A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to participate in a documentary on the Ethiopian youth who live in commission housing in a suburb called Carlton.

Considering my shallow understanding of the topic area, I invited along a friend of mine from church -  big up to U – who just happened to be of Ethiopian descent and happened to be working in the migrant resource centre (not in Carlton though).

Interesting Question

As the conversation flowed from this topic to that we eventually rested upon a very interesting idea.

I forget exactly what we were talking about but I remember a statement that went a little something like this……..

talk talk talk talk THE AFRICAN AUSTRALIAN COMMUNITY

That Didn’t Sit Well With Me

As soon as I heard that statement, I felt quite uncomfortable. Something about that statement was very very wrong: it wasn’t true.

So I asked U, who was born in Australia by the way, what she thought of the statement and she said she felt uncomfortable with the statement as well.

The Statement……

Just didn’t resonate with us. We didn’t feel as though we were African Australian or part of an African Australian community.

Discussions and Reflections

As I thought back to living here in Oz, I realized that any time I met a son or daughter of the African continent that they would introduce themselves as:

Hi, my name is X………I was born in/My parents are from/ My background is (insert African country here).

It didn’t matter if they had been in the country 6 months or 30 years, that is always how they introduce themselves.

Even people who love this country ten times more than they love their own never ever called themselves African Australian.

Here’s My Take on Why That Could Be

I am fairly certain, now that I think about, that this will probably resonate with a lot of Africans who are living in many other countries whether South Africa, Sweden, the UK or the US.

I think the reason that we don’t label ourselves us African Australians or African Americans or Zambian Swedes or even Kenyan South Africans is because we don’t feel like we are.

How gorgeous is this image?......My goodness: had it on the blog for months but can't get over it. 

Well D’uh….so Let’s Probe Deeper

I think we have a wonderful mirror that we can use to help us establish why that is the case: the African American community.

African Americans, whether anyone likes it or not, OWN,  a part of America. They sweat for it, bled for it, protested for it, defined it and absolutely no one can deny that African Americans are a quintessential cornerstone of America in so many ways that we can’t even begin to mention here.

We on the other hand are more like a people who constantly feel like we are in transition.

One Small Mark for Africa

Very few of us are interested in becoming a part of the fabric of Western society, etching our own sketch of the American dream, owning the society, changing the cultural norms or anything that profound.

Most Africans just want to land here and fulfill their appetite for milk and honey and maybe spread some of that milk and honey to their families and/or folks they care about, and that’s it.

Very few of us come to the West wanting to be the next Martin Luther King or CJ Walker or Michael Jackson. We would much rather be nameless employee X as long as we can take our money and go home.

Is This Right or Wrong?

Dunno! And I know its not a complete expression of why things are as they are. Therefore in conclusion I will ask you the question:

Do you feel like an African (insert name of host country here). If so, why? If not, why not?

And that is my reflection for the day.

Other Orders of Business: Media

After crafting my first ever press release a few months back and watching it completely bomb when I sent it to about 15 media houses, I finally got on the front page of a newspaper…..well kinda.

If you check out the homepage of the African Bulletin this month of September 2008, you will see yours truly and the physical copy is in the mail, and you know I will shoot a small video and share my first ever newspaper article with y’all.

So check out, and maybe subscribe to the African Bulletin because I can now say I have a vested interest in it: I am locked in for another two or three articles in the paper at the very least.

I also got interviewed by Susan Kariuki for her pilot project Real Talk. Susan’s production quality is superb and definitely made me want to up my game as far as the production quality of my podcast is concerned, not to mention she gave me heaps of useful information for my currently-in-the-oven-podcasting course: My Podcasting Tutor.

The file is only 2mb so anyone should be able to listen to it: lemme know if its still too big or too slow to download:

Please show your support and love to her by checking out her smooth-music-dripping-whiz-bang-graphics-adorned site: www.ezvocal.com.

And of course, both these articles are in the Displaced African media and press appearances page which you can check out right here.

For more articles that discuss the African immigrant experience, don’t forget to subscribe to the blog via email or RSS.

Have a great day African person,

Mwangi

Hey,

Just received the email about 15 minutes ago. In about three hours- on Tuesday 1st July 2008 at 3 a.m. (GMT +3h)- I am going to be on the show Urban Nites on Capital FM in Nairobi, Kenya.

Capital FM, for those who don’t know, is one of the largest radio stations in Kenya.

So please:

1) Listen in

2) Show your support

3) Say a silent “Yay!” with me and

4) Say wassup and thanks to Linda of Capital FM for showing the website some love: Cheers for that

To listen to Capital FM live on the Internet click here

Having been an Afropolitan in Australia for close to 6 years, 6 year anniversary on 31st June, I have had the privilege of experiencing two nations with two very different cultures up close and personal. Today I thought I would talk about 7 unique things I’ve picked up, observed and learned from the natives-well-not-really-but-rather-the-majority-population of this land called Australia.

