When Ordinary Art is Extraordinary

I’ve been on a cyber journey for the past two months – seeking out interesting and exciting blogs to populate my link list and to inspire me in writing.

I looked to ‘writing’ focused blogs and found a lot of highly motivated American mom/writers who get up every day and fold the laundry, pack the kids lunches, and find the ‘me’ time somewhere to work on their books. They talk of WIPs and ‘Me Time Thursdays’ and I feel small and excluded like junior high at recess…

I looked into funny blogs – the witty ones who’s authors think of all the cute titles for their followers and have one liners to fit all life’s day to day drone. They leave me feeling amateur and ill-equipped to comment. They are outside the world of the PC moms, a world I like but am afraid to join.

I stumbled upon racial focused blogs and made my small comments amidst those filled with angst and resentment.

I even went over to the development bloggers – those who represent a past in me that I have yet to analyse and deconstruct. Hence I am skeptical and dismissive yet still drawn to their experiences and perspective. Yet there too I am an outsider. I loathe projects and funding and all the industry entails.

I am an expat now – and looked to this group as well. The expat bloggers. I joined some sites, linked some great blogs. It is here I relate best to what is written, to the experiences and outlook.

In my search I have found some great people, sites, inspiration.

But I have been false in my intentions and I have been led astray. By the desire to fit somewhere, to get a blog award with a pretty tea cup on the picture and post it proudly on my blog, from an appreciative ‘blogger friend’. It is addictive this linking and commenting and creating of a network.

But it is not why I started to blog. It has nothing to do with the powerful gut deep desire to express, to write, to create. To share genuinely what I have to share.

And that is why today’s post is a dedication. To a blogger I randomly found, who has truly inspired me and made me regret my hours making small comments around the blogosphere.

This is a woman in a small corner of the web, in a small town somewhere, who has not been blessed with a perfect life or millions of friends and followers. But she is a true writer. She is the essence of the word. She is a great, a classic, undiscovered.

I feel like I’ve been busking and found the hidden diamond. I am torn between sharing and not. But it is not for me to hold her writing to my heart alone. After all, art is like life and should be shared, opened up and appreciated.

Her name is Kelly and the site is humbly called Ordinary Art.

Please read and digest the beauty and talent you find there. Real self-giving words that grace the page in a way I can only dream of. Share the link to this site. Send her a blog award. Or not. But she deserves recognition and a broader audience and I felt compelled today to do my little part.

Kelly – thank you for genuine inspiration and a glimpse of your beautiful soul.

How NOT to Write About Africa

Not feeling particularly inspired to write myself tonight, I stumbled upon a brilliant piece of writing that I had found and read once before but had not recorded, and thought was lost to me. I was so happy to find it again. It is actually quite famous in some circles concerned with Africa, and it’s bitter satire hits close to home when you are an expat writing in general about Africa.

The piece was written in 2003 by Binyavanga Wainaina, a Kenyan author and journalist.

Many of you will know this piece (and it is always worth re-reading!), but for those of you who don’t, especially the writers and those who are not familiar with Africa – this is an eye opening commentary on how the west has portrayed Africa for so long. To me, it needs to be read, sarcasm and all. The stereotypes are disturbing and 'in-your-face'. It’s brilliant.



HOW TO WRITE ABOUT AFRICA
Always use the word 'Africa' or 'Darkness' or 'Safari' in your title. Subtitles may include the words 'Zanzibar', 'Masai', 'Zulu', 'Zambezi', 'Congo', 'Nile', 'Big', 'Sky', 'Shadow', 'Drum', 'Sun' or 'Bygone'.

Also useful are words such as 'Guerrillas', 'Timeless', 'Primordial' and 'Tribal'. Note that 'People' means Africans who are not black, while 'The People' means black Africans.

Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress.

In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don't get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn't care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular.

Make sure you show how Africans have music and rhythm deep in their souls, and eat things no other humans eat. Do not mention rice and beef and wheat; monkey-brain is an African's cuisine of choice, along with goat, snake, worms and grubs and all manner of game meat. Make sure you show that you are able to eat such food without flinching, and describe how you learn to enjoy it—because you care.

Taboo subjects: ordinary domestic scenes, love between Africans (unless a death is involved), references to African writers or intellectuals, mention of school-going children who are not suffering from yaws or Ebola fever or female genital mutilation.

Throughout the book, adopt a sotto voice, in conspiracy with the reader, and a sad I-expected-so-much tone. Establish early on that your liberalism is impeccable, and mention near the beginning how much you love Africa, how you fell in love with the place and can't live without her. Africa is the only continent you can love—take advantage of this.

If you are a man, thrust yourself into her warm virgin forests. If you are a woman, treat Africa as a man who wears a bush jacket and disappears off into the sunset. Africa is to be pitied, worshipped or dominated. Whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed.

