November 23, 2015 4:01 pm / Leave a comment
HOME AT LAST! Part 30
OWN TURF IN THE DIASPORA

Simon Chilembo. All rights reserved, 2015
Because I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth, the notion that I must be happy with what I have here and now, no matter how little, was ingrained in my head from a very early age. If I could get more by doing what is acknowledged as good and acceptable practices, well and good. However, if it doesn’t work, too bad. Try something, or go for something else, and/ or simply wait.
Waiting never meant for me to just rest on my laurels, hoping for some miracle to happen for the more of that which I want to materialize somehow, without any effort from me, though. If I have to pray, it will be more to introspect and find peace of mind so I can think more clearly, but not for God to deliver it all for free just because I believe in her … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA AWAKENING – home in grey matter”. Order book on Amazon).
Simon Chilembo
Riebeeckstad
Welkom
South Africa
Telephone: +4792525032
November 23, 2015 (more…)
September 24, 2015 10:41 pm / 1 Comment on 38 YEARS AN EXILE: XXIX
HOME AT LAST! Part 29
RACISM IN THE DIASPORA

©Simon Chilembo, 2014
Racism is a constant. Racism does not change colour with location, or time. Racism is not some figment of the imagination. Racism is as real as day and night. Racism cannot be explained away; it is neither an intellectual nor academic exercise. Racism is unidirectional like an arrow in flight. Its objective is to demean, use, abuse, exploit, hurt, dehumanize, destroy, and obliterate; nothing in between. The ultimate goal of racism is genocide.
Racism is a systematized, institutionalized mind-set of false superiority, entitlement, and privilege … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA AWAKENING – home in grey matter”. Order book on Amazon).
Simon Chilembo
Welkom
South Africa
+4792525032
September 14, 2015
July 9, 2015 2:20 am / 1 Comment on 38 YEARS AN EXILE: XXV
HOME AT LAST! Part 25
COMMUNITY SERVICE – Diasporant’s Payback Time
Coming back home to Mamma, July 01, 2013, I was a broken man. Tired both physically and mentally, emotionally torn, bitter at my vain enemies and ill-wishers, overwhelmed by betrayals, over-burdened by failed business in rough economic times, and looming personal bankruptcy, I found it prudent to let it all go.
I was not ready to die yet. If and when my dying day finally comes, I will be standing on the battle ground like a true Warrior, having accomplished my mission on earth. All I needed was a time-out to realign my thoughts, my feelings, and my visions; I needed to revise my values, and put my faith to test by exposing myself to temptation. Evil has yet to conquer, if ever … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA AWAKENING – home in grey matter”. Order book on Amazon).
Simon Chilembo
Welkom
South Africa
July 05, 2015
June 26, 2015 1:53 am / 1 Comment on 38 YEARS AN EXILE: XXIII
HOME AT LAST! Part 23
WALOBA AWARD 2015
Diaspora Friendship, Brotherly Love Celebration

Anele Malumo, Waloba Award 2015
©Simon Chilembo, 2015
To introduce the recipient of Waloba Award 2015, I take the liberty of reproducing an edited version of my speech to him on his 50th birthday earlier in 2015:
- You don’t know what it’s like
To love somebody
To love a Brother
The way I love you …
- Modern, enlightened, liberated men happily declare their love for one another openly even if their love is not of a physically intimate nature. Some call it Bromance. In any case, in South Africa, land of the free, home of the brave, people love who they love, as provided for, and enshrined in the constitution of the land.
- I’ve heard it said somewhere that if you are not grown up yet by age 50, forget it, you’ll never grow up … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA AWAKENING – home in grey matter”. Order book on Amazon).
Simon Chilembo
Welkom
South Africa
June 26, 2015
April 8, 2015 10:50 pm / 2 Comments on 38 YEARS AN EXILE: XVIII
HOME AT LAST! Part 18
DEPRESSION IN THE DIASPORA – It’s Over Now
SPECIAL NOTES:
- This article must be understood in the context of the entire ‘38 YEARS AN EXILE’ series thus far. Dedicated with unreserved love to my Dearest Uncle, Family Patriarch, Legend-In-His-Own-Time, Mr OB Chilembo, in Lusaka, Zambia.
- It is with never so small humility that I emphatically declare that my African culture in the 21st Century is one of the most prolific breeding grounds for Depression in the world. This, for purposes of only this writing, from the point of view of family and social relations dynamics that are outdated, and have remained static since the onset of European domination and subsequent colonialism from towards the close of the Middle Ages in the 14-15th Centuries. Who, for example, is more prone to Depression than an African family patriarch, or matriarch? … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA AWAKENING – home in grey matter”. Order book on Amazon).
Simon Chilembo
Riebeeckstad
Welkom
South Africa
Telephone: +4792525032
April 05-08, 2015
January 21, 2015 6:09 pm / 1 Comment on 38 YEARS AN EXILE: XIV
HOME AT LAST! Part 14
DIASPORA SCUMBAGS

