Waiting for an Angel...

I thought the novel, "Waiting for an Angel" was a pretty good read; back in the 1900's, Nigeria was really not a part of the other African states because of its excessive violence and abuse of rights. I think that alot of people suffered as a mistake. I think that the stories of the characters lives, including the main character, Lomba, depicted the story to be more real. This is a novel of hope, I think Lomba's story is strong, and it represents strength, I think thats were the term "Angel" derived.

Heart of Darkness... Image of Africa..

I thought the Heart of Darkness was a real difficult read... I didn't get a major part of the story. It was based on stories.. I can't really explain the writing, it was wrttten sort of wierd; I thought that the Image of Africa helped me understand a little bit of it though.. It explained how and why the story started the way it did, and what story was the past and which was the present.. It was hard to catch up because I didnt know what story was a story from the past and which was important.

Oil.. What should have went right... Didn't.

Reading the Nigerian Oil article from the National Geopraphic, totally brought me down the the realization that the start for oil in Africa was totally a bad idea. I think that Africa was already being used for its natural resources; being used so excessively, it is affecting the lives of the people, and still not contributing anything to Africa itself.. Which sucks because, without them, we wouldn't have half of the things we have now, especially oil.

After the discovery of the Oil, everything went downhill from there. The plants are all pretty close to some villages; making it extremely hard to live and eat. The oil plants have killed many animals and fish the Africans need to eat. There were also many explosions that took place at the plants, killing and hurting many of the workers. That really hurt my feelings; to know that their are business thriving in Africa, yet, still keeping major villages in the slums... That was when I understood the extent of the Abuse of Africa.. Just horrible.

Wretched Of the Earth

This particular reading more on the understanding of decolonization of Africa and how it effects the land. I thought the writing explained Africa's decolonization; "At whatever level we study it relationships between individuals, new names for sports clubs, the human admixture at cocktail parties, in the police, on the directing boards of national or private banks - decolonization is quite simply the replacing of a certain 'species' of men by another ' species ' of men." It also explains how dangerous decolonization is. I think the writing was good, but, a bit confusing and long.. I enjoyed the fact that it explains Africa's pattern of decolonization and colonization.

Underdevelop of Africa....

Reading "How Europe Underdeveloped Africa" definitely made me feel like America still has some type of hold on Africa. The person that wrote this gave an idea on the type of hold that is still on Africa. Because of the history; the strip of natural resources, the dehumanization of the people, and the control of products. There is a quote from the writing I felt explained everything..

"In order to understand present economic conditions in Africa, one needs to know why it is that Africa has realized so little of its natural potential, and one also needs to know why so much of its present wealth goes to non-Africans who reside for the most part outside of the continent."

AID is soooo Uncool

So, for my analysis paper, I decided to research more about aids in Africa. I knew it was an extremely common topic and one of the largest issues Africa is dealing with now. I thought that I learned alot, some of the things I was pretty much aware of, but alot of it came as a surprise to me. There was one website that I used alot; it helped me with almost every aspect of my paper, I want to put it in my blog so everyone else can check it out; AIDS In Africa.

One of the most interesting things I read was the link between the spreading of AIDS and the intelligents.See, based on a couple of websites, AIDS was usually spread between people of the richer, most educated classes. It was hard to believe, but its because of the stigma on condoms. They feel that AIDS isn't a disease you get from having sex, so condoms are sort of useless, and the cycle repeats itself. There are alot of things being done to stop the drastic spread of it, eveything is contributing to the cause, and now there are finally signs or reduction. But the amount of deaths are the same becuase of the amount of people that caught it before.

FGM

Female Genital Cutting, also know as Female Genital Mutialtion or Female circumcision, accroding to wikipedia, refers to all procedures that is partial or the whole removal of the external female genitalia. It is usaually used in religious ceremonies; the parent has to give consent for their daughter to go through with it because its not their choice, usually the religious ceremonies take place when the girl is between 4 to 8, but it sitll happens to all ages. There are three types of FGM, the first type is the removal of the clitoris. I read somewhere that in Africa, the removal of the clitoris makes it to where women cannot enjoy sex, for it is not to enjoy, but to bear children... Which sucks ass. The second type is the removal of the clitoris AND the removial of the labia minora. The third type is the narrowing of the vaginal orffice, cutting off the labia and sewing everything up so there is just enough room for menstration. It wasn't until 2003 when the African Union adopted the Maputo Protocal, promotiong wemons rights and ending FGM, it was really recognized and sought to end. It was ratified by 15 members and finally passed in November 2005. Believe it or not, FGM is usually practiced in Muslim and Christianity, it is used to purify girls and keep them virgins. I think this is the biggest extent of keeping anything purified but I thought that was fairly intersting.

