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Maria Mitea Aug 2022
Monako ( meat)
Aebi (water)
Bala ( honey)
Manaketa (corn porridge)
Hunting at night
Zebra
Baboons

A rat is still food,

We don't eat hyenas (they can eat people)

We fear Lions,  
Black mamba ( we cut their head and throw them far away)

The moon?

The full moon is not  good,
Too much light,

Look the baboons are out!!

They smile
Life can be lived in many, many ways!
Odd Odyssey Poet Jun 2022
I've read about bloodshed;
whether foreign or local by hands of same labour,
Tribalism; though something I haven't experienced,
I've felt it's affect. The very hurt of a neighbour.

History has shown us plenty, still the plenty
of hurt in our history we carry.
If these walls could talk; they'd seem lesser, and
quietened by the ground's bloodshed.
History taught us well into future, but affected the
present so badly.

Tears of loss, tears of tragedy,
tears of us, tears of brothers and sisters,
Are tears of all, us as one nation's family.

Tears of old, tears anew,
tears of past, tears of present and future,
Are the tears of another I shed too.

These tears on the grounds of present pastures;
I question how long generations we'll wait for
the tears to into laughter.

Sigh!
Odd Odyssey Poet Jun 2022
Storing up the blessing of sky;
Dry arid season is here,
A drought of love; nature's harshest,
5,000 years of stories,
Silhouette of a rural African experience,
you cover the vastness of her land.

"Tree of life"
Whereas the breath of man was origin,
Folklore; stories of our elders and tomorrow's wisdom,
We are all children of the sun,
Bright skinned under the cooling shade of time,
Time as long as a tree has lived, and lives on.

Lest we be wise to store up our stories,
What will our generations remember of us,
Baobab trunk; store up the provisions, love, stories,
Time, blessings, and fruits of our labour at heart.

Baobab tree; blowing the wind,
A symbol of life in harshest of times,
We adapt to our environment; people all to thrive.

It is our nature.
Nomkhumbulwa May 2022
ESKOM

Where do I start?
Writing this by candle light;
Yet today we are lucky,
Load shedding came early

The system is done,
Its broken, corrupt,
Time after time,
Excuses one after the next

Us we are lucky,
In some ways anyhow;
For we have a few means
To keep warm for now

Others are not,
In fact most are not,
They suffer, they die,
But ESKOM - care they do not

Yes it was once ok,
to be totally without,
But once electricity is introduced,
Its difficult to go without

Those who have the means
Have done what they can,
Generators, gas, solar,
Options are endless, but only if you can

To most the expense is impossible,
Of course we want solar,
We want clean energy,
Just like we collect rain water

Its nothing new,
Its now been decades,
Leaving people to suffer,
ESKOM one problem after another

Winter after winter
Just when its needed most,
ESKOM takes it away,
Light, warmth, taken away

People light fires with paraffin,
Then bring them indoors,
Just to keep warm,
In the morning they dont wake up at all


Where is investment in alternatives?
For ESKOM cannot go on,
As one of my cousins said -
The grid is often more off than on

I cannot complain,
Not for myself anyway;
I choose to live here
I'll do things my own way

But I do see suffering
Knowing a long winter is ahead,
With an overburdened health system,
Knowing every winter leaves people dead

How much longer will it take?
For ESKOM to finally close,
To open doors for others,
Its time to get rid of the coal

In a Country basking in sunshine
nearly every day of the year,
The lack of solar power is saddening,
And shameful, but ESKOM doesnt care

Yes we have fire,
But we also have rain,
Those two dont mix,
Cannot cook on fire in the rain

The saddest things is this,
That ESKOM just dont care;
Lives dont matter to ESKOM,
Anyway - they have their share

The few that can make do,
They can afford to.
So everyone else is forgotten,
Nearly 80 percent of the population

Its cold, its wet,
We cannot light fire,
If we do its outside,
Buildings no longer designed for fire

How much longer ESKOM?
Will you allow people to suffer?
Will you eat all the money?
Will you do this to South Africa??

We all hope for a brighter future; quite literally...."brighter" ..  :)

Nomkhumbulwa **
apologies im new
Odd Odyssey Poet May 2022
Beautiful tragedy, a travesty of love brought by
things unspoken by the lips of so many few.
A honeydew sticky to my tongue, underneath the
fun of having someone to call, “my love”

Fields of maize rustling dry leaves in the tiniest
of breeze. Reminds me of the first time love had
shook me down in my knees.
Baobab trees of a swollen heart, packing luggage in
that African trunk. Under the tree kissing during lunch,
or in all of those lessons you and I would love to bunk.

Eversharp blue pens, drawing heart pictures on my wrist.
Bathroom breaks, and scandalous friends. Making sure
the memory of you, isn’t the one thing I rinse.
I’m convinced, with all the exercise books with tiny blocks,
I’d one day be boxed in by love.

With heavy weinbrenner shoes, walking around your entire
room to make them fit. I’d walk a thousand miles
to find a place in your heart, with my charms and wit.

