It is what it is, which is just exactly what it is

Monicca and I have been passing germs to each other. I was sick Thursday to Sunday and my bugs incubated in her over the weekend, and as she so aptly described earlier... they have managed to, and here I quote verbatim, "take my power". So... it means the post we were working on is delayed another day - and Allen if you read this - it also means that your contribution and your mom's contribution are delayed as well. Hopefully for just one more day - that's if Monicca can conquer those bugs quicker than I could. 

In the mean time, here is another exert from "Things of my place". Ja - its a bit political, but in the words of my one special friend... "it is what it is"... which is just exactly what it is.

Memories of protest on campus - 1994

Black students embarked on a litter campaign. Bins were overturned, the content kicked and spread out. Engineering students, mostly white, protested against the litter campaign. Overturned bins were replaced, litter was re-gathered and re-deposited. 

A march was organised. The press was informed. There was toyi-toying, singing, u-ulating and overturning bins recently turned upright. A few determined and defiant engineering students cleaned some twenty metres in front of the fast approaching crowd. The tension in the air bounced on everyone’s stomaches. Inevitable confrontation loomed in. The engineering students cleaned with down turned faces hiding the tension strangling them, trying hard to match their calling with brave faces. Strong emotions made movements mechanical – lifting paper up in clutched hands, shuffling around the bin, mechanically opening hands over bins.

Photographers stood waiting at the place the two sides would meet. The crowd crosses the marked point. Engineering students stand to one side. Bins, so recently filled are overturned. Engineering students step into the crowd, chasing paper, lifting bins, fumbling. Defiant stare meets defiant stare. Bins are overturned once again. Defiant stare holds defiant stare. Paper is lifted. Paper is grabbed from hands, flung onto the floor. Bodies move in. Strength moves in. Clutching.

The photographers that should have been capturing a picture for the world to see, release cameras on neck straps that fall hard against their chests. Instinctively they move in, two of them moving as if they are one. They invade the space of confrontation. They push angry bodies apart. They stand in the space of confrontation, preventing anyone from entering.

I do not remember the colour of the photographers. I do not remember their sex. (Actually I do remember their colour and sex but when I wrote this I chose not to reveal it and I'll respect that). Their deed will never, ever leave me. It is a deed that will always give me hope in a country that is the final confrontation place of the sins of the world. Our grey place between white and black, the place we avoided full combat confrontation a world waited to see.

We walk forward to somewhere undefined, new. A renaissance.