Johnny's a Mad Dog.. lol get it?

Johnny Mad Dog was creepy... I really liked it though. lol. It still blows me away when I think about those soldiers; some of them not even 15, as young as 7 or 8. At first, before, reading this book, I had absolutely no pity for the deaths of those young boys. I have had a change of heart. The novel was based on the life of one toy soldier, a sixteen year old boy who felt a conscious, but not really. They made him believe that with his gun, we was a man. His logic was corrupted; many of the things he did he tried to find a good reason for doing it, like rapping the reporter woman. He actually made himself believe she was enjoying it. Or shooting one of the reporter men because of some make believe story he created about him and ther reporter woman having sex. It was all just a big ball of creepyness. I was relieved to know he died at the end, but it still gave me a chill to know that he wasn't the only one. There were thousands more like him. High, violent, and unstable. The story itself might have been fiction, but there are thousands of cases of boy soldiers tourturing people in Africa. It was surely a smack of reality for me.

Bleeding of the Stone.. Yay

I thought that "Bleeding of the Stone" was an alright read. I thought the symbolism made the novel a bit confusing, but it put a powerful vibe in its context. I thought the characters were cool, everyone played a small part which converged into a certain wholeness. I liked how, in the beginning, they had quotes from different bibles in the world. I liked how it all came into this story. This wasn't my favorite book of the semester, but I'm still glad I read it.

My Project!!! YYYAAAYYY

I decided for my project to write out a curriculum high school students, AP students. This is the first time I have ever done any thing like this before, I had to do research a lot just to start up and decide what I was going to do. I thought it would be a good idea to do; I am an education major so I figured this would be a good exercise for me. So... Yea, If my curriculum sucks, I'll keep that in mind and take notes for the future.

I designed it for seniors, assuming the class consists of 26 students. In my syllabus I explained that because it was an advanced placement class, I will be expecting a whole lot of everything. The grades are spread out in points.. a total of 5oo. I thought it was pretty reasonable... But I could be wrong.

I didn't write out my quizzes or my test because I felt like it depended on the amount of information the class was retaining. I didn't want the class to be based only on the amount of work done, the the amount of information retained. Its all about Effort!!

I wanna talk about VooDoo.

This has nothing to do with the books we are supposed to be reading, but I decided to look up some things about Voodoo. I thought it was cool, aaaannnnddd Dr. Webb said it would be cool to do a little bloggy blog on it, so here I am.. Okay so,


The practicing of Voodoo is extremely old. Some say, voodoo has been around since Africa existed. It was sometimes written voudou, vodou or voudun. The words(s) itself means god creator or great spirit. People misuse the term voodoo and distort it to their diecretion with human sacrifices, vampires and devil worships. Allof that is cool to watch, but actually has nothing to do with the real practice of voodoo.
It is a life affirming practice that encourages its participants to better understand the natural processes of life and their own spiritual natures. When you look it up it is defined as an ancient religion from Africa that involves animalistic spirits and methods to communicate with them.

So, with all that. I think that voodoo is presently based on one big juicy lie. The idea of voodoo can be cool, but easily misinterpreted.

You know what I don't like??

I read up on the article given to us in class regarding oil in Africa... AAAAnnnnnndddd my conclusion is..... That............ I DON'T LIKE IT. I just don't. There is this one part toward the back of packet (Cause that article was like extra long), that made me really reflect: "Was it possible-just possible-that the African oel boom didn't have to be a story with an unhappy ending?"

This is why it made me reflect; Cause it not possible. Not at all... For some reason, Africa is the shit. See, let me explain.....

Before anyone set foot in the country, there was word that Africa was a place of opportunity and awesomeness. They already had hype men!! When the Europeans finally felt bold enough to make that long haul, they found that Africa was all that was expected and then some. They also found that there were people there... Not just any old persons, but black people. Beautiful people. The Europeans were so jealous of them they decided to trick them and invade their lands and make them slaves. See, it all revolves around jealousy!! They were upset because they had all the resources for survival, and all the community stability to live in peace. The Europeans new nothing of peace; there was already supply and demand, guns, and wars there. The Africans way of living was wrong because they never tried it. The correlated intelligence with things that didn't matter or exist in Africa.

So there... I said it....... Yes, the Europeans were some haters. Discovering oil was just another raw material they could take and make an excuse on why they just can't leave them the hell alone. Its wack.

