THE BABY BONUS

It is astounding when a poor couple keeps having more children despite the fact that they struggle to find enough food to feed them. In most cases, you will find that rich couples only have one or two children while the poor couple can have up to six or more children.

What drives these people to do this? Some people say this happens because most poor people are illiterate and do not know how to use preventive measures to avoid falling pregnant. Others joke about it by saying sex is the only entertainment the poor couple has at night. Rich people go to bed late because they have to watch a late night movie or they are browsing the internet.

Many years ago, it was very common and normal to see a couple with not less than six children. Many of us were born in families where there were 4 or more brothers and sisters. I can't remember any family that had less than 5 children during my childhood days. All my friends came from a family that had an average of six children and all of them had an age difference of not more than 2 years.

 I don't know whether this was an African tradition that had been carried on from long time ago. It was like some kind of prestige to have many children. Parents with more children were viewed with admiration and they introduced their children with pride to visitors. It was not a shame to hear someone proudly proclaiming "I have nine children, four boys and five girls".

At that time, many African women were full time house-wives and their sole purpose was to look after the family. But that has now changed. Many women are working or involved in businesses. This has resulted in many women reviewing their child bearing patterns to leave space for other things. In addition to that, many countries have undertaken serious campaigns on family planning. Couples are advised to space their children and plan for each child's future.

I refuse to accept that the reason why poor couples tend to have many children could be due to illiteracy because women are taught at the clinic in simple terms how to plan their families in their own local languages. They are also taught how to use contraceptives which are also cheaply available.

Maybe the reason why poor or underprivileged couples have many children could be attributed to the fact that they believe that these children will uplift their present living standards when they grow up and have their own jobs. In some ways what they do is putting up what may be termed a multiple investment. In old days, a large family usually had a large field and a huge harvest compared to a small family.

There is also one preposterous belief that when you have children, there are chances that some may die before they grow up. This was a very common belief many years back and I used to hear it a lot. People believed one must have eight or nine children so that if two or three passed away, you will still remain with five or four children. Having two children was considered a risk of losing all your children and remaining alone.

This may have been a reality in the old days before an advancement in modern medicines. A plague could devastate a whole village and sometimes even wipe out whole families. But now with the advent of modern medicine and prevention of many illnesses available, this has become a primitive idea.

The African culture values children so much that if a couple is married, everyone expects them to have a child with a year. If no child is forthcoming, that couple is viewed with suspicion and in almost all instances, the blame is on the woman. In some cultures, if a person dies at a ripe age without leaving any children, that person was buried with charms, to prevent his bad luck from returning in the family.

Sometimes even religion has an influence on such matters. Recently, the 45th general conference of the Presbyterian Church Women Wing in Aisawl, India,  passed a resolution that an awareness campaign advocating women to conceive more children  should be launched. Though this is in contravention to the national family planning policy, these church leaders believe the concept of multiplying is in accordance with the teachings of the bible in the old testament.

Ironically, the same underprivileged couples are so compassionate. In our society, when a relative dies and leaves behind children, other relatives take the responsibility of looking after those kids and in most cases, poor relatives are the ones left with this burden. The rich couples are reluctant to bring in their house a "dirty" illiterate child.

One man said the reason rich couples do not have many children is that they do not want to over pack their family car. And maybe this is one reason why the rich couples do not usually take responsibility of bringing orphans in their home because they know that the seats in the family car are already taken.

My own judgement on why poor couples have many children is because these people have a different plan for their kids. While a rich man will plan for the education of his kids, the poor man has no hope of educating his kids. The rich man will make sure before he has another child, the first child must be in a certain grade at school and he will have accumulated some money for the next child.

In the meantime, the poor man will think nothing about that. His plans for the children will be different. He will just think about how the kids will support each other when they grow up and the many they are, the better chances they will have to survive.

A poor person who does not have children will have no hope left at all.

Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

DESPERATELY TRYING TO KILL THE MINISKIRT

There are mixed feelings among Africans to what is decent and indecent dressing. A lady was complaining about the dressing of two young ladies. Her comment was "As a parent I would never allow my daughter to expose her body like this. This is too extreme, or am I just old fashioned? Have times changed so much? If you share my sentiments, who do we blame?"

