I feel a bout of verbatism coming on....back to my VIA (verbal incontinence annonymous) group. It's been a while since I've taken to the chair to pour out so I'm by-passing the incontinence pads.
Let's recap:
It comes, as something of a surprise to many Africans to discover that all Africans look the same to non-African... How do you tell a Nigerian from a Kenyan - and I am not talking about passports or clothing.
The easiest way, of course is the name, for example Ogunkoye, Ekwekwe or Babangida can only be Nigerian, a Njoroge, Otieno or Kilonzo must be from Kenya. Where else would you bump into a name like Promise, Immaculate or Patience other than in Zimbabwe? And where do the Dunns come from? They are surely from Liberia or Siera Leone. Surely everybody knows North and South Africans, the East Africans always say yes even when they disagree vehemently (eyes wide-opened). No wonder there have been very few coups in this region. They have not guts to go against the establishment. They are also the UN's first choice for Peace Keeping duties worldwide (Ugians taken note).
Forget about the Egyptians and Sudanes who change their continents based on which side of the bread is buttered. When convenient, and the Petro-Dollar is flowing, they masquerade as Arabs. When the World Bank is dishing out aid to the Third World, they shuffle themselves, cup-in-hand, jostling for the paltry aid given to the poor African countries. All that is about to be threatened with the Muslim Live-8...something has to be done about Darfur for sure.
If you want to be more specific, the Cameroonians will borrow money to buy Champagne. They can even sell a hole in their pockets to ape the bourgeois - blame the French I say.
The Ghanaians think they invented politics. No Ghanaian worth his salt will conclude a conversation without mentioning the famous Kwame Nkurumah or quoting a phrase from one of his speeches. Even when barganing at the Bazaar, a 'Kwame' phrase has a magical effect. The problem is they think that this effect is worldwide! A dukawalla in Bombay was forgiven for thinking Kwame was a unit of currency in Africa!
The Congolese think they have the best music and the best dancers. They have this heavenly feeling that they were brought into this world to Sing and Dance...and please, for your own safety, don't dare challenge that! A Congolese can be spotted from afar by his gait...and it also depends on the mood of the walker. A Ndombolo walk is a sign of happiness (...also means 'I've just had it'); a Baba Gaston walk is a sign of old age.
The Nigerian (oh yeso) have a THING about clothes and jewellery. The are the Indians of Africa; you'll always find a Nigerian in any part of the world...(actually Ugandans are steadily competing for this title) there is someone contending for Mayorship somewhere in remote Russia of all the places. (Not to be confused with Obama in the USA running for presidency of - and he's of Kenyan ancestory for those who care to know). There is a Nigerian Police inspector in Wollongong...(somewhere in Australia) I wonder how long he'll be there before he decides to become fluid with the cash. They are like roaches and will be found in the most unusual places.
The Ethiopians think they have the most beautiful women on God's earth, (think about it, have you ever seen an ugly Ethiopian Lady?)...no, not the post menopause geriatric one, we are talking about the under 45 or so...hmm.)
We won't talk about the Somalis for the time being as they are suffering frm a severe identity crisis. How else do you explain a Somalian holding a Kenyan Passport saying he was born and raised in Pand-Peri (somewhere in Kisumu) while the same gentleman cannot utter the basic general greeting?
Morrocans think they're French and so do the Burkinababes, Algerians hate the French.
Sierra Leonians smile profusely like they are on ectasy. Liberians can't get over America... they copy everything including Rambo... any wonder they have Rambo-style rumbles in the jungle. Call it an influence from Hollwood - or is is it Nollywood now?
All East, and Southern African countries have more or less the same boring national anthems, but the South Africans sing it best. Which other national anthem can make your feet loose control and do a jig on their own? The South Africans have thick and springy hair; the Zambians and Kenyans have prominent foreheads. The Nigerians have thick luscious lips and their females posses some of the widest posteriors. I actually think the Botswana/Zimbababes compete for the widest posterior title now I've looked in length...
The West Africans have short memories and never learn from their mistakes; how many times are they caught all over the world on drug-related cases yet they continue the trade. How many times are they goig to send those silly chain letters asking for bank accounts and pretending they are sons of Chief so and so? The concept of order and discipline must have been invented in East Africa; the words don't exist in West Africa, especially in Nigeria... does anyone know how many coups that country has endured? When a cabinet minister is caught in a corruption scandal, he commits suicide in Southern Africa; in West Africa he's promoted after the next coup d'Etat. In Uganda and Kenya, he is stripped of his Cabinet post for a short while till the dust settles and then re-instated to a higher Cabinet post which amalgamates his earlier Cabinet post. In essence, he still controls his earlier Ministerial post by proxy.
