Sex Plus Violence makes a Motswana man

Man’s hand holding a woman hand for rape and sexual abuse, Hands for rape and sexual abuse concept, Sexual abuse is a problem or Social issues concept.

Before I even start this article(some might call it a rant) I want to give a desclaimer that I know not all men, not all Batswana men, not all black men.
Alright, now that we got that out of the way, have you ever asked yourself why it seems like when a Motswana man speaks about sex, describes sex the language is always super aggressive and violent?
Coming back home to Botswana from my last jaunt abroad, I decided to take a different tactic to life. I have always stayed as far away as possible from people in my enviroment, isolated myself from my enviroment in my small town and in my country since I just could not understand it and in turn felt it didn’t understand me back. Iv always felt like the oddball out, the macaroon in a sea of choclate chip cookies.

Feeling misunderstood and judged because of my hippy, tree hugger ways. So many instances taught me to simply keep my thoughts to myself and simply enjoy my own life because when the people around me got to know the type of things that went on in my mind they would for sure judge or laugh or completely ignore me, and when I was young the laughter and ignorance felt much worse than anything. I remember when I was around 14 years old I saw one of my favorite trees in my community be cut down and it cut me to the bone, I spent the whole week crying for that tree and people would just stare at me like I had lost my mind. I especially found the male species especially frightening, confusing and ultimately life threatening: I had a horrible sense that when they looked at me all they wanted was sex and that was the hell on earth I vowed to avoid at all costs. So I pretty much learnt to keep my ways to myself and wait for a chance to be out in the world with same minded individuals.

Living all over Asia for over 9years, I finally found my tribe, like minded, free spirited people who loved and understood me. So when I came back home after all these years away I took a decision to give my environment an actual chance, with no judgments, no hesitations and walls and boy did I ever have my fears confirmed.
Men in Botswana look at women like they walk around naked, like we are not even human like them, like we are just walking vaginas to be competed over and possessed for a time until it doesn’t suit them anymore. Worse, they even talk about when in that manner, talk to women in this manner and truly believe they are allowed, culturally, morally, legal and everyway in between to simply grab and touch and do as they please at any moment without permission or a care in the world.

Women are clearly made to satisfy their desires, sexual, financial and otherwise and to really show that all they care is about themselves and how they have been groomed to treat women like their personal toys just look at the way sex is described so violently by these men. From beginning of culture, in our language, in our music, in our society, do you see it?

Man’s hand holding a woman hand for rape and sexual abuse, Hands for rape and sexual abuse concept, Sexual abuse is a problem or Social issues concept.

It’s like the took the line “I beat the p*#& up” and ran a million miles with it.
Sad to think that we have many generations of men in our midst who do not understand the meaning and power of an actual genuine connection, men who view women and people, like them. Don’t get me wrong, I know there are a lot of men in our environment who aren’t like that, who respect women and don’t take the literal sense to beating the kitty up, the problem is that the majority of our male population is on the far opposite side of this spectrum, and the ones who respect women do not take the time to correct and show their friends how toxic and unhealthy their ways are. It’s our responsibility to raise a future generation of men who are different. A generation based on culture that is free from violence.

Lets talk about sex..

My whole life I have always known that I am the type of girl who knew sex for fun/ casual sex just isnt for me. The idea of having a one night stand and never talking to that person again always terrified me.

I have always been a relationship kind of woman, I mean I am good at them, I believe I make a fantastic girlfriend, and because of that I probably end up choosing emotionally unavailable men who are selfish and want to have my life revolve all around them. I find myself in relationships that offer lack luster sex that both unsatisfactory and requires a whole lot of performance from me.

Six months back I was newly single after a 2 and a half year relationship and in my healing journey and growth from that relationship I decided to try something new that I have never tried. In order to explore my sexuality a bit more and see if maybe I could have the type of sex that other women talk about, the explosions, the big O, the clawing of the sheets and curling of the toes, I decided to see if I could do something totally alien to me.

I decided to try a “Friends with benefits” / “fuck buddies” situationship, first thing I had to do was look for a person who I not only feel comfortable with, but one who I might be able to have amazing sexual chemistry with. I kind of tried to also choose someone who I felt was a friend as well, someone I could have conversations with and not feel completely uncomfortable with and I chose him and we decided to have some fun.

