Zap Mama - Abadou too dope

Beautiful song off the critically acclaimed album, Ancestry in Progress. Click on link below

http://youtu.be/evJr-1_wMZU

We're cool like that - by Sojourner Ahebee

I’m cool like that, I’m proud like that and I’m African like that.

Not a bloated stomach, not a face encircled with flies, not a beggar's hand

I am part o a billion people, with a million dances and thousands of tongues

to tell not only stories of tears, to play not only in the mourning band

I have a direct link to the origin of all humanity and shout this fact with my lungs filled with sands of the Sahara and the Kalahari.

I'm cool like that, I'm proud like that and I'm African like that.

You place me in your books and newspapers as one mass face

of AIDS and Malaria and T.B. - always the loser of the human race

I am one piece of a mosaic of 53 countries full of resources and grace

I dream, when you come to arm the hungry and take our wealth out of its place

that the Mediterranean and Red Seas, the Indian and Atlantic Oceans would give chase

to drown your greed and let the waters be its burial place.

I'm cool like that, I'm proud like and I'm African like that.

You dare ti rescue Africa with aging rock stars and uninspired actors

with agendas that do not include using us as our own benefactors

Listen to our voices filled with wisdom and experience and not be only our detractors.

Listen to Kofi Anna, Nelson Mandela, Wangari Maathai, Wole Soyinka, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Listen to Africa

Because we're cool like that, we're proud like that and we're part of humanity like that

Nubi-a-esthete: Celebrating Natural African beauty.

There are Communists in the fun house, beware of Western medicine!

"There are Communists in the fun house" is a well-known Danish term for having your period. I'm sure I don't need to explain this but for the slow ones amongst us, Communist as in red...


We are constantly told that menstruation is a state of discomfort and treat it, like other 'dis-eases' with a plethora of over the counter and prescribed medicines and potions. If you don't have a mini-dispensary to handle the shock and horror of fertility, you're screwed! (not literally though) To have a 'happy period' you NEED ever-evolving and repackaged sanitary wear , you NEED a potion for pre and post menstrual stress, you NEED painkillers specially formulated for that damned region of your body. Sadly though, this is not the only damned region of the body.


Male or female, you need to stop your body's steady onslaught! Without probiotics, antibiotics, supplements, vaccinations, nasal sprays, disinfectants, sleeping pills, waking up pills, stop your poo pills & make the poo move pills approved by a person in a white coat, you're sure to die. OK, maybe I'm exaggerating a little. But that is the impression Western medicine gives, that it is indispensable (pun intended), which is of course, false. It would be hypocritical for me to not give medical doctors props; it is such a noble profession and has come up with some pretty impressive stuff. I for one can attest to the recreational pleasures of Stop-pain & co. 

My point is, your body is the MOST INCREDIBLE MACHINE in the universe. It is self-regulating but dependent on your environment and psyche. Illness is the body's way of telling you that something is wrong in your head, lifestyle, diet or environment. Most illness can be 'fixed' through natural remedies and targeted exercise. Don't be fooled by the pharmaceuticals and the medical sector's ploy to dis-ease your finances and pump you with toxins.

Because Yuh Shin Hua loves you, I will use this blog to share natural remedies and lifestyle tips I learn. Let's love our bodies, they no be wood. (are not made of wood)

One love!

Fresh to death and literal connotations

Sandwiched between Devine Hair Saloon and Glory be to God Investments trading as Talitas Lady’s Fashion on a busy downtown street is my aunt’s underwear store.  The signs were painted by Peter who is renowned for this workmanship with a brush. His services are sought after to reproduce well known images of Rihanna to brand hair salons or emblazon eateries with gigantic images of fried chicken drumsticks and heaped plates of pap and cholesterol. These are common themes in and around Gauteng and SA’s inner cities, snippets of booming enterprise.  In a recent encounter with these two establishments I found out what many Economic Planning ministries are missing.

‘Devine Hair Saloon’, true to its country Western connotations, churns out drunks by the hundreds. Women light-headed and giddy with the satisfaction of having Rukshana’s silky locks on their own shoulders, and further intoxicated by the chemical cloud of CFCs composed of holding spray, oil sheen and Lord knows what else that lurks in the air from the opening of doors at 7 00 am (for people who want to do touch ups before work) and closing at 8 00 pm (for those whose locks need after-hours attention). Talitas fashions’ resembles a dozen other similar stores on the street. They also conduct business in pretty much the same fashion, items are displayed on mannequins throughout and outside the store in what to the naked eye seems like a haphazard fashion and items selected by buyers from bundles/boxes packaged in the East or ports of Durban. Talitas drunkens with another scent, that of ‘fresh to death-ness,’ that new shoe smell that’s can easily compete with your Mama’s deluxe edition Sunday Lunch. Freshness also applies to other modes of conspicuous consumption   The same patterns of consumption occur on a ‘grander’ scale across the Gau-train tracks. Though there are differences in price range, availability of space, recognition by banks, municipal services etc. these are no different to the over-priced stencils of Top Billing featured establishments in sterile suburbia.  Pity the Finance ministry and us as consumers don’t see it as such.

The entrepreneurs behind these names engineer the circulation of currency, job creation and the sustenance of other small businesses.  They stretch that frivolously spent R 5 a mile and a half from dimly lit stores and hastily swept pavements.  It is in the bustling streets of Sunnyside and Yeoville that I saw entrepreneurship at its best. Those streets resemble true cosmopolitanism, not the elitist sham that is Cape Town.*  Most of these entrepreneurs are darker shades of brown and their papers indicate that they from North of the Limpopo. This is mentioned more often than the fact that they constitute a largely understated, thriving small to medium enterprise sector.Concerns about 'their illegality' 'bringing crime to SA' and other xenophobic rants provide cringe-worthy moments aplenty and without our realizing are stored in our children s' subconscious's. This 'xenophobia' is projected far less on 'foreigners' of lighter skin tones despite their immense benefits from enterprise in Africa. Is the Africa in this country's name merely window dressing? Till that is addressed, we're so lost, we might literally consume to our death. 

The Shona said it so well, Chisi chako masimba mashoma. Meaning, you do not have power over something which is not yours.The price we are paying for this fresh-ness, in its many packaged forms, is far dearer than we think. Because we know we live in a consumer-driven society (a long haul battle) we need not look Eastward for manufacture and Westward for entrepreneurial skills. The seeds are sown in our discussions, thoughts penned/typed and ultimately actions. 

One love!

Yuh Shin Hua

*following blog discusses Design Capital 2014 Campaign