©Simon Chilembo, 2014
The worst thing any Diasporants can carry with them in their luggage is the superiority complex attitude, as manifest through racial, religious, and cultural arrogance from their lands of origin. More so if it is, in the first place, racial, religious, and cultural persecutions they have ran away from. We put what we put in each our own different luggage when time to say goodbye has arrived. But not all will be useful when we get to our final, often chance, destinations with promises of a brighter future. Sometimes not even a single item in the luggage will be useful at all. Herein lies the difference between winner and loser Diasporants in time … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA AWAKENING – home in grey matter”. Order book on Amazon).
Simon Chilembo
Riebeeckstad
Welkom
South Africa
Tel.: +47 92525032
January 21, 2015
December 23, 2014 12:06 am / 1 Comment on 38 YEARS AN EXILE: XIII
HOME AT LAST! Part 13
BRAIN DRAIN
By its very nature, life is, and has to be hard. Life is by design brutal and short. The world is an ugly place to be. It is an inherent feature of the world that evil forces will prevail everywhere, relatively more in specific areas of the world than others, in different epochs.
The brain is by default and function, the antithesis of all that is abhorrent by way of human behaviour, as well as state of the world and being. The brain will, by inclination, gravitate towards all that is good and beautiful.
All things remaining equal, a normally functioning and cultured brain will, as a spontaneous process, seek to create and sustain beauty and well-being against all that is anti-life, all that is anti everything that is beautiful, uplifting, and life supporting.
The brain will defy pain and death in pursuit of freedom in the name of beauty and happiness, including the right to enhance the development of these … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA AWAKENING – home in grey matter”. Order book on Amazon).
Simon Chilembo
Riebeeckstad
Welkom
South Africa
December 20, 2014
December 16, 2014 6:17 pm / Leave a comment
HOME AT LAST! Part 12 CITIZEN OF THE WORLD? MY FOOT!
SPECIAL NOTE: Link takes us to an article written by a frustrated young lady in Oslo, Norway, who feels she has no place to call home anywhere. Although my writing below may sound harsh, it is not personal. I am writing on the subject in general terms at her inspiration, from my, of course, highly subjective point of view. Believe me, I feel her pain, anger, and sorrow.
I am a citizen of the world is another one of those idealistic statements of which poetry and literature are inspired. I am a citizen of the world as an emotional statement reeks of arrogance, ignorance, naiveté, self-centredness, patronization, and imperialistic tendencies. You don’t go calling yourself citizen of the world simply because you don’t feel at home in your country of birth, and/ or your host country if you are an exile in the Diaspora. It’s not up to you to declare yourself a world citizen, as if the world owes you any favours, to begin with …(Continued in the book: “MACHONA AWAKENING – home in grey matter”. Order book on Amazon’s CreateSpace here).
Simon Chilembo
Riebeeckstad
Welkom
South Africa
December 15, 2014
December 9, 2012 2:08 am / 1 Comment on SECRET OF PERSONAL SUCCESS: Don’t care about people?

©Simon Chilembo, 09/ 12-2012
If you are normal, and you want to be successful and happy (it’s okay to be not normal and still want to be successful and happy; if you don’t want to be successful and happy because you really don’t care, just pretend you do want to be successful and happy anyway) do the following (if you don’t want to do the following, pretend it’s a cool thing to do and just do it anyway):
- Be yourself (you can also be someone else if that’s what you’d rather do because it’s cool, and it works for you).
- Be where you are (if you don’t like where you are, find a new place to be; if you can’t find a new place to be you like, pretend you like where you are and be there).
- Do what you do (if you do not like what you do, find something else you like to do; if you cannot find something else you like to do, pretend you like what you do because it’s so cool after all).
- Be honest to all the above. It’s also okay to be dishonest to all of the above if it’s the honest and cool thing to do.
- Be the best you can be in all the defining things you do. If you can’t be the best because it doesn’t matter or because the going is tough, just believe you are the best because you believe it’s cool to be the best even if you don’t want to be.
- Don’t care about people! Just serve them well and good all the time.
– People are not stupid, even if some like to pretend to be clever in order to be stupid.
– Normal people know what’s good and what’s bad. Not normal people also know the difference. People normally like and approve of things and people that are good to them, people and things who add value to their lives.
– If you are good to people, and you serve them well, they will share the happiness you give them with you; they will make you successful. So,
- Be nice to people. If only simply because it’s cool to be nice, and it’s nice to be nice. Your relative degrees of personal success and happiness are a measure of how well or not well you interact with people in your serving endeavours, both in general and specific terms.
Simon Chilembo
Oslo
Norway
Tel.: +47 97000488/ +27 717454115
October 08, 2012