2011 - The year that my lightbulb turned on
When i left namibia for france in july 2010 i was anxious but not afraid. in my mind i knew that this great adventure that i had undertaken was goin to change things for the better, and i would get to learn french "women love dudes that speak french, makes them go dizzy".
When me and my partner in crime arrived (identity withheld), we were given a proper namibian welcome that made home feel a little closer. The namibian crew that was already there had finished their stay and gave us the lay of the land. My boys rudolf and Abisai gave a few insights on the french ladies, apparently the more strange you look the more attrative you are to white women. they called it the first law of attraction, with my dreadlocks i had killed two birds with one small stone.I got a few style and gadget tips from Nerago, she suggested my new alias Filemon_Fly (maybe i should name a daughter after her?). but the most profound piece of advice came from from Ndapewa Shipopyeni, who is so full of wisdom on life she could open up her own school, She told me "Malima, this place changes people, before you leave Nancy (france) you will know who you trully are, and what you want to do with your life".
It is as if she had gone to the future, looked at it and come back to give a friendly warning (like the movie terminator but in reverse).I'm not going to go into detail of the events that transpired, all i know is that one day i woke up and everything was strange, the food tasted like it was cooked by white people "no salt, spice or taste", the language was strange (it sounded like french), it was like i was in a foreign country and with that the bubble had popped, i had culture shock (only name i could come up with), i couldn't deal. By the time my head stopped spinning i had pushed the love of my life so far away that you could put an ocean between us (that thing called the atlantic), and im going into detail aren't i? sorry guys, my bad. All i know is that the approaching winter looked like it was gona be a cold one, was i gona get it together? or was my head gona explode with all these minerals and processing in french.
But like a friend of mine told me "people are like tea bags, you don't know how strong they are till you put them in hot water". 2011 started under the eiffel tower, in a swarm of joyous french people on a makiti session so intense that my friend Ashish was lucky to make it back to Nancy. It was a year of hard work, my desk and my laptop saw more of me than i did of myself. The pressure was unrelenting, exams every second week for three months. The fun was out of this world,labs and field trips were like being part of a stand up comedy tour (whoever put our class together needs a whiskey shot). The good times rolled all the way from Strausborg to Paris (pronounced Paa-rih-h), although they couldn't get me to taste escargot (snails, for those in suspense). The moments of panic and heartache were telenovela like, there was enough drama in my life in 2011 to film a season of generations. But in the end i got the job done, i finished a masters level research project good enough to be approved by professors older than my mom. Mission well and trully accomplished.
Now some people would assume after all this time in Paa-rihh i would come back all snobish and what not. criticising everything and going "in paa-rihh, we have such and such and such".Not to worry folks you can take a kwambi out of otshikuku but you can never take the kwambi out of him (it sounded way better in my head). All i know is that in the middle of all of this i had my epiphany (that moment when the lightbulb above your head goes on, i'm lucky its happened so early in life). Before i go on preaching that i know the divine purpose of my life and i have it all planned out, i will stop to say that i don't. suprised? well so am i,i'm not saying i don't have a vision for my life (i do) all i am saying is that i know what i don't want my life to turn into, i know what i'm supposed to cut out of my life, i know the people that contribute and those only along for the ride. Basically my lightbulb is on and it's bright as sunset in owamboland (northern namibia). but it does not mean i have all the answers and i'm immune to mistakes.
I kept Ndapewa's words somewhere in my head for reference. Today i'm taken back because what she said was true, my sejour in france was kind of like "the finding purpose in life part". With that 2011 is confined to the past and we march towards 2012, my view is that it will be a monumentaly good year if you ignore all the doomsday prophecies that a crack will form in the crust and swallow all things on earth (sounds like the plot of a sci-fi movie), i hope yaa'll can make it so you can witness the rise and rise of Filemon_Fly.
Happy new year! wishing yaa'll a hangover, goldigger free and progressive 2012.
When me and my partner in crime arrived (identity withheld), we were given a proper namibian welcome that made home feel a little closer. The namibian crew that was already there had finished their stay and gave us the lay of the land. My boys rudolf and Abisai gave a few insights on the french ladies, apparently the more strange you look the more attrative you are to white women. they called it the first law of attraction, with my dreadlocks i had killed two birds with one small stone.I got a few style and gadget tips from Nerago, she suggested my new alias Filemon_Fly (maybe i should name a daughter after her?). but the most profound piece of advice came from from Ndapewa Shipopyeni, who is so full of wisdom on life she could open up her own school, She told me "Malima, this place changes people, before you leave Nancy (france) you will know who you trully are, and what you want to do with your life".
It is as if she had gone to the future, looked at it and come back to give a friendly warning (like the movie terminator but in reverse).I'm not going to go into detail of the events that transpired, all i know is that one day i woke up and everything was strange, the food tasted like it was cooked by white people "no salt, spice or taste", the language was strange (it sounded like french), it was like i was in a foreign country and with that the bubble had popped, i had culture shock (only name i could come up with), i couldn't deal. By the time my head stopped spinning i had pushed the love of my life so far away that you could put an ocean between us (that thing called the atlantic), and im going into detail aren't i? sorry guys, my bad. All i know is that the approaching winter looked like it was gona be a cold one, was i gona get it together? or was my head gona explode with all these minerals and processing in french.
But like a friend of mine told me "people are like tea bags, you don't know how strong they are till you put them in hot water". 2011 started under the eiffel tower, in a swarm of joyous french people on a makiti session so intense that my friend Ashish was lucky to make it back to Nancy. It was a year of hard work, my desk and my laptop saw more of me than i did of myself. The pressure was unrelenting, exams every second week for three months. The fun was out of this world,labs and field trips were like being part of a stand up comedy tour (whoever put our class together needs a whiskey shot). The good times rolled all the way from Strausborg to Paris (pronounced Paa-rih-h), although they couldn't get me to taste escargot (snails, for those in suspense). The moments of panic and heartache were telenovela like, there was enough drama in my life in 2011 to film a season of generations. But in the end i got the job done, i finished a masters level research project good enough to be approved by professors older than my mom. Mission well and trully accomplished.
Now some people would assume after all this time in Paa-rihh i would come back all snobish and what not. criticising everything and going "in paa-rihh, we have such and such and such".Not to worry folks you can take a kwambi out of otshikuku but you can never take the kwambi out of him (it sounded way better in my head). All i know is that in the middle of all of this i had my epiphany (that moment when the lightbulb above your head goes on, i'm lucky its happened so early in life). Before i go on preaching that i know the divine purpose of my life and i have it all planned out, i will stop to say that i don't. suprised? well so am i,i'm not saying i don't have a vision for my life (i do) all i am saying is that i know what i don't want my life to turn into, i know what i'm supposed to cut out of my life, i know the people that contribute and those only along for the ride. Basically my lightbulb is on and it's bright as sunset in owamboland (northern namibia). but it does not mean i have all the answers and i'm immune to mistakes.
I kept Ndapewa's words somewhere in my head for reference. Today i'm taken back because what she said was true, my sejour in france was kind of like "the finding purpose in life part". With that 2011 is confined to the past and we march towards 2012, my view is that it will be a monumentaly good year if you ignore all the doomsday prophecies that a crack will form in the crust and swallow all things on earth (sounds like the plot of a sci-fi movie), i hope yaa'll can make it so you can witness the rise and rise of Filemon_Fly.
Happy new year! wishing yaa'll a hangover, goldigger free and progressive 2012.
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