In the beginning there was you

Many moons ago Although we were so young
We were nature’s second sun
We were always on the same page
I crossed your t’s
You dotted my i’s
Days, weeks, month, years
Out of the blue I got an e-mail from you
“I got married” was all I did read
Were you just bringing my wheels up to speed?
Or was it your nickel for my thoughts?
The earth was flat
The sun spun around the earth
There is a ring on your ring
And a knot on my throat

Winter succeeds Autumn
Spring will always follow
The sun will rise tomorrow
And you’ll still be…
The first woman I ever loved

I speak of love, don’t be mistaken
I speak of being, not making
Today I wonder why we never tried long distance
But there is no point trying to insist
It’s all water under the bridge
But is it? It isn’t
I would have thrown caution to the wind
Just to see you in your wedding dress
Reality check, I should just
Click reply and wish you happiness

Winter succeeds Autumn
Spring will always follow
The sun will rise tomorrow
And you’ll still be…
The first woman I ever loved

By
    Edgar Munguambe 010411

Soul Food

The soul will ooze out of my pores

If art I choose to ignore

The soul implores for food

Creative arts is the diet required

Better skills in time will be acquired

For now any soul food will do

To quench my constant desire


By
    Edgar Munguambe 030411

The Sun Rising by John Donne

Busy old fool, unruly Sun,

Why dost thou thus,

Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?

Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?

Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide

Late schoolboys, and sour prentices,

Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,

Call country ants to harvest offices,

Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,

Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams, so reverend and strong

Why shouldst thou think?

I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,

But that I would not lose her sight so long:

If her eyes have not blinded thine,

Look, and tomorrow late, tell me

Whether both the'Indias of spice and mine

Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.

Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,

And thou shalt hear: "All here in one bed lay."



She'is all states, and all princes I,

Nothing else is.

Princes do but play us; compar'd to this,

All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.

Thou, sun, art half as happy'as we,

In that the world's contracted thus;

Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be

To warm the world, that's done in warming us.

Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;

This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere.



The Sun Rising

by John Donne

First impressions: student life at NMMU

After three years studying at UNISA through distance learning I felt it was time to go back to school for the experience. Distance learning is also a long process that requires dedication, you can consider yourself a wiz if you can complete a three year bachelors degree in six years. At the rate I was going I estimated total of 8 years for me to complete my degree, that would take me way into my thirties. Honestly I was a bit paranoid about the decision to return to a contact university, due to my last disastrous experience. At the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK, I’d just had sinus surgery, badly operated by a quack South African doctor called Jeff Feinstein (yes I named him and do not recommend him!). Once the British winter kicked in, breathing literally hurt. I couldn’t endure, I went into depression. I went back to Mozambique a wreck for Christmas, its tropical weather made breathing easier. I temporarily withdrew from university, but full recovery was a pipe dream, I was forced to cancel my studies, my world had crumbled. Four years later after much stalling I had corrective surgery done by the finest doctor in Southern Africa, Dr Keith Davidge-Pitts. So now, feeling better, I decided it was finally time to hop back on the bandwagon.
So why South Africa? I’ll only be an Easter, long weekend, mid-semester or semester break away from home, it is a neighbouring country, that has the best universities in the continent.

Why the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University? I chose the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) because it is the most multi-cultural university in South Africa. 10-15% of the student body is international. Coming from Waterford Kamlhaba, a united world college with over 50 countries, NMMU seems like a good follow-up. These were my first impressions of student life:
I arrived in Port Elizabeth on the 18th of January 2011, with the objective to complete my BA in Media, communication and culture. PE is windy and chilly at times, at first I thought my sinus problems would return, they didn’t, in fact I breathe better. At home I’d sometimes sleep with a humidifier to filter the air, in PE I don’t need to, the air is so pure and the university is only 1 km from the sea, so I have clean air in my lungs all the time. Incidentally PE is beautiful, in South Africa I’d say the second to Cape Town. NMMU is beautiful too, the first thing I noticed about the campus is how green it is; the office for international education is in a plaza, with a long fountain pool. It is by far the best looking campus I’ve ever seen, I’ve seen campuses in Maputo (none of them are great), I’ve seen the University of Zambia, the London School of Hygiene and tropical medicine, the University of East Anglia, the University of Sussex, Wits University and the University of Cape Town. None of these campuses would ever win a beauty pageant running against NMMU!

