Conception, Immaculate or in General (Wed 26th)

Do I know where I was conceived? No, my parents were the type who told us “you know when you were conceived, we were in…” not at all like the mothers and fathers in some movies from the United States. There will be at time for everything, even for discovering that fact. When I see Jesus, I believe, he will reveal all the answers, irrespective of how many questions we have asked or are yet to ask. Then we will make love, but I will not conceive.

This blog is about me maundering, writing, in between those obligations of having to study statistics for my own interest, watering the garden, talking and living in my home. I would write about how I live in Windhoek and thereby write “proudly Namibia”, but I think it would be best that I leave it to belong to the world.

There is so much, an immense amount of writing to and yet it is not possible to do it all. However, we can by writing transcend this corporal, space time limitations and “live all those lives” we cannot live, at least according to a write with the last name Alvarez, a woman who speaks about writing as a craft in a collection of essays on writing in the American cultural center.

I would write about how I did not let a professor, who is just called a lecturer in Namibia, cut in front of me in line today. I was waiting in a long que to pay my overdue fee for the library book that I should have renewed by calling, but failed. He had to pay as well, and he just cut infront a long, winding, que of students in the dingy, stygian office building. I stood up for my rights and I wish there was a courteous form in English so I could say : Signore come osa mettersi davanti a tutti noi? Aspetto da due ore per raggiungere questo sportello per pagare e lei non sene frega?

I think I will write more. Affirmative, my next piece will be on the invisibility of men who have sex with men in the public health campaign “break the chain of multiple concurrent partners”. I want to write it in plain simple English, without being too academic, because this is how I will reach a wider audience. The Lord sends out signs and even though I want to begin relearning and deepening my knowledge of CSPro, really I have to write! Gotta write!

Take Care!

Pancho

Morning Wounds

Wounds are delicate. When you wake up after sustaining a wound the day before, it still feels tender even if you are better. At any moment it can sting if you move too much, the puss coming out and the flesh crying. That is what happened this morning, when my mother burst out shouting “don’t mention his name, that dirty bastard, that dirty dog, dirty dog!” as I was on the phone talking with my grandparents , her parents. She would come out of her room and take two steps into the corridor where I was seated and speak close to the ear piece “that dirty dog, dirty dog.”

I upset the wound by speaking about him saying “we were at the concert yesterday that my father organized.”

The household was roused – my little brother so annoyed by all of this, he shouted back, rebuking her like a prophet: “you are just shouting here, what can we do if you two don’t want to live together, people separate all the time….when he is here (was here) you are just quite but then behind the scenes…nonsense man!”

She conceded: “I’m sorry.” But he was not appeased, “next time I will also be noisy.”

He went into the bathroom and me and my mother into our respective rooms. Now the hallway was empty. The wound, but the wound, is still full of puss.

Prayer

She prayed “please God, punish him, the dirty dog, the bastard punish him.”

I look at the string of black beads of my rosary and I want to pray for all these times this has happened, this disruption of tranquility, when my brother was here and now. I want to pray in words, but I feel my heart has already said it all – the “groans that cannot be uttered, that the Spirit prays for us,” which is what St Paul wrote.

Malaria Journal club idea

To: Davis, Scholastica Iipinge, Tom Fox, Kudzai, Dr Hina Mu Ashekele, Prof Enos Kiremire, Dr Ronnie Bock, Percy, Chinsembu

Let us start a malaria journal club! I met with Professor Davis Mumbengegwi and one of his graduate students to speak about his research. It emerged from the meeting that we have common interests in understanding malaria from a variety of angles, namely the evolutionary genetic, pharmacological and anthropological perspectives. It therefore donned on me that a Malaria Journal Club would be the ideal place where researchers, students and prospective graduate students in some field related to the intersection of science and anthropology (that’s me) can learn about how the world is researching this disease.

I sent this email to you because I believe you would be willing to attend and present a paper from the primary literature in the malaria journal club. On a rotating basis, a journal club member will select a paper on malaria, invariably within his or her discipline, and distribute it electronically to the other members. Thereafter, the researcher would present a scientific talk that will present the paper and lead us in an exegesis. I am modeling this on the journal club I attended as an undergrad in the biophysics laboratory of my adviser Eva-Maria Schoetz.

