By Alie Kabba

It is disheartening, once again, to see the butchery of truth by an oversimplification of complex phenomena in a place that has become a metaphor for the grave ills of post-colonial Africa – Somalia.

As we say out here, don’t believe the hype! Or, as Bob Marley and the Wailers succinctly put it, half the story has never been told.

Let’s get through the debris of Gaza, the wasteland of Eastern Congo and the blighted plains of Darfur to get to the facts about Somalia and the Great Pirate Threats to Western Civilization as we know it. (more…)

Recently I was introduced to an upcoming book on development (or lack thereof) in Africa that caught my attention like few books have in the past. In her book, Dead Aid, the Zambian economist, Ms. Dambisa Moyo adds her voice to the bold conclusion that foreign aid to Africa is doing more harm than good, that it is in fact one of many obstacles to development in Africa. Without getting into details (I have yet to read the book), I find myself in complete agreement. The fact of the matter is, no matter the good intention of the donors, only fractions of aid to Africa actually go to the causes intended. If and when they do, they provide at best Band-Aid solutions to chronic issues with roots far deeper than the headlines. But how do you tell good Samaritans not to stop when they see one of God’s angels by the side of the road? (more…)

Maybe it’s because my own mother is losing her mind to the same wicked disease, but I just read a story about an old lady that just broke my heart.

As the story goes, back in 1994, a mute elderly woman was found wondering a mall in New Jersey. When the police picked her up, she didn’t have any identification on her person, and in addition to being mute, she was found to be suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. For 15 years all attempts to identify her returned nothing. Not fingerprinting, not police investigation, not photo circulation…nothing could yield her identity. So where would you suppose she was kept for all 15 years? Not in a nursing home, as you would suspect counting her condition. The poor sick old lady (always well dressed according to witnesses) was sent to live in a psychiatric hospital. Yes, that is right, among mentally diseased individuals. Don’t get me wrong, Alzheimer is also a mental disease, but there is a difference between it and psychotic.
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On Friday evening, my adventures in single dad-dom came to an end, right on schedule. And that right there is one of the most humbling lessons I have learned in this little experiment of mine. I guess that is the difference between an adventure and life. No matter how hard some of the days were, I knew the end, if not quite in sight, was looming not far behind; I could tell myself to hang in there, because when this day ends, it would be one less to go.

Unfortunately, that is a luxury most single-parents don’t have. When they are sick or tired, down and under, yesterday and today, they still plow through the day knowing tomorrow life continues. It can either be paralyzing or motivating. (more…)

Civilization

We have not always been on the outside of its definition
Absent from worldly negotiations
G8 summits without representation

We have not always been Third

No, we have not always been at the receiving end
Of strings-attached aids
The barrel of triggers pulled by our own
Donated by agents in faraway lands

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I knew this week was going to come. Maybe not exactly as it did, but I knew the honeymoon was going to be over. One way or the other.

Last week I thought I would take the kids up north to St. Cloud to visit my sister and her family. Maybe more importantly, with more adults in the house, I thought I could get a much needed break.

My enthusiasm was a little dashed when I was told I had to pick up a cousin (a four year old girl) on my way. But I still kept hope alive. Three adults to four children is still better than lonely old me to two of them.
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I use to be a party animal. I was never the drinking kind, but man, I loved the club scene. I started going before I was barely in my teens. That was back in Koindu, Sierra Leone. At Disco J you couldn’t tell us we were not Michael Jackson, Bobby Brown and George Michael all wrapped in one. When I came to America, I took a break in Chicago, but quickly found my steps going to school in St. Cloud. Before 21, I brought the party home. Long story short, I got kicked out of quite a few apartments.
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This may be stating the abvious. But sometimes even the obvious takes time to sink in. So today, I’m watching teevee–Another 48th Hours of betrayal leads to murder– when the bloody scene blacks out to the 10 O’clock News. My teevee lights up! My family room fills with the sound of happy children and I wondered why. I looked up at my television set and saw sun beaming on glistening snow-packed earth under the feet of children at play. The sheer joy that came from these people was extraordinary. The announcers, the parents, the children…it was as if right outside my door gold flakes had fallen from the sky. And the camera was right there to capture it, and tonight pour it in my family room in all its bounty. (more…)

I’m an African man. Hold on, scratch that. I’m a Guinean man. No, even that involves some generalizations I’m not comfortable making. I’m a Maninka man, a Maninka father. I have been in America for more than half my life, but I am a Maninka at my core. This fact defines many things I am. (more…)

I’ll be the first to say
She and I America
We ain’t been best of friends
But I must admit
Like McKay, I love this cultured hell that test by youth
This wicked stepmother with heart of gold
Torched blue hand of stone
Across the Atlantic
“Give me your tired , your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
And cactus feet
From the Caribbean to the Pacific
Yearning for a concrete fence of separation (more…)