Gambia - individually yes, collectively, dunj dem... nuru wunj ko.

For what it’s worth, here, if you desire success in what you do and want it sustained, your primary achievement must be the ability to avoid the drama and all third-party engineered fall outs. So, your best bet is to go solo. But that’s just an opinion.

I think the average Gambian is built to thrive individually, because when bunched together, we suck. I mean collectively, we almost certainly are possessed against teamwork and for infighting. So, whatever the possessor is, we cannot but eventually stoop to its will.

I’m not sure if GIEPA and GCCI know the survival expectancy of an average Gambian (business) partnership, but ask them how many died at infancy and tell me if it’s worth your thrill. See, that’s because even where the partners are as tight as a drum, unity emasculators will always find some controversy to drive amid.

Disagree all you want, here is an unfortunate truth:

Today, any family circle that’s taking pleasure in prominence had a leading cause. There must’ve been at least someone who gave up his or her comfort for it. For instance: Wal-Mart may not have been the empire it is or manage to outlive a generation if not for the sacrifice and forethought of Sam Walton. Just as today, 2018, William Clay Ford, Jr. is serving as the Executive Chairman of Ford Motor Company because of what his great-grandfather - Henry Ford created in 1903.

I wish I could draw nearer examples apart from some brother or sister travelling abroad, working his or her tail off to build a bigger life, invites the siblings over, introduces them to decent livelihoods, only to be labelled ‘sohorr’ (wicked) for eventually limiting his or her generosity to give attention to building a family of his or her own.

I think it has to do with forward planning, which evidently is not a familiar terrain round here. In our part of the world, it’s like every generation is for itself. And so, those who invest do it for self and fast earnings (fat-fat). Educated people look for easy jobs, civil service mostly, because it’s more convenient than seeking to create a job for posterity. That’s perhaps one reason why most formerly big businesses die with their initiators, and grand marabouts with their knowledge.

On one occasion, given that every part of the coconut palm is so useful that they call it the tree of heaven, I said if ever I get the dough, I will relocate to Jinack Island and start a very radical coconut farm. The first advice I got was that I may not live to reap the benefits, because it’d take between six to ten years to start bearing, 15 to 20 years to reach peak production.

So, the business gets deserted despite the richness of our soil for it, and even with it being a foundation for succeeding generations. I don’t blame anyone for this. I’d rather these three cultures and they’re fixable:

1) DEPENDENCY CULTURE: once one is earning and supporting the family, the rest, rather than do something, just anything to complement, they tend to relax and be collecting without end, as if there’s always more where it’s coming from.

2) SATISFACTION WITH MEDIOCRITY: we want to be the best we can be, but only a few is enthusiastic about pushing for more, so we settle for bare minimum – you know: jarut ko, li doye na, try na, taneh na, dina bakh, etc.

3) SOLIDARITY IN POVERTY: you cannot talk about laziness and incompetence as very possible causes of the state we are in, lest you’d be said to be full of yourself. Show tough love and be erased from all good records, all of your good deeds immediately cancelled, as if you never happened.

Rumour

In this day and age of fakery and presstitution, dealing with the things you hear, what you see or the stuff you read should require delicate thoughtfulness.

Don't overreact, you may be wrong, eventually sorry. But don't you underestimate any, or as if out of line, because that's a decision you may live to regret. Be wise, dread... be balanced!

The shitstem always wins...

One reason why empathy, decency, truth, compassion and integrity are dying qualities in our part of the world is because the systems we create aren't founded on sincerity, so I call them 'shitstems.'

Shitstems built on pretended nationalism, for selfish ambitions, expediency above service if you like... and the ungenuine prayers and fake Amens thereof, mtcheew!

So, those who genuinely seek change will eventually get tired, because even the strongest of people have their moments of fatigue. And the weaker ones will say: 'you know what, f'ck it! If you can't beat them, join them." You see, the shitstem wins, like it always wins.

