wind blows

www.soufflee.tumblr.com
www.soufflee.tumblr.com
www.soufflee.tumblr.com
www.soufflee.tumblr.com
www.soufflee.tumblr.com
www.soufflee.tumblr.com
www.soufflee.tumblr.com
www.soufflee.tumblr.com
www.soufflee.tumblr.com
www.soufflee.tumblr.com
www.soufflee.tumblr.com
www.soufflee.tumblr.com



. a dot is a dot. not more, not less. it stays open but it ends with a pallindrome number. 202.

" silence is sexy "

I am alive, yeah.


actually it probably feels odd because i feel more alive than i did before.

the difference is that now

it is silent.

on the road.

these images belong to paulo. as usual, i barely used my camera because he took over the
photographic opportunities. He is what we call a foto açambarcador or açambarcator photographs vulgaris

but they are so beautiful, and i suggested the shots, so i have a word to say no??

hum.

checklist

. get this thing working .
. read papers get in the car give it a go .
. run .
. get home .
. get the job .
. bake proper scones .


eight weeks to go .

strike the pose

raphael

ladies in sodaka






family from sodaka


pregnant woman suprised with size of belly


kiwa with movie camera!


waiting for the function to beggin


tsholotsho air strip with moné


Brilliant Ndebele, 7 years old


Decent Ndebele, 3 years old


thembi, mavis, colleen, thoko, mirriam and trezya. learning
how to make food colourful.

. much more better.

Ma’am

Yes …?

I have a problem in my heart, deep in my heart. How can you make the water spill? How can a woman bring the water for three quilometres, it is fine when it is three hundred metres. Can you make the water spill, I’m trying to tell you because I know you can tell the people. By right this land has these things there is no water and the woman has to walk three quilometres but if it was just three hundred metres, I’m from about fifty-two quilometres from here, dlamini, and there is not many boreholes in my line, you just go to the clinic and ask which line does not have water and that is where I live . and my woman my woman is becoming very thin and then everybody is saying that it is because the tuberculosis and because of HIV but it is not, it is because she is carrying the water everyday, and then she is tired and does not have time to cook my dinner, and then I arrive home and she is tired and sick and I love her but like this it is very difficult. Yes I have this little girl she is so smart, she goes to school and I just want her to be able to do all the things that I couldn’t unfortunately do, by right in this country. You know in this country there are shonas and ndebeles and in here in 1983 it was a very political thing, and there were a lot of killings I wouldn’t know it very well myself because I was very young but then that was why I left school and then my maternal grandmother kept me in bulawayo and I was able to go to school. I wanted to study nursing in Christ cross in England London but I did not get the scores you need maths and maths I never left level 1, never was very good. And the while I was living with my maternal grandmother I had to work in a butcher. And one day I had my examinations so I asked the boss to have the days off and the boss said no and then I said I quit the job. But then he was very bad he went to my grandmother and told her that I was very selfish that I didn’t want to work. Then my maternal grandmother become mad and tell me now you have to go back to where you came from , if you don’t want to work you don’t stay here. So after my examinations I took a bus – I passed this place on the way to dlamini, it is about fifty two quilometres from here. There I stayed and then I went to see my grades and I had passed, I had Cs but I had passed. Now I was starting to understand maths more, not the x equals zero and everything but the simple maths I understood. I wanted to go to England but England then this country was once colonized by the English and then the English has also left and all was misplaced and I tried nursing school - I wanted to study nursing in England – but then the only nursing school was in mpilo in town and it was very hard to get, so I tried the police force, and I made it in the police force, but now ma’am can you make the water spilling? Just for my woman, because I love her and I know that other man go to other many more women but you know I am trying to be better and it would be much more better if you could make the water spill ..

Do you need to be saved or are you ok? I’m fine,

. were you talking to that crazy man?

But do you really think he is crazy?

Yes, I mean if you hear him 2 minutes you think he is a very smart person, if you hear him for 20 minutes you know he is crazy.

Okay, but do you think we can try to build a borehole in dlamini…….?

Thursdays night in tsholotsho.

has anyone mentioned xenophobia?

