American Youth

A couple of weeks ago, one of the members of the Black Travellers community contacted me and suggested that it would be a good idea to meet up when he passed through London on his way to Manchester- final destination being Barcelona. As this is something I like to do in foreign places i.e. interact with the locals , I thought it was a great idea and gave him my number!

On the day he arrived, I received a call from him from the airport. He had lost his ATM card (what a way to start a holiday!!), was feeling depressed (understandably) and asked whether I could come collect him. This was an unexpected cost for me (petrol is not cheap) but I agreed. Later I took him to the Black Professionals RnB/Hip hop karaoke evening where he had a great time chatting up beautiful women. He was blown away by the whole thing because apparently in LA, there would never be such a large gathering (200+) of black people in one venue without some kind of violence and police showing up to break it up. (I'm not so keen on visiting LA now!) Afterwards I dropped him off at his youth hostel and as far as I was concerned, that was the end of my role in his London trip

He phoned a couple of days later to say that he had postponed his Manchester trip, was still in London and would I like to meet up? Well, as I mentioned in my last post, last weekends' schedule was quite busy, so we only met on my next available day, Tuesday when to my surprise, I discovered that he was staying with one of the friends I'd introduced him to the previous Wednesday. That was quick!!!

"What about Manchester?"
"Not sure whether I'm going there anymore. My friend who stays there is coming down to London this Thursday"

Wednesday lunch time, my friend phones me

"You know your friend D?"
"Yeah?!"
"Has he given any indication of when he is leaving?"

Apparently, the whole him staying at her place was not working out, on account of the fact, it's a small one-bedroomed flat, D wakes up at 1.00pm, has no interest in going out to tour London prefering to stay in all day listening to music on his laptop. My friend on the other hand, works at home and was becoming increasingly irritated with the situation. She was regretting her impulsive offer for him to stay for "a couple of days", as it was now 5 days and he didn't seem to have a plan to move on. Plus her lover was having issues with him in the flat. (Oh so there wasn't anything going on between her and D)

"I don't know why I always 'mother' people"
"I'm just like you. Fortunately I have a no-nonsense flatmate which makes it easier to say "No" and also helps strengthen my resolve"
"When you see him next, could you ask him what his plans are, and also kind of hint that I'm a control freak who likes her own space?"
"You're asking me to bitch on my homegirl?"
"Kim, I give you FULL permission to bitch away"

Hmm, that would place me in an unpleasant position. D would probably ask to stay at my place and as we'd parted the Tuesday evening on a such pleasant note, (and I'm such a people pleaser), I would find it difficult to say "No!" Not sure I could put up with his freeloading and neither could my flat mate. So I dealt with it in my usual fashion and did not to relay my friend's message

I get a text message from him that evening asking me to 'call him' which I ignored. Later on in a fit of remorse I sent him a text to say that I'd call him the next day. I 'forgot'
Friday I received another text from him
"Where you at?"
"At home chilling"
"Let's go eat"
Hmm! He's probably been chucked out of my friend's flat and is looking for a place to stay. He then tried to phone me twice, but I was talking on the other phone to my mom, so ignored it. Sent him a message saying
"I can't come out this evening because it is my chill out day. I'll see you at the 70's party"

I haven't heard from him since

On Saturday at the 70's party my friend told me that on the Wednesday, she reached breaking point when he locked them out of the flat by mistake and she had to call out a locksmith. She told him straight out that he'd have to leave. (I think this is when he sent me the text asking me to call him)
He finally moved out on Friday (which explains why he was so anxious to contact me that time)
"Anyway, he sent me a long email to apologise and also a bunch of flowers. So he was raised right."... she concluded..."but Kim, never again!"

Last September I hosted a couple of kids from Washington through the Hospitality Club. They too had done no research whatsoever when they came to London, had no plan and were decidedly unenthusiastic about my suggested places of interest. Lack of money is an issue because London is an expensive city, and probably comes as a shock to them, but there are LOADS of free things to do. The kids had no clue when their flights out of London were. I swear I was more concerned than they were and had to force them to find out (which was just as well, because they had early morning flights and no plan on how to get to the airport.) I hate generalising, but from the three young Americans I've met I have serious concerns. They appear to live in a dreamworld where they think things fall into place 'magically!" I expected Americans who travelled outside their country to have more initiative!"

