Though they say it’s just climate change, the memories the cold brings, are still as vivid as the rain drops that fall heavily this season. Has I walk pass the street and see children running and play around in mud, molding out of clay, I can’t help but think that I am blessed to be alive to see smiles return, but also cursed to carry the remains of the war and to see the blood of my fathers and mothers, my brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, spilled on the ground turning our pure white sand into dull red clay.

You see I lived in time of old, where the old have a saying, “that the seasons are form by the emotions of that period, the joy of our heart, brings the sunshine that is almost all year round and the tears from our eyes causes the rainfall”. I live in the western part of Africa the edge of the savanna a peaceful land with little rainfall each year. You see the less the rain fall the more blessed we are, because it means that only a few people died that year. The only raining season we had, was a function of the tears that family cried for babies that died at child birth in the month of December due to harshness of the harmattan which is said to be the time the gods chose to remind us that they were still supreme. My people did not really need rain to survive we were a small colony that was situated close to an ever flowing river that was enough for our farms and fishing.

My people are great philosophers, questioners, brooders of the How comes and the what ifs’, and not the what mores’. They could be described as best as talkers and not doers. A behavior that is rooted in yet another saying of old that “A wise man is a man, who questions the obvious”. Unlike most people in the world my people learnt to live by knowledge and not exactly by experience.

The old people had a way with words, one of the most captivating was the one about, “how each and every one of us is an expression of the life of a supreme being which we call god; From his joy to sadness, strength to his weakness, wrath to his warmth, the core of his existence, in turn making us little gods ourselves. And if I may extend it further by saying that everything we create from our words, object , action and even our thought, are expression of our core and each of them a life in motion”.

This beautiful illusion we have lived in all our lives soon came to an end, an understanding of the fact that, we live in a real world that do not obey any of the laws and only believes in the supreme power of its knowledge where everything is said to evolve around man, and Man is said to be the sole determinant of everything that happens on this planet, and not the delicate balance that we believe god has created between every single one of his expression.

Like the saying of one of their great minds “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction” in our case the initial action was medicine and the equal and opposite reaction death. It’s not like we where scientifically backwards we just didn’t believe that we had to go the extra mile to change the destiny of a person. So we don’t heal the sick of illness a culture we will learn to change very soon. Like I told you before my people are questioners and so they wanted to know the reasons for this act of kindness so they sent out spies or a better description scout to study this foreign people.There report was most baffling and intriguing. A complete opposite of what we were. There believe in there supremeness was amazing very close to insulting, how someone could be so naïve and shallow not to believe in a greater force.

But before we were done deliberating on the new knowledge, we received the letter that changed the cause of our destiny forever. The content of the letter was beyond insulting, to bow down to a ruler that was human and our wives and children slaves while the men become pawns to be used for war. We may not have been doers but we had a sense of pride. The letter in our own mind was immediately answered with the appropriate response.

It was a day short of a fortnight that the letter was received a day after the midyear festival. The size and the coordination of their army was beyond our comprehension there first raid lasted for one week in it I lost my eldest brother by the stroke of mid night of the six day we had lost about two hundred people, mostly men and children. The seventh day of the week was the day choosen as there day of rest and so giving us time to retreat to our almost safe fortress in the middle of the city. We were all safely assembeled in the fotress at about three in morning and we all sat on the ground in silence not sure of what to say but sure of what every other person was about to say. These was going to be the begining of the our greatest battles of our life’s.

Louder Than Words

How much more of this can we take; How much of this can they give,

How much battering will our souls have to take before we give in; how much battering will our souls have to take before our pride kicks in,

How many people have to die, before we speak up; How many have to die before we stand up and fight,

How long will the gods watch has they disicrate our land; How long are will we’ve to wait for the gods to come down and save us,

How would we face our forefather in the afterlife: How can we pretend that the dead cares about the affairs of the living,

How long will our children respect us if to protect a land we lose who we are; How long will our children belive the stories of how we once ruled the lands they are slaves too,

How long will we sit in silence pretending that death is not about to come knocking at our door,

What’s the honour in victory when there no love one to share it with: What’s the honour in defeat when there was no fight in the first place.

We where there for nearly twenty one hours and not a single word had been utter and not even a single sound but the sound of those breathing heavly and the rumbling heart beat of everyone sitted. As preciesly as the second brought in a new day, we heard roaring drums of war. At that moment the battle of the mind had been won,and we stood with a conviction forge on an agreement of silence that is much louder than words,and i unity we stood ready to cut down any god until he bleeds and beg’s for death like a man.

It was a maseacar four years after the battles of the mind we were left with about seventy percent of what we were a month ago. Death was walking our street and the rain poured like never before flooding the land dececreting the remains of our love ones.

This time were not in our fortress cause the main city had been capture and the fortress was now the HQ for there attack. We took refuge in a cave near the city this time we were not sitted in silence, but like baberian we rage and for the first time we all spoke not as a family but every one bearing his or her own first name. Some where beging for death, while others to be slaves cause at least they would have there lives but at that moment we heard a vioce the voice that change everything

Warrior within

“Where there is no hope in the future, there is no power in the present”

These where the words our people where founded upon

The proud words that have been passed on from generation’s to generation.

The words that has kept us not as a people but as a family,

The words we sing every morning and over the fire on New Year’s Eve.

The words that brought us to the place we are now

Standing here not discussing our future or present but those yet unborn

Discussing not our future or present but for the song we sing when we see the sun rise in the east

Not for our future or present but for the fire we burn in the night of the first full moon

For these reasons I will fight and not die, I will stand and not fret, and in wisdom we would charge

Not because we are warriors but warriors within, cause “we have hope in the future, the power for the present”

These words reminded us why we love and were proud of our country; why we have been fighting for the past four years; and so this time we fought not as one family but as one body, that carried more life in it as a function of who we were in the Supreme One, figthing to persever the pride and heritage for the ones to come.

In less than two years with systematic and strategic planning we had pushed them as far as they had come, killing over ninty percent of there population and scataring the rest as far as possible.

We lost the young man that lead us to victory, lost about seventy percent of our population, went through a mental realization and change. But through it all we remained has one family, and even though our land was forever scarred, at least its was has for us to heal. Tomorrow makes it fifty years since the last day of the dark rains. And as the rain came to an end it ushered in a new dawn in our lives the day that brought in realiztion who we were, not warriors but Warriors Within.

Timmy DOINGZ