Of French & Love

Je pressens ton envie de bouger

(I sense your desire to dance)

Acceptes-tu cette danse?

(Do you accept this dance?)

C'est Ladies Night, tu es à l'honneur

(It is ladies night, you have the honour)

Allons, viens, danse

(Come, dance)

Je m'éveille sous ta sensualité

(Your sensuality arouses me )

Donne-moi une chance

(Give me a chance)

C'est plus que je ne peux endurer

(It is more than I can take)

Allons, viens, danse

(Come, dance)

Slaï - La dernière danse

It was a warm day in August. The sun was shining brightly in the sky even though it was 5pm. There was little to no wind and dust covered the streets. The young man called his friend from his hostel. She lived within the campus grounds, in a girls' hostel where up to four girls would share a single room. Each floor of the girls' hostel had shower facilities where all the girls belonging to the same floor would go to bathe themselves. Often a visiting boy would grin with glee when he saw girls wrapped in towels walking by. The girls always looked so angry when they saw the boys.

The call ended. The girl asked him to meet her in her room. They were planning for a party for a group of friends and she was the treasurer. The purpose of his visit would simply be to make his contribution. He made his way from his room in a hostel outside the campus to the campus itself. It took longer than usual as there were more students around campus than usual. Then again, it was almost exam time. The time when everyone showed up at campus, from students who skived classes often to absentee lecturers.

He passed by the guards at the campus gate and headed towards the girls' hostel. The guards did not search him as they had become accustomed to seeing him by now. Newer faces were not so easily allowed through the gate, a valid student ID was required. The university had many buildings all over. The closest one to the gate was Hall 13, the famous Hall 13 where girls disappeared on Friday and magically reappeared on Monday. 

It was a boys' hostel of course, their favourite. Next were the merchant shops where one could purchase anything, from snacks to condoms, from printing paper to leaked exam papers. This was the place to go for all student needs. The merchant shops adjoined the newest mess hall where the Hall 13 residents always dined. From there one could choose to go to the other hostels or to Hall 14, where classes took place from Monday to Friday. He took the path to the hostels.

There were three girls' hostels and three boys' hostels. Four of the five hostels were across from each other divided only by a common corridor. He passed by the first hostel, this was a boy's hostel and was on his left. He reached the second boys' hostel that was also to his left but rather, he turned right so that he now faced the girls' hostel that he had been instructed to go to. He took the stairs to get to the second floor and walked past a few girls in towels to get to the room where his friend lived. 

He knocked on the door and dipped his hand in his pocket. He began fumbling for his wallet just as the door opened. He froze. His friend was a short dark-skinned African lady with a big smile. She was a simple girl who almost always plaited her hair and dressed conservatively. Standing in front of him was a shapely, light-skinned woman wearing a beige sweater cutting a low neckline revealing large succulent breasts, the kind whereby the complexion lightens as you get closer to the nipples. Her hair was curly and she looked anything but simple. 

"Yes?" she said. "I err...I'm searching for my friend Monica..." the boy began to say. "She's not here," the girl said interrupting the boy. "Ah well, okay." He turned and began to walk away. She closed the door. He pulled out his mobile phone and called his friend Monica. She picked up his call after the third ring. "Hi Monica. I came to your room but I found that you are not yet here..." he began. "But there should be someone there," she insisted. "Err...yes," he said hesitantly. "Then just wait for me there," she said. "Err..." the boy said. "Wait for me there," she said and hung up. 

The boy walked slowly back to the door and knocked again. The buxom lady opened the door again. "She err...asked me to wait for her here," he said sheepishly. "It's okay," she said letting go of the door. He walked in to the room. It was an ordinary campus hostel room with two Double Decker beds and a balcony. Two large glass doors framed with wood separated the balcony from the room itself. The boy noticed a young slender man lying on the bed looking at him threateningly. Not wanting to get into a staring competition, the boy looked around for a place to sit. His eyes fell upon an adjacent table that was complemented by a stiff wooden chair. He walked to it and sat on the chair.

No sooner had he sat down than he realized that he had made a big mistake. The girl crawled over the young man and lay on him. Her hands were crossed under her breasts so that her body was slightly raised from the young man's. It meant that the young man had a very good view, but so did the boy. He wanted to turn the chair away from them, but to do so, he would have to turn it completely away from them so that his back faced them. This struck him as odd as it would give the impression that he was either ashamed of what he was seeing or that he was too young for such tender acts of passion. 

