Author Spotlight no.235 – Nicole Dunlap.

Reblogged from JaniceHeck:

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Today is G-Day in the A to Z Challenge. So how about some grammar?

I admit it. I love grammar.

Ever since the third or fourth grade when we had to do those error hunts in our English book, I have loved grammar. Of course, those error hunts are considered so out-of-date now. Even so, some schools persist in this textbook approach.

Read more… 292 more words

Reblogged from Jcckeith:

Reblogged from the CITIZENS of FASHION:

I shudder to think what I let slip by through self-abuse and alcohol.

Those days have passed, most thankfully. Not sure how I made it through.

If I look back, through that tiny crack, I see a zillion faces like you.

Faces filled with sadness, faces hiding shame. What weakness was this?

Faces that urged me to carry on, “Try this one, it will give you bliss!”

A zillion hard old bridges that I  did not need to cross.

Could have turned out like so many who lay covered now in moss.

The steps I starting taking  seemed like a zillion long.

The faces looking brighter and me just playing along.

Twenty thousand steps go by and a candle shines the way.

Still something lurks and weighs me down like sedimentary clay.

“Step higher, honey, raise the bar.” they called out now to me.

I had to burn the contract held to a tolerable degree.

More steps are mastered one by one, the end not quite in sight.

But surely now the signs are pointing to a life of  less contrite.

Although I live a life that I must always keep in check.

I thank the zillion faces that were tough with no regret.

I send a zillion apologies and a zillion thank yous too.

To the zillion faces, who lifted me  while I tried to  eschew.

From my heart – thank you.

My yurt has been my happy home for as long as I can remember. I share it with my parents and our dog. I have a little room that I can call my own, but the really cool thing is that it’s outdoors where I roam! Our yurt is by a bush that surrounds a small lake.  It is built with canvas and poles that hold it up just right. There are windows all around it and a big old wooden door.  I have a rag rug, a friend made, placed on the wood floor.

The snow has piled up around the yurt on this cold day. The wood stove is working a little hard to keep us warm.  The dog is curled up in front of it, so I just lay beside him. When the snow stops I’ll get my snowshoes and go for a walk with the dog.

I don’t know anything that is different about living in my circle home. I don’t know why kids laugh at it when they come by either. I have some friends that think my house is cool.  I have gone to friends houses and I really don’t like the square walls and straight walls and small windows. I like the big windows and the wall poles and roof poles and all the wood that we polish. I like the canvas on the outside because it looks like a tent. I like the deck that goes around it to because I can run and run and never reach the end.

I like to see whatever the windows show me each morning. The deer and moose play hide and seek  chase each other around. I see the babies in the spring. I watch the rabbits color change from winter white to summer brown and back again.  I see the caterpillars curl up in leaves and turn into butterflies.  I watch the flowers jump up from deep in the ground and show the sun their face.  The skunks are really silly and they tumble around the ground.  Have you ever seen the likes of a baby beaver, or porcupine? So cute, they are. You’ll never guess how many birds have flown through the yurts front door.  We’ve chased them out and then turned around to chase out another four.

I can’t think of anything else that I could compare this to.  I don’t know if I could ever possibly live in the city or small town.  I am not afraid of people, but I like it better when they’re not around.

I love my yurt!

Thank you.  Jamie’s journal  – over and out!

Reblogged from Dean J. Baker - Poetry, and prose poems:

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This is how I feel today:  in fact
a Saturday in sunshine, the fields across
the highway I look over bathed in blue sky

No population streams, no spawning salmon
dreams of glory, renewal and calm death:
besides everything remains familiar, yet

New, while I wish you would find me
where there were welcoming friends,
as I sit astride my cold redoubt, all the…

Read more… 225 more words

The Xhosa are part of the South African Nguni migration which slowly moved south from the region around the Great Lakes, displacing the original Khoisan hunter gatherers of Southern Africa. Xhosa peoples were well established by the time of the Dutch arrival in the mid-17th century, and occupied much of eastern South Africa from the Fish River to land inhabited by Zulu-speakers south of the modern city of Durban.

The Xhosa and white settlers first encountered one another around Somerset East in the early 18th century. In the late 18th century Afrikaner trekboers migrating outwards from Cape Town came into conflict with Xhosa pastoralists around the Great Fish River region of the Eastern Cape. Following more than 20 years of intermittent conflict, from 1811 to 1812 the Xhosas were forced east by British colonial forces in the Third Frontier War.

