SEEKING INNER VERSUS OUTER BEAUTY

I hear that there is a certain group of men from a certain region in Africa – who are at it again - denigrating women from a certain African nation (about the way the women look). Fellow sisters out there be aware and be alert! I think this particular group feels threatened by our collective action and voices. And we are not stopping! (and get me right, it's a certain group of men not all of them)

If you get a chance, any chance to empower yourself, do it. From what these men are saying and doing, it is clear that no-one is going to do it for us. None but ourselves. Without saying a lot, and moving forward here is a 10-point plan to get us going in 2014 – I have a 21-point plan in my forthcoming book;

1. If your life seems complex and you want to understand what's going on, stop and think, then break it down into phases. A solution might come out of that.
2. Seek help if you can.
3. Learn from your mistakes.
4. Learn something new – a skill, language, a certain subject - be informed. Take a step.
5. Change for the better – everyday - Make small manageable changes.
6. Use your potential – start with what you have.
7. A form of faith does help sometimes.
8. Know that culture – any culture - is dynamic (we are no longer in the stone age!)
9. Teach your child /ren - if you have any – from a tender age. Don't wait till its too late.
10. Count your blessings – do not moan all the time.

With the response I have had so far - the dialogue, more enquiries about the book 'Being A Woman In Africa,' and about my story, book purchases, donations to charity etc - I am one happy African woman! I'm glad the message of EMPOWERMENT is spreading like veld-fire, thousands from all over the world have read or are reading my book - thank you readers in the USA, UK, Germany, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Brazil, China, Taiwan, South Africa, Kenya, India, Canada, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Australia, France, Taiwan, Zimbabwe and in new territories. Thanks to Writers' and Readers' groups who are spreading the message. Couldn't be happier!

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Through this post I am making a special appeal to African women wherever you read my posts from - women who are feeling trapped in one way or the other, please seek help as soon as possible. I'm not a counsellor but if there is anything bothering you related to domestic violence, rape, sexual abuse, physical, emotional, psychological or economic abuse, child marriage etc PLEASE SEEK HELP.

Wherever you are, if you suspect that such things are happening to someone you know please help the person concerned. Speak with them or report the case.

Here are a few organizations in Zimbabwe which could be of some help;

• Your local Church Pastor - if he / she understands such issues – not that infamous one with 11 wives!!!!!!!
• New Start Centres in Zimbabwe
• Musasa Project in Harare – and other centres were you can just walk in to look for information or for a chat
• If anyone knows of any similar organizations, please drop me a line or pass on the information to the person concerned

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Please do get in touch if you need further information - on my twitter account, facebook page or via the Charityhope Trust website, or on about.me/ruth.pink. Thanks to all men (and women) who are reading and are dying to read my book. More info. is on the above sites.

I will be looking for INNER rather than OUTER beauty in 2014 and beyond. Let's count all our blessings - especially 2013 blessings! In the meantime enjoy the remaining festive season to the max.

Ruth Pink xx

BEING A WOMAN IN AFRICA

'KWA MARABU'

If something really traumatic happens in your life, small problems will not shake you, take it from me. As I speak today, small things do not shake me. That is who I am today, I get inspiration from positive-thinking people and out of every situation I dig deep for something positive from it.

I wrote about some of the traumatic things I experienced (in the book 'Being A Woman in Africa). If you follow Rosewitta closely, maybe you will learn more about the real life 'me.'

It doesn't matter who you are – educated, uneducated, rich, poor, high or middle class (this class thing is an English thing. I strongly subscribe to the fact that class structures are social constructs. So to me classes do not exist, but exist in people's minds). Some life experiences can take you to the rubbish dump. We call it 'kwaMarabu,' in Zim lingo. So at one time, I was there, 'kwaMarabu,' scavenging - in a figurative sense. I saw that I was going downhill – 'kumawere.' I had to dig deep to salvage myself. I sought inspiration from anyone and anything – young boys and girls, from the good Pastor, from nature – from anything. I read the Bible from cover to cover, I became what they call 'a Bible-basher.' The recovery was slow and painful, but somehow my self-taught methods worked.

After all this, I'm glad to say my life has completely changed after realizing that “life is short,” to be negative - see page 112 of 'Being A Woman in Africa.' This is one good lesson that life threw at me and a message contained in my book.

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With the response I have had so far - the dialogue, more enquiries about the book and deeper questions about my life story, book purchases, donations to charity etc - I am one happy African woman!

Please do get in touch if you need further information - on my twitter account, facebook page or via the Charityhope Trust website., or on about.me/ruth.pink. My book is available on this e-bay for charity link:-

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=291010233402 

I will probably have one more post before the end of year. Let's count all our 2013 blessings! In the meantime enjoy the festive season to the max. Don't drink and drive!

Ruth Pink xx

EXTRACT FROM MY FORTHCOMING AUTOBIOGRAPHY...

(My husband had passed away the previous day and we we were preparing for his funeral......)

