Another Day For You And Me In Paradise

Am sitting in a McDonalds, eating my lunch since am uncomfortable taking a lunch box with me from home. A lunchbox always reminds me of my school days and coz I didn’t like it then; it was no fun being forced to carry one, I don’t like it now.

At a table in front of me, a waitress prepares for a painting session. You know, one of those days when the McDonalds treat its kid customers to a fun face painting. Soon enough a line of kids is quickly formed with difficulty as all struggle to be the first in line. The winner of the queue struggle gets his face changed into a Spiderman’s mask within no time.

After a pip in the mirror he runs off to show off to his mother with a big grin on his face! It’s easy to tell that he feels supernatural in his mask. The second boy in line wants to be turned into a lion. ‘No problem’ assures the waitress/painter who assumes the job with ease. She proceeds to do a wonderful job transforming, or rather close to transforming the little boy’s face into a lion’s.

Like the first, he too runs off with the same wide grin unlike the lion’s fierce look. At this point my mind wanders off to the lion’s kingdom. Africa. Yes, Kenya.

Somehow, a warming pride wells from within me and I can’t help the widening smile that slowly forms in my face. That’s where I come from. Close to the lion kingdom, neighboring with it. I smile some more as a system forms in my mind.

The lion-boy and others like him must know of Africa: Well, that is what automatically comes to mind when you think of lions, right? If he does, then he would know about the people from that part of the world; Africans. If he is bright enough in his child years, then he might easily guess that am an Africa coz I do look like one. Thus the connection between the boy, the lion and me. The world. Do you see it? Good.

Its fun sitting here and watching the art but I have to get back to work, so singing ´´jambo bwana“ in my head, I go past the art session and out the door.

The everyday sound of traffic is no surprise as I stop just outside the McDonald’s entrance to zip up my jacket after a cold wind blows by. ´This is no Africa` I say to myself as I turn left and then right some meters away. This Sunday is unusually sunny and warm for a winter Sunday.

The reflection of the sun by the glass walls of a buss stop shelter ahead, forces me to shield my eyes with the palm of my hand. As I near the bus stop, and just as am about to walk past it, something catches my eye and the ´´jambo bwana“ freezes in my head!

I stop and move a few steps backwards to have a better view and sure enough a photo of a black (read African) boy is plastered in the glass wall of the bus stop shelter. His sad big eyes staring almost accusingly at me. In the boy’s little hands is a huge empty bowl. I don’t need do read the text or be told, I get the message. Hungry children in Africa need help.

I force my self to look away and walk away embarrassed. The African pride is replaced by a very uncomfortable feeling as I arrive back to reality. The lion boy is long forgotten as my soul is haunted by the calamities that face Africa, the lion kingdom. The lion kingdom is replaced by Darfur, faces and bony bodies of screaming children. These are not in line for a face painting. No. They are just not in line.

I start to think of a way to end this nightmare, but then am not a Madonna who could easily: with no complications from the law (the queen is law and procedure free), fly down and scoop a David or/and a Mercy off to her Disney land. Good for the David now the son of Madonna. Who knows, maybe he will turn out to be a Malawian Barrack Obama in future .One saved, millions to go.

But still am not happy when I think of Madonna and how the whole deal went. I also remember reading in the papers that the same Madonna does not like what Angelina Jolie is doing as a UN goodwill ambassador. She sees it as idiotic to build a home somewhere for the poor. The same Jolie who is said to have come up with the original idea of adopting poor kids and even presenting it to the queen of pop, when the two were good friends.

I picture Madonna doing her naughty, or sometimes Jesus imitation choreography and am glad that I can raise my own child. I remember reading somewhere in the same magazine that another star, Hale Berry, saying ´´ I wish I could be as boney as the kids in Sudan but I hate the flies all around them“. The big eyed boy with a big empty bowl. I am not happy at all.

Though the world all over sudden seems to realize the needs of the African child and the stars are now looking seriously into grabbing an African child from the seemingly futureless continent, I feel a shadowy figure creepily creeping behind this helping hand. The same feeling I get when I see pictures of Maasais all over the world while their state never improves.

Or when I hear Oprah bragging about helping African children, yet when she continues gathering billions, none of the children she helps look like a Kenyan million shillings. The feeling of being taken advantage of. But we remain grateful for the much they do. Could we do without them?

Soon, am back at my working station and flapping through the pages of Svd, one of the principal newspapers in Sweden. On the cultural section of it is a coverage of books written on how Africa was torn apart by western super powers as they scrambled for a piece of her. Books telling of the abuse, mistreatment, slavery and worse.

I make a ´remember note` to myself to read these books or some of them. Maybe by doing so, I might come to a better understanding of how it all started. From the white man to Madonna; the white woman. I will read the books not expecting to learn anything new since we already have heard the stories. Just to get the terrible details, refresh my memory and see if I could possibly have missed something.

Meanwhile, I’ll dream of an African boy, fighting to be the first in line for a face painting. An African traditional face painting session, somewhere in the lion kingdom.

I’ll dream of the mother continent rising as her sun, her rays penetrating every part of the ´´Dark Continent“, her motherly warmth of love, reaching every country, spreading a smile to every African child.

Their milk white teeth reflecting a healthy care, they musical laughter, audible over the African plains, mountains and valleys.

And not a David, in need of a Madonna. Maybe if we all have this same dream, it might get big enough to come true, after all only we Africans can save Africa.

P Bryan Njoroge.