New Gambia, what's next... ?

Any preelection agreement or promise that our politicians might have made was like bandage on a cut. At the time, The Gambia couldn't afford another political hemorrhage, so they did what they did to stop the bleeding, and for a while. But, that's just an opinion, and here's another theory as to what next:

See, when presented with the unexpected, people soon adapt, most people that is. So they feel entitled. I don't know, I'd suppose our president knows that he naturally has a lot like that appointed around him - people who, even if he's not interested in reelection, they're too smitten with their newfound statuses they will make sure he is, means to it regardless.

I just hope the good of the country will prevail in whatever comes about. But then, if age taught me anything, it's that in this life, what's considered good or bad, the right thing or the wrong thing, truth or falsehood, all depend on which side or whose side one's on, discretionary more like, and I'm not sure if that's a promising thing.

‘Monday doesn't suck, your job does.’

I saw an internet meme as follows: ‘Monday doesn't suck, your job does.’ It makes sense, but I think it has to do with more than just the job. Every job comes with downsides. As a matter of fact, work in general is not easy. But if yours is such that the minute you start the week, you can’t wait for Friday, huh, something isn’t right.

Granted, when you aren’t truly smitten with what you do, it naturally wouldn’t seem worthwhile, the size of your pay envelope regardless. But if you love what you do, and the pay is decent, and coming to work still irks, check your work environment. It affects a lot. 

Swear down, even the Jesus Christ of Matthew 5:39 will run short of stamina for a place where people crave admiration and lack empathy, where one is vilified on Monday, dignified on Tuesday, isolated or put through the silent treatment on Wednesday, praised in absolutely positive terms on Thursday, gets one’s name blackened on a Friday morning, and by noon, the same person’s wished a nice weekend.

Tell me, how can one love a Monday when one works under such toxic selfishness and subtle manipulation - you know, with narcissists who want to remain faultless that anything that goes bad at work, including their fault, is made to look as if someone else’s, eh? 

My boy’s a barber – possibly not so gainful. But he’s the happiest I’ve ever seen, because his work environment’s so not stiff, so steady, and so accommodating that he feels so secure. But that's why he cannot but love what he does, and so much that he’d put off a needed Sunday outing to innovate or copy a certain haircut that he saw on a magazine cover.

Political leeches...

The reason why political leeches will almost always succeed in driving a wedge between the elected and the ordinary electorate is because most elected people soon become defective in wisdom, and too smitten by power that they forget the fact that snakes will always be snakes, no matter how many times they shed their skin.

So, where I come from, we say politicians don't eat with the people they starved with. And in the end, those ordinary people who toured and starved with them, who bore every brunt to make things happen will get disgusted to a point they longer care... that was why some rural folks during Jawara's reign had this grumble that they make leaders and Banjul snatches them.

People, their climate, their conduct...

You can tell a lot about the conduct of people by their weather pattern.

Ours, especially this time is so erratic it's a fierce harmattan in the morning towards noon, then transforms as if a scorching afternoon in the Middle East.

Soon as you start to growl in displeasure, it's evening already, and temperature gets so low that when you go to areas like Fajara, all you can hear is the wind whistling through the trees.

Sometimes you wake up and it's totally different, even the sun will refuse to come out, as if angry because the weather forecaster didn't say In'shaAllah (God willing) after predicting a sunny day.

I love proverbs...

'Garab bu dul menya du am yorn.' (There's hardly a path to a fruitless tree). Kotchi Barma was credited to have said this to the 'Damel' (king) of Cayor.

The king was kinda perplexed that his subjects were indifferent to a war that he wanted to wage against the kingdom of Baol. In a sense, Kotchi Barma was telling him why he shouldn't expect the loyalty and devotion of his people if he cannot love and treat them with respect.

Proverbs are awesome. Chinua Achebe of blessed memory said "proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten." So, older folks like myself use 'em a lot, not to gaduwalleh/garuwalleh as tards would think, but to convey messages, particularly where the aim's to remove a stinger without getting stung.

