Baring Testament

The one ray of hope I had about his life and the misery it had made of him is that he started to talk to me about church, he was clearly interested but very cynical. Just so he could be happy again and be that guy that I first started talking to, and reach the potential that I always saw. Maaaaan, I used to pray and I do mean pray for this guy to change. I dunno if I can get a witness to the kind of deep heart-wrenching, pleading, promising prayers that I mean. If not I'll just leave you to imagine it. But as time passed, I went from believing so hard, to praying less fervently until one day, I dunno when, I just stopped praying for him altogether.

Now if you have been keeping up with me you'd know that I've been tryna end my year on a positive note by yet again spring cleaning my life and on a whim I searched his facebook profile (reading this back is soooo making me think, stalker alert! Stalker alert!). Then I decided to poke him and then I pretty much went back to my life and forgot about him. A couple days ago I get a facebook message saying 'hey I lost your number' so I sent the number over and got a call today while at work. Just before I had 'spring-cleaned' him from my life our convo's always decended into bitching fests, either him getting ugly truths out of me about himself or other people or vice versa. So it got to the point where I had once enjoyed speaking to him from 10pm til 7am (yes, this really did happen, talk about a couple of jobless students!) now a half-an-hour convo would drive me up the wall. It'd go a little like this...

Nameless: Hey, Nsoromma you monkey wot u doing...

Nsoromma: If i'm a monkey why are you calling me? It's 2am WHY ARE YOU CALLING ME. I'm doing nothing, why?

Nameless: Are you at home? Come and see me, man. I wanna see you.

Nsoromma: Errrrr...IT'S 2 IN THE F***ING MORNING MAN. I'm not leaving my house. Get lost. What do you want?

Nameless: Ah, man nothing. You're on a long ting. Just wondering how ur ugly friend is, innit?

Nsoromma: Who is ugly? Piss off man.

Nameless: So is she still the leader of ur crew? Tehehe.

Nsoromma: Huh? Ur chatting rubbish man, ur so dumb. Who talks about crews and stuff? How old are you? You were bullied as a kid, innit?

Nameless: U wish u were like me as a kid about, I don't even know why I'm talking to you your so dumb. You got a freshie man yet? Only a freshie ever would want you...

Etc, etc...

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah, so not so eventually I stopped taking his calls and he stopped calling. But just to remind you trips down memory lane were rosy, there was a time when we could stand each other and that is what probably prompted both the poke from me and the call from him. Here's a snippet of today's convo...

Nameless: Hey Nsoromma. How you doing?

Nsoromma: I'm alright you know, how are you?

Nameless: I'm cool just changing my life, I got saved

Nsoromma: Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?! Ahhhhhhh! For real? When? Congrats, hun!

Nameless: Yeah thanks. Back in October, just tryna get my life on track.

Nsoromma: Oh wow!

Nameless: I know. But what you been up to man. It's been ages. Been wondering how you are.

Nsoromma: I'm good,....

I can see a change even in how he speaks! He's now saved and it shows. I was on break at work when we spoke and I could have exploded with joy at that one statement. 6 years on after my tearfilled prayer. If you don't know, get to know, prayer changes things! Whatever you been praying for, or like me whatever you have prayed for and forgotten...it shall come to pass! P.U.S.H. (pray until something happens) people!

Image credits

Hey people,

Sorry that I've been M.I.A. for while I've had a huge emotional and relationship drama recently. I don't intend to give you the full long-ass painful story right here (although that doesn't mean it won't come out anyway). Just know that I actually miss my little blog world, but life has been so hard that something had to give, and virtual friends was it (sorry!).

But I'm back now, so I'll be posting here and on Life...and Living It regularly again and keeping up with my blog friends, too. However, before I go, a question:

Why is it that life never hands out to the deserving what they deserve and gives the undeserving waaaay to many chances?

To my ex, who I know doesn't read this as he doesn't know it exists(!),

I loved you soooo much that just the thought of possibly being around you filled me with joy unspeakable. No man had ever made me feel so special or opened me up so completely. I trusted you even when everyone warned me not to and offered you my soul. I'm sure people have been hurt before and that I am neither the first nor the last to feel like this. But for some reason I feel so alone, when I think of what you did I feel physically ill. I rarely get through the day without thinking of you and how worthless you made me feel. Whenever I have a happy moment, behind it are shades of misery. I take sharp intakes of breath and double over in private when I remember you. I promised you I will never forget you, and I won't. But I hope to God that something happens to take away the pain I'm living with. You treated me to a life check. You made me pause and re-evaluate my life and myself. At first it was ugly; I hated myself and was willing to do whatever it took to change myself, not to be with you because I would never have you back, but to make myself into the kind of person who would never be treated so shabbily again. I contemplated things that have never even flitted through my mind before because of you and as much as it hurt me, I thank God I did. You treated me to a life check I will never forget. I will never be that girl again because of you.

