonderful things in life that are free. No matter how small the effort,  it will make a change in us and to the world around us. For those hard a work, enjoy the fruits of your labor while you can. Take that long awaited vacation with your family or read that book you bought last year.

The only constant thing in this world is change. We may not be ready for it at times but we’ve done a little to make life worthwhile for ourselves and for the people around us.

I have been getting this email and I have read a lot of times… each time I get it. It has given me a lot of thoughts about caring, concern, about our wonderful and wild existance and how we try to fit comfortably in this place called “earth”.

__________________________________________________________

A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package.

“What food might this contain?” the mouse wondered.
He was  devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.

Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning :  There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!”

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, ”Mr. Mouse , I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.”

The mouse turned to the pig and told him, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!”

The pig sympathized, but said, “I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers.” 

The mouse turned to the cow and said “There is a mousetrap in the house!There is a mousetrap in the house!”

The cow said, “Wow, Mr. Mouse. I’m sorry for you, but it’s no skin off my nose.”

So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s mousetrap alone.
  
That very night a sound was heard throughout the house — like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey.

The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught.

The snake bit the farmer’s wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital , and she returned home with a fever.

Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup’s main ingredient.

But his wife’s sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock.

To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.

The farmer’s wife did not get well; she died.

So many people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.

The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.

And so, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn’t concern you, remember — when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk.

We are all involved in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage one another. 
 
 REMEMBER…..EACH OF US IS A VITAL THREAD IN ANOTHER PERSON’S
TAPESTRY; OUR LIVES ARE WOVEN TOGETHER FOR A REASON.