1) Courtesy

Before I showed up “please” and “thank you” were myths from medieval times. You only held the door when someone had boxes of your stuff and giving people room to pass on the road was for suckers who didn’t want to get to work on time.

Australians, by default, are the most polite people I have ever met in my life. Now, I have basis for comparison: I have been to every continent except South America. So I can tell you, folks get way ruder than people from Australia.

Here folks are taught from very early how to say please and thank you. It’s not uncommon for them stop what they’re doing and help folks with directions or guidance. On many occasions, we have actually had people who were passing us on foot or by car, stop, double back and come help us because we looked so lost. I mean even the criminals and alleged “riff raff” of society are pretty courteous. In short, when I say Aussies are nice people, it’s not hyperbole or optimism, it’s my experience.

2) Hardcore binge drinking

Whoever says Africans are the heaviest drinkers is clearly drunk on something else. You see, when Africans drink, a lot of the time it’s to relieve stress or as part of something social ( I wrote an article on this one a while back if you are interested). But no no no no, a lot of Australians drink for entirely different reason.s

A huge chunk of Australians drink with two simple goals: get hammered and pass out.

Now, the fact that passing out could actually be a goal behind drinking was a shocker to me when I first learned about it. And to be clear, Australia is not a particularly church going nation (93% of folks are not regular) and so binge drinking is part of the culture from the ages of 10 – 100, from the “goody two shoes” all the way to “the bad boys”. These folks showed me that Africans are really very conservative in a lot of ways, including drinking.

3) Nerds and Jocks Stereotypes are Way Off

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Skip this section if you have outgrown caring about high school politics (Do we ever really do this?)

As a result of being about as popular as SNM at a church bakesale (if this reference passes over your head, don’t worry, I was in some zone when I wrote it) a lot of my high school career, together with moments of extreme popularity, I had the good pleasure of spending time with that the TV shows would call “the loveable nerds” as well as “the big dumb jocks”.

Let me tell you now ladies and gentlemen, if you see a jock on one side and a nerd on the other…..RUN to the jock, hug him and never let go.

But Why?

But why, Mwangi, you might ask, would I ever want to abandon the nice, loveable nerd in favour of the big dumb brutish jock. First of all, I was in school with a lot of footy players and one of them even ended up on the national league and they are truly good people. Laid back, very open and welcoming. Sure they like being naked with each other waaaayyyy too much and a lot of their pranks and humour is weird, but they showed me love for the most part so I must reciprocate.

Understanding the Nerd

Now nerds are an entirely different kettle of fish. Now I want you to get a clear picture of a nerd in a Western country. This place is on information overload 24/7. Everyday through the Internet you have access to all sorts of quirky facts, figures, videos, beliefs and so on and so forth. Now take someone, completely isolate them from people and make them feel lousy and inadequate mix them up with this random information that bombards them 24/7 and you end up with a group of people with very weird beliefs and practices.

Now I know, y’all have heard of 2 girls and a cup. That’s a typical nerd’s dream. They love to watch things like Bum Fights, perform witchcraft, watch and obsess over movies that can give one an imagined sense of power such as Fight Club. In short, dudes are very scary. These folks need a hug. I now understand why stuff like Columbine happens……trust me, those were nerds. Anyway I don’t want to go on about this one for too long because it’s not that important really. Definitely came as a surprise though

4) Races I never knew existed

This place is MULTICULTURAL. I have hung out with Arabs, Indians fresh off the boat, Indians who grew up here (more on Indians later), Asians from all over the continent, Africans from Zimbabwe, Botswana (Lord women from Southern Africa are gorgeous, now I understand…now I understand). We have a plethora of mulatto and half black/half Asian kids. African Americans, Greeks and the list just goes on and on.

It’s opened my eyes man. It makes you realize, first of all that you are this thing called “an African” who is a seperate race with our own seperate struggle and shared culture ( yes, we have a shared culture, like it or not). It also makes you realize how similar we are as people in spite of racial differences.

I always found it easy to relate to minorities here and people from darker ethnic groups such Aboriginals, Maoris, Indians and well, Asians because we felt we had a lot in common being marginalized minorities and all.

Plus, the diversity of beautiful food, women, tastes, music, sights and sounds just makes me happy to be alive sometimes.

5) Blue collar wealth?

Now in Africa, this is an oxymoron. The more “industrial age” the job the worse of the job security, prestige and the pay. The more “knowledge economy” the better the pay,the job security and with each extra dollar you get to buy off a bit more of people’s respect.

