A Life with Purpose _ In Memory of Dr Eunice Songa-Saraceno

I recently reposted a piece that moved me, entitled A Call To Action below is the story of the the incredible woman that wrote that powerful piece  Dr Eunice Songa-Saraceno, BA, MD

In Memoriam of Dr Eunice Songa-Saraceno, BA, MD and on why Kenya needs to change 

At approximately 4:30 pm of Friday the 27th of January 2017, my wife, my best friend, the love of my life, Dr Eunice Songa-Saraceno, died like a hero. Aged 34, she died young and beautiful, like the heroes of the ancient myths; willing to change her Country she died fighting inequality and injustice, like only true heroes do.

She knew and understood the challenges of her Country and fought for Kenya when, with a BSc in Psychology and Physiology at the University of Western Ontario, Canada and a Doctor in Medicine Degree Magna cum Laude at the University of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, she decided to come back to Kenya, to work in a Country where there is a patient / doctor ratio of 0.2 doctors for 1,000 people, that means one doctor every 5,000 people (any doctor, not a specialist!).  

I remember the day she came back home exhausted after she pumped oxygen into the small chests of children whose lungs got burnt by the flames of exploded paraffin lamps, the only source of lights in the many areas of Nairobi where electricity is a luxury

As Eunice said with some of her last words “We want leaders who put our interests and well-being first and their pockets second. We want leaders who take pride in their positions and use their power to inspire and create rather than trample on and destroy.”

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Mind Thoughts: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.  

A Call To Action

I read this well thought out piece on the complacency of the Kenyan middle class and thought to share by  Eunice Songa

 

https://thenewmaumaurevolution.wordpress.com/2017/01/24/a-call-to-action-wake-up-middle-and-upper-class-kenyans/

Kenya is a beautiful place, isn’t it? Opportunities abound for those willing to work hard; the land where you can be born in a small village, work hard and enjoy your lifetime in lush suburbs of Nairobi.

But we get caught up in that rat race don’t we? The never ending pursuit to get a bigger, flatter TV, a smarter phone, a more expensive car and holidays to those exotic destinations we see on our friends’ timeline. While we make sure our children are in elite private school “A”, that our houses are on the right side of the CBD, while we are sipping our 500 shilling mojitos with colleagues at the hottest after work watering holes in the city, our beloved Kenya, our land of opportunity is crumbling right around us.

But hey we know these problems right? They are plastered across the dailies: “Doctors strike again!” “ 2.5 Bn shillings scandal in Ministry of “take your pick”” “KCSE exams leaked!” “Security at all time low in Kenya!”

What do you really feel when you read those headlines? I won’t lie, I am guilty of it as well. you skim the article to keep informed and have something to say during polite conversation and continue flipping through the newspaper. So when billions of shillings disappear, money that we break our backs to earn, why aren’t we up in arms about it? Why aren’t outraged, enraged by these scandals? Why isn’t there a fire burning inside of you when you realize the people you put in charge of the well being of your beloved Kenya do not measure up and are in fact draining us of the little we have.

We, the middle and upper class pay most of the tax but why don’t we demand quality service?

 

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 Mind Thoughts : 'The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity.'_  Andre Gide

Generation that refuses to grow up! Forever Young

The other day I had lunch with my father, who was in London on business. He took me to his favourite pub and somewhere between the tomato soup and the mains he started a conversation that he has, until now — miraculously — avoided.

He glanced nervously at the waiter and sank his glass of wine before launching in, asking me what my plans are for life: Did I see myself settling down and starting a family? Am I saving up to buy a house? What is going to be the next step in my career?

There was a pause as I looked at him blankly and shrugged, before muttering that immortal phrase, loved by teenagers across the land: ‘I dunno.’

Except I’m not a teenager. I am 34. 

When he was my age, my father was putting my six-year-old sister and eight-year-old me through prep school, and had another three-year-old daughter at home. He had been running a business for ten years, owned a house and had a pension.

In short, all the usual trappings and responsibilities of a middle-class man of that generation.

I, on the other hand, live in a rented flat with my youngest sister and have few savings to speak of. I certainly don’t have a pension.