Le groove de la basse nous fait vibrer sur la séquence

(The groove of the bass makes us resonate in sequence)

Tes courbes qui ne cessent de me frôler me mettent en transe

(Your curves keep brushing againt me, putting me in a trance)

Sois ma captive, sois ma dulcinée

(Be my captive, be my sweetheart)

Qu'est-ce que t'en penses?

(What say you?)

Je me plierai à tes volontés

(I submit to your desires)

Donne-moi une chance

(Give me a chance)

Before he could make up his mind the young lady with an hour glass figure began to mutter beautiful things to the young man and little by little, she began to kiss him. The boy suddenly began to feel hot around the neck. This was more than he had bargained for. It was not just that they were kissing it was that they were conversing in a foreign language, one that he recognized but could not understand, French. The boy sat at the edge of his seat, erect, like an arrow about to be released.

The young man turned his head upside down for a moment so that he could see the boy. "Can't you wait outside?" he asked angrily. The boy began to get up but the attractive young woman waved him down. "No, it's okay. C'est bon mon chéri (it's okay darling)," she said. She kissed him twice but the young man would not relent. "You can wait for her outside!" he said angrily. This time the boy did not hesitate. He half-walked, half-ran out of the room. He quickly descended the stairs and walked out of the hostel. As he turned the corner in order to take the corridor that would lead him back to the gate and outside the campus, someone stopped him.

He looked up and saw Monica's face. "Hi!" she said brightly. "Hi," he said quickly. He shoved his contribution into Monica's hand and began to walk away. She stopped him again. "Are you okay?" she asked him. "Your roommate had a guest," the boy said. "Sorry," she said to him apologetically. He could see it in her eyes. She too had been an unexpected guest at a similarly erotic show.

It has been nearly a decade since this happened and I am glad to report that I now speak French :-)

Dear Future Wife

Who can say where the road goes
Where the day flows, only time
And who can say if your love grows
As your heart chose, only time

- Enya

 Dear Future wife, I love you and I want you to know that my love for you is as endless as the sea. I know that you will be a good role model to our children and that together we will teach them in the way that they should go. Your love for them will be as boundless as the universe and under your tender care, they will flourish like roses in the spring. I know that I will be a loving and faithful husband to you my beautiful and virtuous wife and that we shall live long and savour the sweetness of our marriage.

My dear future wife, there are things about me that you need to understand before we can have that sweet life that awaits us. It is not my wish to alarm you, nor is it my intention to hurt you but I want you to know the person that I am before I marry you and share eternity with you. I want you to know that even though I love you that I won't always be as close to you as you'd want. It will not mean that I no longer love you, it will not mean that I no longer find you attractive, it will mean that I am not always superman, that sometimes I am Clark Kent.

My dearest sweetheart, I love you with a love that shall not die even if the sun should grow cold and the stars grow old. There is still more to me that will surprise you. My dear, please know that though I have big dreams and talk of great conquests, that I do not always succeed. I am no quitter but sometimes even my best is not enough. I will never give up, but if you see me silent and withdrawn, please understand that I just haven't found a way to win yet. Trust me and show me that you believe in me and I will find a way, not just to succeed but to come back to you.

My lovely dove, you know that I have few fears in this world. You know that I am a brave and steadfast man, who may sometimes blunder but who always bounces back in the end. My dearest treasure, my greatest fear is to lose you, not just through some natural calamity, no, my fear is that you will stop believing in me and in my dreams and in all that I have to offer you. My dreams are great yes, but my fear of gaining your love then losing it is greater. This is why sometimes I distance myself from you. My love for you is constant and unceasing, and if you never show any doubt in me, I will never make you feel alone or unloved.

My beloved princess, I know that I treat you out to great places and lavish you with expensive gifts. It is not always that my finances are good, it is that I want to share what I have with you, whenever I can. You see my love, I see you as a part of my life and because I am happy, I want to share my happiness with you. I would like for you to know that I do not wish for you to partake in my sorrows, my doubts and my fears. My precious love, I don't want you to see how truly vulnerable and weak I get sometimes when things don't work out, or when things aren't moving as fast as I want them to. It is at these times that the distance between us may grow. You see my love, you fell in love with Superman, you see my dear, I don't want you to see Clark Kent because I don't know if your heart can accommodate him too.