One of the first things that amazes every African whenever they land here is the fact that a plumber can earn the same as a lawyer. That tends to send us laughing for hours and hours as we talk about how a man whose most famous for showing us a crack-that-certainly-isn’t-of-dawn earns the same as someone who sweats vocabulary in libraries for years to become a lawyer.

If someone here tells me they want to be a hair stylist, carpenter or electrician, I salute them. As long as you make sure you’re money is working for you via investments, it’s as secure as the job market gets: God speed!

6) Racism is a fluid concept

I wrote an article on this one a while back.

By and large, I don’t believe that Anglo-Saxons innately fear and hate African people. Now a lot of you won’t agree with that, but I base this opinion on two things:

i) My experience of only one or two racial slurs and remarks being thrown at me a year. I can’t even think of one incident that has taken place over the last 12 months that’s been motivated by racial hatred – then again I live in a suburb that looks like it’s part of Asia and don’t get out much, but even from my time in Sydney, can’t think of anything.

ii) If a 78 year old man is pooping into a nappy, has lost all forms of inhibition and some brain cells, and still treats me with love, then there was never any hate to begin with. I worked as an aged care nurse for 2 years and I have spoken with folks who’ve been doing it much longer, racism isn’t something that comes up very often. Scatological humour on the other hand……….

Now, Australians do seem to HATE the people they stole this land from: the Aboriginals. This pretty much came to my attention in my years of high school . On two occasions folks went on a roll spiting out joke after joke to insult the Aboriginal people and by and large people laughed at and enjoyed that. How deep this racism is? What its all about? I’m unclear on. But there’s definitely something there.

Native Australians are also pretty open and HATE anyone who refuses to learn English. You want to drive Australian people mad, walk around like you don’t know a word of English. Wait for the sneers to come.

7) Indians are everywhere

Indians are kinda like those “extra channels” you get when you sign up for Pay TV. You don’t really think about them or know they are there until you stop and think. That’s when you realize, Indians have always been a fixture in my life.

In Kenya, they were part of the ruling class and I lived close to one and a lot of the shops I used to go to were Indian run. Come to the land down under and they are still all over the place. My suburb literally looks like the Asian sub-continent.

For those of you who may not have heard my baby sisters’ opinions on Melbourne, most of the people they either know or hang around are Indian people. If you are Indian and you are reading this:

If you’re plan is global domination, good job! Y’all have positioned yourself well.

And by the way, Sri Lankan women…..mmm…mmmm…..mmmm

To hear more from me as I make my journey through life as an African immigrant, make sure you subscribe to the blog for free via email or RSS.

Before you read this, make sure you have read: Part one, Part two, Part three and Part four of my African immigrant story.

PART FIVE

Late 2006

The film school that I was my first choice University accepts me and I jump straight in to the course in the middle of the school year.

My focus is still all on the party and I fail every single subject including documetary film making where I try to make a film on African drinking habits while drunk.

Still have delusions of grandeur. Obsess over them almost every waking minute but doing nothing to move closer to them. They’re slowly fading away.

Discover that with male-female relationships once a certain level of emotional comfort and physical intimacy has been reached, you are no longer “just friends or acquantances.” It’s as though you own a piece of each other. I discover this when I try to get intimate with two women at the same time and remain “just friends”. Messy and immature. To both of them: I’m sorry.

When my family returns from visiting Kenya they find bottles of alcohol, condoms, pregnancy kits, holes in the walls and morning after pills. Gives you an idea of the type of Christmas I had.

Party lifestyle for me hits its peak probably around June, slow decline has already begun.

Early 2007

The life of hedonism becomes less and less exciting for me.

Rejoin film school and actually try to do well this semester. Make a short film, which you can check out on Youtube.

Learn the basics of film such as editing, using a camera and writing a script. Idea of building a Pan-African movie production company continues to grow.

Attend PUA workshops(Google it!). Fascinating. Become obsessed with their literature and their way of thinking and viewing the world.Eventually become jaded by their general lack of fulfillment in life and an underlying misogyny and fear of women that I detect.

Meet three women who I genuinely like because of their kind hearts and genuine spirits-and they are pretty hot too: One of them hardly remembers me and the other two hate me.

Second Half 2007

I am completely disillusioned and bored with my party lifestyle. In my quiet moments, my delusions of grandeur thrust themselves in my face.

After watching a T Robbins interview with Larry King I decide to take drastic action. I disconnect my phone number and in no time flat, with a little money take off for Sydney to make my production house come true.

Sign up to join a film school that is also a production company. They charge $10,000 for a year of study. Knowing that I can’t get parental support for it and with no way of paying the entire amount upfront, I do not enter the school.

