A TOUCH OF BOTH WORLDS

Life is amazing,when you start to live above what society deems acceptable. I have seen life happens on either side, with the christian folks and with those that are called the"unbelievers" But I have found it intriguing that the christian folks are two timing insecure beings,they preach a love they cannot live out,a God they shame everyday and a spiritual life they only read about.The christian folk make a case of saintly that they can't live up to.I have seen christian folk make the bible just another book.
And then I have seen the ones they call "unbelievers" and for lack of any biding word or rule,they have used morals or any existing regulations to go through life.
They expect no form of godliness from each other,they rather expect you to be fair and good. They take you as you are and only desire that you can rise above the ranks of life,some wish you bad but others wish you good. They won't pray for you when you are sick but will make sure you are okay in any way possible. They will call you to go about things in life,talk about your life without pointing as much as a finger. These unbelievers love you when they love you and hate you when they hate you.
If you ask me, I like the ones called the"unbelievers" because they actually have a kind of selflessness that the Christian folk have. I am one of them....the christian folk and I am standing in the middle of such a hypocrisy.
We do it and accept ourselves as having a sinful human nature. We christian folks are disgusting sometimes(for lack of a better word.)

THROUGH THE EYES OF FAMILY

I am a step child and I am learning something new today. I have always felt the sense of entitlement to the things that belong in my father’s house. You know as a child you deserve some privileges and it is mandatory that you receive such—love being the most important. But for the very first time, I saw life through the eyes of another woman, my step mother. I realized how much I had missed the picture while growing up. I was all this time, trying to fit into a family that was never mine to begin with. I felt guilty of robbing the picture of family to my father’s legal family, but most of all I could now see mother bird’s point of view. I am impressed it is a picture, I adore seeing.  By default, all a woman expects from her husband is Love, protection, providence and fidelity. But what happens in the face that he fails at one of them if not most of them? While I am all grown up and know better than to throw dirt on my past, I finally saw the need for a complete family, through the details of my father’s home. I was stealing from this family and I was being on the offensive as well. All that they were as a family was what God intended it to be. It was never meant to be a picture of step children looming in the background. No one ever prepares to be a step mother, as much as any child to be a step child but what if in the need to be accepted by the people that sired us, we end up hurting the people who find themselves caught up in their husbands weaknesses?

Growing up we all dream of happily ever after, two and half children and a Pickett fence. And there is nothing that brings us back to the reality of such wasted dreams as a child born out of infidelity. Here I was, looking at the photos that hung up in my step ma’s house and all of them, for her babies, the real members of this family. I could not bear the guilt of realizing the pain; it takes for another woman, to raise children she did not envision in her ever after. I thought of what I would do if it happened to me, I thought of the pang of betrayal and worse more, I remembered the pain of those many teenage years of mischief and cantankerous outburst. Oh the lot women have to bear. I saw a family, that has over the years been weighed down, by the weight of five children, all born out of wedlock. While we might be a blessing no matter how we showed up here, I finally feel the pain of any woman, seeing not one but five children that are not hers run around her home...her children’s home. They have to share with her children and get of everything her children get. It is not something I would look forward to. Yet she endured it all through the years, the humiliation, the bravery, the patience, all that a faithful wife endures. I did feel her heart tonight. I finally realized that, that was not my home but someone else’. It was for my step mom’s and her children and husband.

I am my father’s child but not one to rob another family of a chance to be happy and keep a picture of a full family, maybe it is not too late to let them enjoy that reality, how it should be, just them as a whole family. I would love that if I was married. We all never prepare for broken homes and when it comes our way, we are only hoping that those children will understand it, it took me a while but I see it now. A family should never be broken much less intruded on.

 

THE GRIP OF "ONLINE" #Ugblogweek

Time check 11:05pm and the sense of commitment to fulfilling a duty to people out there is overwhelming than I thought it should.
It finally dawns me, after reading and hearing a million times that we have become addicted to the internet every single day. When I first watched the video play out of internet addiction "Look up" video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYDDVUTbh10. I was appalled and uncomfortable at how easily our lifestyles have changed with the era of technology and the internet. I have partly raised myself through my teen years using the internet, after all there is nothing Google does not know. And today, my college friends will tell you, if a graduation goes without a student thanking Google then that graduate didn't know what the word internet meant. It is by far hard to find away to separate technology, social media, and all that 21st century idol worship of being online.