Maybe it is just 'middle class' Americans who can't function in the real world?

Imagine these are future leaders of the one of the most influential countries in the world!?'

Sure let me down!

Quite a busy weekend!
On Friday I attended a friends 'coming of age' house party. He was celebrating "not being a teenager anymore." Not sure why I was invited given that the average age at the party was about...err... 20! Just when I thought I'd be lumbered with the adults (his mom and dad) in the living room while the youngsters had a laugh somewhere else, I hit upon the brilliant idea of wandering around the house taking photos.
Towards the end of the party, I had a long conversation with my 'crush' who is errr... 20
(a pause while I look a bit shamefaced).
He is absolutely gorgeous though – broad shoulders, well defined muscles (works out at the gym), plays piano and sings most beautifully. (I'm a sucker for musicians) Who cares that he was only in his nappies when I was starting secondary school!!!!

Back to the busy weekend!
Saturday: Latino Aerobics in the morning, Italian lessons in the afternoon, (which are getting progressively harder) and then 3 evening engagements!

The way I'd planned it was 6.00pm for the first, 9.00pm for the second and 11.00pm for the third one. However learnt once again that 'The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry'
For the 6.00pm meet up, my friend who is over on holiday from Kenya arrived 3 and a half hours late!!!! As you can see, this threw the rest of my timings completely out. At 10pm, I rushed to the St Georges' Day fancy dress party that my friend Andy had organised to raise funds for the Motor Neurone Disease Association. Fortunately, I'd explained to him before about 'African time', so was not too embarrassed to arrive 4 hours after it had started. Once there I took to the dance floor, and as so often happens at these parties when you are the only Black, a crowd gathers round to watch in awe- "Ahh, so that's what rhythm is"
There I was revelling in the attention, and then I went to the bathroom and saw to my horror... MASSIVE sweat patches under both arm pits!
Oh the shame!
You watch these adverts on TV about antiperspirants, and how they won't let you down!
I can tell you now that SURE LET ME DOWN!!!

I left rather hurriedly after that for my next engagement- Guanabara! I don't know what the deal is about this place, as I've never been inside - always been put off by the massive queue. This night was no exception. My friends who had arrived earlier were in the middle of the queue, but the security guard wouldn't let me in when I asked him. Instead he started moaning about his job, and how everyone else has been queueing and he cannot make exceptions, even for a sister! Imagine! And the guy was from Zaire - practically next door to Uganda! What’s the world coming to when a brother cannot help a sister?? So went home instead because I just don't do queues! Not in this weather!
(Also was a good excuse to get out of it, due to aforementioned sweat issue!)

Sunday, church and then surprise birthday party for a friend. The look on Sam's face when he opened the door to 10 of his friends was priceless! He's got lovely friends and I had a nice time getting to know them. Also my sister who has been shunning me for a while now was there and she gave me a HUG and actually talked to me!!! I don't know whether she was pretending we were cool because we were amongst ' outside people' (my dad does this), and I am too scared to phone her to confirm that! So I'll just leave things as they are for now!

So I’m a bit of a social animal. But this comes with a price because on Monday, I noticed lines under my eyes!!! Arghhhhh! I've always prided myself on looking younger than my age. Yati remarked
"It must be too much partying and too little sleep"

Sacred Romance

Sorry I’ve been so quiet!

I bought this book ‘The Sacred Romance – Drawing Closer to the Heart of God’ by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge a few years ago while on holiday in the USA. Courtesy of my 15 day Amtrak Rail pass, a good chunk of my time was spent travelling and I’d thought the book would help pass the time.

I was mistaken!

It’s one of those books that call for deep reflection – those of you who know me, know that I prefer to wade in the shallow realms of human thought. So at that time the book was just not for me and I never got past the first few chapters. It's been gathering dust on my bookshelf for years and I only unearthed last weekend while spring cleaning. There’s a time and season for everything, and I suppose this was my time to read the book.