Logistic wise, we can have the meetings in every two weeks in a room where we have access to a projector for a powerpoint presentation. I think UNAM should have such a venue, but how would we go about securing a space? Let us chose a day in the morning when we are able to have the meeting. I do not believe after working hours is a good idea, because the traffic is likely to delay attendance and people may feel exhausted. In addition, I have noticed that people in Namibia often leave the workplace to attend workshops in the morning, so this would not out of the ordinary.

I hope you can all participate in this endeavor so that we will find an multidisciplinary understanding into malaria, whether it be treatment-seeking behaviors of people or the unraveling of the Plasmodium’s best kept secrets at the molecular and cellular level. It is my hope that these different perspectives will yield and most edifying understanding of the problems at hand.

I volunteer myself to present the first paper on the salient finding of Plasmodium vivax malaria is infecting a population group that was until recently regarded as immune: Plasmodium vivax clinical malaria is commonly observed in Duffy-negative Malagasy people, Ménard et al., PNAS, Feb 2010.

I will enjoy presenting this paper as it relates directly the molecular biology I studied for my Bachelor’s degree.

I hope you can reply as soon as possible we can begin.

Regards

Pancho Mulongeni

LGBT letter writing

The earth is hollow. The crust separates the nothingness of outer space from nothingness inside. If the earth was an apple and you bit into it, you find that you were biting into nothing. No that it would pop or explode like a balloon full of air, it would maintain the shape of an apple with a bit missing – like the apple logo, but there would be nothing.

In writing this post, I am returning to the true meaning of Pancho’s brouillons – a blog about nothing and everything that constitutes that nothingness. There is no more to say except:

Yesterday was Friday a very eventful day. I woke up to the sound of my cellphone and a voice in my head saying “you set the wrong alarm!” It was my friend Abdul who sent me an sms about Jesus or the Bible, it was a verse in Ezekiel 33 about death. Heavy verse about punishment and death. So I read the story about Lazurus in the Gospel to remember how the Lord brought the dead back to life.

I found out my letter in The Namibian about the launch of the LGBT network in Namibia and its shortcomings – exclusivity – was published. The fear inside me that I would now have to face my mother and father and who knows else about why I was writing about gay issues swelled up. I felt my article was too critical now, reading it from my room, why did I not talk about public health issues, men who have sex with men, heterosexism emerged in my mind as self critiques. All the while I was just covering up the fact that this was a letter about Lesbians Gay Bisexual and Transgender people having access to the network, it was about gay issues period in general, without specifying too much. I did mention churches, workplaces and places of learning as places were gay people need recognition i.e. they are invisible, as invisible as my article to my parents who did not say a thing, I even wonder if any of them read it! (My dad probably did, he reads The Namibian daily). Then the music started playing as I was there thinking, from the neighbors house across the yard and over the fence, club music, a house song that would be heard in any gay club. This was my indirect way of “coming out” and yet no one saw it. Denial, the power of denial, the veil of denial, the denial of denial; all these things protects them from the truth. That is why I published it – with my name – because I do not underestimate the power of denial. It was as if nothing happened, no letter came out. You may ask why did I not just tell my family about this letter. No. It would be too much for my mother right now, I would just bring her further anguish. For nothing.

I am planning to contact the LGBT network and write to them about how I still want to get involved. Today I found out that yesterday, Friday, the chair or director or whoever sent me an email on facebook asking me to join the fill in a membership form at the facebook group. It was a generic message, my name did not appear. Well did I actually make some waves? It seems so.

Now reading the letter in the paper, I notice so many errors! Oh La, La, oui je l’ai érite sans réfléchir bien que j’aie pensé pendant une heure, marchant dans le magasin et par les rue jusqu'à ce que je me suis mis à écrire la lettre au derrière d’une vielle affiche que j’ai trouve sur le pianoforte dans le studio de danse au collège des arts Windhoek. Comme mon ami Fabrice m’a dit, il aurait fait mieux dire, brièvement et avec élégance : « Malgré tout (la exclusivité de la boume du lancement du réseau LGBT ) c’est une bonne initiative, mais il est important qu’il soit plus inclusif »

Ils l’ont publiée sans avoir rédiger la lettre – avec toutes mes fautes !