It was fun, and even though I did not have the most amazing experience and I didnt achieve the big O still, I had a bit of fun, what I never thought about was the fact that I might get attached to this person in ways I didnt imagine, I didnt really factor in how much of an emotional being I am and how just having a few sexual experiences with this person might have me feeling attached and lonely at the same time because we already made it clear that we want nothing but sex from each other. Becoming a little obsessed about wanting his attention, wishing he would text me, wanting to be around him was never a part of my plan, and now having to disassociate from him and push myself away had me feeling all types of sadness.

Lets have a discussion, have you ever been in a friends with benefits situation and how did you deal with the ending of it?

Life As A Fresh Graduate..

I finally graduated University… YAAAAYYY!

Now if only someone told me that having graduated means i’ll be sitting in my mother’s house, all day long, doing absolutely nothing, zilch, nada, nien, I mean literally just chewing my nails all day for months on end waiting for responses from companies I would have chosen to stay in Uni a few more months.

Life as a graduate sucks giant, hairy ballz. I’m not even sure why I was supposed to go to University anymore.

It is so annoying to apply to a hundred plus companies and face a hundred plus rejections every single day . I’m not going to lie, facing so much rejection on a daily bases and doing nothing but be a literal unpaid caretaker of my mom’s home has me going into a deep dark hole of depression. After graduating from my Bachelor I only found internship jobs while my peers literally scaled the nine to five ladder and then I believed getting a Master’s degree will up my chances of actually getting a job and maybe a little apartment with a nice balcony as well as maybe a cat and two dogs and be merry in my life. Turns out I was deluded and God seems to have had other plans for me, to instead be here, in this Godforsaken place with people who annoy the shit out of me on a daily bases people with no goals, or dreams or even interest in nothing but the ordinary and die a slow painful death of boredom..

I have been trying t keep a positive attitude and know that soon , someday something will come around and doors will open but it is so darn hard to try and keep my faith alive.

10 Things No One Tells You About Living In China

If you follow my blog you will know that I have been living abroad for close to a decade now ( I am from Botswana), 5years in Malaysia studying my Bachelors, close to a year traveling different parts of Asia and around 2 years in China and out of all the countries I have been to in Asia I have enjoyed living in China the most.

There are a lot of things people believe about China and how life here is for a foreigner but when I finally made the move to China I had absolutely zero expectations, I kept my mind open and I never expected to have the life I have her as well as to experience the things I have here. There is a lot that will surprise you about living in China, probably the list is longer than you can imagine, but I will just share the top 10 things solely based on my own experiences.

