Patriotism

by Patricia Bamurangirwa

  That time is hard time.

  Sometimes you don’t want someone to say sorry.

  They understand how you feel.

  Because you can’t believe that person.

  How you feel is deep down far in you.

  Deep in your soul

  No one can see and understand how.

  When you know that no one who can repress the loved one.

  That is hard time.

  Time can pass

  Memories can fade

  Feelings can change.

  People can leave.

  But hearts never forget.

  Pray that hard time can’t ever knock at your door.

  HOPE

  I have a hope that one day everyone is going to be equal. Equal, not because of money, not because of his or her originality, but only because of all of us we are human beings. I have a hope that one day people are going to be happy to stay alive everywhere they will be.

  I have a hope that one day Africa is going to be one.

  I have a hope that African people will see how badly hate between them, greed and to be used, is damaging their future and future generation, when some still use excuses of history.

  Hope that time will come, to go back to their original culture of love and unity.

  And see how love and unity is strong weapon and is everything in life.

  African people, these days they travel around the world. They see different culture and characters. I have a hope that this is going to help them to come back to their original culture, culture of love and unity which will help them to make Africa one.

  I am old lady who was born and grown up in Africa all of my life until 2004 when I come out of my continent for the first time.

  I didn’t know the beauty of Africa and African people until I was out and away from that beauty. That is how and when I come to get a good picture of why African people were tortured for so long time, since slavery time until now there are still a problem of free market… but I have a hope.

  In all of that time they were given the disease of killing their culture, culture of love and unity, which was a long illness and slow deaths.

  No matter that Africa is rich with good resources, 80 per cent or more of African people have stayed very poor while the rest stay very rich. But I have a hope.

  In my life, being people who like to mix with different people, I thought that I knew European people and their life, but when I lived in Britain in November 2004, I realised that I know nothing about them.

  At first I was able to talk to some people, but others was a problem because of my accent.

  It took me time to be used to their culture. I used to say hello on the street back home, but here when I say hello to someone, sometimes they look at me as if I am crazy, instead go back to talk to their dogs! Don’t expect that your neighbour will knock on your door to say good morning, and don’t do that to them either, because they might call the police if you knock on their doors.

  But not all of them. There are a small number of people who were happy to help and if I asked to go somewhere they were ready to show me or to take me there.

  I read somewhere in one of the newspapers in 2004, that in Germany, they want to start a school to teach people to laugh because they’d forgotten about it. Then I thought that even in Britain they need a school like that, because a big number of people have the same problem. There are some who are left only with what they call a smile; this is to pull their lips to the sides for half a second.

  I come to meet a lot of old people who told me that they have never had a family for themselves and it was their choice, but instead they stay with their pets. So, to me, seems that is why they look as if they don’t have enough contact with people and the good friends they have are their animals.

  Maybe that is why some leave their fortune to the animals when they die.

  Others have separated from their families for many years and they have forgotten each other. Someone told me that if he met his children he wouldn’t recognise them when they still living in the same area! There is a lady, my friend, who told me that she doesn’t know if her mum is still alive or died! She doesn’t know anything about her for over twenty years!

  And when you talk to a person like that for some time, no matter how much money he/she has, they do not have a happy life.

  I come to see some cases in the news, of children, sometimes fifteen years old and below, where they go together in big numbers and enjoy killing old people or other children! They even advise parents to carry their babies on their front side to keep them safe; when back home they know that back side is best side and comfortable for their babies.

  That is a kind of life which I never saw in Africa. I felt sorry and it hurts me to see some young African people, who came in West countries knows that they came to heaven, ending up cut communication with their families back home because of the bad situation they are in. But I have a hope.

  I have a hope that in future the majority of African children are going to be happy and proud to stay in their countries and to gather to build their continent.

  And don’t think that if you get a British passport you are recognised as full British. They are very careful here, because you have to remember to remind them who you are, every time you want something, when you fill some forms at that time you have to show your ethnic origin.

  But on the other hand, this is good; some can be comfortable and forget that they come from somewhere else.

  Before in Africa it was taboo and a curse to kill someone except in war, yes I came to see why in Britain they try everything to encourage people to be good to their neighbours by giving medals to someone who was good to others. Something which, to Africans, even their culture had seeds of hatred for long time, they still have in them, that their neighbours are like a member of their family, so it is their responsibility to help each other, at least 90 per cent. And the rest, history is judging them. But I have a hope.

