Living on the frontline2

Several people have asked me; so what is this blog about? Why a blog? Who am I hoping will read it?
My one new year's resolution is very simple - WRITE! I love writing. But I never have enough time to actually write. Actually that is not true. I always find excuses not to write. I am too tired. I am too hot. Too cold. I will write tomorrow when I am sitting more comfortably. There is not enough light in this room. I have so much work to do. Who will read this? Will the editors like it?
How will this play out on the net? Back home in Zim? So I censor myself. I write one paragraph and delete half of it. By the next morning I don't want to look at my laptop again.
By last December I had 19 pieces in all states of incompleteness. Some are two sentences. One is a whole 9 pages.
So this year, I shall write. Because I love to. I want.
This blog is for me. First. I am talking to myself. I believe this is an affliction that is common among people of my ilk - middle aged semi-retired-bored-looking for new lease of life types. Or maybe its the brimming full of ideas but nowhere to take them bit. Whatever it is, I want to write so I don't talk to myself loudly along Corlett Drive.

I have "so much things to say...so much things to say", as Bob Marley sang so beautifully. About my personal experiences in this life. There is a new experience each day. I am living on the frontline of LIFE itself. I am not a silent fly on the wall. I am here. I see. I feel. I think. I do.


Iwill write about my family. Or more accurately, what is left of it. Since 1993, I have lived on the frontline of HIV & AIDS. They are both still here. Wreaking havoc in our lives and bodies. As a woman, I have a particular experience. I have been promising myself that I will write a book about it. Maybe these can become the first chapters of that book. We shall see. But it's not doom and doom in my also ever expanding crazy extended family. I have raised the most wonderful children - even if I say so myself. I have loving, wierd, sometimes a pain in the wrong end of the body- cousins, nieces, nephews, brothers and sisters, each a book in her/himself. I love them. They are my life's frontline and keep going. I will write about them and to them.

I am living in hugely fascinating country. For the last six years I have lived with one foot raised to leave. But I am here. This country is a story a day. I have a front row seat in its wierd and whackiness. I want to write about that.

My own country which I have been under the illusion that I will be going back to tomorrow, next week, next month...Sigh...is yet another front. My head is there. But my body is here in Johannesburg. My head will think, feel, see. And my hands write.

I have a wonderful job (yes really, even though I moan about it sometimes, it's a wonderful job, in a great organisation, with amazing people!). The job takes me to all kinds of interesting places. From China to Haiti. From Mozambique to Sierra Leone. I meet very interesting people. I eat strange and wonderful food. I will tell those stories.

And where would I be without my friends. They are shield, my front liner-cavalry in this sometimes dreadful world. They make it worth getting up in the morning. There are the loves and the heartbreaks. These will get a blog or seven!

So what is this frontline? It's everywhere and it's somewhere. There are many front-lines.
It's my life. My space. My perspectives.
I am happy to share this frontline with you.

2010!

It's finally here. The year that is synonymous with something marvelous ....which is going to happen. I live in a country where the year means a lot; "2010 is coming! We are waiting for 2010! Will you be in Joburg in 2010?" I heard a lot of it last year. One woman even said, "hee, if this 2010 doesn't come, there will be trouble". As if the year itself was not going to dawn, or God was going to order it cancelled.
I dont know why I am feeling excited about it myself. Its as if something big and important is going to happen. Fifa World cup aside - am so looking fwd to seeing those gorgeous and not gorgeous men on my soon to be bought giant screen tv. Yet, that can't be all. I don't know what's coming. Or what I want to come. But whatever it is, I am waiting for it with open arms, and other parts of my anatomy if need be.
I am excited. I am so calm its unbelievable. Its like I am on some kind of tranquilizer. This is me for heaven's sake. End of last year I was stressed out I was ready to collapse and scream at the world. Suddenly, I am calm as, the little stream in my home village. I turn 45 next month. I don't know why 45 feels so - ominous? Important? Exciting. But it's the one birthday I am so looking fwd to for the firs time in my life. Even 40 didn't feel this interesting.
My son turns 16 in May. He will be able to drive me around after that - yeah!
My mum turns 75 in December. That's totally exciting.

Roll on 2010. Bengikulindile!