Btw should you ever do what I did, it is only corteous to tell the people around you, you are leaving. I left a lot of good people without saying bye or anything. To all of them. I’m sorry.

I remember to always be mindful to thank God for all he has blessed me with.

Around the time I settle into Sydney I get robbed and most of my official documentation is stolen.

I end up homeless and jobless and searching for a job while listening endlessly to personal development tapes in my car.

Eventually, after 5 years, PUA workshops and a lot of experience, I realize that there are simply people in this world that I cannot get along with, hard as I might try and I have to tolerate and respect them.

Drinking begins to become pathetic: I never intended to drink on my own but I end up doing that. One day I go to a girl’s home and abuse the living hell out of her (insecurities, oh insecurities). Shortly after my drinking makes me miss a flight I was supposed to take back to Melbourne to visit the family. Lying alone and hungover in my car the next morning I vow that I will never touch another drop of alcohol and I must learn to live a life where I don’t use it as a crutch: Defining moment!

Attend a Tony Robbins seminar where I get fire shot into my soul and learn a lot of valuable mental skills.

Decide to experiment with eating no animal products. Health benefits abound, I lose 5 kilograms in two days! Lose some puss pimples, stop feeling bloated and feel a slightly higher level of energy Decide to keep going. Still going!

Come back to Melbourne to start up an Internet business because:

a) People making money from Adsense.

b) I control my working life and can work at night (as I am now)

c) I can use it as an excuse to interview people I admire and want to learn from and model.

d) I can use it as a launching pad for my movie production house (stay tuned).

e) I can use it to help people who are just like me: immigrants who showed up here without a roadmap of what to do.

Try to start blogs on Google. Run them for about 3 months.

Register the Displaced African domain name on Wordpress.Sign up for a membership site to learn how to blog as a business and begin working and thinking about the blog night and day.

Become a ferrocious student of the Internet, blogging, Internet marketing and technology. Still a student to this day!

First Half 2008

This chapter is still in the making. All I intend on doing is building a life that will matter long after I have left this Earth. I am not content with simply saying, I came, I lived, I loved and I died. I want to die with pictures of me deeply embedded onto the walls and in the hearts of people throughout Mama Africa, not because I am a great guy-I am not too bad, if you want to know-but because I brought something special to my home that didn’t exist before I brought it. Because I served and lived in some unique way and now Africa is better as a result.

There is so much I have not put into this story that it’s not funny. However I hope this “brief” timeline of my time here in Australia will put a lot of the stuff I say into perpective. Now you know me and now you know my blog. Enjoy your stay and I hope it’s of benefit to you.

Be blessed and bless others,

Mwangi

If you haven’t, please read: Part one / Part two/ Part three/ Part four /

Before reading this, please make sure you have read: Part one, Part two and Part three of my story as an African immigrant

PART FOUR

First Half 2005

• Get rejected by film school, and too lethargic and lazy to show up for acting school auditions. Get chosen by my third choice University where I am to get a Bachelor of Business (Entrepreneurship).Selected course because my mother has a Masters in it. Follow in parents’ (father had a more general Bachelor of Business) footsteps. Mother asks me if I’m sure I don’t want to pursue acting. I say, “I’ll be alright.”

• Among the caliber of people I am with in business school:

a) CEO of Nissan is mentor

b) Young, high flying Entrepreneur is one of the lecturers

c) Have regular successful speakers coming in such as hundred-millionaire Andrew Giles who founded Hitwise.

d) Young people who have been in business successfully for years

• Feel I am with good group to learn business. Feel like everyone, including myself, is very tactical about who they associate with.
• Make good friends with some Greek guys and help one of them start up a business, which runs to this day.
• The other Greek guy introduces me to CDs of Malcolm X. Have began reading leftist literature including Noam Chomsky and he is also a fan so we connect on that.
• Join the local Uni Socialist group and begin to learn about the history of grassroot struggle. Only attend one meeting of the group because I still feel lonely.
• Become obsessed with reading leftist literature and listening to leftist thinkers such as Noam Chomsky and Michael Parenti.
• Silmultaneously begin reading business books such as Richard Richard Branson’s autobiography (If you like business stories, BUY THIS BOOK! Reality is stranger than fiction) and the E-myth by Michael Gerber.
• Try reading Karl Marx book, the Communist Manifesto: great ideas in it but kinda boring.
• Discover one of my favorite thinkers, theologians and speakers of all time who reaffirms my faith in the church, Erwin Mcmanus.
• Decide I eventually want to own my own African production company which I’ll use to push forward a positive Pan-African identity: Defining idea!
• Realize I am not too bad at the whole busines thing: Don’t mind writing up marketing and business plans and do it competently. Don’t mind doing the research and the work neccesary to get a business going. Idea of working on a business if I see the sense in it doesn’t scare me: Cool!
• Sign up to do play with theatre group where I did the Wizard of Oz.Play the Puppetmaster in Pinnochio. Do a good job. Get nominated for the same award that I lost last year and win!
• I finish the semester but not before the loneliness and isolation hits me again (It took me 5 years to discover this is why I kept dropping out and leaving things so cut me some slack. I didn’t know why I was doing what I was doing) and I defer the course.