Your African characters may include naked warriors, loyal servants, diviners and seers, ancient wise men living in hermitic splendour. Or corrupt politicians, inept polygamous travel-guides, and prostitutes you have slept with. (Image © Andy Davies/ardillustration.com)


The Loyal Servant always behaves like a seven-year-old and needs a firm hand; he is scared of snakes, good with children, and always involving you in his complex domestic dramas.

The Ancient Wise Man always comes from a noble tribe (not the money-grubbing tribes like the Gikuyu, the Igbo or the Shona). He has rheumy eyes and is close to the Earth.

The Modern African is a fat man who steals and works in the visa office, refusing to give work permits to qualified Westerners who really care about Africa. He is an enemy of development, always using his government job to make it difficult for pragmatic and good-hearted expats to set up NGOs or Legal Conservation Areas. Or he is an Oxford-educated intellectual turned serial-killing politician in a Savile Row suit. He is a cannibal who likes Cristal champagne, and his mother is a rich witch-doctor who really runs the country.

Among your characters you must always include The Starving African, who wanders the refugee camp nearly naked, and waits for the benevolence of the West. Her children have flies on their eyelids and pot bellies, and her breasts are flat and empty. She must look utterly helpless. She can have no past, no history; such diversions ruin the dramatic moment. Moans are good. She must never say anything about herself in the dialogue except to speak of her (unspeakable) suffering.

Also be sure to include a warm and motherly woman who has a rolling laugh and who is concerned for your well-being. Just call her Mama. Her children are all delinquent.

These characters should buzz around your main hero, making him look good. Your hero can teach them, bathe them, feed them; he carries lots of babies and has seen Death. Your hero is you (if reportage), or a beautiful, tragic international celebrity/aristocrat who now cares for animals (if fiction).

Bad Western characters may include children of Tory cabinet ministers, Afrikaners, employees of the World Bank. When talking about exploitation by foreigners mention the Chinese and Indian traders. Blame the West for Africa's situation. But do not be too specific.

Broad brushstrokes throughout are good. Avoid having the African characters laugh, or struggle to educate their kids, or just make do in mundane circumstances. Have them illuminate something about Europe or America in Africa. African characters should be colourful, exotic, larger than life—but empty inside, with no dialogue, no conflicts or resolutions in their stories, no depth or quirks to confuse the cause.

Describe, in detail, naked breasts (young, old, conservative, recently raped, big, small) or mutilated genitals, or enhanced genitals. Or any kind of genitals. And dead bodies. Or, better, naked dead bodies. And especially rotting naked dead bodies. Remember, any work you submit in which people look filthy and miserable will be referred to as the 'real Africa', and you want that on your dust jacket. Do not feel queasy about this: you are trying to help them to get aid from the West. The biggest taboo in writing about Africa is to describe or show dead or suffering white people.

Animals, on the other hand, must be treated as well rounded, complex characters. They speak (or grunt while tossing their manes proudly) and have names, ambitions and desires. They also have family values: see how lions teach their children? Elephants are caring, and are good feminists or dignified patriarchs. So are gorillas. Never, ever say anything negative about an elephant or a gorilla. Elephants may attack people's property, destroy their crops, and even kill them. Always take the side of the elephant. Big cats have public-school accents. Hyenas are fair game and have vaguely Middle Eastern accents.

Any short Africans who live in the jungle or desert may be portrayed with good humour (unless they are in conflict with an elephant or chimpanzee or gorilla, in which case they are pure evil).

After celebrity activists and aid workers, conservationists are Africa's most important people. Do not offend them. You need them to invite you to their 30,000-acre game ranch or 'conservation area', and this is the only way you will get to interview the celebrity activist. Often a book cover with a heroic-looking conservationist on it works magic for sales. Anybody white, tanned and wearing khaki who once had a pet antelope or a farm is a conservationist, one who is preserving Africa's rich heritage. When interviewing him or her, do not ask how much funding they have; do not ask how much money they make off their game. Never ask how much they pay their employees.

Readers will be put off if you don't mention the light in Africa. And sunsets, the African sunset is a must. It is always big and red. There is always a big sky. Wide empty spaces and game are critical—Africa is the Land of Wide Empty Spaces.


When writing about the plight of flora and fauna, make sure you mention that Africa is overpopulated. When your main character is in a desert or jungle living with indigenous peoples (anybody short) it is okay to mention that Africa has been severely depopulated by Aids and War (use caps).


You'll also need a nightclub called Tropicana, where mercenaries, evil nouveau riche Africans and prostitutes and guerrillas and expats hang out.

Always end your book with Nelson Mandela saying something about rainbows or renaissances. Because you care.

a blogger is born...

Comic courtesy Natalie Dee