I am grateful that The Namibian both advertised and covered the launch of Lesbian Gay Bixsexual and Transgender (LGBT) Network of Namibia. The launch party of the organization was a queer affair – both in the contemporary and antiquated sense of the word. The guests had to fork out N$ 450 dollars to enjoy the dolphin cruise on a boat that brandished the six colored rainbow flag. Lavish and unapologetically gay the event lived up to the flamboyant consumerism that underpins the notion of queer in metropolitan cities around the world. Such decadence, however, was out of place in the launch of a campaign of “equality for all Namibian citizens”, given that at least 40% of Namibians struggle to feed themselves. This made the event strange – queer in the old sense of the word. Racially, it was also strange to see only white people in the photos of the party, because our LGBT community is as multicolored as the LGBT flag.

The origins of the acronym LGBT derive from an attempt at inclusion, rather than the exclusivity evident in the LGBT launch party. The acronym was adopted to encompass the all same sex loving persons who were until then conflated into term “queer”. Accordingly, the LGBT community of San Francisco adopted the six colored rainbow flag (no indigo) to reflect their cultural, racial, sexual and social diversity. Unfortunately, the LGBT network of Namibia appears to have bought into the consumerist aspect of the LGBT subculture that has emerged in the United States, Western Europe and South Africa. I therefore appeal to the LGBT Network of Namibia to launch the organization for the remainder of the Namibian LGBT people who could not afford that Walvis Bay Party of April 24^th.

Given their campaign for equality, I am confident that the LGBT network did not intent to be exclusive, but how many marginalized, poor, LGBT people did they expect to attend this event? The LGBT Network did place itself in a box, in spite of its intentions to do otherwise. To an outsider, the LGBT Network is proof of the homosexuality being a concept foreign, mostly wealthy, white people brought to Africa. Indeed, the organization invited Mr Charl van der Berg – Mr Gay World 2010, whose white South African origins unfortunately play right into the hands of the homophobic discourse of this country. I hope they will find a local Namibians who are representative of the countries polylingual, multicolored people for the second launch party, which I hope to attend.

There is a need for an LGBT network in Namibia, a network that goes beyond facebook, beyond parties. LGBT people are in need of recognition in our universities, schools, armies, churches and a myriad of other places. Though I have my reservations, I must commend the LGBT Network of Namibia for attempting open up opportunities for the minority of same-sex loving people in Namibia. Let us all unite under that goal.

Nonostante tutto cìo non ancora compiuto tutte le cose che volevo fare, rimangano ancora tante cose a scrivere, sopratutto lettere ai miei amici. A Domenic Petrella volevo scrivere : Ciao Domenica come stai ? (Ogni bella lettera si comincia così, anzitutto quando si vuole rimettere in contacto con una persona)

Ti devo dire Domenico che in questi giorno, da un mese fa, circa, penso spesso a te. Non so perchè, magari è dovuto al fatto que sulla RAI international si parlava recentamente del terromoto che aveva colpito il Sud d’Italia due anni fa. La vita in Abruzzo (il tuo paese, vero?) si fu peggiorata a causa del seismo que aveva lasciato tanti edifici distrutti - mucchi di pietre, legno, plastico, vetro e cemento (“cement?”).

Tra l’altro l’impatto psicologico del terremoto sulle diverse communità che ci vivono è imisurabile e grave.

Come stai, ti chiedo ancora una volta, perchè non l’ho fatto quando dovevo in 2008 quando fu sucesso tutto quanto.