1.  Everyone speaks Mandarin
   And I mean everyone, being from an English speaking country as well as having lived in a country, Malaysia, where most of everyone communicated mostly in English, I never expected that most Chinese people can not communicate in English, from the moment I arrived in the airport not a single person who works there could speak English, I had to basically show them my documents for them to understand where I needed to go so as to assist me. Further more its not just the locals who do not speak English, since the most popular reason why foreigners come to China is to learn Chinese language, most foreigners do not communicate in English, mostly everyone just communicates in Mandarin and its not rare to meet a lot of foreigners from non English speaking countries who cant even hold a 5minute conversation in English, which is a good thing I guess because it forces you to learn and improve your Chinese.
2. You will meet people from all walks of life
   In the last 2years I have made friends from so many different countries, so many different cultures, so many continents and spheres of life that I feel like my mind and knowledge of different cultures has been broadened. I have friends from Pakistan, Vietnam, Mongolia, Ukraine, Belgium, America, Ecuador, Spain, Italy, Cameroon, Samoa, you name it you will find it in China. You will probably meet people from countries you have never even heard about and realize that as much as their cultures and way of life might be completely different from yours, you are basically all the same. And with many friends of course comes the opportunity to travel to so many different places because there is already someone from that place that you go to, meaning a chance to explore so many different cultures and countries.
3. Chinese people are pioneers of shameless stares
   You have no idea how many times I have been stared at either on the streets walking, on the subway, in malls, everywhere. They look at you and even point sometimes saying “Laowai” which means foreigner and even if you look at them to show them that you see they have absolutely no problem, unlike in other cultures where the person might be embarrassed to have been caught staring and look away, here there is no such thing, they will continue staring, maybe even pull out their phone to take a picture or video of you. As much as some people might be bothered by this, I have absolutely no problem with it because I understand they are simply curious, they are not doing it to be rude and honestly havent you ever wanted to feel like a superstar a little bit. Well then come to China, paparazi everywhere.
4. China is the land of opportunity
   They say America is the land of opportunity, but really China is the ultimate land of opportunity for foreigners, whether its teaching English, working as a translator, working in foreign companies, studying, whatever it might be China is the one place were foreigners are embarrassed and cherished in terms of opportunities just because you are a foreigner. You get to travel for free sometimes just because some nice locals want to practice their English, or because a TV station needs a foreign face for a commercial, or a movie. There is so much one can do here as a foreigner that the opportunities are endless.
5. Wechat is life
   If you don’t know what wechat is then you have obviously never been to China. WeChat is a Chinese multi-purpose instant messaging, social media and mobile payment app developed by Tencent. First released in 2011, it became the world’s largest standalone mobile app in 2018, with over 1 billion monthly active users. No one uses whats app in China, wechat is a way of life, used for personal communication, as a means of professional communication, a source of news, method of payment,  platform for sharing videos and pictures, you name it, Wechat has it
6. Iphone is a necessity
   Chinese people love the Iphone wholeheartedly. Every single person has one and those who do not dream of having one. I feel like it is the most used mobile phone brand in China even though there are so many other Chinese phone brands developed in China that are just as good or even maybe better than than the Iphone. I constantly heard stories that Chinese people would go as far as selling body organs just to be able to buy themselves an iphone. Not sure how true that is but those were the stories around town. With every new Iphone that comes out its as if people feel the need to upgrade, sometimes you even find people holding two iphones.
7. Clubbing is free and the drinks are fake
   I was in Beijing for most of my stay in China, but I know for sure that even in Cities like Shanghai clubbing entrance is free for foreigners most of the time because they believe if a club is filled with foreigners, that is where the best party is. You will find foreigners working as Club PRs in different clubs, their job is to get as many foreigners to the club as they can, and clubbing is not only a weekend thing, its a Monday to Monday thing if you want and the worst and best thing is that the drinks are free as well, which means you dont really have to spend, on the flip side, the drinks are mostly fake, and in some clubs they will even make you dead sick the following morning.
8. Drugs are easy to access
   Its hard to believe that a country as strict and as closed off as China (a country that has the worst legal implications of drug offences like should you be caught with a certain amount of drugs you can spend a life sentence in prison, or even be deported and banned from ever entering China for many years) could have such an easy access to drugs. In different clubs foreigners and Chinese people alike have access to drug dealers. The level of drug usage in Beijing especially was always a huge shock to me and my friends because some people where always so callus and free with their usage.
9. There are more smokers than none smokers
   The Chinese tobacco market is one of the biggest in the whole entire world. Everyone smokes, every where. In public, in restaurants, at the train station, on sidewalks. Literally everyone from teenagers to old people smoke and cigarettes are so cheap compared to in other countries and smoking is sort of a social act, a way to socialize and interact in a social space. It is so bad that I left my country smoking a pack a month maybe, and living in China for almost three years I found myself smoking a pack a day, such a bad habit and yet most of us never even realized how much we smoked because it was so normalized in China.
10. Travel is relatively inexpensive
    Travelling and seeing most places in China is not as expensive as you might imagine. Of course buying a plane ticket from a different continent as well as paying for a hotel in different Chinese places might be expensive, but if you are living in China and want to travel around it is pretty affordable. And anywhere you go you will find friendly people like cab drivers, and restaurant owners who are always ready and willing to assist you with whatever you might need. Since China is such a vast country with diverse scenery, environments and climates, you are sure to  be amazed by all the different places. Another thing is the Chinese people are very creative in making tourist attractions like The Bailong Elevator(a glass double-deck elevator built onto the side of a huge cliff in the Wulingyuan area of Zhangjiajie, that is 326 m (1,070 ft) high)

The list was for sure longer than this because there are so many things that make China a completely different experience from living anywhere else on this planet. If you want to know more just let me know in the comments

Rape Culture in African Culture

Being from an African country, I’m from a small country called Botswana in Southren Africa, I grew up mostly listening to how grown ups and society at large victim blaming when it came to rape issues.