As for the idea of marriage and children, well, it’s exactly that: just an idea — it’s no closer to being a reality than it was when I was 23.

My ‘life plan’ as my father so sweetly called it, goes as far as this weekend.

‘Don’t you think you should start thinking about these things?’ he asked. ‘You do know you’re not 20 any more, don’t you?’

I’m not sure that I do.

While I am a fully paid up member of adult society in many ways — I pay taxes, cast my vote and give money to charity — in other ways, I am in hopeless denial about my age.

Though I had always assumed that, by now, I would have found the love of my life and settled down, by choice or by fate (I still don’t know which) that hasn’t happened.

As a result, I behave in much the same way I did ten years ago, spending my money today rather than putting it aside for the future. Always grabbing one more night out with friends before the invites dry up.

The thought of saving up the deposit for a flat is so daunting that I choose to throw money away on rent, instead.

I haven’t yet had to grow up so, well, I haven’t.

Reckless, irresponsible and immature? Yes. But at least I can take comfort in the fact I am not alone.

Last week, I read that there is even a name for people such as me. We are the ‘Peter Pan generation’; a sizeable group of 25 to 40-year-olds who exist in a state of extended adolescence, avoiding the trappings of responsibility — marriage, mortgage, children — for as long as possible.

‘Our society is full of lost boys and girls hanging out at the edge of adulthood,’ says Professor Frank Furedi, a sociologist who has been studying this phenomenon, at the University of Kent.

‘Another word sometimes used to describe these people is “adultescent” — generally defined as someone who refuses to settle down and make commitments, and who would rather go on partying into middle age.’

These people, he says, might live with their parents until they are in their 30s, choose to put off getting married as long as they can — or even remain single well into adulthood, continuing the life they had in their early 20s.

You only need to look at the statistics to observe this intriguing trend.

Back in 1970, men typically got married at 24 and women at 22. Currently, the average age at which people marry is 32 for men and 30 for women. 

“Why are the lives of my generation so utterly different from those of our parents?”

A recent report shows that the number of women getting married in their late 30s and 40s has almost doubled in the past decade.

Meanwhile, the average age for starting a family today is 28 for women, up from 24 in 1970 . And, thanks to IVF and fertility treatment, more and more women are delaying starting families until they are 40.

What’s more, many more of us are deciding not to marry at all. Figures released by the Office for National Statistics at the end of last year show that more than half of women under 50 have never been married — double the figure recorded 30 years ago.

As for taking on the commitment of buying a house, in the Eighties the typical first-time buyer was 29. Today they are 38. And, according to a report by LV Insurers, by 2025, the average age of a first-time home-buyer is forecast to be 41.

So why has all this come about? Why are the lives of my generation so utterly different from those of our parents?

Well, you could blame the economy. Taking that first step of becoming an adult — buying a house — is harder than ever. Every day we see new headlines about adults having to move back home with their parents to save the sizeable deposits now needed to buy a property.

Three million 20-to-34-year-olds now live with their parents. A third are men and 18 per cent are women. And that three million total is an increase of 20 per cent between 1997 and 2011, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Even those who don’t live with their parents are more likely to be financially reliant on them. According to a report earlier this year, more than 13 million parents paid out £34billion in loans and gifts to offspring who are well into their 40s.

My parents are not in a position to help me financially, and I find the task of saving for a deposit to buy a flat so onerous, and the reality of what and where I could afford to buy so depressing, that I’ve made the (very childish) decision to not even think about it.

“People are scared of thinking of themselves as adults. They cannot see anything good that comes with being an adult; all our cultural values are with youth.”

Which may hint at the real problem. Professor Furedi, who is in his 60s, says we cannot blame the economy — or property prices — for what he calls the ‘infantalisation’ of today’s adults.

‘If you read the newspapers, all you hear is that young people’s lives have never been as horrible as today — which basically requires historical amnesia, because that is not the case. Recession and economic depressions have happened across the past century but, in my generation, the important thing was that you struck out on your own — even if you faced serious economic hardships and you were broke all the time. Now people make excuses,’ he says.

He believes there are much bigger psychological factors at play — and that the root of our refusal to grow up is fear.