The faculty at the university seemed good, during orientation I learnt that in the final year we get a chance to do an internship at a top media organisation such as Mnet or FHM, quite interesting.

About transportation in PE, the so called taxis, which are actually chapas (combis) charge R6 trip, that’s already at least R12 per day just by going to University and back, which is 1.5 km distance. So I decided to buy a bicycle, a good 1st hand bicycle for R1230 from a shop that provides assistance.
-“That’s too expensive”, said a fresher from Zimbabwe.
-“Actually in the long-run it will save me money”, I stated.
A “taxi” would suck me at least R1260 per semester, that’s R5040 in the four semesters that I’ll be studying. R1230, that’s already less than I’d spend on a taxi in a semester and I’d be exercising. Naturally, there are maintenance costs, like when I punctured my back wheel, I thought I could take it back to the shop for a fix-up but they don’t do such petty repairs, I had to buy a cycle repair kit for R15.20. Repairing a punctured wheel is simple, you remove the tube, place it in a bucket full of water and squeeze it until you see bubbles and that’s where the hole is. Use a scrapper to roughen the surface, apply glue to the area and apply a patch when the glue is almost dry. That’s it, I learnt something new and it’s easy peezy diy.

Living on your own means doing chores, like washing dishes, the few times I ever washed my own dishes, I did so wrong. Washing dishes close to the tap is a no-no because it always spills water onto the adjacent surfaces, which means more cleaning and more time wasted. Dishes should be washed close the base of the sink to avoid all of that. The same goes for cooking, if you’re pouring stuff, pour it close to the recipient to avoid spillage. Incidentally, a lot of undergraduate students would rather live off fast food and sandwiches than on a wholesome diet. Many don’t bother to buy neither fruit nor cooking equipment. I think cooking is one of the most relaxing activities, period. It is not the 7 headed monster that these undergrads fear, all you have to do is read cooking recipes, they even come at the back of everyday ingredients like stock cubes and rice bags, I only noticed this when I began managing my own apartment.

The garbage. I placed my garbage bin outside the house in the morning. When I returned in the afternoon it had been chucked back over the fence. I must have pressed the garbage man’s wrong buttons. I told this to the landlord, who laughed and said, “You have to place the bags outside”.
-“Black bin bags right?”
-“Yes”
Why black bin bags? I had left the bin itself outside filled with garbage in Spar plastic bags, these are no good because they are neither made from recycled material nor municipal size, it’s insulting to expect garbage men to collect pint sized commercial bags from your bin.

One thing I’ve always hated doing is the laundry. When I studied at Waterford Kamhlaba in Swaziland I’d accumulate a knapsack with dirty clothes and give it to the first Maputonian that went home for the weekend, he’d hand it to my mother who’d have the maid wash it and have it ready to give back to him when he returned to school on Sunday. At Sussex, we all had to wash our own laundry, which I found daunting. It’s a laborious process of separating colours, putting it in a washing machine, waiting, taking the clothes out, hanging them, getting dishpan hands in the process and ironing, what a drag! NMMU has a laundrette with ladies to wash and dry your clothes, they’re fast, efficient but they don’t do it for the love of students, 3kgs is R35 and they have a pricing for ironing depending on the item. It cost me R71 to have 3kgs cleaned. To save money I bought an iron and an ironing board because although I hate washing, ironing is not as bad and I’d be straightening small loads at a time.