Even worse is if there is alcohol involved people automatically make it seem like the girl or gay man raped deserved it. You hear people saying things like

“Well what was she doing drunk with men?

“She should’nt have been drunk anyway, she deserved it”

Somehow men are allowed, in societal eyes, to take what is not theirs just because the girl was doing this, or because she did not do that. Now that I am older, I came to the realization that the culture of rape is so deeply engraved into our heads even more as a grown up when having conversations with my mother and she came out sounding like a well oiled patriarchy machine, saying how much the girl should not be drinking with men and that “many girls are going to be raped even more because they choose to drink alcohol with men” and this made me feel so bad for her generation because that is probably the type of garbage that was drilled into her head from the moment she was young. Taking the opportunity to educate her and have a conversation with her about how it is never the victims fault in a case of rape took a rape ugly turn as she felt like I was supporting “misbehavior” as she puts it and had me wondering what is it going to take for our society to stop viewing women as tools to be taken and used for men to satisfy their needs and especially sexual creatures who deserve to be raped if they choose to indulge in alcohol.

Internalized misogyny is inbred deep into our system, deep into our brains, our hearts and it is the glue that holds our society intact. Women, men and kids alike are taught that women are to blame for everything, if a woman gets raped she must be a bad girl, or asked for it somehow.

Culture and how we are raised also feeds on to this notion that a woman’s job is to make the man happy, a man is a child who needs to be given leeway when he makes mistakes and a woman has the responsibility to create this façade of “class/ respectability” by the way she acts, the way she speaks, the way she dresses and generally the way she exists in the world while a man is free to do as he wishes because he is a man.

In our society a woman or gay man have to think twice about reporting a rape because most of the time even the police will blame her for the rapist’s actions. The kind of dialogue they have in an open room, right in the open in front of 5 and sometimes even 10 or more police officers is not safe and comforting for the victim, the questions asked are usually accusatory and nothing is ever private. This most definitely makes it not only hard but traumatizing for the victim.

This way of thinking and way of life has created a society of perverts, rapists and molesters who 90% of the time get away with their violent, sometimes deadly and disgustingly sexual behavior.

Sometimes I wonder if the culture of rape is so deeply ingrained into the society that change is impossible, because for change to happen, people’s mindset and major parts of our culture have to change.

The curse of Misinformation

Excuse me while I rant for a while.

We all know that this new way of life with this terrible pandemic has altered a lot of things. Turning our lives upside down, the things that used to be normal are now completely unnatural and we have a new normal where Tiktok is ruling the world, the most common conversation anywhere you go is “Covid this, Covid that”.

Now let us discuss the way people (I thought that this might be only people in my country until I realized its basically seems to be the whole human race) have turned to be doctors and journalists. Spreading lies, sharing misinformation and continuously making the worst scenarios possible. Why are we humans like this? Why is it that we are more likely to share negative (unsubstantiated) information rather than positive information?

Why do we crave bad news and horrible despicable news compared to good news? It seems as though we are eager and ready to believe negativity rather than positivity.

Social Media Activism: A popularity contest part 2

Influencers and celebrities using “social media activism” as a publicity booster

In the last post we discussed all the good that social media activism does like getting the world out on a global sphere.  Even though there is a lot of positivity with Social media activism, there has clearly been a lot of negativity around it as well.

Just like everything else on the internet, some activities are shortlived, or has a short life span. One primary behavioral scientific explanation for the notably short half-life of these types of viral campaign is that they mainly leverage ‘extrinsic’ incentives to do ‘good’, rather than cultivating an internally sourced ‘intrinsic’ motivation to help others.  Influencers use this tactic a lot, jumping onto an active campaign in order to amass more followers or to seem sympathetic to whatever situation that is ongoing.

The problem is that these influencers/ celebrities move on pretty fast from the issue, taking their followers’ interest along with them to their new chosen issue at hand. And actually making it seem as if the issue is not as important as before.

Lets take an example of Angelena Julie and the situation in Afghanistan right now, she 3 weeks ago she opened an instagram account and within three hours she had amassed 2.1 million followers. Her reason for opening the account was to share a letter from a young Afghan girl.

We can look at this in two ways, is Angelina Jolie’s account there to help and give a voice to those who need it or is she using the plight of the Afghan people to gain a massive social media following?