A proposito, mi sono laureato da Princeton quasi un anno fa e sono rimasto molto potente, cioe, mi ritengo in grado di fare qualsiasi cosa, grazie alla mia formazione a Princeton. Adesso, uno delle cose che faccio e aiutare mia cugina a superare l’esame del diplomia di scuola media superiore in Namibia. Spero che il mio aiuto – le mie spiegazioni e delucidazioni della matematica che studia – le consenta l’accesso al mondo del lavoro formale. Mi sono reso conto che potevo farlo alcune settimane fa quando ci siamo riuniti per studiare le frazioni (fractions?) a la casa della nostra altra cugina dove vive. Nangobe, la cugina che aiuto, ha di colpo fatto uscire un baratollo di caffè “Illy”, imagina, quello alumino, cilindrico con la parolle “Illy” dipinta in rosso e argente. Mi sono accorto delle opportunità che fin’addesso Dio mi ha consegnato e mi sono detto “Sì lo posso fare, posso aiutare Nangobe.” Nangobe è solo due anni più giovane di noi, ma ha gia un bambino di cui prende cura.

Domenico, prova un piacere dell’anima scrivendoti adesso. Un altra cosa che ti voglio dire prima del termine di questa lettere: Sei bello, sei veramente bello è spero che nessuno ti convincera a pensare altro. Al collegio, lo pensavo ma non ho mai osato dirtelo!

Hello!

Kwathela ndje Kalugna kandje! (Help me my God!)
This is the first sentence I am writing in Oshiwambo – the language of my father – on this blog. And yet, it is just a dialect of Oshiwambo, since Oshiwambo does not exist a single language, unless you consider the mixture and misuse of dialects together as a language.

I need to learn more of it. I believe I will dedicate myself to learning more of it, but then I am also learning Spanish. There is indeed a tension between more of this or that, hay una tensión entre más de este o ese.

That is it for today. Going to bed.
As opposed to a week update, sorry. I prefer to wake up early and do yoga, when I can mediate on the Lord and perhaps on my new dance. It is about me being a fifty something year old lady whose image probably derives from Patracia Hoffbauer, the choreographer and performer of Yvonne Rainers pieces, who teaches at Princeton University. I never took the dance criticism class in my senior year that she taught and yet my dance I am doing here started of as an exercise of physical, performance, criticism.

There is a ballet book called “Princess Ballet Tina” in which Burmese dance is described as unique and beautiful. It is a dance tradition that is relatively unknown to the West, but which is centuries old, just like the ballet. In so far as the dancing is described, emphasis is placed on how it relates the life of the “old imperial court” , the “life of the villages” and “classical Buddhist tales”. The implication is that Burmese dancing is an exotic, eastern, form of ballet, where folk tales are preserved through movement. This assumption is rooted in the narrow minded, occidental view of Burmese dance, one that overlooks the significance, the sacred aspect of this dance for its people. The dance describing the life of the Buddha can only be justly compared to the Bible in the West, rather than to fairy tales told in Ballets. Hence, I was thoroughly incensed by this superficial perspective of Burmese dance.

The dance was analogy a caricature of both ballet and Burmese dance. Having little knowledge of ballet and a stereotypical view of Burmese dance – influence by the popular media – I sought to emphasize how this book caricatured Burmese dance. However, now I have personalized the piece. It is about me, that middle aged lady, fighting back, kicking, pushing, repelling, deflecting all the Christina hegemony. Now I am tapping into movement of disgust – on my face – and in my limbs. Then I am tapping into the feeling of being a locust, one that moves its limbs away quickly when touched in a sign of discomfort, but then stretches them out again. Like when you prick your foot, that type of feeling. I am still working on it.

So I went quite a while here.
That was Thursday
Friday I applied for a job as a lab assistant. Do I really need it? If I were desperate, I would be living of writing, like my father did when he was a student in Bulgaria. He told me so as he paged through my article in the “The Flamingo” magazine, the one he said was good when he first read my first draft. It is published, I was paid about $160 for it and they editor said I could write more – even about health champions – the people the WHO is looking for in 1000 cities around the world (1000 LIVES, 1000 CITIES)
I am going to sleep. I would tell you about how I sent in my application and found out today that the person on other end of hr@polytechnic.edu is on leave. I question whether what the lady told me on the phone in pleasant tones on Friday “yes , if you emailed it to us, it is ok” is actually true. I will check again on Monday.
Why I am applying? Health insurance. What’s the point in writing about health when you have no health insurance?

Letter to Leen

Hey Leen, Happy birthday, belated as it is! Check out my blog! pmulonge.blogspot.com
The Love of Jesus, may you feel it overflow.