The taxi (real taxi) driver told me Port Elizabethan girls were hot and willing. I’m not yet sure of the latter but he got the former twisted, these chicks are not all that...at all. I come from Mozambique, a country notorious for having hot women, I don’t recall ever cruising the streets or walking in a restaurant, mall or park without seeing some amazing looking women, natural beauties, even those with no class are ghetto fabulous. In PE it’s a whole different story, the white women generally speaking are not exotic, they have no palpable attributes if you get my drift. Most black girls on the other hand are fat with HUGE asses, you might think that is what black men desire, we find an ass like Nicki Minaj’s amazing because it is round and firm, these girls on the contrary have bigger and flabbier assets and a disproportionate body to go with it. Take college chicks, on campus there is a gym, a swimming pool and an array of sports to play, but that doesn’t seem to register with them. Perhaps it’s their diet, I’ve asked the waiters at two cafes on North and South Campus for fish or seafood, both shook their heads saying, “We don’t have seafood”.
There isn’t a shred of fish on any menu on campus, whether it’s a cafe, a diner, a fast food joint or a buffet. The cafe on South campus has fancy dishes such as pork stir fries and beef wraps but can’t deliver seafood. Even the Chinese restaurant in town, though it has seafood, it does not have fish! How can this be? Port Elizabeth is known exactly for having...a port, yet you have to go treasure hunting for fish!? No wonder these chicks are unattractive!! On my first week here, I’d go for a number 2 twice a day from all that meat, it’s nhama nhama nhama and more nhama! My alternative was to buy fish at Spar and cook more often that I’d expected at first. Anyways, the other colours in the rainbow are generally speaking better looking, but seem to be living in their own segregated world, but I won’t put everybody in a box just like that, in time I’ll see who’s real and who isn’t.

At any given point walking around campus and I hear at least three languages, Xhosa, Afrikaans and English. I thought it’d be English the whole way because the system is in English, though that’s not how things roll in the rainbow nation, here the blacks here speak Xhosa, the whites speak English or Afrikaans and the coloureds speak Afrikaans. The kats here think that if you’re black you speak their language, WTF? Wherever I go, someone approaches me in Xhosa like, “Unjani buthi, click click click....” and I always say, “I’m not from South Africa”.
This lady at the faculty office started clicking at me and once again I said, “I’m not from South Africa”, by then I was already on autopilot.
She then asks, “Why?”
In my mind I did a double take, what kind of a question was that?!?
-“Why?? Because I’m form Mozambique”, I responded perplexed
-“I’m just joking!”
I didn’t find that funny, the whole Xhosa thing was getting to me. One day I wore my International student T-shirt and my international student bag. I walked down the corridor only to hear a, “Shap ekse, u click click kanjani click click”
-“Woa brother, I’m not from South Africa”, I said (again!) this time pointing at my shirt and my bag
-“Ohhh alriiiit, so you’ve neva lived here?”
Naturally, otherwise I would have understood you.
-“No”
He asked for directions and I helped him get to his venue. This predicament is not only limiting for me but to this whole country, how are they going to become one unified nation if there are several different cultures? People are never going to see eye to eye. South African comedian Trevor Noah jokes about this in his special “The Daywalker”, how even in Joburg, his city, people ask him if he’s from Cape Town, and worse in Cape Town the coloured people think he’s from there and speak to him in Afrikaans! The man is half Xhosa, half Swedish and has nothing to do with being coloured culturally yet he was accused of being a ‘banana type’, yellow on the outside and white on the inside!
In my city people talk to you in Portuguese regardless or you being black, white, grey or green because that is the official language. How can you end segregation if people automatically put you in a box because of the way you look? I’m not going to click with these people, take a social environment, a bar for instance, you don’t know people, but you can easily join in on conversations or chip in on something you overheard, that is not possible if you don’t understand the language and already there is a hindrance in socialization.

Security. I’m living in a studio apartment, on the same grounds as a house. The walls have barbed wire, the gate has spikes and two locks, my unit has another lock for a barred door and a key to a second door, talk about security, it takes me 5 minutes just to enter the house. The whole neighbourhood seems to be like that. The taxi driver said, “People here are so f***ing paranoid, that even the people in asylums have more common sense than them!”
Are they? I went for a swim in the aquatics centre at NMMU and left my sports bag on a chair by the side, just like I do in Maputo. I then took a shower and placed the bag in the changing rooms unattended. When I got home I couldn’t find my wallet, and I distinctly remember putting it in my bag. There were people circulating the swimming pool and the changing rooms but it never crossed my mind that one of them would steal from me. I should have used the lockers, next time I’ll know. Gone is my ID, some money and my debit card. I was forced to cancel my card, fortunately I didn’t need money immediately, I had sufficient food for some days until a new card was issued. This is South Africa, the crime rate is high, in terms of security it has nothin’ on my country.

In hindsight, I’ve had and interesting experience so far. This is a learning experience, I’m finding out a lot about myself and a lot about life, I consider every situation either a win-lose or a win-win, these are lessons that I will take with me for the rest of my life. This journey is going to be educational, I’m constantly learning and that’s the beauty of it.