Social Media activism: a popularity contest: Part 1

In today’s world activism is a much necessary  craze to have any change be made or even be thought about.

A lot of change concerning inequality worldwide throughout the years has been made possible by activism. In today’s world social media activism/ online activism seems to be the way in which change is brought forth. We have seem with the different movements that have taken course in the past few years how social media activism and online exposing of the injustices happening all around us can not only bring forth a much necessary conversation onto the global platform, but bore witness to the punishment of the perpetrators.

Examples of movements that have brought forth change and much necessary conversation is the Metoo movement. The Me Too movement, with variations of related local or international names, is a social movement against sexual abuse and sexual harassment where people publicize allegations of sex crimes. The Me Too movement is an effort to effect social change, organized primarily through social media, where it’s often expressed as #MeToo. Originally founded in 2006, it became prominent both online and in the mainstream in late 2017, when several high-profile actresses opened up about their experiences with sexual harassment in the film industry.

Since then, the movement has provided a source of solidarity for women from all backgrounds who have experienced sexual harassment, most often, though not always, perpetrated by a male colleague. Now, #MeToo has evolved into a global movement, generating new or spinoff hashtags in many languages. It has impacted countries around the world — and has also been transformed by them. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, activism on women’s rights and gender-based violence has not ceased. If anything, in some cases, it has gained new urgency online. I believe that with the pandemic the movement has taken a whole new life especially because cases of domestic violence has increased tenfold. Families spending time together, being forced to isolate and quarantined together has amplified not only sexual abuse cases, but also the amount of sexism and Gender Based violence in the home, this pushing a lot of women to turn more to online support and airing out or exposing their abusers online.

The Metoo Movement is a social media driven revolution, and just like for decades women have been protesting for various things, with the one major reason being for equality and justice. And just like decades back when women fought for a right to vote, or to work, there is always negative publicity as well those who try to show that a movement is doing more harm than good.

What do you believe is the negativity around the #Metoo movement?

The rejection of it all

Having been rejected by various companies in my job search the past 4years has me reverting back to feeling like a child in my home trying hard to get my mother’s attention.

I grew up not even knowing I have abandonment issues, I mean dont get me wrong, I had my mom, a roof over my head, food in my tummy every single day. I was never cold, except for deep in my heart. I never realized how hard I was trying until the job application rejections started coming in the past few years and realized it made me feel exactly how I used to feel as a child.

Ok, a bit of a back story, my childhood was good, well better than most because I never needed for anything, but the truth is I spent my whole childhood in a state of trying to be seen. I always felt like my mum was my whole world and in turn her whole world was my sister. Since my sister was the difficult child I tried hard to be the good child, to not give my mum any problems, to never complain about anything and always try hard to make my mum’s life easier since my sister made her life harder.

Through that all I never got the emotional support I needed as a child, I was a loner as a teenager and buried my head and heart in books, I became a people pleaser and never felt that I was enough, which has seeped into my adulthood and I had to learn that I am enough, and I am worthy as a grown up.

And now, as a grown woman I find myself getting into relationships that arent necessarily good for me at all, relationships with men who are emotionally unavailable. I do everything to try and make people love me the way I want and need to be loved and cared for the way my soul needs..

The rejection of it all I say, is making me feel like a lonely little girl all over again. Deeply starved for attention and love…

The Road less travelled

For years on end I always had a particular narrative about myself, my family and my society in general. The last 4 years have seen me having to not only view these different aspects of my life with a different and more adult eye, but also forced me to accept things how they really are.

It has been a hard few years, which is why I was not even able to post anything. I found myself lost, lost in the confusion of the narrative, lost in my own mind, lost in what I believed is my responsibilities, lost in my stresses. I could not sleep properly, could not even find the energy or inspiration to write. I was entering a new phase, a new chapter in my life and the difficulty of having to accept certain situations was too hard for me.

I found the reality of learn people, to open my eyes and see them for who they really are ( and people closest to me for that matter) and having to accept them as their true selves was too much for my heart and mind.

I found myself huddling towards a deep depression, unable to ask for help, feeling completely alone and completely overwhelmed I retreated into myself.

This is my first post in a long time and I am on my way back to feeling like my true self again.