The following day as relatives and friends gathered around me to deal with the shocking news, my world turned literally 'blue' and was going round and round around me. The 22^nd of September was a different day, different from all other days. The sun dawned from the west, and everything all just seemed mixed up. This death was a mix up. There must have been a mistake somewhere, as I was not really sure that this was happening to me. I sat there numb, cheeks in the palm of my hands, as I watched events unfolding yet again. I did not feel an urge to cry, because 'surely this was not real.' I saw close relatives and friends coming to console me, wailing in disbelief at the top of their voices. All I could do was just watch the world pass by yet again, wondering what was really wrong with me. My world had been shattered.

There is a story for me which ended on the 22^nd of September that year as my husband’s body was transported to his home village for an overnight vigil as is the custom, and for burial on the following day. As he was buried in his home village, this closed a chapter in my life as I pondered where I would start my next life chapter with all my expectations shattered like that. Although it took me time to recover, yet again I had to start to learn life lessons and start to live on my own, raising up a young child on my own.

This was the beginning of a new chapter and a new life. Life was not easy but I entered a phase of my life where I had to fend for myself and for my child. In that male dominated society, I now stood alone, bare and exposed with no-one to lean on. I was no longer in the shadows of my brother or sister. I no longer had to stand by a man as society expected. Although there were really sad moments after that I learnt to pick myself up to what I am today. I felt as is no-one, not even family members seemed to understand the agony that I was going through. I felt misunderstood.

We all need to re-new our thinking time and again

I write today from England because I managed to pick myself up. I had to literally start learning about life all over again. I vowed re-invent myself, and pick from that day onwards. And I had to do it all by myself. I couldn’t ask for counselling from friends or family who had not experienced what I experienced. I could not seek bereavement counselling from anyone I knew. When I lost my husband, relatives were with me for at most a week. After that everyone was back to business yet I was hurting inside.

In that situation I had to learn to console myself and to draw from what other people said to me. This is when I learnt that at times, in a society with few support systems, you need to learn things all by yourself, to teach yourself lessons from what life throws at you. It is not all about learning academically in the classroom and lectures rooms as I had done, we need to learn about life every day, change everyday and apply those life lessons to our daily life.

Seeking healing

Through out my whole life, I had grown up internalising feelings, whether they were of anger, frustration, hurt or bereavement. I was somebody who could only deal with emotions by internalising them. I did that very well. When we had something that we needed to talk about like growing up as teenage girls, the African culture did not allow us to discuss this openly. We did not talk about the changes that were happening to our bodies, (that tingling sensation that we all feel sometimes!) about having babies or how babies are made, we did not talk about death, or anger or happiness. We did not talk about falling in love, about having children, about family problems......... It was part of how we were socialized.

Each family member had their own ways of dealing with such emotions. I don’t know how other family members dealt with all these emotions, neither do I know the inner secrets in their lives, their hurts, what happened to them and that which they do not want to talk about. They have their stories to tell which are completely different to mine.

As life moved on, I discovered that I was not getting anywhere expecting anyone to carry my feelings with them. As I grew mature and as I gave birth to my child, somehow I began to understand life and death, that after life comes death. Everyone will eventually die. With maturity, I learnt the art of opening up to others, slow and painful as it was. I was now able to discuss some of the subjects that we thought were taboo. I began to talk openly about my bereavement. I asked myself hard questions and gave myself answers. I started moving out of my shell and I made a commitment to meet others. But this had to be gradual. I joined a Church, joined a group of friends and in no time, Church leaders started to refer young women to me – those who had recently been bereaved. Each case was tragic as it was different.

I was at a loss as how to help them. I had to find ways of helping them so as to help myself. At first I didn’t know how to. Soon I realised that for me to get my healing and closure to some of the issues from my past, I had to learn to help others. So I quickly learnt how to do this in very unconventional ways. I looked back and looked at all those things that I had needed that other women who had problems needed. Women needed a listening ear, I listened. Those grieving women needed encouragement, I encouraged them. They needed information as to where to go, I helped them with what I knew and signposted them to the right places. I encouraged them to ask questions if they didn’t know. I encouraged them to fill in any information and knowledge gaps if they had any, to pick themselves from where their late husbands had left them and start a new life. Besides this, I discovered that it was not only bereaved women who sought help, a lot of women came up with their problems. I really felt the burden to go beyond the boundaries that I had set myself. Women were caught up in poverty, some were in abusive relationships, some were not literate, some were single, some were bereaved, some did not have jobs. The multitude of problems was just too much. Through this, I discovered that I got the healing that I had never had, and in turn I could get further healing by helping others.

(This is an extract from my forthcoming autobiography ….so it's unedited and it's still under construction. If you understand where I'm coming from, I worry more about getting the message across than anything else. If you want to understand more about my life, you need to understand what's in my new book available on this link;

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=291010233402

or you can get in touch via my twitter account @lilac_ruth, via my facebook page or via the CharityHope Trust website

All the best

Ruth Pink

Archant Herts 24: View Picture: WHT_0634.jpg

Archant Herts 24: View Picture: WHT_0634.jpg  Author explores life out in Africa