My gentle flower, I wish I was always strong, always sure about the future, never having a moment of doubt - like the starring characters of great action movies. I wish I could turn any situation around in the blink of an eye and make it all alright, but that's not how life works and Clark Kent doesn't know how to remove the cape that would show you the side of Superman that you don't know. 

My dearest love, I hope that someday that this will all make sense to you. Why I no longer call and why we go on fewer and fewer dates. I hope that some day you will understand, how hard it must be, to love someone and to know that you can't keep them. To care for someone but to be afraid to lose them. To want somebody whom you can't have, not because there is anything in the world that can stop you, but because to that person you are only Superman, and not Clark Kent.

I keep dreaming you'll be with me and you'll never go

But it's time to face the truth, I will never be with you...

The Sound of Silence

Hello darkness, my old friend

I've come to talk with you again

Because a vision softly creeping

Left its seeds while I was sleeping

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence

The Sound of Silence - Disturbed

How did I end up back here? It's cold but that's not why my body is trembling. It's taking so much to write each word of this article. My passwords which I usually type without ever looking at the keyboard seem to be failing me today. As my hands tremble like a leaf in the cold blizzard of a bad winter. I try to make sense of things. Where did I go wrong? What did I do wrong? Why is everything so hazy? I feel so weak, like one denied food for days. Devoid of strength, eyesight failing. What is this feeling? Why do I feel like the air has been knocked out of my lungs?

Then I answer myself. It is because I became comfortable, because I got lazy. It is because I forgot the very lessons that I once taught, I forgot who I was. Hello darkness indeed. The darkness is where we go to express our innermost being. It is where we find solace, where we find acceptance and respite for our souls. In the darkness, no one can judge us, no one can belittle us, no one can make us feel small or hurt. In the darkness is where we find our truest selves.

In the darkness, we can find ourselves again. We can clutch and claw and grasp for fleeting straws. We can gnash our teeth and curse and throw up our arms. We can quit, we can judge ourselves, we can fight ourselves, we are allowed to express our doubts aloud. In the darkness, we can be bad, we can be good, we can be weak, we can say out loud our greatest fears and in the darkness, we can breakdown. In other words, in the darkness we can be who we are afraid to show the world. We can be our purest selves without the slightest regret.

Finding yourself again after hitting the ground is never easy, especially when you didn't even know that you were falling; but each time you fall remember this, you learn to walk by falling not by sticking to the rules.

Stitch by Stitch

And I give you all my pieces broken
In your hands there is nothing that you can't fix
My heart is frayed, my scars are open
So put me back together now stitch by stitch
Put me back together now stitch by stitch

Stitch by Stitch - Javier Colon

There was a time when I would have gotten on this blog and vented about how people get hurt and about how much you can get hurt when certain eventualities occur but that time is past. To be sincere, there comes a time in life when you are just so over the drama of reacting to crises and perceived crises in your life. That time for me is now and this article is not about pain or betrayal or love or any of the usual suspects, no, this article is about overcoming the pain that life throws at you. This article is dedicated to those silent heroes who shine a candle for us when all is dark and no one else cares enough.

What you say, without words, resuscitates what was numb inside

So repair me, every thread of me, 'cause you're bringing me back to life...

No matter how hard you try to avoid pain in life, it will come and meet you where you are. The only way to completely avoid pain is to do nothing at all. I am sure that you've all experienced heartbreak or loss at some point in your lives. You lost a job, a spouse, a loved one, a business, a limb or even a house. You must have at some point in your life felt so much pain that you couldn't tell front from back, a time when you may have been sad or depressed. A time when everything lost meaning for you and all you wanted was for the pain to end. If you have been there, are there or are headed there, don't give up just yet.

I'm still afraid of falling, somehow it's takin' over me

Don't ever let me let it go...

The first step to dealing with pain or disappointment is to get a support system. Someone or some people that you can talk to, someone who will listen and genuinely care even if they cannot offer any material support. Just having someone who can listen to you can make all the difference between a bad day and full blown depression. It's nice to have family members that you can talk to but the truth is, most of the time the person who will get you the most will not be related to you. As King Solomon once said, A brother is born for the day of trouble but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

As an example of the above, there was a time when I was in between jobs. You see folks I had quit a job and didn't have anywhere else to go. I had savings but they didn't last long. Of course I didn't just wait for opportunities to come to me. I enrolled in a French class, volunteered my services at an organization and gained other skills on the side. I applied for several jobs and even tried to work some contacts. I was absolutely certain that with my excellent curriculum vitae, my strong background and my good reputation for getting things done, I would get a job offer in less than three months. Three months came and went and I was still unemployed. My savings ran out. I was desperate, I had nowhere to go and could no longer afford the rent where I lived. I had virtually no money left. Worst of all is that I didn't even know how to ask for help.