‘People are scared of thinking of themselves as adults. They cannot see anything good that comes with being an adult; all our cultural values are with youth and the further we move away from that, the more anxious we become,’ he says.

He believes that the trend for adults to read books aimed at children and teenagers (such as Harry Potter, Hunger Games and Twilight), the popularity of cartoons such as the Simpsons, and the rise of adults playing computer games, are symptoms of this desire to escape adulthood.

‘People convince themselves that their immature behaviour is an attempt to become carefree, but it’s born out of fear.

‘We now have a culture in which people are frightened of what the future might hold and are terrified of taking risks.’

This can apply to leaving home — or even falling in love. ‘People now avoid or postpone thinking about making a commitment to others for fear they will get hurt,’ he adds.

So am I scared of being a fully-functioning adult? Scared of financial and romantic commitments?

Maybe, although I think it’s more the case that I have convinced myself that I don’t need to grow up — or settle down — just yet.

While my parents’ generation went straight from education to working and starting a family, all in their early 20s, we have a window of opportunity that means we can play around for a bit longer.

Contraception and changing societal attitudes mean that we don’t have to think about getting married and having babies straight away — and our career opportunities are myriad.

When my mother was coming of age, she had three choices: she could become a teacher, a nurse or a secretary. Her three daughters’ lives, however, are very different.

We went to university and were told there was nothing in the world we couldn’t do. We rose the career ladder, travelled the world and had a freedom she could only imagine.

We were — and still are — spoilt for choice. And many people would argue that this is not a good thing.

Just over ten years ago, a groundbreaking book by Alexandra Robbins and Abby Wilner coined the term ‘quarterlife crisis’ to describe the anxieties of a generation of 20-somethings who had the world at their feet, but no idea which direction to step in.

We were, according to the authors, ‘suffocated by choice, responsibility and self-doubt’.

“The decisions on whether to marry or not marry, start a family or not, travel or stay put, stick in your existing job or find a new one can make us overwhelmed, anxious and depressed.”

Another more recent report, from Greenwich University researcher Oliver Robinson, found that the ‘demanding nature’ of 20 and 30-somethings means we ‘are not happy with a mediocre, ploddy, conventional life’ — in other words, the kind we think our parents have.

But we’re not that happy with our freedom either.

Actually, the decisions on whether to marry or not marry, start a family or not, travel or stay put, stick in your existing job or find a new one can make us overwhelmed, anxious and depressed.

Of course, there is one decision that a woman — even of the Peter Pan variety — cannot put off for ever, and that is whether to have a child.

For years, I was too busy working and having fun to even think about it — and now, even at 34, I have no idea if I want to be a mother. No maternal urges have kicked in yet and, besides, there is not exactly a line of suitors waiting at my door.

Either way, I fool myself into thinking that I don’t have to decide just yet and cling to any headline about women having their children at 41 and 42 as proof that, yes, there is plenty of time.

But is there? The obvious truth is that fertility plummets in your 30s and I am worried that I will wake up one day and regret that I missed the boat on babies altogether.

I talk about these issues with my fellow eternally young friends, but I’ve noticed, recently, that we are fewer in number than we once were.

For while I have a handful of friends who, like me, are still busy living for the now, there are many more who have, almost without me noticing, found ways to buy the house and start a family.

They are very happy in their new phase of their life, while I am still clinging on to the old one.

In fact, I’m starting to think that there is a very real danger that, before long, I’ll be the last guest at the party, dancing alone, long after the music stops. And I don’t want that.

It reminds me of another less than flattering soubriquet for women such as me — TWIT (Teenage Women in their Thirties).

Apparently, we’re propping up bars across the country, hoping the dim light disguises our wrinkles and that our Topshop outfits help us to blend in with the 20-somethings around us. And that’s a very sad thought. Perhaps it is time to finally grow up. 

By: Marianne Power admits she's one of them

Mien Kramf

There are things i do not agree with and there are things i agreed with.....

