Ease

For the French scholarship class of 2016

  

As an alumni of the Embassy of France's Safe Think Scholarship, 

I had the honour of addressing the 2016 scholarship recipients at the event of their farewell. 

15| 07| 2016

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Ambassador Barbier, esteemed guests and my fellow scholars. 

Good evening 

 

So imagine being cast in a foreign movie, the storyline is simple it’s about life! The setting features children going to school, a train filled with people, a woman smoking on the pavement, a man walking a dog, bicycles and the smell of fresh bread. The script however is in a foreign language 

That was my first day in Lyon, a city I had only vaguely heard of when my brothers and sister happened to reference French teams during their usual soccer debates. 

 

I arrived in Lyon with a big, big bag It may as well have been a metaphor. 

Got off the train and pulled this huge suitcase to what would be my home for the next year. 

My experience was a difficult one initially, the language barrier ,navigating the streets , finding things and trying to familiarize myself with my new environment. But making the decision to take the year off to go back to school was easy and I felt was necessary. So some excitement and some hardship, but such it life right? a lesson of discomfort and pleasures but mostly I believe, this experiences was about growth. 

 

Education, formal and informal, is one way of bringing about growth and the idea that two countries come together to advance the important and transformative force of education should be applauded. So to you my fellow scholars embarking on this journey, take this incredible opportunity and immerse yourself in your academic subject, delve deep into the theories presented, debate, critique, contribute and interrogate then emerge with new ways of solving the challenges of the world. 

 

Go to each class, participate in every subject, correct stereotypes about the continent, teach about yourself and your people …this is the value of this experience. But also broaden your mind and spirit, learn about others too… immerse yourself in their cultures, get to know their way of life, the food, families and what makes them laugh or cry and then listen with sincerity to their wishes for their children. I believe this is the only way to bridge the seemingly terrifying drifts between races, cultures and religions 

 

You may find it hard to form friendships…. But you have to put yourself out there, step up and ask names and interests, involve yourself in student and social activities but prepare yourself for social awkwardness and even rejection. You are no longer at the local bar with your friends. Forget yourself and your comfort zone; and stretch yourself to reach above and beyond your boundaries  

 

Take walks, read books on the culture and society, see the museums, ask questions and more questions, ride bikes, sit on the side of rivers, listen to new music, travel and learn. You are bound to learn more than they teach you in the classrooms. Absorb it all.

 

And Yes the winter is bitter 

You may find that French is an incredibly complicated language, and that

French bureaucracy requires the illusive virtue of patience 

and yes, you will miss your family 

 

Absorb it all.

 

Use his time to truly extend yourself in every dimension possible 

You may find yourself picking up some wonderful French habits. I for one have an insatiable like for great wine and cheese, I love baguettes and any 5 star meal less than a  traditional Lyonesse dinner is a 7/10 at best 

and in so many ways, I subscribe to the French ideals of  “liberty, equality, fraternity"

 

but do come back, this continent needs you. your expertise and your leadership….it needs your urgency, your hunger…come and disrupt where necessary and rebuild 

 

So my fellow scholars, as you embark of the experience of your life, i wish you courage, strength adventure, broadened intellect and wisdom. Soar high! I look forward to watching your stars rise.

Nolundi Walaza Kunene 

Feminist agenda

“Visionary feminism is a wise and loving politics. It is rooted in the love of male and female being, refusing to privilege one over the other. The soul of feminist politics is the commitment to ending patriarchal domination of women and men, girls and boys. Love cannot exist in any relationship that is based on domination and coercion. Males cannot love themselves in patriarchal culture if their very self-definition relies on submission to patriarchal rules. When men embrace feminist thinking and preactice, which emphasizes the value of mutual growth and self-actualization in all relationships, their emotional well-being will be enhanced. A genuine feminist politics always brings us from bondage to freedom, from lovelessness to loving.”― Bell hooks

Unlearn | Relearn

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."

Alvin Toffler 

I know Loving me isn’t easy ...

" I wish slitting the wrist of the clock
would let this moment last forever –
your tongue so deep in my ear
it feels like a paintbrush, coating
the dark, peeling walls inside my head
with a carmine veneer. I was expecting
you to run, when you saw the cartilage
in the closet. I was prepared to chase
after and whisper you have beautiful
footsteps, when the truth is you make
my toes tingle like the capital of Venezuela.
I know loving me isn’t easy – the all-night
helicopter parties, the glow-in-the-dark
haircuts, but when I look at you
it’s like praying with my eyes. I know
it’s stupid to not own a gun yet have
so many triggers, but in some other world
gigantic seashells hold humans
to their ears and listen to the echo
of machines. I apologize for the fossils
growing on the dishes, how the rug is covered
with cocktail umbrellas when you wake up,
but it was raining margaritas, and the stars
came on backwards last night."

Jeffrey McDaniel, “Carcus”

CONVERSATIONS ABOUT HOME (AT A DEPORTATION CENTRE) by WARSAN SHIRE

I aptly met these words by the incomparable Warsan Shire when both the world and I need to hear them most. She writes the harshness of life with such poise and clarity. What a gift. I'm just lucky that reminders of my raison d'être come to me this way.

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CONVERSATIONS ABOUT HOME (AT A DEPORTATION CENTRE) by WARSAN SHIRE

Well, I think home spat me out, the blackouts and curfews like tongue against loose tooth. God, do you know how difficult it is, to talk about the day your own city dragged you by the hair, past the old prison, past the school gates, past the burning torsos erected on poles like flags? When I meet others like me I recognise the longing, the missing, the memory of ash on their faces. No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark. I've been carrying the old anthem in my mouth for so long that there’s no space for another song, another tongue or another language. I know a shame that shrouds, totally engulfs. I tore up and ate my own passport in an airport hotel. I’m bloated with language I can't afford to forget. 

*

They ask me how did you get here? Can’t you see it on my body? The Libyan desert red with immigrant bodies, the Gulf of Aden bloated, the city of Rome with no jacket. I hope the journey meant more than miles because all of my children are in the water. I thought the sea was safer than the land. I want to make love but my hair smells of war and running and running. I want to lay down, but these countries are like uncles who touch you when you're young and asleep. Look at all these borders, foaming at the mouth with bodies broken and desperate. I’m the colour of hot sun on my face, my mother’s remains were never buried. I spent days and nights in the stomach of the truck, I did not come out the same. Sometimes it feels like someone else is wearing my body. 

*

I know a few things to be true. I do not know where I am going, where I have come from is disappearing, I am unwelcome and my beauty is not beauty here. My body is burning with the shame of not belonging, my body is longing. I am the sin of memory and the absence of memory. I watch the news and my mouth becomes a sink full of blood. The lines, the forms, the people at the desks, the calling cards, the immigration officer, the looks on the street, the cold settling deep into my bones, the English classes at night, the distance I am from home. But Alhamdulilah all of this is better than the scent of a woman completely on fire, or a truckload of men who look like my father, pulling out my teeth and nails, or fourteen men between my legs, or a gun, or a promise, or a lie, or his name, or his manhood in my mouth.

*

I hear them say, go home, I hear them say, fucking immigrants, fucking refugees. Are they really this arrogant? Do they not know that stability is like a lover with a sweet mouth upon your body one second and the next you are a tremor lying on the floor covered in rubble and old currency waiting for its return. All I can say is, I was once like you, the apathy, the pity, the ungrateful placement and now my home is the mouth of a shark, now my home is the barrel of a gun. I'll see you on the other side.