While everyone has said something about how we are losing relationships, touch and real conversations as time goes by, I am more worried about what will come after the age of social media, and all that comes with the internet. Here I am fulfilling a duty to a people that barely read anything that rebukes their way of life, yet I stand on the words from one blog I follow with heart,"My advice would be this – If you can bear the repercussions of defiance, defy! If not – conform!’ I can bear a little spite tonight(which I highly doubt is coming anyway)
" How about in the need to find a way to live our lives, we forget the things that made life appealing in the years before the millennial work of the internet and all the addiction to it. I miss receiving letters, I miss real birthday cards, not some digitally created softcopy things, if only after that I could remember to convert them into real cards. I miss all the afternoons of laughter and no smart phones to take selfies all through the hours.

Without seeming whinny, we are losing track of humanity, let me be the a zillionth person to say that, for in saying it, I denounce its grip on me. You see, there was a time, when instead of whatsapping, we actually would make the effort to meet people and talk over a decent cup of coffee or tea, which by the way could be cheaper than daily data. I remember having friends and being able to  just sit for hours and wind down an evening with just indulgence in each others lives. Friends were really friends, not internet buddies. I am worried for the future. I fear for the men and women that we will become. I am worried for the parents and how they will have to convince their children that actually their parents did raise them up. I am worried for the teachers, if they do not gain new knowledge, they  will have no jobs in the future to come. I am worried for the supermarkets, for they will either go online, or lose market to online shopping(am more worried that I won't have any girlfriends to go shopping with)
And just like that, we lost all ability to live as people, I pray for a legalization of robots for in them we will be able to mirror ourselves, void of all emotion and care. the future looks thrilling! But sadly, I don't want to end up in it, if we cannot learn to use the things at our disposal for the good of each other.
 Like use a whatsapp group to throw me a birthday party, call all my friends so you could surprise me, Use email, to forward me a great designed invitation that I can download and keep in hard copy. Instead of telling me you like me online, make a point to see me in real life and let me understand it better. There are many ways to make the internet a servant to our many needs without becoming slaves to its call.
Maybe we sometimes need to Look up.

GIVE ME A REASON #Ugblogweek #Poetry

Give me a reason to pen the beauty of life

When all around me is gloom

Give me a reason to pen about love

When men hold back with emotion and others let you live with apparition

Give me a reason to pen about friendship

When others are ready to throw it in the trash as soon as it becomes familiar

Give me reason to believe in forever

When forever ends before it starts

Give me a reason to pen the beauty of humanity

When even I feel a loss at what humanity demands

Give me a reason...one bold enough to make me pen on

The other day, I lost all trust in friendship

For it is hard to love a man that wills to throw away such a care

Yesterday I stopped to believe in love

For it is a chimera of the reality man is faced with

Today, today I woke up with a bare emotionless body

Void of all care and love

Not knowing how to say good morning to my two faced neighbors

Or even to my venom spitting friends.

So I just wrote, because as surely as darkness looms

The joy of a new day is not far from view

It was hope, Hope that brought me back to life

Hope that tomorrow will be better

Tomorrow that man will be more genuine

Hope that times are changing

Hope that I was made to love

Hope that he will say something

Hope that I will want him back

Hope that I can walk away from rejection

Without being bitter

Hope that I can make better friends

Hope that it will all pass into a better reality

Yes, it was such a hope that I penned each and every day.



LITTLE ONE #Ugblogweek

I couldn’t sleep without giving justice to this day, I couldn’t let it happen. But between the joys of new babies, a Nalongo to dot on, I was brought back to a place of bliss; children always bring me so much joy. They always do. It got me scrolling back into many throwbacks, from the day I found out my darling friend was pregnant to the day she delivered.

So here is a throwback of a little poetry I wrote for myself but could pay a little congratulation to my power woman and mother, welcome to motherhood Mrs. Nalongo Nakato Bukirwa Juliet Ovon.