The two ladies in question were wearing tight shorts which were shorter and tighter than the shorts worn by soccer players. There were mixed reactions to the above woman's sentiments. Some people said there was nothing wrong because the young ladies had a choice to choose what to wear while some people said it was not African and it was against our tradition to dress like that.

This was not the first time that I was hearing this kind of debate. I have participated in many discussions concerning what is appropriate for an African woman to wear in public and every time this topic pops up it raises the issue of tradition. What is the African traditional dress code? Do we we even have one and should it always be followed?

Many people argue that when it comes to traditional clothing, we do not have any. Everything that we wear was copied from the western world and our ancestors only wore animal skins which were just enough to cover the private parts.

Others believe African traditional clothing is the vibrantly coloured fashions found around the continent. There are many fashions that are associated with or were created in Africa. In East Africa men wear a traditional dress called the Kanzu. Women wear the Kanga and gomesie. South Africa has it's own distinctive shirts like the Madiba named after the great Nelson Mandela who liked to wear it. There is also the Safari suit which was famous in Zambia and Zimbabwe. In Ethiopia, men wear the Ethiopian suit and women wear the Habesha Kemis while in Somalia you can find people wearing the Khameez with a small cap called a koofiyad.

However, many people still dismiss the above as not legitimate African clothing because they are modern clothes made from modern technology.

The reason why our ancestors wore animal skins or clothes made from trees or reeds was simply because they did not have a choice. They did not have the technology or know-how to make suitable material to cover their bodies. Even the white man who brought clothes to Africa, at one time he wore animal skins to keep himself warm.

Last evening I was  watching a documentary "World's Lost tribes" about a tribe in West Papua. These people wear no modern clothes and they do not mind at all. They have been living like that for a long time and they do not see the awkward side of walking around with just a small object covering your crotch. What if someone offered to give all of them clothes and shoes to wear, would they be comfortable wearing them?

I am sure even back then when clothes were first brought to Africa, our Ancestors who were used to wearing animal skins may have felt awkward and uncomfortable when they first wore "real clothes". But as they slowly got used to them, they may have started to like them and completely got rid of the old skins. The new clothes were warmer, fashionable and something new and exciting.

I know you can tell which part of the world someone comes from not only by the language that he speaks but also by what he is wearing too. But is a mini skirt synonymous to any particular continent?

I ask this because many Africans believe wearing short dresses or skirts that show too much of your legs is not an African way of dressing but something copied from the west. The miniskirt became very popular in the 1960s and it was a hot fashion trend. I am not sure if it caused so much debate back then but the miniskirt is  fascinating because it suggests both empowerment and vulnerability, independence and a desire to please, an attempt to cover and to reveal at the same time, maturity and playfulness and also liberation and exploitation.

One thing about fashion is it is never always the same because it keeps changing with every generation. What was trendy just a few years ago may suddenly become old fashioned. Fashion also has a tendency of coming back. The miniskirt is not something that is new.

In fact, there is evidence that the 1960s was not the first time that the miniskirt made it's first appearance. Archaeologists unearthed ancient figures dating between 5400 to 4700 BC and the female figurines appeared to be dressed in miniskirts. This prompted some scholars to speculate that miniskirts were common in the earliest civilizations.

Like the woman at the beginning of this article, there are many people who do not like the miniskirt. In 1968, a barmaid was reportedly killed by an angry mob who stoned her to death because they disapproved of the short and tight miniskirt she wore. In Russia, a father was arrested for hiring a hit man to kill his own daughter. Twenty women were also reportedly killed in Nigeria for wearing miniskirts and trousers. Even governments have not been left out on fighting the miniskirt. Recently, the Ugandan government re-tabled in parliament a proposed Anti-Pornography Bill which involves banning the miniskirt.

The big question is; why are some people so angry with the miniskirt? Is it because they do not feel comfortable seeing a woman's legs? Is it really about culture? In Africa, it is common to see young ladies undergoing initiation wearing very short traditional skirts with bare breasts. These images are put even in local newspapers and no one seems to be offended because it is "our culture".

Culture is dynamic. It is highly variable and a constantly changing phenomenon but one thing for sure is that no one will kill the miniskirt.


Image courtesy of imagerymajestic, freedigitalphotos.net

CHAOS

I was with my wife and kids and we were on our way to visit one of my wife's brother-in-law. My wife was driving the black SUV and I was sitting in the back with the children. We did not know his house but we expected to find him by the road side near a bus stop where we were to pick him up and go to his house. But when we reached the destination where we were supposed to meet him, we found that he was not there.