Acknowledge your own...

Usually, a woman is said to be beautiful when she has all the features commonly found in women of African descent, like: full lips, round behind, brow skin, you know, carved with curves, etc. But we don't acknowledge these things unless some non-black Hollywood star simulates the traits.

The point of my analogy being: we don't recognise what we have until it's lost or hijacked.

So I see college educated Africans blaming the West for Africa's brain drain? But why wouldn't they the hell increase their brain gain, when Africa frustrates hers? Don't we see we are (willingly) yielding to the same exploitation that we nag about? You see, activism for Africa and African beliefs isn't about saying what you think people want to hear. It's about sincerity in what you're in support of, or in opposition to.

DemoCRAZY more like...

The level of ‘kawuyehyaa’ (foolhardiness), ‘fuurinyaa’ (asininity), and ‘kalantanyaa’ (jackassery) going on and overlooked in this country in the name of politics boggles the mind. But even more mindboggling is when supposedly intelligent people see all of it as tolerable; coming on here, bringing up unrelated precedents to defend obvious nonsense, with so much high sounding garbage.

And it’s funny because they do recognise the fact that what’s going is awful, “but... yeah, that’s democracy for you.” Democracy what, dipshits?

Fine, it’s good to have liberal views. I’m very liberal myself. But watch out, many a contemporary Gambian liberal is a fraud. They come on here looking for people to screw, minority groupings mostly, cook up theories to convince them that the grouping is being oppressed, and they’re the Robin Hood of the oppressed, using the unit’s naivety to score some political points. Trust this, dread: anything they pass judgment on is better than them – frauds!

Well... !

Once, in the village of Kunkumendy, "Nambia", there came an American Peace Corps Volunteer. She was asked to stay in the chief's compound. But to everyone's surprise, she chose the chief's mud house to his modernly built self-contained apartment earmarked for visitors like her.

Barely a month, what was once a primitive dwelling became a selfie ground for the girls in the village, thanks to the beauty of its newformed scenery, and everything she put in there was green, homemade, locally sourced, just untapped; from the bamboo bed to living room sets, roofing materials, the fencing, to the hammock she placed between the two mango trees, and the wild roses by the house; nothing came from Madison Avenue, nothing from Batimat nor Sunu Keur.

Fast forward, last month, I visited Kunkumendy. From seeing the state of the house, I knew straight away that the Peace Corps Volunteer's gone. No improvements, no maintenance; in fact, the house is so unkempt it's back to being that absolute "shithole" it once was. I was like, see why they think of us the way they do, eh? And unless we dead the indolence, our bare minimum mindedness and satisfaction with mediocrity, unless we explore to innovate, idiots like Donald Trump will always have ground to disparage even the best amongst us.

Procedures Evolve

Some Babylonian code of rules and procedures I don't buy, at least not anymore. Procedures can be geographically specific, and like there's never a road without a turning, procedures gotta evolve for there to be progress. Here and most parts of Africa, so long as some 1865 Babylonian way of doing a thing is found workable, it's unimproveable. Unless some Babylonian consultant says otherwise, it's as if beyond alteration, beyond criticism, and interference.

We don't see it fit to change anything. Spit truth to us, even if needed to spark action, we get all defensive, so retortive, so in denial, and we say we are intellectually woke? Whilst intelligent civilisation is making life easier, we are here subjecting each other to red tapes from colonial days, rules that even the Queen herself no longer goes by, and we call ourselves Pan-Africans? Can you see the irony? Can you see why our works are so boring, monotonous, time consuming, wearisome, lacking freshness, and so, no new results?

National Security

Funny, few months ago, an ordinary security checkpoint seen on our streets is cause for outcry on here, like: "this is not the change (democracy) we voted for." Today that aggression is becoming so menacingly rampant that after-parties are moments of vulnerability, the same anarchist-seeming democrats who were disgusted by the presence of law enforcement on our streets are peed off by the deteriorating security.