Help came in form of a relative who asked me to go live with them till I figured things out. I was grateful, but at the same time I had a tremendous burden of guilt on my back. I felt guilty for burdening a relative, guilty for not having my life in order, guilty for ending up in the exact same way I had sworn never to end up - penniless. Worst of all was that I had nothing to show for the many years that I had been previously employed. I was broken. I felt like a failure. Three months turned to six months and though I was prospering in other ways, I wasn't getting a job. I was deeply scared that my relative would run out of patience and ask me to leave. I was also deeply ashamed because I had to borrow money for the most basic things. Thankfully, my relative understood and they encouraged me and listened to me. Encouragement and support mean everything when you are down to nothing. My relative however, was not the only person who encouraged me. There were a handful of friends who sometimes called to check on me and who made time for me whenever they could. Long story short I eventually got a job after nearly one year of unemployment and this job was way better than any that I have ever had in the past.

There and back, there's no doubt, your touch makes me whole again

The second step to dealing with pain is believing in something bigger than yourself. Not many people know this but my life has never been easy. I know that many of you feel the same way and that you've had to overcome your fair share of mountains. The thing is, for several years my life got worse and worse. There were some highs but the general trend was that things just got worse, no matter what I did or how hard I tried, in the end I almost always ended up worse off than before.

I was raised in a christian household so I learned early on to take my troubles to the Lord in prayer. Despite this, my life did not get better. At some point, I was so fed up with God that I became an atheist. That same week something happened and my worst fear was realized. My life was literally a nightmare during that week and the week that followed. As a man, you must always be strong, stoic and unshakable. The reality is though, that sometimes despite your strength and stamina, life will beat you down and shake you to your core. 

If you don't believe me read about Sylvester Stallone and his journey to stardom. Read on others too like Richard Branson, Jim Carrey and even Joyce Meyer. In life you will face things much bigger than yourself, things that will break you down and make you feel trapped with no way out. Remember that time when I was unemployed, yeah well, there were times when no one could help, when no one could understand, when no one had the time of day.

For me it was God, God is bigger than me. He is the all-powerful guiding force in my life. For Jim Carrey that is The Universe, for Richard Branson it is his Family. We all need something or someone to believe in, something to hold on to when nothing makes sense and when everything seems to be turning against you. William Butler Yeats once said, The center cannot hold; things fall apart... Find your center, find something bigger than yourself to believe in.

There's always a light at the end of the tunnel...

Finally dear brothers and sisters, believe in yourself. Know that you are capable, know that for so long as there is breath in your body then there is hope, For a live dog is better than a dead lion. The winds of doubt will blow, the storm of fear will strike, the darkness of uncertainty will cloud your vision but when life knocks you down get back up and say to yourself, No matter how bad it is and no matter how bad it gets I am gonna make it. Murphy's law maybe real but you were born a winner, that means that it matters not so much where you started, where you are from or where you've been but only where you finish truly matters in this life. Read up on your favourite idols and superstars. From Ronaldo and Lionel Messi to Dwayne Johnson and Arnold Schwarzenegger, from Taraji P Henson to J.K. Rowling, you'd be surprised to hear where they started, where they came from and what they had to go through to get to where they eventually did.

In the natural, we are conditioned to react to pain in only one way, to avoid it, like the way we would avoid a knife cut. The way to deal with pain in life however, is not to avoid it but rather to deal with it. To rise up and face it confidently. Why do we do this? We do this because it is the only way to learn and move on. The risk we run of not facing our pain is that we risk repeating the same mistakes or actions that led us to that pain. I complete this article with a certain quote from Bill Clinton's book, My Life.

"Over the long years since I first saw High Noon, when I faced my own showdowns, I often thought of the look in Gary Cooper’s eyes as he stares into the face of almost certain defeat, and how he keeps walking through his fears toward his duty. It works pretty well in real life too."