"Explaining 9/11 to a Muslim Child

By Moina Noor

Recently on the morning drive to school my 8-year-old son asked me a question I’ve been dreading since he was a baby, “Mom, what happened on 9/11?”

Mass murder is impossible to explain to yourself, let alone a child. But how do I, as a parent, explain the slaughter of innocent people in the name of a religion that I am trying to pass on to my boy?

Bilal was just 8 months old when September 11 happened. He was just starting to crawl and put everything in sight into his mouth, and I remember having to peel my gaze away from the television screen and remind myself to keep a watchful eye on where he lay nearby.

After Bilal was born I viewed everything — especially current events — through the lens of parenthood. I knew the world had changed irreparably on 9/11, and while I mourned the innocent and raged against my crazy coreligionists, my nagging anxiety was for my son.

Even in those early surreal hours after the attacks when images of towers falling and long-bearded men in caves flooded the television screen, I knew that Bilal’s childhood would not be like mine.

When I was growing up in suburban Connecticut few people knew much about Muslims, let alone cared. My parents and their friends would gather in community rooms or church basements for our version of Sunday school. They were devout but weren’t necessarily interested in teaching their neighbors about Islam. We were few in number and invisible.

After 9/11, the spotlight was aimed at Muslims everywhere, especially here in America. Like many Muslims, I felt the need to defend my religious identity. I threw myself into all things Muslim, and explained and explained: “We are like you. Islam is peaceful. Complex sociopolitical factors create lunatics who kill people. Please don’t judge a billion people by a few bad apples.”

I hung tightly to my spiritual rope. I could not let go of a faith has given me and my family comfort and solace for generations.

Since 9/11, I’ve worried how Bilal would feel about his identity as a Muslim living in America. A survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life appeared in 2007 stating that 35 percent of respondents had an unfavorable opinion about Islam. Could one of those 3 in 10 people be Bilal’s teacher or soccer coach?

Over the past eight years I’ve read about Muslims being deported and pulled off airplanes and mosques being vandalized. My sister, a former middle school teacher in Brooklyn, heard kids taunt a Muslim student on the playground, calling him a terrorist. And even though I fear the possibility of discrimination for Bilal, what I fear most of all is that the din of Islamophobia will rob my son of self-respect and confidence.

So just as I became an activist, I became a proactive Muslim mommy. When Bilal was a preschooler, I took him to Muslim playgroups, organized activities in Ramadan and bought him board books about the Prophet Muhammed. I pushed him in his stroller at peace walks and brought him to interfaith events. These days, I organize local Islamic school classes and give talks about the Hajj at his elementary school. My husband and I read him books about Islamic contributions to math and science.

Over the years, I’ve tried to protect my son from any negative associations made with Islam. I’ve developed lightening quick reflexes — the second I hear a story about suicide bombers or terrorists on the radio, I switch to a pop music station. I’ve made my husband limit his CNN time to after the kids go to sleep. I don’t want to have to answer the question, “Mom, what is the ‘threat of radical Islamic extremism?’ ”

For me, the thought of talking to Bilal about terrorism is a bit like talking about sex for the first time. It is awkward and difficult I’m just not sure how much a child his age is ready to hear.

This year 9/11 falls during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting. I made Bilal watch President Obama’s five minute long “Ramadan Message to Muslims” on the Internet. President Obama spoke with respect, knowledge and a sense optimism to Muslims around the world. He found the speech interesting but nothing out of the ordinary. For Bilal, who is just starting to become conscious of a world bigger than our front yard, there is no “clash of civilizations”.

Bilal is proud to tell others that he was named after “the Prophet’s best friend,” an African Muslim with a beautiful voice who gave the first call to prayer. He is also a Cub Scout who has learned how to fold the American flag.

I did try and answer Bilal’s question. I relayed the day’s events in broad cartoonish strokes: bad guys attack, buildings collapse. Don’t worry, I assured him, we’ll get the bad guys so they won’t do it again. As I looked at Bilal in the rearview mirror, I explained that good and bad exists in every group, even your own. I think he understands."

NYTimes Magazine, 11 September 2009.