Perhaps out of desperation, I hear some say this is their last they come home for vacation if the state of our security doesn't look up.

Mr. President you see how running this country is the hardest job there is, and how your reacting to every criticism flying at you is not actually running it? You're reacting, Sir. I think it's about time you start leading, heightening national security to begin with. If people want their nightlife but hoplophobic, let them stay indoors and watch GRTS until the savagery is curbed.

It's eff'd up how after concerts, ladies are being forced to hide their jewelries, cellphones, and other valuables including expensive wigs, exposing their unkempt hair against their will, all for fear of extortion (rapino). People are being drawn outta their vehicles and their stuff taken, by gangs so large, so coordinated even if you were black-belted in karate, it'd be suicidal to pick a fight with one.

Inspiration is what our young people need...

Young people ayard are talented, most of them. The way they perform in the arts and didn't go to any art school is one proof. What some of them lack is the inspiration to turn on their talents, motivation if you like - and so, many either suffer trepidation trying to show what they got, or drag their feet and don’t try at all.

But I think our own people who have achieved some success can help with that, share their stories more often. And by that I mean from when the struggle was real; true stories behind their successes. It may inspire and motivate these kids to take action, because it'll make the possibility of what they can do with what they have perceptible.

I find it so not cool when people who could be an inspiration to many get all brusque, tweaking and embellishing their own stories as if never-erred geniuses from birth, confining these kids to despair, you know, like, to make it, you gotta be ultrahuman, probably first in class from grade one to college, or be born made.

About President Barrow's Honourary Degree...

Today, even a handsome donation to an institution of higher learning can earn one an honourary degree, and that's not just in The Gambia.

So, if the University of The Gambia chooses to confer an Honourary Doctorate Degree upon the Chancellor of their University, which chancellorship itself is as purely ceremonial as the degree, in my opinion, it's just what it is: a mark of honour, and I want to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Should the President start getting all whingy if we don't address him as Dr. Barrow, that becomes a different ball game. But until then, I think our political precautions are becoming so phobic, like we are all doctorated in some branch of science that deals with the mutating processes of dictatorships.

Wait, do you know that even I'm an honourary father of a 'compin' and I haven't fathered anyone yet? See, you wouldn't because it didn't inflate my ego, even though I go to some ceremonies and these ladies will be like, come, father; you can sit here. Hehe!

Dignity, 'Foroyaa' or 'N’gor'...

We all have things we wish hadn't happened. We just don’t notice it in some people because even if they worry, they don’t wear their worries. They stay positive even though shit’s really bad. They’re so resilient they wouldn’t swallow their dignity to get above the 'food chain,' or say to some person in a position of authority: "YO, I saw God in Barra this morning and He said hi. He said you’re awesome."

Nah, the people I’m talking about, they wouldn’t do that. They accept change and they adapt to new realities as they come. So, to me, what they have or don’t have doesn’t matter. Who they’re and what they symbolise, that’s what matters - and that’s their sense of worth and integrity. Mankinka’s call it 'Foroyaa' or 'N’gor' in Wolof. Being them may not be as fashionable, but eventually, it’s comfortable, ultra-cool I should say.

Do we really work?

"Teranga domu Adama, ligeuye rek moko muna johe." ~ Dr. Youssou N'dour (Work's the surest means to dignified living).

See, if mighty America suffered injustices of colonisation, Europe almost ruined by the Second World War, and seeing where they are today, it's safe to say that our lack of progress is not entirely a consequence of colonisation. Granted, we have a very sad history of being taken advantage of. But whining and throwing pity-parties in the name of Pan-Africanism is not gonna help, because even though it takes courage to complain, it cannot without action undo the past.