In the years following, many Xhosa-speaking clans were pushed west by expansion of the Zulus, as the northern Nguni put pressure on the southern Nguni as part of the historical process known as the mfecane, or “scattering”. The Xhosa-speaking southern Nguni people had initially split into the Gcaleka and the Rharhabe (who had moved westwards across the Kei river). Further subdivisions were made more complicated by the arrival of groups like the Mfengu and the Bhaca from the Mfecane wars. These newcomers came to speak the Xhosa language, and are sometimes considered to be Xhosa. Xhosa unity and ability to resist colonial expansion was further weakened by the famines and political divisions that followed the cattle-killing movement of 1856. Historians now view this movement as a millennialist response both directly to a lung disease spreading among Xhosa cattle at the time, and less directly to the stress to Xhosa society caused by the continuing loss of their territory and autonomy.

Some historians argue that this early absorption into the wage economy is the ultimate origin of the long history of trade union membership and political leadership among Xhosa people.   That history manifests itself today in high degrees of Xhosa representation in the leadership of the African National Congress, South Africa’s ruling political party.

Language is mainly Bantu origin that encompasses about 18% of south African populations but can also be understood with Zulu speaking people. Among its features, the Xhosa language famously has fifteen click sounds, originally borrowed from now extinct Khoisan languages of the region. Xhosa has three basic click consonants: a dental click, written with the letter “c”; a palatal click, written with the letter “q”; and a lateral click, written with the letter “x”. There is also a simple inventory of five vowels (a, e, i, o, u). Some vowels however may be silent. In other words, they can be present in written language but hardly audible in spoken language. This happens especially at the end of the word. This is because the tone of most Xhosa words is lowest at the end.

Folklore and Religion

Traditional Xhosa culture includes diviners known as amagqirha.This job is mostly taken by women, who spend five years in apprenticeship. There are also herbalists amaxhwele, prophets izanusi, and healers inyanga for the community.

The Xhosas have a strong oral tradition with many stories of ancestral heroes; according to tradition, the leader from whose name the Xhosa people take their name was the first King of the nation. One of Xhosa’s descendents named Phalo gave birth to two sons Gcaleka, the heir and Rharabe a son from the Right Hand house. Rharhabe the warrior wanted Gcaleka’s throne but was defeated and banished and settled in the Amathole Mountains. Maxhobayakhawuleza Sandile Aa! Zanesizwe is the King in the Great Place in Mngqesha. The Zwelonke Sigcawu was crowned King of the Xhosa on 18 June 2010.

The key figure in the Xhosa oral tradition is the imbongi (plural: iimbongi) or praise singer. Iimbongi traditionally live close to the chief’s “great place” (the cultural and political focus of his activity); they accompany the chief on important occasions – the imbongi Zolani Mkiva preceded Nelson Mandela at his Presidential inauguration in 1994. Iimbongis’ poetry, called imibongo, praises the actions and adventures of chiefs and ancestors.

The supreme being is called uThixo or uQamata. Ancestors act as intermediaries and play a part in the lives of the living; they are honoured in rituals. Dreams play an important role in divination and contact with ancestors. Traditional religious practice features rituals, initiations, and feasts. Modern rituals typically pertain to matters of illness and psychological well-being.

Christian missionaries established outposts among the Xhosa in the 1820s, and the first Bible translation was in the mid-1850s, partially done by Henry Hare Dugmore. Xhosa did not convert in great numbers until the 20th century, but now many are Christian, particularly within the African Initiated Churches such as the Zion Christian Church. Some denominations combine Christianity with traditional beliefs.

Clan Names

Xhosa clan names (isiduko (sing.), iziduko (pl.) in Xhosa) are family names which are considered more important than surnames among Xhosa people.^{[citation needed]} Much like the clan system of Scotland, each Xhosa person can trace their family history back to a specific male ancestor or stock. Mentioning the clan name of someone you wish to thank is the highest form of respect, and it is considered polite to enquire after someone’s clan name when you meet them. The clan name is also sometimes used as an exclamation by members of that clan.

When a woman marries she may take her husband’s surname, but she always keeps her own clan name, adding the prefix Ma- to it. A man and a woman who have the same clan name may not marry, as they are considered to be related. (Which I found interesting.)

There is a long list of names availble at this link.    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xhosa_clan_names

Food

The Xhosa settled on mountain slopes of the Amatola and the Winterberg Mountains. Many streams drain into great rivers of this Xhosa territory including the Kei and Fish Rivers. Rich soils and plentiful rainfall make the river basins good for farming and grazing making cattle important and the basis of wealth.

Traditional foods include beef (Inyama yenkomo), mutton (Inyama yegusha), and goat meat, sorghum, milk (often fermented, called “amasi“), pumpkins (amathanga), Mielie-meal(maize meal), samp, beans (iimbotyi), vegetables, like “rhabe”, wild spinach reminiscent of sorrel, “imvomvo”, the sweet sap of an aloe, or “ikhowa”, a mushroom that grows after summer rains.

