True Thanksgiving

Tis’ the season ... FINALLY my favourite time of the year hath arrived. Yes it is a time to celebrate the birth of our beautiful baby Jesus, but one can’t deny, prezzies aren’t such a bad idea either. The feeeel, of the smooth, glossy wrapping paper sliding through your hands as you tare through it violently, uninterested and oblivious of the potential paper cuts and unable to contain the sheer excitement. For those of us who aren’t such big fans of inappropriate and ill thought out gifts or perhaps just the general concept of having to spend money on others, the smell of a feast  brewing somewhere, teasing and tantalizing your taste buds may be your most cherished moment. And if none of the above apply to you, well, maybe we can just settle on the fact that its FAMILY time. A time when one can find appreciation, somewhere in their hearts, for even the most annoying of siblings. 

Okay moving on to the subject at hand, I recently found myself having to think of how I was going to celebrate thanks giving.  I mean I am not of American origin and the British aren’t really known for sitting around a large turkey and being thankful, so I was at a bit of a loss on how to approach the whole thing. So I decided to do some research and see where this all came from. Well let me just say I wasn’t too impressed with what I found. I couldn’t really relate. Apparently, thanksgiving  has something to do with a celebration at Plymouth Plantation somewhere in Massachusetts in 1621 that happened early in the history of what would become one of the original Thirteen Colonies that later became the United States. Okaaaay.... I am a proud black, very African woman from a country that was once subjected to colonial rule, so when I see the  word COLONIES and PLANTATION..in one sentence.. My first reaction is HELLNAAWWW..! I just do not feel comfortable celebrating a holiday that originated as a result of colonisation. The native Americans have lost a lot including their right to own what was originally their own land. Today they live as strangers in what was once their home. Not cool.

So onto the next one.. I thought maybe since it is a celebration originating from our friends in the far west, I could keep it American. So I thought perhaps I could use it as a time to celebrate another epic time in their history, the abolition of that dreaded slave trade. I mean there isn’t actually a time in the year that I thank God that I was born in the 20th century and not in the 15th 16th, 17th or 18th. Thank Him that I wasn’t subjected to the absolutely appalling and grueling conditions in those slave ships (because quite frankly anyone who knows me knows I would not be amongst those that survived it) and that me or my ancestors were not treated in a way that was anything but humane. But then the more I thought about it the more something kept nagging at me. The slave trade is abolished, AGREED, but then what am I doing in a foreign country one that I don’t actually come from. As in, in my passport it is not actually marked ‘british citizen’ or anything so WHY am I here. Doesn’t it make more sense that I should be wherever God made sure I was born.?

I may be here for school now but then what are my intentions for after? Am I really planning to go back home to help rebuild what is left of the Zambian economy, or am I going to be just another statistic in a foreign land. One of the many ‘ethnic minorities’ classified under the ‘immigrant’ section. Is this really the big picture for me? I mean no matter how much I work, earn and achieve won't I always be those things first?

I got myself thinking and this was my train of thought. Perhaps us as  Africans are now slaves to another kind of master. Capitalism. Where as pre-colonialisation and all that, I would have otherwise been happily contended to live in my skins and sit around a camp fire and hear my tribe mates tell stories of brave men, now, I have unfortunately been brain washed to think that that is in fact a life of poverty. That to live by your means, modestly, and not let the means dictate my life is a form of suffering and I should therefore want more for myself. They come up with a figure of what I would be spending had I lived that life in comparison to them and call it things like APPAULLING, ATROCIOUS and ABOMINABLE  because it is so little. Today they may not be dangling a mirror in front of me BUT they sure are dangling a piece of paper with someone’s face on it and telling me its valuable. Suddenly, that part of my history lesson just doesn’t seem all that amusing. This time, at least, they have given me the option choosing my means of transport but still when I touch down I realise this is NOT what I signed up for. They promise me valuable things,... A high standard of living they call it but all I see when I get here is that everything I work for goes back to someone or something I don’t even see. They call it tax.. The more I make the more they take from me. It seems perhaps slave trade has lived on. Only this time, it is self inflicted.

I’m not saying anything. I am just sharing a train of thought...

So this thanksgiving I want to thank God for where I was born, who I am and where I am coming from. When He brought me into this world there was no coincidence, from the number of hairs on my head, to the colour of my skin, to the hospital my mother chose to give birth, I was predestined. I have a destiny. We all have a destiny, its bigger than you and me and our search for a piece of paper with a man we don’t know’s head on it. I pray that we don’t take it away from ourselves or give ourselves less than we deserve. Less of a culture, less of a heritage, less of a destiny. Instead of a destiny that shouts out we end up with one that whispers through the halls of history. One day I want to go back to the place I can call HOME and offer it something, even though it is more than it could offer me.. Why??... Cause that’s probably what God had in mind when He lined my stars up so it could happen that way.

 I pray I don’t corrupt my heritage or forget my culture in search of a nonexistent one.

Cloth skins and camp fires aren’t for everybody but that doesn’t mean we can’t respect those for whom it is.

Respect and cherish what God made you..