In athletics, the divisions are easy: from 800m to the marathon to the East Africans hold sway; the West Africans are only good at the sprints. With the onset of eliminating apartheid, South Africans have come out of being only reknown for singing, but since they are considered to be amongst the 1st World, their sports too are of that arena... But when it comes to football (soccer), the North and West Africans (of course given their upper hand in corruption) dominate the lesser-skilled East and South Africans.
Hmmm... the things that one hears in public places. There I was just minding my business about how the heck I'm gonna pay off my rising debt crisis. Dont you just hate it when you have to be forced to look at those unopened envelopes just so that you face up to the fact that yeap - you are in the red and you are being reminding politely that the bailliffs will come and pay you a visit and help you off with some of your furniture etc... I'm not there yet - but I could be - no actually I don't have much worth for my creditors to send their boys around. Come to think of it, I've yet to see gals in this trade, I wonder why?
Anyway where was I? Oh yeah. Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea or so it would seem.
There was this couple sitting next to me locked in some private drama that they'd made public at the doctors surgery waiting room. I was there in the hope to convince ma doctor that anti depressants don't work - I just needed plastic surgery and preferrably on the NHS. The couple was "trying" for a child. Question that comes to ma mind is: when did the love making go out of the window and it became a trial?
From their conversation, they'd been at it for 5yrs. That's a heck of a long time to be working on getting preggars if you ask me - though thankfully some of you may definitely not ask me! However this was definitely not a laughing matter - believe me - the missus was on a mission and she meant business. She was complaining hubby aside from not taking her concern seriously enough, was not getting the whole point of coming to seek help.
Hubby (bless his cotton socks) was flustered, couldn't understand what the problem was or even why missus wanted to have her whole life turned upside down with a 'sprog' as he put it. As far as he was concerned, they had a perfect life. They got to do all they wanted when they wanted how they wanted. Why spoil their lifestyle by introducing some sprog that would give them needless sleepless nights, cost them an arm and leg to educate and then even more to bribe to leave before ensuring he/she didn't put them in a nursing home or some other place!
I must say hubby didn't score highly with some of the audience that had by now tuned into their drama. Mrs got in a huff and announced to anyone caring to hear that hubby should quit being so negative about seeking help to conceive - "it weren't his fault that 90% of his sperm were useless". Hmmm did this mean that the little fellas just didn't have sense of direction or what? Now this was news to me and I proceeded to tune in more to what appeared to be a soap saga on the make in the doctors surgery this evening....
A study undertaken in 1986 in the States on prostate cancer occurences, concluded that racial variation in prostate cancer incidence in the United States is pronounced, with African-American men having the highest rates. Whether differences in the distribution of known or suspected risk factors among racial groups explain this variation is unknown. Either way this is indeed or at least ought to be a very worrying finding and we need to be vigilant in the message sent out on raising awareness amongst black men in general over the need to get regular health checks in addition to increasing the network of assistance in research and care on the ground level required to cope with this; especially back in our native homeland.
For those that like to delve a bit in to medical jargon, the method used to gather these findings consisted of evaluating prospectively the relation between prostate cancer and race among 45 410 U.S. male healthy professionals, aged 40–75 years . (There is without doubt, much more current research findings to date, but so far, this one seemed plausible to me.) Using multivariable, pooled logistic regression to adjust the rate ratio (RR) for potential dietary and lifestyle risk factors. In addition they also measured circulating levels of steroid hormones, sex hormone-binding globulin, and vitamin D metabolites and length of the androgen receptor gene CAG repeat in a sample of African-American (n = 43), Asian (n = 52), and white (n = 55) participants and assessed variation by race in these possible prostate epithelial cell growth mediators by use of analysis of variance. Statistical tests were two-sided.
Results: The age-adjusted RR for prostate cancer was 1.73 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.23-2.45) for African-American men compared with white men. After multivariate adjustment, the RR increased to 1.81 (95% CI = 1.27-2.58). The rate of prostate cancer did not differ between Asians and whites. Steroid hormone and 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D levels did not vary appreciably by race. However, the mean number of androgen receptor gene CAG repeats was lower among African-Americans (mean ± standard deviation = 20.1 ± 3.5) than among whites (22.1 ± 3.1; P = .007) and Asians (22.1 ± 3.9; P = .009).
Conclusions: The outcome of these research findings seem to confirm the elevated incidence of prostate cancer among African Americans and show that it is not explained by differences in the distribution of possible dietary and lifestyle risk factors in this cohort. Racial variation in length of the androgen receptor gene CAG repeat may explain a small part of the excess risk of prostate cancer among African-American men in this cohort.
So all in all brothers, the message behind this rambling of mine is that you make it a frequent occurence to have your health check-ups in so far as early detection if not prevention of this cancer is to be of use in stemming the rise in occurences of fatalities due to prostate cancer.