I will never again be so young, so dumb, so naive, so gullible and so damn stupid. But the life check you gave me meant that I opened myself up to my friends, my true friends and after the self hate I came to appreciate the people I have in my life. You hurting me helped them to help me count my blessings. So I don't hate me anymore, so thank you. After all the crying, and self-loathing, and man-hating, dust and sackcloth music, I thank you. To my girls: Sankofa, Afrocentric and Friday's 'Fro...thank you for your support, my sister, my cousin, Ms. Lawyerlady, Ms. Design, Foneshop Boy, Dodgy Boy, Fly-Ass Single Mamma and everyone else who helped to pick the shattered shards of my self-esteem off the floor, I thank you.

This is a painful and long-ass process but I can see the other side. Already I have made some positive changes. It's all about perspective. I am a master's holding, house-owning, smart, forward-thinking, sexy, beautiful, blessed young woman with many good years ahead of me. And you just missed out on a DAMN GOOD thing. Keep walking partner, I wish you well. As Dodgy boy said of you, you were just a squatter tryna make a permanent home out of my palace. So now, be gone!

Goodbye,

Now to the blogosphere...I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack! BTW, check out my girl's blog Rantings of a Manhater. I'm sure you'll like it!

Recently I have been in a bit of a reading frenzy to alleviate some of the current boredom and drudgery of the life of a job hunter. I had almost forgotten how much I enjoy reading, but it's all come back now. So much so that I have read 4 books in two weeks! I reviewed one of them over on my other blog, Life...and Living It, which you can check out here. So here comes my second book review since I was, like 13 or something. Lol. Hope you like it!

Title: A Thousand Splendid Suns

Author: Khaled Hosseini

First published: 2007

Story: The book set, in Afghanistan, starts with Mariam, who is a harami (tr. Bastard, illegitimate child) living an isolated life in a hut on the outskirts of a small village with her sick mother. Mariam and her mother are outcasts due to her mother's illness and Mariam's illegitimacy and this has left her mother a bitter, spiteful old woman. Mariam's father is a wealthy man of Herat with three wives and ten legitimate children who comes to visit his daughter once a week. Despite her mother's disapproval, Mariam builds a strong relationship with her father. Following a broken promise from her father for Mariam's fourteenth birthday, the child sets out to find her dad. With her mother's threats and pleadings that she cannot survive even a day without her daughter ringing in her ears, Mariam leaves the village, somehow making her way to her father's house in Herat. She refuses to leave until she sees him but he will not see her. The following day, after spending the night sleeping in front of his house, she is chauffeured home, where she is met with the suicide of her mother. In the midst of Mariam's blame-filled mourning her father and his wives arrange for her to marry a widower many years her senior and be hurriedly moved to Kabul to keep her harami shame from them. Married life starts off relatively well for her and her husband, Rasheed, who is kind and caring towards her. He is especially attentive when she falls pregnant and eager for a boy to replace the one who died from his first wife. Mariam miscarries and suddenly Rasheed changes towards her. He becomes brutal and harsh, and this worsens with the passage of time and each of her six further miscarriages.

The story then cuts to the life of Laila, an outstandingly beautiful and intelligent girl born to a teacher and his wife who live on the same street as Rasheed and Mariam. She was born amid political changes in Afghanistan when the Soviet's took over and many Afghan men go to jihad (tr. Holy war) against the new Soviet order including her two older brothers when she is just two years old. Under the Soviet's women, particularly in metropolitan areas like Kabul, have many freedoms to teach and to learn and Laila's dad encourages his daughter to take advantage of this. By the time she is nine, her mother resents her father for allowing the boys to go fight jihad while he stayed home. She pays Laila no attention, instead keeping vigil for her sons. So Laila grows up with the love of her father and Tariq, her childhood friend. When word reaches them that the boys have died, Laila's mother falls apart and tells her daughter the only reason she has not killed herself is so she can stay in Kabul to see the day when her son's enemies are defeated. Eventually the day comes that the Soviet's are pushed out of Afghanistan the Mujahideen many factions that fought against them come together to form an interim government. This does not last and soon they are fighting amongst themselves along ethnic lines. This fighting ravages Kabul and people close to Laila and Tariq are killed or run to neighbouring Pakistan for safety. When Tariq comes to Laila to tell her that his family are also about to leave, things become emotional and end up sleeping together. He asks her to marry and come with him but she cannot leave her father alone with her bitter, resentful mother because she is all he has left. So he leaves and she is shattered. Then after Laila is almost shot a few weeks later her mother decides that she can reluctantly leave Kabul and the family plan to go the same route as Tariq's did. Laila is estatic, believing that she will be able to find Tariq but in the middle of leaving, a rocket falls on their house and her parents are killed.

