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38 YEARS AN EXILE: XXVI
HOME AT LAST! Part 26
Schooling in the Diaspora – Kamwala Secondary School
©Simon Chilembo, 2014
1975 was the longest year. My first calendar year in Zambia was nine months long, which felt like time barely existed, with no beginning I recalled being part of, no end, and no direction in sight. Time was an idea just there to relate to indifferently.
The three months on the rails and road it took my family and me to get to Zambia from South Africa had bruised my sense of reality, presenting life’s challenges in a totally new way, and intensity. My family relations internal dynamics changed in ways that many mistakes made along the way have never been repairable.
New things learnt we each processed and integrated each in our own individual lives, each in our own unique personal ways. I often like to think that the extremely high senses of individuality and independence my two siblings and I will exhibit in critical choice times and situations, were consolidated during this time … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA AWAKENING – home in grey matter”. Order book on Amazon here).
Simon Chilembo
Riebeeckstad
Welkom
South Africa
July 23, 2015
38 YEARS AN EXILE: XII
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
eKASSIE THABONG
THABONG, KASSIE YA KA KA 2014
©Simon Chilembo, 2014
On Monday morning, walking the breadth of my old Kassie, Thabong, Welkom, for the first time in 40 years, by way of pungency in the air, nothing has changed. After 2-3 weeks of torrential rains, there is stagnant water in many places.
The superlatively built storm canals are clogged; green sediment/ moss and wild vegetation growth all the way. Burst sewerage pipes here and there; long, open canals of slow-moving, if at all, shit created as a result of slow and/ or erratic maintenance.
As if ordered, there’s a carcass of a cat on the edge of a busy taxi street. Indications are at the cat hasn’t long been run over by a vehicle. No doubt, there is also a dead dog nearby, perhaps somewhere in the messy storm canals. No need to confirm. Dead dog eKassie? I know it when I smell it. Just keep on moving straight ahead. Nose getting blocked. Getting a headache. Feeling queasy.
How did I grow up in these conditions? How do people, how can people still be living in these conditions in Mzansi, the golden land of milk and honey for sho? No wonder old people seem ever so tired, and “ugly” here. Been away too long … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA BLOGS – As I See It”. Order Simon Chilembo books on Amazon)
Simon Chilembo
Welkom
South Africa
February 13, 2014
Simon Chilembo 