Some wise person once said: "if you took one-tenth the energy you put into complaining and applied it to solving the problem, you'd be surprised by how well things can work out. Complaining does not work as a strategy. We all have finite time and energy. Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve our goals. And it won't make us happier."

But then, meaningful work requires thinking, and thinking's a complex process that many of us don't have time for. Those that we call thinkers are just tinkerers. So we have entrepreneurs who just buy and sell but don't think to innovate, and an intelligentsia so mentally enslaved they can't think outside the babylonian box. They'd rather be gaming and bending the rules, abusing and cheating the system, just to milk the system and create a shitstem.

But, even if that's not true, we are so bare minimum minded, our work attitudes and ethics suck, and that's true. The "Semesters" from Europe and America are around; ask them and they'll confirm that we here don't work as in the true sense of the word. Those who truly work are either being fought, or in it for personal interests and immediate advantages, not for posterity. So you see workers work overtime not for exigencies but for the extra pay thereof, reason why you hardly see businesss outlive generations, and why some folk will start something lucrative in your area just to save up for a certain 'hew' (ceremony), after that, it's done, that's it, we don't work!

Happy New Year, Gambia!

When you think "time flies," it means you're having fun, or enjoying health, vigour of body, mind, and spirit. Still, January 2017 feels like yesterday, but it was a pretty cool year. I made new connections, kept my old friends and love them even more, prayed and I pray for all those who couldn't make the journey. I have never blocked anyone on here. I had some challenges, confronted demons, some I overcame, and some I gotta brew a barrel of whoopass for - the can wasn't as effective.

I think the year was even more awesome at national level.Two decades of a very powerful idiocracy eventually neutralised, the head ousted, isolated and possibly broke. Of course leaving behind lots of damages and bad feelings. Commissions set up, people once glorified now de-glorified, some (perhaps unreasonably) demonised for having just served under the shitstem.

I hope all the wounds will in time be covered with scars of fortitude, because I ain't gonna lie, the pain reawakens each time the many touching, tragic, and shocking accounts are being narrated, and as we remember those who paid the ultimate. Swear down I'm usually discreet about personal issues but I know the feeling; there's a certain song I don't listen to, because it was the tune playing on the radio before my family's share of the agony of that dark chapter was aired.

Well, it's safe to say that by God and collective effort, The Gambia is homing in on very welcoming democratic solutions. Yeah dread, I wasn't born under Jammeh's reign, so believe me when I say things have started looking up. I hope the radical political, foreign, fiscal and economic policy changes being made will be seen to. And did you notice, our President's handshakes are now more presidential than it was talibeh-like? But that's by the way.

Really, unlike the second towards third quarter of the 2017, I think we are finally fostering unity. Now most of the discord and the incessant tolay-ya that you read on here are sourced from pseudo, irrelevant, and irreverent social media profiles and pages that are just trying so hard to cause division over nothing, using their clueless followership to drive the wedge deeper, but it wouldn't fly. May 2018 be better!

One who isn't contented is ungrateful...

When we get accustomed to the things that were once privileges, they become so usual we feel so entitled, and we become discontented when don't have them, hence difficult, bitter and ungrateful.

If you ask me, all what you need to live happily this New Year and ever after is contentment, because you can't have it all, and you don't need to. If you're a giver, or a people-pleaser, same difference: you can't keep everyone pleased, and you don't need to.

My friend, even nature couldn't do it for me. Yeah, growing up, I thought 6ft wasn't bad for a basketball player, so 6ft I wanted. Eventually, I grew 4 inches taller, got used to the height and I started wishing I were a foot taller: 7ft 4" - yuh see mi?

My boss said: Give a man in need 1000 for the first time and he'll be excited like: "OMG, thank you so much! God will reward you with goodness." Give him 1000 for a second time and he'll seem so wanting in desire: "Oh, place it there for me!" Give him 1000 for a third time and you'll seemingly irk him, and he'll say: "here comes Mr. 1000. He doesn't give anything but that, ugh!" It's a social reality.