Xala Hits the Spot

I thought Xala was cool. Short and sweet. Its a novel based on a man's penis; his road to excellence spirals into chaos all because of the power he lost in the bedroom. I think that is irony in rawest form. I think it all started (the irony, that is) with his wifes. He had like two already with a plethora of little hims. Just doing to much, In the eyes of his friends and business people, he was the man. He was so much the man that he had to split his time in half with his wives. One got him nights and the other got him days. So, this third wife, one of which he didn't really need or have much time for, he decided to marry because she was young, and firm... Whatever. Thats were it smacked him in the face. I don't even think he was really attracted to the third wife; she had to grow on him. She was just to show everyone that he could manage another... Which he did quite well. He would provide her with all the necessary things she wanted, ya know, for children and stuff, but what he couldn't do was HER. Which is where irony played his role... That was a curse; and because of the that curse he had to step down from his authoritative figure and dehumanize himself. He was a jerk. What goes around comes around. That was a message in this book.

Lumumba Goes Dddooowwwnnn

The documentary of Lumumba was quite an eye opener. It was a tale of loyalty and deceit; betrayal and death. In the beginning of the movie, he was discussing the future of the Congo with a few of its representatives, maybe presidents, I wasn't really sure, there was tension between Lumumba and the other leaders. They didn't want him sticking his nose where it didn't belong; Lumumba kept pushing; his motives were to free the Congo from the wicked Europeans and its African puppets; Leaders of Africa who would rather watch their people die off than making a stand and actually risking their lives other than others. Lumumba's closest friend, Totally forgot his name but was issued the head of the African Army, betrayed Lumumba at the end for the power and greed the Europeans were willing to offer if he played by their rules. The movie was tragic, but it made a lot of since.

This is how I feel; So, the Congo was taking under the reign of Leopold; Lumumba wanted independence; he wanted to be free of the brutality that came along with Leopold's regime, They agreed to their constant request, for a while, only to take it back and strike back ten fold. It was almost like a joke. Although they agreed to the independence, they weren't really going to give them what was requested, they were going to allow Lumumba his time of shine and encouragement then shut him down. Thats were all the confusion and corruption came in. Lumumba gained more power than imagined, which shook up the Europeans; Army's began rebelling, white people were held in captivity, All hell broke lose. That, was the reason why Lumumba died. The whites argued that blacks were too uncivilized to have complete independence, with the little they pretended to give them, to many things went wrong, too many soldiers repelled and too many whites were in the crossfire (which could have been maybe 100 or something, but whatever). They killed Lumumba because he was never going to quit. He argued that if they were to just be given a chance, an opportunity to fix what the Europeans destroyed, their freedom would be well in control. Lumumba was executed; not being able to get the opportunity to get back at the people who betrayed him and their country , but he left a hell of a mark.

His tactics remind me of Martin Luther King; never promoting violence, but assuring hope and freedom; Lumumba's dream. Like Martin's dream. Both never like to see the change, but definitely played a role in it.

Negritude and the black identity.

Negritude is a political movement developed in the 1930's that included writers that felt that the blacks of the african dispora had a common identity that could help in fighting against the French's racism. I think it all happened after the slaves were dispersed around the United States, all enduring the same pain, the black community tried to find comfort out of a sour situation. Thats how the Harlem Renaissance influenced it.Writers such as Langhston Hughes and Richard Wright wrote pieces addressing racism and the black experience. Haiti also had been flourishing in the black culture in the 20 century.
I always look at situations such a the Harlem Renaissance and Negritude as little steps that we pass to get closer to the goal, which is complete equality. Although, blacks will never experience complete equality, we have exceeded limits that never existed years ago. I think we've accomplished a lot, but we still have a long way to go.

Cont... King Leopold's Ghost

King Leopold's Ghost was, indeed, a huge wake up call. The majority of the novel covered everything but nothing, and it read more like a text book then an actual novel. But the context and the detail covering the suffering of the African people made me want to cry. King Leopold was a lying, power-driven, daranged and evil white man who used his cuning ways and authority to fool the rest of the world. I could not get into the story; I felt some what ashamed that I, as well as all of my classmates, wer completely oblivious to the extent of the poor Africans massacre. There was one Character that I enjoyed reading up on, George Washington Williams. I thought he was a bit of a jerk, but I respected his passages reagarding the Congo and Leopold's order there. I was angry his pamplet discussing Leopold's lies and death didn't get the response it deserved.

There is a part in Chapter nineteen that pretty much sums up the whole story of the Congo for me:

"And yet the world we live in-its divisions and conflicts, its widening gap between rich and poor, its seemingly inexplicable outbursts of violence-is shaped far less by what we clelebrate and mythologize than by the painful events we try to forget. Leopold's Congo is but one of those silences of history."

King Leopold's Ghost..