Second Half 2005

• Drop out of school and stay home.
• Listen to leftist professors and study the diplomatic history of the US, a bit of UK and a moderate level on Africa.
• Discover people such as Biko, Lumumba (Patrice of DRC not the Kenyan lawyer), Nkrumah, MLK, the Black Panthers, Che Guevara, Malcolm X among others who were important to Civil and human rights in the world. Inspired and fascinated by them.
• Daily routine for a while: Wake up, listen to leftist thinkers, watch some dvds, cook and sleep.
• Begin listening to more and more self help tapes.
• I keep on obsessing over plans for my future but have little idea how I will get there. Just feel tired and worn out.
• Do my first adult play, where I actually have to kiss a girl (blush, guffaw and draw map of Africa with my feet). Perform it at two short play festivals in country towns. At one of them, get deep connection with audience and can do no wrong on stage. Win award as Best New Actor and get $50 (I’m rolling in it now, lol!).
• Try out amateur wrestling and Olympic weightlifting because still obsessed with looking like an Adonis. Don’t feel any human connection at the training institutions.In spite of that, discover two sports I will pursue in future to develop strength and coordination.
• In an effort to make money I try to become a door to door salesman of car servicing vouchers. The job isn’t scary at all really. Regardless, I make less than 10 sales over 4 weeks and decide it’s not for me.
• Go and get trained as an aged care nurse and begin working immediately. I don’t like the monotony of the job but like talking to old people, they keep it real!
• Only friends are my few fantastic Kenyan friends: things about to get a bit shaky though.

Early 2006

• My cousins come over from Kenya to study and we have a house full of young people: Chaos ensues.
• Almost immediately me and one of my cousins (Big up, K) hit the club scene hard in spite of the fact that we are not that wealthy.
• Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. Go to the Village and hang out with the athletes-a lot of them are great guys who are way too obsessed with carnal pursuits. My obsession with drinking and sex begins to hit an exponential upward trijectory. Become an overactive social creature who gatecrashes as many parties as I can.
• Rejoin University but end up dropping all of my subjects except an elective subject: Creative writing for which I attend one three hour class every Thursday. Means I only go to school one day a week, spend the rest of the time working as little as possible and partying as hard as possible.
• Lose my virgnity when I, and am not even bragging here, have the most fluid flirtation session I will ever have in my life. I am one of six people she is juggling at the time. (Sweet girl, but at this stage of life I want my virginity back!)
• Try to become a conniving, manipulative playa type but it really doesn’t suit me too well, and I am too broke to live it up anyway. Though I fool around a few times, I set the record, as far as I know for the man who can “sleep (like with eyes closed and dreams) in the same bed with the most women,” without any physical connection. Expression begins to be formed: “Mwangi boils the water for others to bathe!”
• Attend quite a few business seminars where I have the double honour of being the only African and the only person under 30. Learn a lot from some of the finest business thinkers.
• Also attend free lectures and talks from a wide variety of thinkers including neuroscience and technology. Learn the expression: “As human beings we all feel as though we are Angels trapped in the bodies of beasts!” Metaphor still resonates with me today.
• As a result of being a bad friend and lying to cover for someone else, I lose my best friend. He was a good man, and what I did was wrong (if you are reading this, again, sorry A)

If you haven’t please make sure you read: Part one / Part two/

Continued on: Part four /Part five

Before you read this make sure you have read: Part one and Part two of my story as an African immigrant

PART THREE

Second Half 2003

At times I am a very dramatic, loud,flamboyant and entertaining person. Did a few plays back home. Decide to try out for the school production. Get the lead part because the only other person who tried out is in the final year of high school and they don’t want to give him heavy workload. Great vote of confidence there.

My life, without friends and energy of people to feed of, is an empty void. I decide to fill this void by studying and actually trying to pass at school. Begin developing study habits such as reading a paragraph of a book, closing the book, rewriting the paragraph as I understand it and seeing if the two ideas correspond. Some of these habits stay with me to this day: Defining moment.