Edgar Munguambe 290111

Guitar and me

Watsup people! After my birthday I decided to take up the guitar for good, but the story of "guitar and me" goes way back. The first guitar lessons I had were at my high school, Waterford Kamhlaba back in 2002. CC, my guitar teacher, who incidentally was my Economics teacher, taught me a few basic songs like "Bailamos" and "Wild Thing", the lessons only lasted one term and I guess I wasn't too motivated to extend them.

In 2006 I decided to buy a guitar, I just bought the first one I saw, a transluscent green acoutic one with metal strings, hey it looked cute. Then I found a new tutor Albino Mbie (shout out to the man), this young cat was flippin good but he dissed my guitar sayin it wasn't good for beginners. He taught me from the drawing board cause I'd forgotten everything CC taught me. It was painful, I don't think any other instrument is as painful to play. Other than the pain for some reason I still wasn't fully into it, but he kept telling me I have what it takes to become a great player including the look! About 3 months later he won a scholarship to Berkley University in California (that's how good he was!). Before he left, I bought one of his classic nylon stringed acoustic guitars. So I had two guitars in my room...yet I did not even touch them, not until 2008. I got yet ANOTHER instructor, a friend of Albino's called Baloo (like the Jungle Book Baloo, kinda  looked like him too!). I didn't want to be taught at home, cause with Albino he always asked to borrow my stuff, movies, books and a dictionary that he never returned, so I didn't want to bathe in the same waters twice. We chose a location, one of his relative's house in the inner city about 6kms away from my house. Driving there was hell, especially at rush hour which was the only time that suited us both. I got easily bored, he wasn't a bad teacher, maybe it was the distance or the fact that he kept asking for money, but for some reason I termitated the lessons telling him I was short for time. He'd send me messages asking when we could resume the lessons, I'd always make up excuses and eventually stopped returning his sms'.

Regardless, I always saw beauty in a guitar player jamming, what Carlos Santana does to the guitar is amazing, he doesn't even have to talk, the guitar talks for him. Sara Tavares is the woman of my dreams, beautiful, natural dreads and an angelic voice accompanied by an accoustic guitar, my GOD what a woman! And everytime I saw guitar players, whether live or on the tube, that desire to play would come to life.

In 2009, I gave the metal stringed guitar away to a friend that was in a bit of a low point in life. We made plans to hook up with a guitar instructor and take up lessons together. My friend was completely disorganized, on two occasions he couln't set up the meeting. So we just left it at that.

In 2010 my father began playing the piano daily, after it had been accumulating dust for the past 2 years. Seeing my father play with such dedication motivated me to take another shot at the guitar. He had a tutor at the "Escola de Musica de Moçambique", in the spur of the moment I told him I wanted to take up the guitar, this time for good, he thought it was a marvellous idea saying how an instrument can take you outside of all the worries. My dad's piano instructor hooked me up with the first instructor she came accross, a middle aged Cuban immigrant called Eladio Marcet. He looked serious enough, but after the first lesson I realized that I was gonna have a tough time understanding what the heck he was saying, trust me Tony Montana's accent is nothing compared to his thick Spanish/Portuguese mash-up. At times I had to ask him to repeat himself 3 or 4 times. Once again I started form ground zero, he taught me the proper posture, position, he showered me with theory, upon theory, upon theory, guitar staffs and all this stuff I couldn't find myself revising.
He always said, "tienes de practicar mais!!".
I'd dose off in his lessons, maybe it was the theory maybe it was the time (8:40am was too early for me at that time). Then he started skipping lessons. I'd wait in the school halls and he wouldn't show up. I'd call him and he'd tell me he was at the hospital tending to his sick wife or having car problems or something, all these delays put me off, and eventually I just stopped going there. We haven't spoken since.

One day in late 2010, I bumped into that friend of mine. He looked beat up, at 24 he was at University studying psychology, but had mediocre grades, paraded around lonely and couldn't get a date. He had taken up Taekwondo twice and quit, he had no other hobbies apart from playing the playstation, his conversations were generic, I'd known him for five years but right there talking to him I came to one conclusion, he had no self-esteem, the man was lost in life. At that moment in time I had a string of hobbies, swimming, asthanga yoga, tennis, creative writing, staying informed on current affairs, but I wasn't happy at my part time job and I didn't have a girl. I didn't want to be or end up like him. To add insult to injury he too hadn't touched the guitar in ages.

