Lat's Thoughts

Red Black Nonsense - And then I married another

We all had dreams growing up. I can remember once telling my parents that I wanted to be a “fireman”. As fate would have it, when I got myself lost as a child, I was picked up by a kind policewoman and taken to the Bakau Fire Station where I munched on some memorable “gerrteh saaf” as I waited for my parents to pick me up in the old red LADA. I met a young man aged thirteen a while ago and I asked him what he wanted to be when he grows up. The young man looked at me dead in the eye and told me he wanted to be a “rich man” with four wives and many children. At first I thought he was joking and then as I looked at him even closer, I could see the excitement swell up in his ears as if he had just won the lottery. This young man wanted to be a “career polygamist”!

It took me three weeks to finally start writing about this.

Red Black Nonsense - "Dark Times"

Is it not trying times we live in? I’m typing a new edition of Red Black Nonsense after weeks in absentia and I’m constantly hitting the ctrl+s keys for one reason and one reason only; these are “dark times”. Companies either have no money to spend, or are too scared to spend; the value of the dalasi is on a downhill slope; NAWEC is on the usual; GAMTEL inherited the black cat that went into the NAWEC generator; beggars have multiplied in a month; Price for petrol has increased twice in 2 months; some crazed killers killed 3 people in one weekend; a Gambian got shot in The United States; yet shouldn’t we be happy for the fact that one good thing has happened for all of us recently...the start of a new tourist season!

Ok, so to be absolutely honest, I receive this year’s tourist season with mixed emotions.

Needle in a Bubble (Street Poetry)

Thank You

Once I said on my facebook status that the worst description I’ve received for myself from a friend was “repulsive”; I lied. I once asked a good friend of mine to describe me with as few words as possible and she said I was a “complex mixture of rubbish”. She refused to break it down and somehow I kept those words in my head to serve as the negative extreme of how people saw me.

Over the last year, it has been a tough fight for everything gained. Everyday has been a battle with “the system” and smiles have masked emotions of confusion, frustration and sometimes something close to madness. I have survived have I not? When I have felt close to losing my sanity, I have found relief in the people I have surrounded myself with. My life has always been blessed with good people that have given me too much respect regardless of my age and inexperience. It is that respect and love that has kept me going at the most difficult times.

The Fog

Red Black Nonsense - Some "Kinda" Tribute

Last week Saturday I was at Fatu Show’s 4^th year anniversary and I had Goosebumps by the end of the night. Sitting next to a young man who has everything to do with why I had Goosebumps, I turned next to him, gave him my right hand and said “congratulations”. There was a look of surprise and shock on his face; confusion if I must call it that. He asked me why and I responded, “Look behind you”. Behind us was a flurry of Gambian women, hands in the air, voices to the heavens, singing along and dancing to a young Gambian artist’s song. This is by no means some form of social sycophancy. It is an absolute truth meshed with emotions of gratitude from another young Gambian man; me!

The organizers of the anniversary show had pulled off what was but a year ago, unthinkable. However, the event stood on the shoulders of giants before it and I was filled with such pride that cannot be explained.

Red Black Nonsense - Of Rumours and Bearers of them

There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true.  ~Winston Churchill

Right now as you read this, there is a man somewhere bored off his wits end trying to get himself busy but unable to. In his mind, there is but a single cure for his boredom, so he tells a story. The problem here is, he does not specify that it is a story, but rather insists that it’s the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. He has started what will become another big rumour.

Who said it? He said it...Who is he? A friend of a friend and he swore that it was true! How many times have you been involved in this conversation either as the disseminator or the recipient of some news? As technology advances, the speed with which rumours travel has grown with it. From text messages to the internet, we are but a click away from either spreading a rumour or deciding not to.