Studying isn’t enough though I am doing a lot better at school. The loneliness and isloation makes me feel like dropping out again. Drama teacher tells me, “If I want to drop out and live like an adult, then I must be man enough to see the production through.” Decide to stay.

Put myself mind, body and soul into the rehearsal. Hide behind the characters and the music and the play hoping I never have to come out. Begin to shape up into a very focussed actor who can assume a character and ‘become him’.

Write out a business plan for a school cafeteria that I will run and profit from. The school principal quickly shoots the idea down.Darn it!

We perform the play: Some of the best days of my life. I do a much better job than I ever expected. People actually admire and respect me. The audience likes what I am doing. I matter! I discover one of my greatest passions in life: Defining moment

Begin watching ‘Inside the Actor’s Studio’ and begin to love understanding how actor’s work.

Buy my first self-help book by Tony Robbins. The book has great ideas. I am looking for a quick fix and so don’t put any of the ideas in the book to practical application for many years.

Buy more meditation books, this time from the hippie days. Fail to meditate and achieve Nirvana, again.

Still working out obsessively and getting no results.

Still trying to live a life of significance and feel like I’m getting nowhere physically though I mature tremendously psychologically.

Go through a phase where I am ashamed of my race. Visit the dermatologist and he tells me it is in my genes: Accept it and decide to make the best of my race from then on.

Steal money and pay to be taken through a private meditation session. Relax for about an hour and feel pretty chilled afterwards. Use the rest of the of the stolen money to watch Charlie’s Angels in the cinema’s gold section.

Try working in the church audiovisual department. Great job, but loneliness and isolation gets to me and I leave.

Begin to dream big about being one of the greatest creative minds and servant to my home of Africa: Defining idea.

Drop out of school a couple of months before the end of the year. Run away every school day to the local bookstore where I read books and magazines all day long until my parents and principal discover I have been running away.

Parents don’t put too much of a fight. My father visits Africa and I decide to follow him.

Kenya is fantastic. Missed the feeling of actually being able to talk to someone and form a connection. Talk to everyone I meet and have a fantastically, simple, agenda-less holiday in Kenya. Return to Australia fresh as a battery.

2004

Transfer high schools and end up in a mid-performing high school where on first day we find people smoking outside the school office.

In my first week (again!) get voted in as captain of a sport’s house for the entire school. Don’t show up for meetings! Play sports like I’m paid to be bad! Don’t really care! Hand over my captain badge to a friend of mine who wants to be captain real bad!

Take up five subjects for my final year of high school: Drama, Psychology (only boy in the class), Further Maths, English as a Second Language (it’s my first language but as an immigrant I can take the subject and it’s easier so……) and Dance (only boy in the class)

Quickly realize that by Dance they don’t mean the rhythmic movements of Papa Wemba and Awilo Longomba but instead mean ballet, jazz and contemporary (you ned a tutu for all three).

Take dance lessons in hip hop to see if I can catch up and maybe even get an A+ in the dance exam. Realize that short of a dancing-queen-John-Travoltaesque (you see girl africana, -esque it’s catching on) miracle, passing Dance is never happening. Drop out of dance class and end up doing the minimum subjects allowed in Melbourne schools: 4.

So energetic from coming home that skate right through this year with a nice, steady, comfortable work/study routine.

Begin hanging around other Kenyan immigrants my age: Feels good!

Discover that there is a professional wrestling school – WWE style- right next to my home and I’m in the same class with one of the referees. Referee promises to set me up with training to become a wrestler. One of my Kenyan friends disuades me telling me that one day I will meet an angry man who will knock me upside the head with a chair and make my mind slower than a tranquilized snail…decide to put my WWE plans on hold.

Do well in high school but worse than expected especially in Drama where I expected a pefect score for my one man performance of a South African Freedom figher that moves people to tears. Content but not elated I accept my mark and best student award in Further Maths.

Join a theatre group where I take on the role of the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz. I take playing the melodramatic character seriously. Nominated for a theatre award ( I lost) and sign up with a casting agency. They give me extra work on a TV show and an ad and I get to do a modelling gig on the ourtskirts of the city- the picture at the top of the blog is from that modelling shoot.

Join the Young Australia Broadway Chorus at the semi-advanced level. The Chorus is meant to train musical theatre performers. The training is fantastic. Just like in my first high school production I learn to my dismay, “ I was blessed with a good voice but no skill on how to use it.” The loneliness gets to me and I don’t enjoy the dances we are learning so I drop out after one term.

Realize yet again that I get a lot of admiration and female attention when I perform. Crave that feeling even more.

Try out for the church choir. Again….got’s the talent but no skill. Tell me to come back when I have the talent thing worked out.

