One Year in NYC for this Afrolicious Girl!

Damn...I cannot believe that it's been a whole year since I came here..that is insane !Ne way,I think of how I would have been starting college this year like the rest of my friends who graduated in Ethiopia...but I'm here now...second year in college as of Fall 2008.I honestly feel like I rediscovered ,as well as discovered myself here in NYC this past year.By that I mean that I rediscovered my passion for writing ,and with the endless opportunities that await me ,I am excited to begin my career here.I have also discovered my passion towards ending the negative stereotypes of Africa and Im on that boat full force I tell you..New York has made me sure of what I want to so with my life as an African 19 yr old..If it hadn't been for NY I would have never started this blog.So I'm glad that life worked out the way it has for me so far..And I can't wait to see what else is in store for me...cuz i see that the horizon is bright!

Remember that Africa Rocks..alwayz...love Maz.

African Baby Carrying

This has come a very long way! If you have seen all those modern baby carriers.....ask yourself:
Where did they come from? Well you guessed right- we have something similar in Africa! See how marvellous the continent is! Our ancestors were so intelligent that they figured out a way of carrying babies around so that they wouldn't have to leave them unattended while performing their daily chores.

Therefore today, many parts of Africa practice this method of baby carrying:

The child is placed on the mother's back. Usually baby carrying is introduced to infants who are at least 3/4 months after birth- it may even go up the age of 2 years of age( Depending on the child's weight). Okay back to instructions; then the baby is wrapped in a nice piece of cloth and tied to the mother's back (it doesn't have to be the mother...it can be any responsible person). There are many ways of wrapping the baby to the back- its really the mothers choice!(or any responsible person). African baby carrying is an awesome way of doing two things at once- looking after a child while attending to other things e.g cooking, washing etc. It isn't practiced in the villages only as people may assume.This is why when you are walking in the streets of most African countries, you will see many proud women and girls walking around carrying babies on their backs (with beautiful cloth wraps) while they are selling goods or simply having a good time!

By the way if you want to try it just make sure that the cloth is well tied so that you don't drop the baby! Otherwise African children enjoy it-they even go to sleep if they trust the person carrying them and if the person has a nice comfortable back!

Isn't that an original way of being proud of being African!

(if you would like to correct or add in more information please feel free to kindly post your comments)

YES I'M AFRICAN AND NO...

YES I'M AFRICAN AND NO.....

1). We do not live in trees -we have houses made out of brick.Sure there are shacks and metal houses and mud huts in the poor areas but not everywhere..

2).Africa is not one country .It's a continent.Like South-America or Asia and it is made up of 52 independent countries...

3)We don't all have five mother's because our fathers are polygamists.Sure some tribes still practice that but its not like everyone does it.

4)We don't have lions as pets .We have zoos and national parks .

5)It's not called the "click "language.It's called Xhosa and is spoken in South Africa.Google that.

6).We do not speak "African".We have a lot of different tribes.Zambia has about 72 languages alone.

7)Our lives are not all like Nigerian movies !

8)We don't walk around "Naked".We have clothes!

9)The Ethiopian famine is not still on .It ended in 1984 .

10)"Black Hawk Down "is over.Way over !



So there you go .I've set the record straight .Go get educated with google.com before you open your mouth and diss us about our continent.

And please feel free to add to this list.Im looking forward to watching the list reach a 100.Im sure you can think of some more .I heard that there's a group on Facebook about the dumbest things that you've ever been asked about Africa.Im not sure what it's called but I'll keep you posted and if u've already heard about it ,be informed that this is a chance to holla back and educate the ignorant .
I have to end this by remembering having a similar conversation with one of my closest friend's Lawrence (Who will definitely appear on this blog regularly ).He once told me that someone at our College asked him where he was from in terms of continent and they said that he" looked cute for an African ".He didn't take that as an insult because he's the sweetest guy ever but let's just hope that someone reads this .


PS:He's good looking for any race...lol