LITTLE ONE

 Oh little one

As you grow into a

Being, flesh of my flesh

I promise myself to love

You and behold you

To keep you from the

Misery of poverty and I

Will bring you forth with a

Future of a life better than mine

You will surely have the

Best father to look up to

And you will grow to fear

The Lord, because without

Him I might never have known the right choices to make.

So as you turn through my

Inside, do so with assurance

That everything will be all right

When you get here

And even if challenges

Come, I will be there to hold you

Because I am you mother.

 

 

 



 

 

 

ECHOES FROM THE PAST: Of women and the craddle #Ugblogweek

Come child, come and I will tell you a tale of a lady I know, a lady that rocked your cradle. In the business of the 90’s I had you and your big doll eyes that shone bright with eagerness made all my insecurities dull. I knew I was going to enjoy motherhood for a very long time. You were my pride and I was in awe.  You child, are the best thing that ever happened to me.

But you will forgive me, if between raising you and breast feeding you; I failed to cuddle you all day long. But I am proud that in raising a home alone, I had the best lady to rock your cradle. She was a beauty and quiet in character, a giant in size but that was the deceptive part of her, her size made it hard for you to be bullied but she was just a silent harmless lady. She loved you all, even your other siblings, she was more of a friend than a house help.  She loved us because we were the only people that opened our doors when she needed help. She told me of her story, long before she entered the city she was married but life was cruel that she saw her children and husband die in a difference of hours. They say, she was bewitched but she knows they died of a strange disease. Child, never judge a person’s life through the lens of your mortal eyes. The outward is always deceiving. No one took her in, until she came to our home.

Back then, when we had little to behold in our three roomed house, she worked effortlessly to make sure you had milk to take when I was away. She started the shop you see today. It was not big like this but it was a start for us. Oh Kezia loved all of you like her own. She called you Maaso glory because of your big doll eyes, only Kezia was allowed to call you that, the rest called you “gaalo”. It was your brother that first called you that, when I first brought you home and it stuck since then. And don’t be cross at him, he thought every baby girl was called girl. 
Ah, everyone loved you, but Kezia mothered you like her own. I remember her once telling me that she would have named you Angel because like an angel, the gods had sent you to her.  She saw you grow from a baby into a school going little lady.

Then she died, she went back to visit her husband and children’s graves and never returned. She died the same way they died. I was heartbroken, I cried for days on. She was my friend; she had taught me a lot as much as I had taught her. You know child, Life will bring many people along your path of life, be happy with everything they teach you even the bad things. Kezia changed me and also helped me love you better. When I looked at you, gleaning with excitement whenever you came from school, I saw Kezia’s big boast smile. She always waited by the door to see you leave to school and then would burst out in tears at how fast you had grown. She missed having you at home. So between the growing shop and house chores, she learnt to look forward to telling you all about her work at home. That was her way of telling me how her day was spent, through you child.

I see you and I know, I have made Kezia proud. I put you in a boarding school at a tender age because I could not find any one fit to raise you the way Kezia would.  I have made many mistakes with you but I have also won in many things with you. When I look at how far we have come, just the four of us, me raising you to love each other, I feel a sense of comfort in knowing that you are happy with what life had to offer. But don’t get comfortable child, Kezia always told me, to get up and change my life. That is a lesson I now entrust to you. Get up and change your life. If Kezia had wallowed in pity on that sad day when she lost her family, she would have never seen the beauty of life through our simple home. She would never have seen you live through life as a happy loved child.
That amazing lady made motherhood easy for me even when she left because I always got up, always.

MODERN DAY DAMSELS IN DISTRESS #Ugblogweek

The damsel in distress is usually a beautiful young woman placed in a dire predicament by a villain or monster and who requires a hero to achieve her rescue. After rescuing her, the hero often obtains her hand in marriage.                      
According to Wikipedia, this can be traced back to the knight-errant of Medieval songs and tales, who regarded protection of women as an essential part of their chivalric code which includes a notion of honour and nobility.[1]

In the wake of my feminist interests,Not that there will be any villains to slain but there will be many heroes to beget.I find my need to evoke the damsel in me,many times.I love being a damsel in distress,it reminds me of the softer character that makes a woman an interesting  part  charm. Owing to the fact that vulnerability makes the protector and defender instincts manifest in a man.
The Ugandan story of the damsel in distress could be  Nsangi and the ape. Remember Nsangi?,the one who was eaten by the ape and then a hero guy comes and cuts the belly of the ape and rescues Nsangi. In the tale,he doesn't get the bad ape immediately, it is after asking all the lined up apes,"Gwalidde Nsangi?" translated, Is it you who ate Nsangi? I guess not the kind of rescue in my mind as a damsel but a rescue anyway.