Spend my weekends with my Kenyan friends just bumming around and talking. Feel very safe and very comfortable with my friends. In spite of that deal with some minor issues such as mutal friends who decide to slit their wrists when they are in a bit of a bad mood and drunk Maori who gate crashes our party to show us a tattoo where he remembers all the people he has killed.

Watch a friend of mine have more women throw themselves at him than a trampolene. Disgusting to watch as some of us have to work hard in the corner singing, “Can I be your tennis ball,”, to every white girl we see.

If you haven’t make sure you read: Part one / Part two/

Continued on: Part four /Part five

Before reading this, make sure you read:Part one of my story as an African immigrant.

PART TWO

Second Half of 2002

• Land in Australia during 2002 World Cup Finals ( missed the game ). The place is cold though I arrived in shorts and a t-shirt. Excited to be here.
• Parents have already selected a high school for me. The school has two Africans, both Kenyans amazingly, in it: one is an absolutely gorgeous girl and the other, a boy, ended up being one of my best friends later on. When we try to take the train from the city to the school, they deem a 2 hours, 40 kilometer train ride as “too far out” ( less than 15 minutes from where the family lives now). Instead chose to leave me in a boarding school more than 100 kilometres outside of the city.
• Over the moon that it is a mixed boarding school and proceed to act as though the women in the school are my birthright and making friends is automatic: NOT!
• In six months go from the coolest new accessory in the school to social pariah. Christmas season I am alone in a room listening to Neville brothers (that guy’s voice is high!!) sing “These Foolish Things”. Vow to never feel this useless and expendable and unwanted ever again. I will mean something to this world: Defining moment!
• As part of work experience at school I get to work at a radio station. First morning I am on air with the host for a short while. Second day I am hosting my own three hour show with two ladies and by the third day I am offered my own youth show every Saturday. Too lonely and distraught to stay: I move back to Melbourne to be with the family.
• While home, I begin to try and become a valuable human being by bulking up and losing fat (not knowing it’s quite difficult to do both at the same time). I try working out four hours every day and going on starvation diets. After a couple of days of doing this, I am on the floor crawling because I binge ate so much damn-sweet-it-practically-melted-in-my-mouth-cake.
• Become a bodybuilding and health website fanatic and read them everyday. Information very contradictory. Keep pushing weights using diagrams that come with the bench press equipment we bought. Overtrain until I develop stretch marks on both my still-puny arms. Lonely and alone, thank God I have my family!

First Half 2003

• Transfer over to a Christian college run by the local church. Everybody knows everybody and almost everyone in the school attends the local church. In retrospect absolutely fantastic people. However, didn’t think so at the time. Follow the events through with me……
• Still shaken from the events of 2002, I try to run away from the country in my first week in the school: I intend on stealing my mother’s credit card and flying back to Africa. I tell my mother my plans and she quickly squashes them.
• All the kids in my class bully a kid called T who knows he is a loser and acts the part (sadly he ended up going to prison for trying to rob a sex store many years later). I like the guy and become friends with him. Develop disdain for people who bully losers or people who are already down. Don’t think highly of my clasmates at this point.
• Begin to learn why some Western men fear women: After answering, “Yes” to the question, “Am I mean?” to a girl who I shall cull, Lulu, assembles all the women in the class to start abusing me. At first, I can handle abuse but fear grips me and I feel I must do something about it. Go into a rage blackout when I see the girl and call her every obscenity this side of the milky way.
• One of the things I say to Lulu, “ You don’t know who I am and you don’t know where I came from,” between calling her a female canine many times ( very apologetic in hindsight. If you are reading this,”Lulu”-you know yourslef- I am sorry and I forgive you-she asked me to forgive her 5 years ago).
• Get called into the principal’s office: She took the “You don’t know who I am and where I am going.” statement to mean that, like 50 cent, I will bring gangs upon her to beat her. Ideas that will form the Jungle Fever article begin to take root.
• After my rage blackout no one wants to be my friend and I lose my only good friend, a girl called N. Alone, lonely, expendable, useless and worthless yet again. I go to work.
• I begin to study meditation. Try it and fail one of many times- I was trying to force relaxation (oxymoron if I ever I saw one).
• Though I am going to a Christian school, and was raised in the church, I obsessively read a site which explains all the problems with Christianity (apparently the Catholic Church has a book full of bibilical inaccuracies…..scary). Begin studying Eastern religions and philosophies and spend a lot of time feeling like a self-important, self-indulgent philisopher.
• After long periods of philisophizing, I come to a conclusion: I don’t know beyond a 100% shadow of a doubt why I was put here. None of us do. I am here. I am blessed. One day my life will matter, because I will make sure it will. May as well make the best of this life. Defining moment!

If you haven’t, make sure you read:Part one.