  After 1994, when genocide happened in my country Rwanda, genocide which happened in front of the whole world and everyone was watching as if it was a film.

  Rwandan people started reconciliation which was a very hard step but they had to do it, and it was successful day by day.

  I have a hope.

  I AM WHO I AM

  I am who I always wanted to be

  I am me.

  Changes didn’t manage to change me

  Hunger and anger didn’t change me

  I am who I always wanted to be

  I am me.

  I am mother and grandmother

  I give peace and I give love, I mediate.

  I am fighter and I am survival.

  Ancient histories of pain didn’t change me. I am who I am

  I am who I always wanted to be

  I am me.

  They are time I was behind

  They are time I was in motion

  They are time I was vigorous

  They are time I was exhausted

  And they are time I was in danger

  But nothing changed me

  I am who I always wanted to be

  I am me

  People wonder where my secret lies

  Most of them see it as a mystery.

  Something which makes me proud

  Nothing managed to change me.

  Racism didn’t change me

  I use my magic to be leader and ladder

  I am honest with myself. I am who I am

  I am who I always wanted to be

  Black beauty, a writer, I am the universe

  I am who I always wanted to be.

  I am me.

  I HAD A MOTHER

  Mother

  Who was too beautiful

  Medium height

  Medium weight

  Beautiful smile

  With shining black beauty

  But people loved her for her good heart.

  Kindness with good advice

  Helping everyone around her.
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  That mother we both knew.

  We have her photo in our heads and hearts

  Whose countenance moulded the contours of our own, in

  Those marrows pulsed primordial blood

  From a deep well of knowing

  Her glances met ours, seeking

  In close comfort we were carried

  On her supple back

  On her powerful hip

  There was permission

  To shelter in the landscape of her back, her breast

  To stroke her soft black hair with wonder

  To take refreshment from the clear pools of her eyes

  Whose clear gaze gave back her own constancy.

  We, children and mother born to this mechanical peace

  Where glances are badly timed.

  And her joy was that we blood bond of an unbroken bond

  Should survive her and in courage, bring others whose

  Clear gaze back her own constancy

  Take one, add two, add three and four, then five and six

  We, children born

  To this mechanical age where glances are badly timed

  Joy was that of we blood of her blood

  (Daughter to mother, mother to daughter) both daughters and sons

  Both sense the measure of loss

  Yet pound to her great body

  In flight from dangers on camel’s back

  On moccasin trails

  In dreams we are not altogether bereft.

  Mother to daughter, daughter to mother.

  Our beautiful mother.

  Bagorebeza

  We will be with us always in our hearts.

  JOURNEY

  Always journey, which always hard

  Journey is hard for us

  This journey has no mercy to anyone

  Except those who are lucky.

  Let me call this journey

  Journey of struggle

  This journey has no respect, no fear of us.

  It does not mind if you are a scholar,

  Rich, young, wise, beautiful, just hold your breath.

  It will take you up and down.

  Many times to reach the end of it, you need to be still.

  Hoping and waiting, what tomorrow brings.

  Say tomorrow and wait for tomorrow

  Sometimes the more you try,

  The more you are disappointed

  Then you ask yourself.

  Why me? Why me?

  The journey seems cruel

  Cruel and painful

  Especially when the journey carries you faraway

  Away from your people,

  When you lose your loved one

  When you think that no one cares about you

  Some few people are lucky ones

  So lucky because they

  Have everything needed in the world

  The four important things in life

  Good health, happy family, love and money.

  True enough, this journey.

  Is the journey of life?

  Journey of life means journey of struggle.

  LUCK

  What is luck?

  Many of us we believe something called luck, luck in different ways.

  Or luck in all ways.

  Some ways of luck, we create them ourselves, or many, if not all.

  You can count yourself to be the lucky one, depending what is in front of you.

  Count yourself the lucky one, if your work or your family doesn’t colonise neither dictate to you.

  But why can’t you see your luck, when you see day and night? See yourself lucky if your children they are not breathing in swilling dust and the noisy life.

  When your children don’t eat little and die young.

  When your sister, daughter or mother didn’t get raped by gangs.

  When a loved one, someone close to you doesn’t die or half die because of feeding herself/himself with drugs in her/his vein.