101 Reasons Why I Like You

Oh, her eyes, her eyes

Make the stars look like they're not shinin'

Her hair, her hair

Falls perfectly without her trying

She's so beautiful

And I tell her every day

Yeah, I know, I know

When I compliment her she won't believe me

And it's so, it's so

Sad to think that she don't see what I see

But every time she asks me, "Do I look okay?"

I say

When I see your face

There's not a thing that I would change

Cause you're amazing just the way you are

And when you smile

The whole world stops and stares for a while

Cause, girl, you're amazing just the way you are

Just the way you are - Bruno Mars

Ever so often we get the chance to tell our loved ones how we feel about them but we don't. Sometimes it is because words fails us. Sometimes it is because we are afraid what it might mean if we tell them all that we really feel for them. I happen to fall in that category, so I want to pick today of all days, Valentine's, to let that special someone know all the reasons that she is special to me.

Dear Love, it has been two years since we first met and every day I thank God a little more that we met. When I count my blessings, I count you twice because I am doubly-blessed to have you in my life. You are the fruit that makes me weak and if I had one wish it would be to spend eternity with you, by your side, making every day count like it would be our last.

Dear Love, ever since we met I have become a better man. I smile whenever I think of you. I have better dreams and when I see you, my heart misses a beat. You cannot possibly know to what depths you have inspired me, even when I was down you were there. You never saw me as a lesser man because I had nothing to give or belittled me because I was out of luck. Rather you breathed new life into my dreams and encouraged me all the way. When I was weak you were strong, when I was faltering, you were my pillar of strength, when all was dark, you were the guiding star in my world.

My Precious Love, you are blessed with the perfection of beauty, amazing inner strength and wisdom beyond your years. You are brilliant, sweet, kind, smart and playful. You are worth more than diamonds or gold because you can never be replaced. You make every day a day worth living and every tomorrow a vision of hope. What would I do without your golden smile? Oh what would I do without your beautiful counsel? Oh what a glorious pleasure it is to spend every moment with you.

My Dearest Love, there is so much we have seen together and so much that my heart desires to tell you but the words to express it all fail me. You are the miracle that the world never knew, the amazing promise of God to the one who will be the world's most blessed man. You are beauty defined. I am awed by your awesome splendour. Your grace and elegance are second to none and if ever I should be so lucky to have you, I will remind you of it every blessed morning and every glorious night.

I'll be your dream

I'll be your wish

I'll be your fantasy

I'll be your hope

I'll be your love

Be everything that you need

I'll love you more with every breath

Truly, madly, deeply do

I will be strong

I will be faithful

'Cause I'm counting on

A new beginning

A reason for living

A deeper meaning, yeah

I wanna stand with you on a mountain

I wanna bathe with you in the sea

I wanna lay like this forever

Until the sky falls down on me

And when the stars are shining brightly in the velvet sky,

I'll make a wish, send it to heaven then make you want to cry

The tears of joy for all the pleasure and the certainty

That we're surrounded by the comfort and protection of the highest powers

In lonely hours

The tears devour you

Truly, Madly, Deeply - Savage Garden

My African Dream

Open the door of thy heart,

And open thy chamber door, 

And my kisses shall teach thy lips

The love that shall fade no more

Till the sun grows cold,

And the stars are old...

I see her, my lovely, dutiful and beautiful wife, walking towards me in the light of the warm setting sun of September. I see her walking towards me in that long green mermaid dress with African print. Her hips are swaying right and left as she walks to me, her dashing husband, and our three amazing kids. 

It's a warm Sunday evening and the kids and I have been playing all day in the green fields of our 5 acre farm. It has been a long day that started with church, then lunch in our orchard followed by games all afternoon. My precious wife walks to me and kisses me as I lean on our black Mercedes Benz. She pulls back and I take a breath as I marvel at the amazing beauty standing in front of me. When God made her, the world stopped and applauded. The rivers, the trees, the oceans, the skies and all of nature stood in motion to marvel at her splendour.

She leads us back to the mansion that is our abode where we sit down for dinner around a round mahogany table clothed with a red table cloth, in a dining room lit by magnificent lamps and warmed by a charming chimney fire.

We laugh, eat and make fun of each other as we share our experiences and the warmth of our hearts. When the meal is done, I regale my family with funny stories of tales long forgotten and myths no longer remembered.

When all is done, the children go to bed and my wife and I sit on the thick red carpet with the sofa to our backs and the fire place to our front. We cuddle before the fire and fall in love all over again not just with each other but with what we have become.

This is My African Dream