Love would never leave us alone

Beyond his highly merchandised face, overplayed music, and global icon Peace & Love status, legendary Jamaican reggae artist, Bob Marley, was a revolutionary in the most noble sense of the word. In his book Reggae and Caribbean Music, Dave Thompson comes up with a more accurate, militant and radical description of the Smiling Marley we’ve been acquainted with:

Bob Marley ranks among both the most popular and the most misunderstood figures in modern culture… That the machine has utterly emasculated Marley is beyond doubt. Gone from the public record is the ghetto kid who dreamed of Che Guevara and the Black Panthers, and pinned their posters up in the Wailers Soul Shack record store; who believed in freedom; and the fighting which it necessitated, and dressed the part on an early album sleeve; whose heroes were James Brown and Muhammad Ali; whose God was Ras Tafari and whose sacrament was marijuana. Instead, the Bob Marley who surveys his kingdom today is smiling benevolence, a shining sun, a waving palm tree, and a string of hits which tumble out of polite radio like candy from a gumball machine. Of course it has assured his immortality. But it has also demeaned him beyond recognition. Bob Marley was worth far more.

Highlighted by social justice and solidarity, the one underlying and recurring theme in all of Bob Marley’s work was Love: from the individual to the universal. In his 36 years of short, well-loved life, he became one of the most powerful examples of the power of art to channel goodness and reunite people of different nationalities, background, education, social status, skin color—under the same human, original constellation.

Years before Marley, one of his idols and role models, Ernesto Che Guevara had planted the seed:

“At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.”

It seems like Marley accomplished through Art what Che Guevara tried to achieve through politics and force. A more subtle, long-lasting type of revolution.

Because real love isn’t a fairy tale or a Hollywood production but a revolutionary force capable of turning your life upside down and challenging everything you thought you knew. Love is, essentially, change.

Here are some of the most beautiful and life-altering symptoms of such love, in the longest quote on the subject, attributed to Bob Marley.

Whether this, as he says, only happens once in a lifetime, can be argued. As for the rest, it is pure (pseudo) scientifically proven heart / life expansion.

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you.

When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful.

There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are.

The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colors seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all.

A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you.

You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon.

You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you.

You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.”

But after the initial rocket-heart scientific discovery, when your spaceship lands, Love (like Life) is a journey and if you want to keep your travel companion near, you may need to add more substance to your trail mix:

On loving Her (or Him):

“You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters?”

On loving Him (or Her):

“He’s not perfect. You aren’t either, and the two of you will never be perfect. But if he can make you laugh at least once, causes you to think twice, and if he admits to being human and making mistakes, hold onto him and give him the most you can. He isn’t going to quote poetry, he’s not thinking about you every moment, but he will give you a part of him that he knows you could break.

Don’t hurt him, don’t change him, and don’t expect for more than he can give. Don’t analyze. Smile when he makes you happy, yell when he makes you mad, and miss him when he’s not there. Love hard when there is love to be had. Because perfect guys don’t exist, but there’s always one guy that is perfect for you.”

And when it seems like a losing game,

“The winds that sometimes take something we love, are the same that bring us something we learn to love. Therefore we should not cry about something that was taken from us, but, yes, love what we have been given. Because what is really ours is never gone forever.”

Finally, there’s no Marley (or no love) without some kind of soundtrack:

Excuse me, god, is this love? 

“Money can’t buy life,” were Bob Marley’s final words to his son Ziggy.

It can’t buy love either. Like anything worth our laughter, tears and sweat, it’s free and it’s been ours all along, since the beginning of beginnings and through all ends and new beginnings.

So, shall we claim it?