Please check out this link for an interesting array of food choices: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_cuisine#Typical_South_African_foods_and_dishes

Arts and Crafts

Traditional crafts include beadwork, weaving, woodwork and pottery.

Traditional music features drums, rattles, whistles, flutes, mouth harps, and stringed-instruments and especially group singing accompanied by hand clapping. There are songs for various ritual occasions; one of the best-known Xhosa songs is a wedding song called “Qongqothwane, performed by Miriam Makeba as “Click Song #1″. Besides Makeba, several modern groups record and perform in Xhosa. Missionaries introduced the Xhosa to Western choral singing. “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika“, part of the National anthem of South Africa is a Xhosa hymn written in 1897 by Enoch Sontonga.

The first newspapers, novels, and plays in Xhosa appeared in the 19th century, and Xhosa poetry is also gaining renown.

Several films have been shot in the Xhosa language. U-Carmen eKhayelitsha is a modern remake of Bizet‘s 1875 opera Carmen. It is shot entirely in Xhosa, and combines music from the original opera with traditional African music. It takes place in the Cape Town township of Khayelitsha.

More on this aspect can be found here:   http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Rwanda-to-Syria/Xhosa.html

The Xhosa People of Today

This section did need verification according to Wikikpedia.

Under apartheid, adult literacy rates were as low as 30%, and in 1996 studies estimated the literacy level of first-language Xhosa speakers at approximately 50%.  There have been advances since then, however.

Education in primary-schools serving Xhosa-speaking communities is conducted in isiXhosa, but this is replaced by English after the early primary grades. Xhosa is still considered as a studied subject, however, and it is possible to major in Xhosa at university level. Most of the students at the University of Fort Hare speak isiXhosa. Rhodes University in Grahamstown, additionally, offers courses in isiXhosa for both mother-tongue and non-mother-tongue speakers. These courses both include a cultural studies component. Professor Russel H. Kaschula, Head of the School of Languages at Rhodes, has published multiple papers on Xhosa culture and oral literature.

The effects of government polices during the years of apartheid can still be seen in the poverty of the Xhosa who still reside in the Eastern Cape. During this time, Xhosa males could only seek employment in the mining industry as so-called migrant labourers. Since the collapse of apartheid, individuals can move freely.

After the breakdown of apartheid, migration to Gauteng and Cape Town is increasingly common, especially amongst rural Xhosa people.

Resources are from:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xhosa_people   , http://www.africanholocaust.net/peopleofafrica.htm#x

I hope you enjoyed this little bit of history brought to you by the letter “X”.

He’s invaded every space that’s within my little home.

His webs are in my face each morn when I leave my bed.

They’re in my mouth, my ears and bear that I call ol’ Ted.

I found them in the covers, but I don’t know how come,

He found a way to web the bedpost where I stash my gum.

I asked for help the other day to chase it from my room.

We cleaned and swept only to find its webbery did resume.

I may seem tired of trying and you’re right would be my guess.

I cannot seem to squash this little bug, nevertheless.

So I will have to ponder about what I will do next.

I feel I’m overpowered, alas, a little vexed.

Perhaps I shall observe him, stare quiet as a mouse,

Or maybe just give up and build for him a little house!

As I lay there, with the side lamp burning bright, I saw some things I’d never noticed.  I never saw the spider that made a home in the corner of the ceiling.  I sure hoped he would stay there all night! I wouldn’t like to know that he moved about the room and crawled into my bed!

I really never noticed the books that line the shelf. But they are quite colorful and lighten up the room.

I never saw the way the light dances off the ceiling bumps before.  They look like little fairy huts with fire-pot glowing here and there.  I do not mind these visitors, in fact they bring me peace.

I never saw the tiny crack above the window before. Was the house falling in around me? I sure hope that it would not spread more before I able to tell someone. I would not want to having the house come crashing on my head!

I never noticed the smile that was on the face of the clown my mother used to own. It sits up on a shelf with more friends both young and old. The porcelain doll that Grandpa passed to me, is watching like an angel brave to keep me safe.

I never noticed that there are too many toys in the box. They seem to spill up and over their home without a purpose or thought.  I might have to give some of them away to someone who needs a smile too.

I never noticed how soft and warm my blankets are on me. The patchwork quilt, the flannel quilt, the cotton sheets, the feather pillows wrapped with  sweet lavender satchets.

My eyes are feeling heavy, but I hear the footfalls coming. I never noticed how soft the rug is that protects the floor. As Mother draws closer, I know the end  of day is near.  She reads to me so softly, soothing my mind.

As I drift off to slumberland, I float above my room.  I never noticed just how full it is. It’s full of life and happiness and tears that fall some days. It’s full of art and dreams and special things.  I see that I am loved and kept protected as best can be.

I sleep… so soundly… not even noticing… that spider is curled up with me!