Leen was a friend who I fell in love in grade 9. Now I love Jesus, all the time.

Weed Friday 30 April

Pancho Mulongeni

A description afternoon

I wanted to weed the garden observing how they were crowding my growing tomatoes and pumpkins. I thought it would be therapeutic, removing the things in my life that were just suffocating my potential to grow, throttling them and pulling them out, very much the action described by the French verb dérracher – which actually is my own invention, a combination of the verb arracher which is the action of weeding and déraciner, which is to uproot.

I almost did not end up deweeding anything, because I thought that I best come to writing work reviewing an old draft before the workshop today. So I just decided to make a quick pass by the lemon tree to collect that fallen lemon I see under its branches outside my window. But as I walked passed that serrated leaved weed – one of the many in the garden – I reached for its stalk. Spiny it was and I feared that it would prick my hands so much so that I would regret grabbing it later. The image of Jesus and the thorns, however, calmly entered my mind and I realized that through this pain I would rid myself of a nuisance and that I need not fear, because this was nothing compared to the crown of thorns! I pulled it by the base and its thorns turned out to be nettles that broke under my grip. It came out with not too much effort.

That felt like a desirable thing to do again, it was soothing to core of my various sins. I had just weeded out my want for pornography and I was hooked. I came to the others amongst the grasses just under the shade of the low wall. I pulled them all out, one by one, feeling the rush it gave me. There was no more pain or regret or planning of what to do here I was removing it all.

They were troublesome though, those weeds. Though there spines were not hard, they did lodge into my pink’s soft skin. Then I would just try and pull them out quickly to reduce the pain to a quick pinch, but sometimes this would lead to the snapping of their stems. Then I realize these were demons indeed, with white blood and probably healing powers if I did not deracine them! I threw them on the ground, with the clumps of earth at their roots. I did this all along the length of the wall, coming across a little grub rolled up like a snails shell and I reveled in the loamy smell of humus.

The garden was alive with warm wet soil, since it had rained yesterday. It was a dark brown earth and nearly as soft as clay. I realized it would be ideal to cover these weed bodies in the earth and burry them – vanquishing back to the earth, back to the carbon, nitrogen, the CaFeCHOPKINS (and other elements) from whence they came. I did not want them to just lie there in the open. But perhaps it would have been interesting to see how they would like three weeks later, like the old orange I came across. It’s orange peel was covered in a white and green dust here and there and when I squeezed it, puffs of white smoke came out from a small hole in its surface. I wondered whether any creatures lived therein.

In any case, this exercise proved useful for my writing. Now I can hear that “voice” they speak about in writing, emanating from the text. It is an American voice, sadly or fortunately – depending on your stance. Nonetheless, I am a better writer for having weeded.

Old ways

It seems I am going back to old ways - trembling before the computer.While I am writing this post in an attempt to sublimate my desire to go on to porn, I was about to download a porn video of a star called "Spencer Reed". Now I realize I do not want that on my hard drive, apart from the fact I am not aroused by this, any of it and yet I still seek it.

Reed speaks about his life on his blog: "Philip and I are moving in together, it is so great to have such a person in my life...". Yes, while I and others fawn over his videos, where he is absent, he is present somewhere in space, going about his business (apart from pornography) and living his life.

Why did I click "I understand and I wish to continue" before I entered his blog. I am still navigating the google search I have typed in, as always do, but now I am not trembling, or quivering, I am typing. I feel empowered, but at the same time I am aware that I am not disciplined enought to just pull out the modem and stop. I already did that earlier and here I am back again. This blog is my saving grace.

I still seek it and I wonder why. Yes I just clicked on a "I do not wish to continue". Great stuff!

And guess what by saying "no" I end up at the blogger dashboard. The two tabs I have open are harmonized, they are both on my blog! Rather than spiralling out of control and searching for other sites, I found my stable place, where I am writing. There is harmony and the modem is out.

It is over. It is really over.

No matter the fact that I want to see more, really there is nothing for me to gain. Nothing that I can benefit from here, nothing that will bring peace to my spirit or satisfaction to my body. Only the Lord can do that. It is 11:40pm and I going to bed.