“Ukiomba mvua lazima ukubali kukutana na tope pia, hiyo ni sehemu ya mvua. Jana imepita hakuna ajuaye kesho, kitu pekee ulichonacho ni SASA ishi kutumia sasa kwasababu huna uhakika na kesho. Stay present.”
Vumilia Sassi: Mwalimu na Mjasilia mali Pic by @pixelspro_films Blazer @validcollection #machingawakiluo
Nimeupenda sana huo ujumbe toka kwa mjasilia mali na Mwalimu Vumilia Sassi. Ujumbe unamaneno mepesi sana lakini maana yake ni nzito! Wengi tunaomba Mungu atuletee mvua kwenye maisha yetu / mashamba yetu ili mbegu tulizopanda au tunazotaka kupanda ziote! Lakini wakati huo huo hatutaki kuona wala kujanyaga matope!
Hivi tutaombaje mvua halafu hatutaki kuona udongo umeloa? Sasa hizo mbegu zetu zitaingiaje chini ya aridhi na kuweka mizizi yake kwa chini kama udogo ni mgumu haulimiki! Ninachotaka kusema ni kwamba ukitamani na kulilia mafanikio yako binafsi basi lazima uwe teyari kukutana na changamoto mbali mbali. Jinsi utakavyo weza kudili na hizo changamoto ndio itakupa picha halisi ya mavuno yako (will determine your success). Kama hutaki kudili na matope basi usiombe mvua kwani hauko teyari kulima! Oprah Winfrey aliwahi kusema kuwa kama hauko teyati kuongelewa basi hauko teyari kwa maendeleo!
Wonder woman ni nani? Je, wewe ni wonder woman?! Wimbo huu ambao umetungwa na mwanamke mwenzetu Zamaradi Mketema na kuimbwa na kaka Chris Lunda ili kuwahamasisha wanawake wasikate tamaa pindi wanapo anguka.
Ni wimbo unaovutia nankusisimua mno! Binafsi nimeusikiliza kama mara kumi hivi, lakini kil nilipo usikiliza nikama ndio nausikia kwa mara ya kwanza na unagusa hisia zangu zaidi na zaidi.
Wimbo huu umenifanya nirudi hapa kuandika kama ilivyokuwa huko nyuma, wale waliokuwa nami toka mwanzo wanajua jinsi nilivyokuwa natoa maoni yangu mbali mbali isipokuwa SIASA! Nilikuwa nataka kujaribu kuchukua likizo ya mwaka mzima ili niweke nguvu zaidi kwa swala fulani. Lakini huu wimbo kwa njia fulani unenipa nguvu zaidi ya kufikiria upya na kusema mimi ni “Wonder woman” Simba niliye mbugani natafuta mawindo hivyo siwezi kutafuta mawindo sehemu moja nikaridhika!
Ninawasomaji wangu ambao wameni miss sana, hivyo kutokuandika kwangu kuna waumiza! Hivyo nimeamu kusikiliza sauti ya mwanamke mwenzangu, my fellow wonder woman! Narudi tena, kwa nguvu zote! Mimi ni wonder woman hakuna kukata tamaa ?? Zamaradi Mketema, TV host, Song writer (Wonder woman), Philanthropist
Ngoja niseme kitu ambacho huwenda wengine wanakiona lakini hawajasema hadharani. Katika viwanda vya habari na burudani kwa muda mrefu sana vimetawaliwa na wanaume, nafikiri sasa ni wakati muafaka wa wanawake wa Tanzania kuendesha hii industry!
Katika wanaume wote hawa ambao wanashikilia hii industry marehemu Ruge Mutahaba ndio alikuwa anaakili ya kuogopesha wengi! He was the brainer of all! Huo ndio ukweli! Lakini nikiangalia kwa wanawake, naona pamoja na mapungufu yaliopo kuna wakina Ruge wengi tu kama tukiamua kushikana mikono na kusimama pamoja!
Kuna wanawake wengi sana nawaona wenye uwezo wa kufanya makubwa sana kama mtaacha hizi “pettiness” ambazo zinaleta mgawanyiko kati yenu! Ni wakati sasa waku-stop these “bullies” in media and entertainment industry! Sisi ni wonder woman hatushindwi!
Mapenzi unayonipa, sijawahi kupata najiuliza ni kwanini, hatukujuana mapema
Nimeishi na wasojua mapenzi, wasojua hata kunyenyekea
Nimeishi na wanaojua ku-force wasojua hata kubembeleza Ninapokuwa na wewe, najiona ndio mwenyewe Hata kama sina pesa, najiona tajiri Hata kama sijala, najiona nimeshiba??
***Happy Anniversary baba na mama wawili. Mbarikiwe sana***
A better nuanced post by a better writer on Kenyans in the diaspora and what they go through.
By Odumbe Kute
Mercy’s picture has nothing to do with the article!
This is a myth that has been perpetuated for decades about life out in the Diaspora being more rosy than the suffering in Kenya. Whoever tries to convince you of that needs their head examined. Life is not a bed of roses out here. Forget the drama of Diaspora people who land in Kenya for holidays and flash the Queen’s shilling or Uncle Sam’s dollar. You have no idea what they went through to get that shit. I feel sorry for them personally, because what they have to come back to after splashing out in Kenya is a life of misery and debt.
