Month: December 2015

Clean slate

On By blessingsonahillIn All posts, Family life, Food for thought, PoetryLeave a comment

Clean slate, we come into this world,

Nothing written on the pages of our lives

Like trees even before they’re pressed between our palms,

We are soft, angels they say,

 

But in our veins flood the messages from those before

Like branding irons, our parents passed on

Beyond our comprehension, traits, their choices,

They say genes remember…

 

Curses! Like Cain! Like Adam! Like me!

Shot by my life giver before my life began

Cursed by love, out of fear of her past

My genes do remember …

 

My sin calls curses out, stronger!

Truth is less audible in this noise

Of who’s right or wrong,

And whether I’m possessed or just maimed by fate.

 

My sin drowns Love’s calls;

Truth is less audible in this vision

Noosed round my neck by your loving hands

My genes do remember…

 

If not because of fate or makeup

Then by mere words spoken

Like knives, they draw out your blood in me

My genes will remember…

 

Seen only as a product of your choices

Cursed beyond even Christs’ blood

Whatever sins were hers to bear

I’m branded with, for life, to bear…

 

Oh yes, my genes will remember

If you let them, might remember

Christ’s blood louder calls

Louder than these curses and visions of me.

Domestic violence, a confession.

On By blessingsonahillIn All posts, Family life, Food for thoughtLeave a comment

This is it, this is my confession. Hi, I am Blessings on a hill, I am 26 and I was a victim of domestic violence.

My Zambia

On By blessingsonahillIn All posts, The best of AfricaLeave a comment

For the “diasporic” Zambian, there’s need to understand that the Zambia we left behind no longer exists. I am a ‘diasporic Zambian’, who has lived outside this land for the greater part of 9 years. My daughter has grown up in foreign lands, like an Israelite in Egypt, and like Moses, speaks like an Egyptian.

To her, everything will look foreign and even more than they do me, certain things will irritate. Yes, a lot of things have changed; friends and family are married, others are being born, and so many have died. That’s probably the hardest part for me but the dead are gone, with nothing but their eternity before them, their fates are sealed. What worries me now, is this Zambia that is emerging, different in so many ways to my childhood Zambia, yet so similar.

Our new Zambia has less trees, more buildings and less rain, less food, more load shedding, more retrenched miners, more corruption, and a greater Chinese presence that challenges my racial bias (yes, you heard right, I have to fight the racist in me, every time I get on that plane with so many chinese nationals, who I doubt mean well in Zambia, based on previous record, and sometimes, the racist wins). Is that a justification for my bias? No! I worry at the greater US presence here, the increase in foriegn investment and plainly,  how things are done. Where people see development, I see exploitation and unsustainable development, and maybe I’m just a tad bit pessimistic, but I worry for those being left behind in the boom and what sort of Zambia we shall leave behind, and just like I ask, my father’s why they would leave things this bad, I fear my children will ask me the same over a worse Zambia.

I am a diasporic Zambian, and part of being Zambian is accepting this new Zambia for what it is, not looking at it through a rose coloured lense, but accepting that our home has changed, even people and their values have changed; but then our Zambia is just that–home–with all that’s going on, with all that’s changed, just as we too have changed, it’s still beautiful.