  When no one close to you dies or half dies, because of ignorance.

  Ignorance of power or family members, all because of selfishness.

  Count yourself to be lucky, when do not dislike yourself because of who you are.

  Maybe because of your disability, or you can’t do much like so and so.

  You are worried because you are too dark or too light.

  Because you are unloved as a child.

  You are not worried that they are talking behind your back.

  You don’t mind what others think about you, and you have full confidence to do what you think is better.

  Then count yourself to be lucky, especially when someone tells you that she/he loves you.

  The love which is not covered in any shining pursuits of business.

  And know that the power of love, doesn’t have to turn to be the love of power.

  When you are not creating many different planets in one.

  When you know that the best things in life aren’t things.

  When you can be able to love yourself, and have time to think about your neighbour.

  When you feel free to run the riot, and fight for your survival, to have your freedom.

  And most of that: when you’re proud of your history.

  Count yourself to be the lucky one.

  CONGRATULATIONS BUT THIS, IT IS THE BEGINNING

  I feel alive when I write

  I want you to know why I write

  But I fear to write it here

  Because I am the victim of the truth

  I refuse to keep quiet

  I want you to read my poem

  My poem is poem of pain

  OOO no no no

  My poem is not poem of pain

  My poem is poem of celebration.

  Let me say how it was

  They treated you as a monster

  When they turned themselves into monsters

  With hate race, all of that simply because of your colour.

  Your heritage

  They put you in prison

  Prison of fear

  Fear of yourself

  By bereave that you can’t.

  For those years of suffering

  Years and years of teaching

  Chant, chant, teach, teach and cheating

  In verses but riches tortures

  From your mothers crashed your lives

  Forget this wound in the earth

  Forget this scar in your hearts

  Mark the grave your heart

  You lived a life of neglect

  What you wanted at that time

  Was room of justice?

  They clenched your mind

  They killed you by ideologies

  In such of directions

  You refused to perish

  You refused to die that day

  You didn’t die yesterday

  You waited to be recognised

  And now it is your beginning

  To have your dignity

  To love yourselves

  To be free at last

  Thank God our God

  To be here today and see this celebration

  And now you have your dreams

  Let us sing Harerujaaaa

  In the whole world with all races

  Now no black, no white or Asian

  We are the universe.

  No more time of slavery

  Time of dying again and again

  Let me mark that grave of your soul

  And be able to test happiness

  Just keep your history

  That once your color was shame

  But now it is time to know that black is beauty.

  Let me salute Oprah and others

  Who was behind the struggle?

  To help the mother to give birth to your dream

  Martin Luther King’s dream

  That birth was not easy

  That birth was long journey

  That birth was hard struggle

  They had a hope and behind the mother />
  Mother push, push, and puuuush

  I am pushing

  I am trying

  But at last the child was born

  The baby kicked his legs

  Kicked that wall of his mind

  The mind of change

  Ahahaaaa

  Was gasp of joy?

  Your heart banging doors

  Doors of dreams

  Doors of freedom

  I saw doors opening in slow motion

  At last you have your beginning

  You don’t mind if they wanted him for their reasons

  You have him for your dreams

  It is you Michelle Obama

  Congratulations Michelle

  From slavery to first lady of United States of America

  It is our honour Michelle

  This it is the beginning

  But at last you have the beginning.

  Congratulations Mrs Obama

  NAME

  What is a name?

  A name is an identity for everything

  Say a name I will know what you mean

  Animal, tree, water, food all have names

  But different names

  Planets too, have names.

  Our planet which we have today has a name

  We have different continents, with different countries

  And different names.

  We too, human beings we have names

  Names which are our identity

  When we say our names

  It helps us to know where we come from

  Which country, sometimes which area and which community.

  Me too, I have a name.

  Ooo my name!

  Bamurangirwa is my name

  I am proud to have my name.

  My name is everything to me.

  The meaning of my name, it shows me my parents’ love for me

  My beauty, my name represents my country and my community.

  I thank very much my parents, Bagorebeza and Sinzi

  My parents, who gave me my name

  I am proud of my name.

  Bamurangirwa comes from (kuranga) announce.

  You announce something you are sure of

  Something you believe in

  And something you are proud of that it will not let you down.

  I am happy I didn’t let them down

  Name is identity.

  QUESTION

  I have a question

  A question about foreigner religions in foreign countries.