I rolled down the window and asked one of the people whether they have seen him and we were told that he was actually waiting for us but being a cop, he was suddenly called for an emergency at the police station. So we drove on to the police station and parked near the Recreation Club where there were hundreds of people. I was wondering what all these people were doing here. They all looked excited as if they were expecting something to happen.

Then I saw him. He did not see us because we were inside the vehicle. He was talking to someone and telling him that he was expecting us and when we arrive we must be allowed to get drinks and anything that we wanted. I was just about to open the door and let him know that we have arrived when it happened.

There was a bright flash which covered the whole sky. It was like the explosion that Sara Connor saw incinerate school children in the movie Terminator. But this light was not hot, it was just bright and for a moment I could not see a thing. When it cleared, I noticed that everyone and everything had disappeared. The clouds had fallen from the sky and they were just hovering on ground level like thick smoke. The earth had been split into many small islands floating on some kind of lava.

We got outside the vehicle and were joined by a few survivors. It seemed only people who were either indoors or in vehicles that had dark tinted windows survived the effects of the bright flash in the sky. Some of the people who had survived had turned into creatures, or Zombies if you like. These creatures were moving in packs, howling and attacking the few human survivors. There was chaos everywhere.

To make matters worse, we were joined by an old man with a very long white beard who kept prophesying more doom and taking away the little hope that we had. This man was dressed in robes and he had a wooden stuff in his hand. He almost looked like Gandalf but without the pointy hat. His eyes did not have the blacks in the men but where all white like a peeled boiled egg. I knew that there was no escape from this woe but having someone hammer it in your heard every second made me loathe him.

We started moving among the fallen clouds not knowing where we were were going. Then we heard a howling. The Zombie like creatures came in a pack of 7 or 9. It was obvious that they had not seen us so we quickly hid in the fog. Unlike your familiar Zombie, these were quick and they ran past us like wild dogs. As soon as they had passed, the old bearded man start warning us that soon the sky would be very dark and then become red and incinerate all of us.

"That will not happen" I finally said to him. "Why are you saying all that? Can't you see you're scaring the kids."

But before I could even finish speaking, the sky started turning into a crimson colour. I lost all hope. The howling creatures were also coming back. We all ran and hid ourselves under some foliage and  fallen clouds waiting for our inevitable deaths. We waited. Nothing happened.

I came out of the fallen clouds where I was hiding and to my surprise and amazement I saw the dark reddish sky start dissipating and in it's place a blue sky with a few white clouds started spreading across. I turned to the white bearded man and said.

"I told you it was not going to happen. See? The sky is coming back." I said.

Then I woke up.

It was such a strange dream cos it felt so real. I stayed in bed staring up and reliving everything. I then looked the watch and saw that it was 05:14 hrs and only a quarter of an hour before my alarm.

Then around 09:00 hrs when I logged on to my Facebook account I saw this status update by a friend;

How was your night?
1) Nightmare
2) Awesome
3) Not bad
4) Snappy (whatever that means)
5) Full of bad dreams
6) Full of good dreams
7) Other (specify)

My comment was: "Mine was Number 5. It was a combination of Terminator, The Living Dead and a snippet of 2012." to which someone responded "lol. Henry. Too much movies in your head. I have made a point to only watch comedy."

Could she be right? Have I been watching too many Zombie movies lately? Apocalyptic and Zombie movies are some of my favourite movies genres. I watch these movies without effect because they fascinate me. According to WebMD, there are many things that can cause nightmares and these include late night snack due to increased  metabolism, medication, drugs such as anti-depressants  and narcotics, withdrawal from medications and substances, sleep deprivation and the list goes on.

But whatever caused the dream I had, one thing that stuck in my mind was the Zombies. The Zombies in movies and books that I have read do not move very fast and they are incapable of climbing on top of things or over fences. But the Zombies that I saw in my dream were very quick. They were as fast as dogs and were not mechanical in their movement.

I have been thinking about the impossibility of a Zombie invasion if they were as slow as they are portrayed in movies. How can such slow creatures overcome a mighty army like the US Army by just biting them and with all the state of the art weapons? Maybe it is time someone created a movie with fast Zombies that are capable of opening doors, brandish a gun and climb a fence.

By Victor Habbick freedigitalphotos.net