Continued on: Part three/ Part four/Part five

]]> http://www.thedisplacedafrican.com/2008/03/my-story-as-an-african-immigrant-part-two/feed/ 0 http://www.thedisplacedafrican.com/2008/03/my-story-as-an-african-immigrant-introduction-and-part-one/ http://www.thedisplacedafrican.com/2008/03/my-story-as-an-african-immigrant-introduction-and-part-one/#comments Sat, 22 Mar 2008 15:17:49 +0000 Mwangi http://www.thedisplacedafrican.com/188/my-story-as-an-african-immigrant-introduction-and-part-one/

Why Write Out My History in Australia?

Hello! Hello ! Hello! I once heard the expression:

It’s impossible to hate a person when you know where they have come from.

I think that’s because when you see where someone has come from, things that they do that seem illogical all of a sudden make sense.All of a sudden you realize that people have gone through what you go through and that when you break it all down, there are a lot of similarities between all of us, us human beings.

So, I am writing my timeline out here in Australia, not for egotistical reasons- though those are always nice- but more so that you can understand where I’m coming from. Whereas this blog is semi-personal, it isn’t a personal diary like most blogs which I know and love. This is because I honestly wanted to bring something different to this great medium known as the blogosphere. And as I continue to write less and less about myself and more and more about the type of stuff that will hopefully be useful to you, I want you to know where I am coming from. A lot of the things I have done are kinda cooky (just mildly though, don’t expect any serial killer stories here) , but in context, they all make sense.

Style

This is my third attempt at writing this. The first one was six pages long and the second was 10 pages long. In spite of that, they both were telling entirely different stories. I didn’t believe it at first but my emotional and mental story is way too complex and convoluted for me to hope to explain it in a couple of posts so instead I thought I would walk you through the events themselves and just give you a bit of side commentary ala Twitter (btw if you and you’re friends are not on twitter, it is the coolest thing, make sure you get on it. You can be my twitter friend too, my name is masmilele).

Btw, that’s me sitting in the top right corner of the blog with a wistful, melancholic look on my face, for those who are wondering whether God hit me with the ugly stick. Without any further explanation and ado:

PART ONE

2000

• In December, my family travels to Australia. At the time I have just finished primary school and am awaiting my KCPE results-for the unitiated KCPE is the exam done at the end of primary school in Kenya that determines what high school I will go to.
• I do much worse than I expected to in KCPE.I strongly suspect that I was marked down (Marking down is the system where people from middle and higher income schools get their marks reduced so that they can compete with people from poorer schools that don’t have the same access to facilities. Fantastic system! In retrospect, I didn’t mind being marked down too much). Fortunately, I have a relationship with a principal of one of the best schools in the country.In the back of my mind, I know I can always fall back on that.
• My family decides they love Australia and especially Melbourne. When we arrive home, my family decide that we are all shipping over to Australia. I am over the moon with joy.

2001

• I get into a great high school in spite of my only-slightly-better-than-average mark in KCPE.
• My loud mouth gives me a seat as sport’s captain in my first day and voted in as Vice Captain in my first week: I have the sports ability of a modified antenna though.
• I become relatively well known around the school and have at the very least acquantance relationships with everyone in my class and most people in the school.
• I don’t care about academics at all. Only thing that excites me is arguing with my Italian RE teacher (gives you a clue where I went to high school if you’re Kenyan) who thinks I have half a brain Aside from that only thing I see when I look at the board are things to make snide remarks at, alcohol bottles& satchets and the female form.
• I party at every chance though I am almost always broke, can’t afford fancy clothes and have no ability to talk to the ladies. Enjoy going out with my older cousin(big up V and friends from school)
• Start a band while in school. Write about 20 songs, assemble about six members but never manage have rehearsals or do anything though we have connections with one of the best production houses – the best at the time – in the country.
• Get caught shoplifting alcohol with my best friend at the time. That beating convinces me to never shoplift ever again. Precursor to my quiting drinking many years later. Guilt unfortunately melts away when me and my friend happen upon a couple of women while taking the bus home………..

First Half 2002

• Learn that we are immigrating to Australia. Proceed to drop out of school like the place was on fire.
• Mother is absolutely furious that I stay in the house and won’t do housework to the point that she kicks me out of the house in the middle of the night. With money I stole from her I go to the city where my cousin is staying thinking this is the beginning of a great partying lifestyle: I am home waiting to immigrate by the next day.
• On the last week in Kenya a friend of mine informs me that apparently foreigners love African men and I should expect female rewards only comparable to a suicide bomber when I land in Australia. My hormones and general excitement threaten to overwhelm me.

Continued in: Part two/ Part three/ Part four /Part five

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