SIMON CHILEMBO FOR PRESIDENT! Part 2

“Simon, Simon, I know you all 30 years of Oslo and everything about you is problems, problems, problems, … Simon, please, Bello, can you not just for one day, today, have no problems, please. Problems, give me problems every day. I get a headache. NO PROBLEMS, PLEASE!!! I beg you, Simon, Sensei!” my first Norwegian friend, and Brother, Mimmo (72), Italian, would often cry in frustration. And we’d then go out and eat pasta, pizza, tiramisu; drink red wine and espresso, and live happily ever after, sharing our fantasies about good fortunes, women, as well as our frustrations about Karate politics in Norway and all over the world.

The root cause of all my problems is that I do not have a rich and generous uncle I can cry on to and, voila, I live happily ever after. I have problems. Big problems. Serious problems:

• Across the street in front of the house I live in there is a piece of prime land I want to buy. Here, I can build a modern open-air training and art park for the community. Promoting Health & Wellness principles and attitudes for a healthy, strong, and productive nation. But I’m broke
• I need to pave up the space in front of my house, not only for aesthetic purposes, but that would further stabilise the earth around the house. Broke.
• There is an urgent need to fence off the yard to the street. More for privacy needs than security. Broke.
• Lots of repair and upgrading work to do around the house. No deal. Broke.
• I need some classy interior decoration job for the house. No deal. Broke.
• I need to make the house a green one, with solar energy panels and all, as well as own water borehole. No deal. Broke.
• I must have super high speed ADSL connection here. No deal. Broke.
• A swimming pool is needed too, so is a billiard room, private gym, as well as a private study/ library. No deal. Broke.
• No Maserati. No Mercedes. No Maybach. Not even a Mahindra workhorse van. Broke.
• Future mother of my children taking her time to find me. The house is too big for one man.
• I have produced too much food in my new vegetable garden. Abundance everywhere in suburbia. Problems, problems.

Never ending wars in Africa. African people made destitute in their own lands. African people hungry, dirty, maimed, sick, miserable, broken. African people die without dignity; no honour. There is that picture of a vulture waiting for an emaciated body of a child to die. African humanity crushed. African earth carries so much unholy rot. And to think that we eat of the soil of this rotten earth!

“But, no, Simon, the oil give it shine; gold and diamonds give it glitter. African blood, flesh, and bones precious, see? They don’t call it the Blood Diamonds for nothing, yes?” I hear an army General whisper in my ear as someone applies electric shock to my testicles.

And African poets sing, “Oh, how we love you, Mother Africa!” Gawd!

Ever a thin thread of hope left, though. In extreme times, a thread of grass, a drop of water can take one very, very far. Beaten African people cross the Sahara on barefoot. Nature is more sensible than we often realize. When people are as badly crushed as African people on the run from miseries of tyranny and wars, even the sun gets no thrills out of burning them alive in the middle of the deserts. Others will deal with them more efficiently.

If you can’t get your hands on the African oilfields, the blood diamonds and gold (platinum is Marikana, and that’s another story), there is bounty of poor, desperate African people on the run across the Sahara. Here, there is everything for everybody. Unknowingly, these acutely abused and misused African people will even buy passports to die out at sea when then sun spared their lives in the deserts. Makes me wonder what the fish of the waters between African inhumanity and the lands of hope and perceived better life beyond, think of Africa and Africans. What would happen were the Nile to reverse its course?

I have problems. Big problems. Serious problems. Solution? Well:

• Leave my uncle alone.
• Burn the money.
• Screw the house. Screw prime lands.
• Leave future mother of my children alone.
• Drive my dream cars to hell.
• Just give me that job – Pioneer Professional Chief Executive President of Africa. Ma-a-an, will I fire people, to begin with!!!

Simon Chilembo
Welkom
South Africa
Tel: ++4792525032
December 28, 2013