Was planning to review it here, but there’s so much good stuff in it, and it's really difficult to summarise. All I can say is that if you are at a point in your life where the ‘Romance’ has gone (you know what I’m talking about), and you are just going through the motions of Christianity…
…or you feel there is something missing, and feel a deep yearning, an 'unconsolable longing', as the authors put it, and have tried to recapture this 'elusive something', with all the prescribed Christian formulae (i.e. get more involved in ministry, step up bible reading, read more Christian books...) Maybe you've distracted yourself with work, relationships, hobbies... or like me, have numbed/killed all dreams, desires and passions so as not to be disappointed.

And the longing is still there!!! You know there's got to be more to your relationship with God, because you've had brief glimpses of it, for example- when you first became a Christian!

Then maybe this book would be a good read for you. It might help you discover the reason why you lost the Romance in the first place and may prove to be a helpful companion in your journey back to your First Love?

Glorious Ruins

...think for a moment about the millions of tourists who visit ancient sites like the Parthenon, the Colosseum, and the Pyramids. Though ravaged by time, the elements, and vandals through the ages, mere shadows of their former glory, these ruins still awe and inspire. Though fallen, their glory cannot be fully extinguished. There is something at once sad and grand about them. And such we are. Abused neglected, vandalised, fallen - we are still fearful and wonderful. We are as one theologian put it "glorious ruins." But unlike those grand monuments, we who are Christ's have been redeemed and are being renewed as Paul said, "day by day," restored in the love of God
Excerpt from ' The Sacred Romance, Drawing Closer to the Heart of God' by Brent Curtis & John Eldredge - Chap 7, "The Beloved" page 94

Breaking hair?

"You hair breaking… you know?"

"Huh?"!!!

I looked up at my hairdresser’s frowning face. I'd been struggling all afternoon to understand his thick Jamaican accent, and was not sure I'd heard him right.
So he repeated again more slowly

"You...hair...breaking"

"What? Where?"

I thought he'd point out one strand; instead he went...

"Here... here... here... this... whole sekshan (section)... here… here..."

I turned around, as if to see the back of my head more clearly and when this manoeuvre failed, sat in silence, digesting this information.

How can my hair break? I have dreadlocks, which means that it hasn't seen a comb or brush in almost 9 months. I always wear it loose and apart from moisturising, I hardly ever touch my hair!

When I could speak again, I asked,

"What causes breakage?"

"Donknow... could be you pregnant or could be genetic, or maybe you stress?"

Then he went on to talk about bright shiny bald patches, and how women can get them too.

"You mean I've got bald patches???"
"No, it not that bad"

Well, unless I've had the Immaculate Conception that rules out pregnancy!
Genetics - my family has full heads of hair. Bald patches if any, appear at the top and not at the back of the head (where most of the breakage is)

So that only leaves stress

What am I stressed about?

I started mentally listing all the stuff I was anxious about, and had to stop because the list was growing. Then I started feeling guilty because the Bible says in Philippians 4 that we should not to be anxious about anything, but give our concerns to God in prayer and thanksgiving. So that’s another area of personal failure- an inability to let go of worry.
Perhaps I don’t trust that God will sort stuff out. Most of my worries are caused by my fear of confrontation, procrastination, poor financial management, indiscipline. I am the root cause of all my problems and the only way to deal with it is to make positive changes on myself.

But to do this, I need moral support; just like the time at University when I was too scared to sign off at the Library because I’d lost one of my library cards. The implications of this were that the Library Supervisor could either refuse to sign me off (thus affecting my Graduation) or charge me a fee which I couldn’t pay. I remember agonising all week about it, imagining the worst case scenario, until Joanne Aniku offered to come along with me to the Library. She didn’t do anything else apart from holding and giving my hand a reassuring squeeze, but I took courage from the fact that she was there. When we got to the Library it turned out not to be a big deal, the missing library card was not even mentioned and it was all over in 5 minutes. It’s been 10 years but I’ll never forget what Joanne did for me and I owe her big time.
I give off the impression that I’m independent and self sufficient. But I’m not really. It takes a lot out of me emotionally to deal with things, and I can’t rely on God to hold my hand because He cannot; He is not a physical being!
I’m struggling in London because I don’t have a support network. My sister is not talking to me, my brother prefers not to get involved and I don’t have any close friends near by who can take time out to be there. They all live so far away
So I guess I am stressed and now my hair is breaking!!!