Society today detests damsels in distress! They reckon that if it is possible, be just a damsel. We live in the wake of raising strong independent women(which is not bad until motive evolves) We now have radical feminists,others single able mothers who want nothing to do with the baby daddies.(for both plausible and unreasonable issues) We have made men out of women and made sure they reach the top in the air of "I can do what men can" And for sure we can, but without losing the soft side of us that makes us different from men.

Far from all cause to dish the super woman, I believe that the damsel in distress is not to evoke any change in the things we have accomplished as women, on the contrary it is to better them and keep a spark of mystery that makes women ignite the best in  men. To raise the protector instincts in men is to give to ourselves as to them and that makes our softness and gentleness echo their ability to defend us in all ways.
I'd love to call it,the winning card(not manipulative) For in motive we find purpose,the purpose in being a damsel would be in need to lift men up,to give them the "ish" that makes the mystery of a woman very scandalous so we can win in society and within us.

So maybe the damsel in distress is what makes the difference in our tale of heroes. Some win as strong women while others conquer as strong yet soft beautiful damsels.
I want to be a damsel in distress once in a while.

BEYOND DREAMS #Ugblogweek

Recently I was brought back to the reality that dreams can be challenged.As ambitious as I am and as ready as I am to take on life,I was brought to the realisation that sometimes things will stand in the way of what we are pursuing.I had the hope that applying for a masters scholarship would come by easy if I did all the necessary preparation. From getting all the documentation ready and all the little details in place,I was dumbstruck when all the doors to a masters scholarship that once seemed open,were far from attainable. I sat back as I saw the last effort of me trying to get into graduate school next year dwindle thin air.


But it was not without a lesson for me to learn.Dreams go beyond dreaming and trying to achieve them,there is alot of underlying work that works together to deliver us to our desired end.Paulo Coelho once said,"If you have a dream,the universe does conspire to get it attained" and while that might be true,there will be forces as well that will challenge our dreams and bring us back to the reality that sometimes things just don't go our way.Sometimes it is a case of my will be done rather than Gods will,other times it is just not the right timing and most of the times the dreams needs some more maturation.

Beyond our dreams, are forces that will teach us to prepare better and hope for some more but that lies only in our ability to accept a failure,pick its lessons and then go back on the drawing board and dream better and bigger.Beyond our dreams is hope not despair. And it is in always having hope that our dreams eventually show manifest.
I know it is not until disappointment comes our way,that we can appreciate the journey that others have walked before us. Don't stop in the tatters of your dreams...go on and dream some more.That is working wonders for me.

TOMORROW #Ugbloggerweek

The delights of tomorrow give us a bargain for today.
But I heard her speak of a tomorrow that made today bring a desire for it not to end.She said,the clouds in the morrow where dull,full of hail.She said the vision in that day was foggy and blurred by  bad luck.She spoke of a morrow I dreaded to behold.
The people in the morrow had gone emotionless and inhumane...they...they ate anger and shared hatred at their tables. I flinched in thought of their faces,she said they had stiff faces,stiff from never smiling and from all the bitterness.                       
 I wanted to go and see tomorrow anyway and lo and behold,In my eyes, tomorrow was nothing she said. Not through my eyes.
The sun though dull,shined,The sky was clear,The flowers bloomed,The scents of life washed over my insecurities. The people in the morrow were delightful to behold,she must have seen a different people, they had a language so warm! You could love them so easily,the sun made them glow,no air of fault finding folks in tomorrow. So I sat down and embraced tomorrow because whether the clouds closed up and the people became stone,my eyes were ready to behold a morrow that was better.
The delights of tomorrow gave me a bargain for today.