See, there’s this assumption that if you’re in the Diaspora, you can pluck money from a tree and send it back home to do “development”. An assumption that Diaspora people are the best equipped to make sure that the hopelessness in Kenya is sorted out. There is an irony in that. For the last 11 years, Kenyans in the Diaspora have been remitting an average of Kshs 145 billion every year. And no, that’s not a typo. Diaspora remittances are the 2nd biggest revenue stream for the Kenyan economy.
The story that’s not told is what Kenyans in the Diaspora have to go through to deliver that shit. I can’t even begin to tell you the trauma this represents. There are people out here who are even scared of picking a phone call from home because they know it’s about demanding them to send money back home. A phone call is never about “How are you? How is life out there? Are you well? What about your family?”. The phone calls are about “Send us money now. If you don’t, we will die”. For school fees, for bills, for medical costs, for emergency, for saving someone’s life. The way it’s put, you’d think that if you don’t send money, someone is going to die immediately.
Alpha (blogger for alphaigogo.com) and her babysister Blessing
What people don’t know is that Kenyans out here have to hustle like a nonsense. Most do at least two or three jobs, or if they don’t, they’re working and trying to go to school at the same time. Money is not collected on trees as folk in Kenya believe. It’s hard sweat and graft, and even then, you’re just making ends meet if you’re lucky.
That doesn’t even take into account the stresses of life. Let me paint a picture for you, a picture that is common to most people in the Diaspora. You leave Kenya when your 18 or 19. Your objective is to go to school. You arrive out here and find out quick enough, that you have to hustle to pay school fees, you have to go to school at night because you have to work days and weekends, you have absolutely no time to yourself and the pressure eventually gets to you. If you make it out of that quagmire, you meet someone, you get hooked up, perhaps in a come we stay, perhaps in a marriage. You get a kid or two.
Now, out here, you can’t operate like you’ll get a house help from Kakamega or Kisii or something. Hell no, child care is so expensive, it defeats the object of working when you have a small child because you’ll be paying most of that salary for child care. Couples have to work around schedules to make sure children are taken care of. Many work shifts and don’t even see each other for weeks on end. The stresses this places on young families is unbelievable.
Consider that out here, we don’t have the same social network of close friends and family who would step in when things go thick. Under the circumstances, things most definitely go thick and we don’t have a way of coping with them. You have no one to turn to, no one to trust, no one who will give you guidance and counsel without judging the decisions you have made in life. Throw in the complexity of both of you as a couple having to hustle, the pressure both of you have to send money back home, the pressure both of you have to try and make a living and figure out what direction in life you both want to take.
But even within that, thousands have issues to do with immigration. Maratathi ni shida. A lot of people suffer in silence because they believe they can’t go to the police, or hospital or to the authorities because they don’t have papers. This despite the campaigning we did for years to eliminate immigration screening as a factor in DVP – Domestic Violence Protocol. The idea being that if you’re a domestic violence victim, you will never be asked about your immigration status. And I still can’t get this “African” thing used as an excuse by men. Someone once told me that in our community, if we don’t discipline our women, wata kuwa mang’aa.
Those who don’t have papers are very vulnerable. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s never to judge someone’s situation or why they don’t have papers. It boils down to every individual trying to make a better life for themselves and their family, and no one has any right to take that away from them. But in particular, women are the most vulnerable if they don’t have papers. Many are stuck in abusive relationships because they have nowhere to go. You can’t get a job, open a bank account, rent a house, get a drivers licence or do anything meaningful if you don’t have papers. I know of women who have to trade sex to get someone with papers to act on their behalf to rent a house, or to get someone to let them use their bank details or to cover them for anything that requires papers.
Granted, there are people doing well out here. But that is the exception, not the rule. Hundreds more are suffering. Some will never tell you that. They’ll paint you a rosy picture of how “Majuu” ni poa sana. They’ll tell you that your salvation in life is to get out here in the Diaspora. What they won’t tell you is that out here, it’s ugly, sometimes even more so than Kenya. You barely can keep the lights on, and there’s so much pressure especially to send money back home.
It’s not even just about the pressure of sending money you don’t have back home. The trauma of making it day to day hits many people hard. In the last 15 years, I personally know 6 people who have committed suicide because they couldn’t hack it. Thousands more are suffering in silence and experiencing mental health issues that affect their ability to cope with life day to day.
Mercy and her mother- Alpha (Tanzanian Diaspora)
We really have to stop this myth that living out here aka “majuu” is the solution. We have nowhere to hide as Kenyans, we must confront and sort out our problems. In case you’re wondering what solution could ever get us out of the nightmare we have in Kenya right now, the answer is a revolution. But it’ll only happen when as a people, we get angry enough. Right now, we’re clearly not angry enough because we’re still tolerating the hegemony and corruption going on. We’re still very comfortable letting the bandit state, the politicians and the usual suspects oppress us. We’re happy to oblige, grabbing our ankles while they shaft us without the courtesy of lubrication as we sing to the tune of “Najivunia kuwa Mkenya”.