The orphaned fifteen year-old and now partially deaf Laila, comes to live in the household of Mariam and Rasheed. Rasheed decides that he will take Laila as a second wife and after a visitor come to tell Laila that Tariq died in a rocket explosion. Despite Mariam's pleas to her husband and anger at Laila, the girl agrees to the marriage immediately as she has realised that she is pregnant. Rasheed is as loving and caring to Laila as he was to Mariam in her first pregnancy, even more so in fact due to her outstanding beauty. However, Laila gives birth to a girl, Aziza, and Rasheed is furious and turns against Laila just as he did to Mariam. Over time Mariam begins to bond with the Aziza and in this way to two wives become close. They plan to run away but are caught in the process and returned to Rasheed who beats them senseless. Meanwhile the political situation is Afghanistan is charged because a generation of religious Afghan's raised in Pakistan have come together to put an end to the Mujahideen infighting and put Afghanistan back together, they are the Taliban. When the Taliban finally arrive in Kabul people are happy and hopeful that the fortunes of Afghanistan are finally turning. The Taliban rule turns out to be worse than that of the Mujahideen warlords, there are massive restrictions on freedom such as having to practise Islam or face death, and no frivolous activities such as singing, dancing or watching TV are allowed. Women specifically had even further restrictions, they were forbidden to work, must wear a burqa (tr: full body covering, showing only the eyes) as opposed to a hijab (tr. Headscarf), forbidden to go to school, to leave the house without familial male escort and are even forbidden to laugh in public. In this context the unhappy Laila falls pregnant again and this time bares him his longed-for son, Zalmai, after this he has no further interest in her. But the country is facing a three-year draught induced famine and when Rasheed's shop burns down the family are soon fighting starvation. The situation gets so bad that Laila is forced to send Aziza to an orphanage and when Rasheed will not take her she has to sneak her way there often beaten badly for being out without a male escort.

A man comes to visit when Rasheed is out at work and Zalmai immediately takes a disliking to him. When Laila turns to see who it is, she realises it Tariq. Rasheed had paid a man to come and tell Laila Tariq was dead because he had wanted to marry her. When Rasheed returns from work Zalmai tells his father about Tariq showing up at which point Rasheed locks his son in a room and proceeds to beat Laila with the buckle side of his belt but Mariam jumps on him raining punches. When he turns to fight her, Laila smashes something into his head so he turns to strangle her, even with Mariam punching him from behind he keeps on, even when Laila's face turns blue. So Mariam gets a shovel and hits him hard once and then again when she realises that he will kill them all. The second blow is fatal. Mariam tells Laila that she and the children must run away with Tariq to Pakistan but she must stay behind and own up to Rasheed's murder or else they will all be hunted down and killed. Laila is distraught but Mariam is okay because she did it for Laila and the children to be free. Laila and her children leave with Tariq and Mariam is executed for her crime. Laila and Tariq marry when the reach Pakistan and live there until the Taliban is beaten by the allied forces. Following this they return to help rebuild their country.

