Until when will all of this change if I myself cannot change? Until when will we accept that our existence alone is too much for the Universe? Until when we will accept that we actually know nothing? Until when will we acknowledge the fact that we were raised by good people and today we are spitting on them? Until when will we stop murdering one another? Until when will we start using kinder words? Until when will death be put to an end?
Death is taking everything; unfortunately, for some it has already taken everything and somewhere, somehow we all have a role in it.
As I look through this tiny window of this bus, I look outside to the field and I see nothing but death. Africa was the place to be with all its richness in nature: green grass, beautiful landscape, clear skies, beautiful rivers that ran from Cairo and get lost along the way until it reaches the Cape, deep down in the interior of the continent. What happened to that? Death intervened.
All I feel and I see is nothing as I look outside of this bus. Hope for any change does not even cross my mind based on what I’m looking at.
Funny enough, I’m sitting next to an outsider, by outsider I mean not from the continent. I continue to look at her, she is amazed by what she sees. She’s beautiful and she has hope that it shall rain again so that this land could be what she had in mind. I on the other hand, I see no hope because I have lived to tell the painful story of the African reality. Only if I could have a conversation with her maybe, and I mean maybe, I could slightly have some hope, because I need it.
Do I need a stranger to change my rotten perspectives? Do I need a boy to teach me about death and hope? Maybe it is this kind of attitude that has led the youth to be what they are. We think we know it yet we know nothing. We have thrown away what we were taught from a young age because we believed the world wanted to be with us, such a pity.
Do you think I even still care about what I was taught by my parents? Do you think I know who I am? Do you think you know who you are? Why must it be that a stranger must come and tell me about myself? Why must it be that when a stranger tries to help, I immediately shut them down? With that kind of attitude I guess should just say it, I’m not surprised death has managed to surpass us.
Even though that is the case, we’re still here, we’re still striving for the best. We still know very well that we can do better than what we have done so far, only if we would accept help where needed and remember where we come from.
I will tell you this, deep down in me there is hope and belief that death is nothing to fear, as painful as it can be. There is belief in me that God gave us this world to embrace it but the devil is an enemy, which we have tended to align with based on our cold actions. Deep down in me I believe there is humanity amongst all of us, there is a spirit of Ubuntu. I don’t care about the colour of your skin or the type of hair you have. My belief is that there is a human in each and every one of us, we just need to embrace it and only then will we be victorious against death, and that of course will be through the Lord’s intervention.
Just like the legend once said in his lifetime, death thou shalt not be proud as one day it shall also die and only that time we will live a life of eternity.
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