Cascade diary drinks, cascading shadows of your
desires milked by the many ways you’ve lived.
I felt you heavily breathe, each time we kissed,
clutching my fingers to grab onto a time,
long before the low blows of love with a closed fist.

Must be nostalgia talking into my present days
and cares. A crush sweet as orange Mazoe,
you and I once would share.

I’ll take all the time to remember those lessons from old
things, and of course an old flame of love.
Trace my fingers along the scars, and the smiles
of memories we made out together.
Despite it being out of teenage peer pressure,
I’ve grown from it, to grow into something better.

I thank the nostalgia to my love. It’s worth the look back.
Aidar Omar May 2022
Africa is beautiful and beautiful is usual in Africa
Continental wonderland of love this is Africa

What's in Africa? What's there to see?
I asked myself on the New Year's eve
I thought that I was good in geography
But I didn't know Lagos or Nairobi

I might be ignorant, I have to admit
About Africa I knew just a little bit
The great Sahara - sands of mystery!
The Nile river - so much history!

Africa is magical and magical is usual in Africa
Continental wonderland of joy this is Africa

Namibia, Nigeria, Niger, Angola, Algeria
Burundi, Benin and Libya, Lesotho and Liberia
Burkina-Faso, Botswana, Guinea-Bissau, Ghana
Djibouti, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Uganda, Rwanda, Gambia

I saw a film on Serengeti Park
A one of a kind, a must-see landmark
I watched a documentary on pyramids of Giza
They're much much older than Mona Lisa

I heard that oldest coffee plants
Take their roots in Ethiopia's land
And that samba, rumba, funk and jazz
Take their beats from African drums

Africa is beautiful and beautiful is usual in Africa
Continental wonderland of love this is Africa

Cameroon and Congo, Malawi, Mali, Morocco
Côte d'Ivoire and Kenya, Mauritius, Mauritania
Tunisia, Tanzania, Eswatini, Eritrea
Sudan, Senegal, Somalia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan

You can travel around cities of Africa
Like Cape Town, Cairo or Casablanca
If you're in love or plan to be
Go to Zanzibar, feel that ocean breeze!

Climb up mount Kilimanjaro
Watch the zebras cross the Masai Mara
If you're adventurous, you're a dreamer
Take a wild trip down Zambezi river

Africa is magical and magical is usual in Africa
Continental wonderland of joy this is Africa

Comoros, Chad, Cabo Verde, Democratic Republic of Congo
Ethiopia, Egypt, Guinea, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Togo
Madagascar, Mozambique, Central African Republic
Sao Tome and Principe, South Africa and Seychelles

Africa is beautiful and beautiful is usual in Africa
Continental wonderland, I'm on my way to Africa!
We are everything
They told you about
We are the beautiful dream
They wish to have again, and again
We are the fairytale characters
Who always win in the end
Heroes and heroines — beau idéals
We are the good people
Nothing can divide us;
Politics, tribe, trade, doctrine, greed, religion
Brave men and women
Who fought to be free
Red for their brave blood
That stopped flowing for our sake
Gold for our mineral wealth;
Diamond, gold, bauxite, manganese
Green for our rich forests
Which give us herbage and food
And the Black five-pointed star
For our emancipation from the British colony
Because our lives matter
Just like all free nations
Building a strong foundation of love
And high pillars of culture
Strength. Love. Peace
We are everything they cannot be
The four corners of the nation, not just part
Are as proud as we can be
We are GHANA!
Ghana is 65 years today. On the 6th of March, 1957, Ghana was the first African country to gain her independence. Our development seems to be in a snail pace but our spirits are still intact. We're not giving up. We pride ourselves in our beautiful culture, hospitable citizens, and peaceful country.  “Forward ever, backward never” - Osagefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah
nyant Nov 2021
Went to my magwinya lady today,
she's contained at the canteens on north campus,
As she rose up her left eye was bluish ****** grey,
A lump in my throat formed not as big as the one on her face,
my eyes secreted their salty solution,
my mind quickly processed confusion,
"M-m-m-m-may i-i-i p-p-lease have five magwinyas"
She smirked at my muttered utterance as she began to fill the thin transparent plastic with the oily flour-filled *****,
I reluctantly asked "What happened to your eye?"
She responded in Xhosa reasonably assuming my common cocoa coating meant our tongues matched until I told her otherwise.
Eventually she simply said, "Fight".
I said, "you got in to a fight?"
She said "Mmm".

I went over to my banana lady and said the magwinya lady has a black eye and she casually claimed, "Her boyfriend beat her yesterday."
Confirming what my teary eyes and lumpy throat knew to be true when I saw my sweet magwinya lady with a swollen eye ****** grey and blue.

Frustrated at the nothing I could do.
Powerlessly pirched on a brown bench as the black sparrows chirped pleading for a piece of my last magwinya,
Should I tell her to escape?
Is that even my place?
How many black eyes are blotched on this bruised land i, a fearful foreigner, trace?
I'll bury my brain in my book,
somewhat cowardly crook,
I'll see what i saw but take no second look,
like a camel's head in the sand,
I'll timidly tell myself these things are just too hard to understand.
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