Love Would Never Leave Us Alone

The Philosopohy Of Poverty

Most of my Latino and black people who are struggling to get food, clothes and shelter in the hood are so concerned with that, that philosophizing about freedom and socialist democracy is usually unfortunately beyond their rationale. They don't realize that America can't exist without separating them from their identity, because if we had some sense of who we really are, there's no way in hell we'd allow this country to push it's genocidal consensus on our homelands. This ignorance exists, but it can be destroyed.
Niggas talk about change and working within the system to achieve that. The problem with always being a conformist is that when you try to change the system from within, it's not you who changes the system; it's the system that will eventually change you. There is usually nothing wrong with compromise in a situation, but compromising yourself in a situation is another story completely, and I have seen this happen long enough in the few years that I've been alive to know that it's a serious problem. Latino America is a huge colony of countries whose presidents are cowards in the face of economic imperialism. You see, third world countries are rich places, abundant in resources, and many of these countries have the capacity to feed their starving people and the children we always see digging for food in trash on commercials. But plutocracies, in other words a government run by the rich such as this one and traditionally oppressive European states, force the third world into buying overpriced, unnecessary goods while exporting huge portions of their natural resources.
I'm quite sure that people will look upon my attitude and sentiments and look for hypocrisy and hatred in my words. My revolution is born out of love for my people, not hatred for others.
You see, most of Latinos are here because of the great inflation that was caused by American companies in Latin America. Aside from that, many are seeking a life away from the puppet democracies that were funded by the United States; places like El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru, Colombia, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Republica Dominicana, and not just Spanish-speaking countries either, but Haiti and Jamaica as well.
As different as we have been taught to look at each other by colonial society, we are in the same struggle and until we realize that, we'll be fighting for scraps from the table of a system that has kept us subservient instead of being self-determined. And that's why we have no control over when the embargo will stop in Cuba, or when the bombs will stop dropping in Vieques.
But you see, here in America the attitude that is fed to us is that outside of America there live lesser people. "Fuck them, let them fend for themselves." No, Fuck you, they are you. No matter how much you want to dye your hair blonde and put fake eyes in, or follow an anorexic standard of beauty, or no matter how many diamonds you buy from people who exploit your own brutally to get them, no matter what kind of car you drive or what kind of fancy clothes you put on, you will never be them. They're always gonna look at you as nothing but a little monkey. I'd rather be proud of what I am, rather than desperately trying to be something I'm really not, just to fit in. And whether we want to accept it or not, that's what this culture or lack of culture is feeding us.
I want a better life for my family and for my children, but it doesn't have to be at the expense of millions of lives in my homeland. We're given the idea that if we didn't have these people to exploit then America wouldn't be rich enough to let us have these little petty material things in our lives and basic standards of living. No, that's wrong. It's the business giants and the government officials who make all the real money. We have whatever they kick down to us. My enemy is not the average white man, it's not the kid down the block or the kids I see on the street; my enemy is the white man I don't see: the people in the white house, the corporate monopoly owners, fake liberal politicians those are my enemies. The generals of the armies that are mostly conservatives those are the real Mother-Fuckers that I need to bring it to, not the poor, broke country-ass soldier that's too stupid to know shit about the way things are set up.
In fact, I have more in common with most working and middle-class white people than I do with most rich black and Latino people. As much as racism bleeds America, we need to understand that classism is the real issue. Many of us are in the same boat and it's sinking, while these bougie Mother-Fuckers ride on a luxury liner, and as long as we keep fighting over kicking people out of the little boat we're all in, we're gonna miss an opportunity to gain a better standard of living as a whole.
In other words, I don't want to escape the plantation I want to come back, free all my people, hang the Mother-Fucker that kept me there and burn the house to the god damn ground. I want to take over the encomienda and give it back to the people who work the land.
You cannot change the past but you can make the future, and anyone who tells you different is a Fucking lethargic devil. I don't look at a few token Latinos and black people in the public eye as some type of achievement for my people as a whole. Most of those successful individuals are sell-outs and house Negros.
But, I don't consider brothers a sell-out if they move out of the ghetto. Poverty has nothing to do with our people. It's not in our culture to be poor. That's only been the last 500 years of our history; look at the last 2000 years of our existence and what we brought to the world in terms of science, mathematics, agriculture and forms of government. You know the idea of a confederation of provinces where one federal government controls the states? The Europeans who came to this country stole that idea from the Iroquois LEAGUE. The idea of impeaching a ruler comes from an Aztec tradition. That's why Montezuma was stoned to death by his own people 'cause he represented the agenda of white Spaniards once he was captured, not the Aztec people who would become Mexicans.

The philosophy of Poverty| Felipe Andres Coronel|Revolutionary Vol 1 |2001 | Immortal Technique