I did not want to quit learning, I'd had four different instructors and none of them worked out. It was in my grandma's 90th birthday party, November 6th, 2010, where I saw a prodigal kid playing the guitar. He left everybody's mouths agape. Sometime after the performance I approached him, congratulating him then asking him where he learnt how to play, he simply said, "on YouTube", in awe I exclaimed, "you got that good just by watching videos?!" and he replied, "yeah", and he summarily excused himself cause his family was about to leave. That kid must have been 12 years old, if a little kid like that could to that, I could do that. When I got home that same day I began searching for guitar sites. I found chordbook.com, which is so brilliant, it gives you the chords, the scales, the different tunings and other cool stuff. I began to self-teach, firstly by learning all major, minor and sharp/flat chords, revising them hours on end. At first it was painful, chords like D9 were close to impossible to play, my arm kept complaining, my wrist hurt, my finger tips were sore, I'd play take a break every five minutes. Yet I was tanacious, I had cramps on my hands for almost two weeks but refused to put the instrument down. I applied an anti-inflammatory gel to soothe my hands and began exercising my hands with a hand grip before playing. The cramps eventually went away and instead I've got permanent blisters on the tips of my left index, middle, ring and pinky, numbing all the pain. I bought an electronic chromatic tuner, this time inspecting well before the purchase. Then I found another neat site megachords.com, giving me access to over 10400 guitar chords for different songs. I made a list, Bryan Adams (Heaven, Please forgive me), Michael Jackson (Black or White, Give into me, The way you make me feel), Enrique Iglesias (Escape), Nickleback (Hero), Eagles (Hotel California), Mariah Carey (Angels Cry), Celine Dion (My heart will go on), Ray J (Can we fall in love). I figured I didn't need to learn how to read notes on a staff and found the process to go much smoother, many of the greats don't know much theory. Ever since I've practised EVERY DAY. I've subscribed to some online tutors on youtube and stream videos after midnight (happy hour!).

I plan to excel at this instrument, I love what it does to me. I kill time with it, it makes me more creative and it's an escape. Ever since I started playing, I found a part-time job that I like, I've been meeting more girls, somehow things are falling more into place. I see myself serenading ladies one day, I see myself performing my own compositions one day. I believe my new hobby is improving every area of performance, opening new chanels in my brain. Sounds a bit overzealous but it's the best thing that's happened to me lately, I'd rather stay home playing the guitar than going out to get trashed in some party. This is my new passion and it's a never ending school I intend to keep going!

Edgar Munguambe 261210

Ray J - Can We Fall In Love

Momentum

I sit on my chair and contemplate this November 8th
A few things were great about this past year
Yet I still see hurdles jump
My number 1 objective is to finish my degree
Shit happened before but mark my words I’m back for that award
Stamped!
With distinction, wanna bet?
You can’t buy education, I ain’t just talking academically I’m talking intelligence
I’ve met a bunch of my dear Mozambique’s urban youth that never read a single book
But they think they rule town, flossing pictures on facebook
Anyways media and communication are the medium through which I vent my creation
Events, a language or two, comic books, poetry books, slams, radio programs
....got too many plans versus one lifespan
I can be lazy when unmotivated
Extremely driven when inspired
But I found a formula, if I maintain momentum I’ll never need to get back on track
My work ethic’s a chain reaction
I’m like a snowball, once rolling I grow exponentially
You can’t imagine my potential!
For those who knew me, you don’t know me
For those who know me, my hommies, you are my testimonies
Girls of past since November last, you know who you are
Privately I showed you me, poetic, athletic, academic
I look fresh to death cause I take care of my health
From my twisted dreads to my toned physique
I’m not full of me, in fact I’m quite low key
Cause I could brag about my family, mon...
...Hey let’s now even go there
Bottom line girls and acquaintances alike,
If you don’t give any feedback, I’ll just leave it at that
I don’t chase waterfalls, after all it’s not my fault you don’t see the full picture
I thank the rest of you all the birthday love, giving me more motivation for climbing up!!
Happy birthday to me, this is Ed signing out!!
1 luv

081110