Here's me in my outfit. (It's from Tanzania!)
A few good quotes from the book:
"The village is our library; the mbuyas (grandmothers) and sekurus (grandfather) are our encyclopedias."
"Our pride does not derive from material things. It is just that we are close to the soil. That is where the African foundation is. We are still standing on the ground of our ancestors; we are rooted, where others were scattered. Now we must fight the enemy within."The mother's response to her daughter's question: "What is an African woman?"
"It is to be strong, Zenzele. It is to be at peace within…being an African woman is what you make of it, Zenzele. But never forget that for the majority, it also means to rise out of bed before others, to make the cold kitchen warm, to work the fields in the blazing heat, to walk for miles on dusty paths carrying water on your head, wood under your arms, and a baby on your back."She closes with this statement:
"It is a pity that I have not more to leave you than words. But what is life, after all, but a story, some fiction and some truth? In the end, there are words. They are the very manifestations of our immortality. Your own life is a story yet to be told, and wisdom, when it comes, is simply to understand at last the beginning of the word and the story of our birth, death, and rebirth.”It was fun and interesting to tell a life story from someone from another culture. Eye-opening to say the least. It is true for all cultures, though, that all we have at the end of the day, at the end of time, is our story.
What is your story? What words do you leave behind?