I must say, the first six chapters of the story posed any interest for me. I feel that the novel, over the course of the story, would get better, for the first few chapters are just laying out the past of the story. I am excited for the reading still; I think that Stanley's character is quite overbearing. I see his passion, but I don't understand his logic. He lies to fit in, most of his life is a life according to others. I think Leopold's character is interesting as well. I think that his constant hunger for power has a lot to do with the absence of his father. I think that the next chapters are going to be more brutal; The existence of the Congo River is based mainly on fabrication. It appeared to be something other than what the Association claimed. All for Leopold's dominance of the land.

Africans In the Belgian Congo.

The Belgian Congo, also known as Zaire, which is located in Central Africa, virtually converted all through Africa because the country is part of the Congo river. In the 1800's, a Belgium leader, Leopold II forced successful treaties through Congo and took over the land under his own accord. He had rule over the Congolese and they suffered as slaves until the Belgium Government took over his rule. King Leopold ll, during his reign killed millions of Congolese slaves.

Digging in further.... Things Fall Apart.

The novel, Things Fall Apart carries a lot of symbolism. There were many sub stories in the reading that made me feel the villagers thought with more logic than assumed. Like many countries, they had ways and systems for problem solving, and in some cases, their roles for gender is, still, much like ours.

For the story, we were assigned to specific characters in the novel to represent for activities. I was assigned Ashy Buttocks. I would say his character in the story fit his name quite well. He was a meager speck in the introduction and spread of Christianity. This picture, an African man dressed in formal wear with a white mask over his face reminds me especially of my character, Ashy Buttocks.

This is an image of walking staffs.This image reminds me of the authority and power their many gods have over their decisions for harvest, marriage, children, and health. As you can see, the staffs are carved which to me, is used to identify a specific person or "being". An example would be the priestess or the Oracle. Because they are considered higher persons in the Umuofia, they would probably be the ones carrying the most elaborate staffs during ceremonies.

My next image are kola nuts. In the novel, breaking a kola nut was as act of peace and friendship. That was a way to show respect and love for your brother. I believe we take part similar notions now. In my family, a gesture of peace and friendship can sometimes be physical contact such as a hug, kiss, or a touch on the shoulder.

Egypt!!!!

The story of Egypt carries over for nearly 3,000 years! Ancient Egyptian history revolves around rituals, religions, political and social stability. According to Carnegie Museum of Natural History, "Egyptians saw no positive value in cultural change, except at the technological level, and they went to great lengths to prevent disruption in their society."

Things Fall Apart..

Things Fall Apart describes specifically one mans struggle with change and diversity and example of manhood and grace. Okonkwo, the village's warrier, was greatly respected and loved for this dominance, violence, success and intolerance for laziness. Most of his anger originates from his fathers incompetence and lack of motivation. He lives to hate everything his father loves; Okonkwo's three wives and children suffer from it the most. He felt showing love and sincerity was a sign of weakness; their fear allowed him to keep the upper hand. When Okonkwo was forced out of his hut and out of power, he yearned to get it back. This yearning was so strong it forced him to suicide. During his suspension from his village, Umuofia, great change took place. Christianity spread through the villages and eventually became apart of the community of villagers. The great change in his village drove Okonkwo mad, causing him to make decisions without the word of his people.
The title "Things Fall Apart" fits the storyline perfectly. Its a dynamic story based on the rise and fall of one man and village. There are descriptive tales on how change effected Okonkwo, while still describing the effect it had Umuofia and the other nine villages.
I think the novel was an excellent read. It covered the emergence of order in religion; how different traditions slowly melts together forming another. Although the villagers tried to keep there religious purity, many were open and submissive to Christianity which caused wars and chaos among the community. The same war and chaos that Umuofia experience is the same war and chaos the Natives experience, as well as the French. I think it was cool to read the effects of a common issue in different countries. So, right on Chinua Achebe.

Eye...

I am a secondary education English major at Western Michigan University. I am the only child, and my friends say my mom looks younger than me. I am the tallest girl in my family, and my favorite color is orange. I am from Chicago and I love eating hot chips and cream cheese. I am the friend who feels for every problem, shopping is the cure. I am aggressive, which can be a bit creepy. I am the friend who can't bake but will try because it's your birthday. I love going to Walmart after 2 a.m so I can sit in one of those handicapped motor chairs and move around the store. I knit on my free time, but I can't knit at all. I think socks are stupid and night lights make me happy. I enjoy conversing with complete strangers and going to subway every pay day for a bacon chicken ranch wrap and two cookies.

SOME OTHER MATTER OF FACTS:

• I love to travel!!

• It wasn't until I came to college when I discovered my fear of butterflies.


• I love to dance... Even when I'm alone.


• When I was younger, I had 4 invisible friends.

• My mom used to eat soap when she was pregnant with me; when I was born, I had suds and soap bits on my head.


• Capt'n Crunch is by far the most awesome cereal in the WORLD.