Review: I do not have the tendency to cry when I read a book or watch a film that is sad but with this book I was sorely tempted. It is a beautifully crafted tale, complexly and expertly written. It tells a political history, a societal history, and a love story all at the same time but amazingly I feel that no one story loses out. By the end of this book I understood a bit more the political complexities that exist in Afghanistan and how and why the ordinary Afghan may feel conflicted over what is happening there. This side is told in a non-judgemental way that does not feel as though it is trying to make excuses for people it just explains and leaves me to come to my own conclusions. The social history of women in Afghanistan is also well chronicled in this book and Hosseini makes a good case in this book for the plight of women in his country. And although I do not disagree with what his book is saying about the maltreatment of women I feel it is slightly preachy on this. Or perhaps it is the way is should seem in the context of the story of two women? Nonetheless, I stand by my view that on this issue the book is a bit preachy and I must admit that if I had read the book without knowing the author I would have immediately guessed it was written by a man. The accounts are as honest as they can be but the complaint of how women were treated seems to more like those that would come from a man who empathises with their position then from a woman who lived it. The love story too is complex. Laila's story shows how love for your family and your children interplays with the way people are allowed to live their life and can constrain them from the most direct route to the happiness that is staring them in the face. I like that. It makes the love story real somehow. It's not just a case of star-crossed lovers overcoming their obstacles and love wins out in the end, or they die heroically for their love. Instead once they finally get together, Laila and Tariq still have to deal with the losses that brought them to that point. The death of their parents, the effects of Tariq's troubles on his health, the pain of guilt for lying to Zalmai about the truth of his father's death and the guilt for the sacrifice Mariam made for them all, all of these things make their love story more real and beautiful in the context of the world they lived in. I applaud Hosseini for this book which is a good way to make the average 'westerner' open his eyes and mind to what actually happened to Afghanistan, telling him things about the conflict that he otherwise would not have known. It is so unfortunate that this book will forever be compared to Hosseini's first book because I think it comes second to it. I prefer his first book, The Kite Runner, if I am honest, but nevertheless this is a thoroughly uncomfortable but damn good read. I put it down only to sleep or go to work and read the 360+ pages in less than two days!

Ratings: I give this book four little nsoromma's out of five. (4/5 stars)

So Sunday was my boyfriend's birthday and they day I lost my mind. It's been a long time since I've been so thoroughly disappointed. I planned to spend the day with him and he told me that he would be at home all day so that was cool. Yay. I was ecstatic, as in pure euphoria. I've never been so damn happy to spend time with another human being IN MY LIFE. Like ever. Well as I say this I'm sure that I've probably felt close to this before. Really close but this was different. This was amazing, my heart was doing little running leaps and skipping every so often just thinking about this amazing quality time we were finally going to have together. My planning and preparation for this day had been in a word, crap. I mean end of the month/beginning of the month time is when all the direct debits come out and you realise that you must really get out of debt (this is not my portion, I am in the middle of sorting out my debt-free plan thanx to this blog). Nonetheless I gathered as much money (that I do not have) together as I could to try a give this boy something that shows how much I care.

At first I was gonna get him this really nice scarf (that a mate could get with a discount for me, can I get a hallelujah!), but then I realised he has something very similar. Darn it! Then I decided that I would send him a poem that I saw on Love Affair with Words which shows just how I feel sometimes when I'm with him but can't explain even half as eloquently. BTW, if you haven't please check out her blog, chick is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. Honest. Anyway, I'm running around like a headless chicken finding a beautiful frame to put this amazing poem in. Then I find it, perfect size and everything! So i'm in my happy glow when I call Afrocentric and tell her a little bit of my plans for the day and generally give her my love as she's been feeling poorly (get well soon my sugar banana!). So I had texted him earlier to say I'd call after church so I call and get no response. Ok cool. I rush home and check what I have at home to cook, oh dear, nothing. So I make a reservation at a nearby(ish) restaurant that I can (just about) afford. I'm tidying up my house and singing along to Christiana Love and Kwaku Gyasi and miss his call by about 15 minutes. I call back. No response. Ok cool, turn my music back up and continue my happy caterwauling then my mum tells me she's off to work a night shift and I'll see her tomorrow morning. So I check my clock, an hour has passed since my call back. I call again, no response. *sigh* I'm starting to get a little irritated, I hate waiting. Plus he said he had nothing doing today so what the hell?!

To cut a long-ass story short, the little prick doesn't show and doesn't call either, even though my calls continue. No longer am I just seeing what's up, by the end of the night I'm just pissed off and upset and confused. Oh and did I mentioned, I'm seriously pissed off. His ass is soo lucky he never turned his phone off or cancelled a call or full scale war would have broken out.

Now I'm not (well at least I don't think I am) an unreasonable lass, sure on your birthday you are free to do as you wish. BUT, if you say you are going to see someone then the least you can do is let them know you can't make it. And if that someone is your girlfriend then it should be a call, an apology and an explanation. In that order. And to add some context for those of you who are still insisting I am being unreasonable, read this post add to that the fact that I haven't seen him in A MONTH even though we live pretty much in the same area. Now tell me I'm being unreasonable.

Herein lays stories of disappointment, embarrassment, confusion, self-loathing, pain and anger.

I haven't explained the self-loathing have I? Well put it this way...After all of that still
I love him. Fuckeries.