I Will Love Afrika ™

---Afrika you were my beginning and you will undoubtedly be my ending. Queen Afrika, the womb from which I was ushered from, the land whose soils clothe my heart with tenacity. I sing a song of hope; I sing a song of light. I sing your praises and I see you in a new dawn. Afrika you were my beginning and you will undoubtedly be my ending---

My beginning....My ending 

Below is a piece entitled "I will Love Afrika" which I have been playing with all night at the expense of my sleep. My love for this place flows deep and can only grow stronger from here.The only mother I have ever known and the woman whose breasts I have suckled from since my inception. Herein is an ode to a place where the beauty and the ugly of the world are merged and can only be detached through magnifiers. I chose to taint mine with visions of butterflies that roam freely, with happiness, equality and an educated youth that determines its own tomorrow.

I will Love Afrika,

For the restless spirits of it’s off spring

For troubled pasts of its tribal groups

For these soils that have dried up my ancestral blood

For pain filled memories that were never eased

For dark clouds of colonialism that never ceased

For surviving the gluttonous state of all oppression

I will Love Afrika,

For shaping the books of the worlds history

Through the lengthy lines of royalty it has bore

For battles fought with bare hands and few weapons

For the reign of Makeda, our Queen of Sheba

The wisdom of woman, of her mystery unsolved 

 For King Moshoeshoe, mora Mokhachane

Naledi ea bosiu, ntlo kholo Menkhoaneng

The father of the Basotho nation, founder of a peaceful land

A land where my people were shadowed by the gloom ea Lifaqane

When survival mechanisms insisted on cannibalism

For Lepoqo’s teachings that still ring true today

That "Peace is the Mother of nations"

 Yes I will Love Afrika,

For the battles of uShaka, the Zulu warrior

For Insandlwana, a pride filled initiative

For standing our ground and fighting for our own

For Seretse Khama, the son of independence

To the fierce Mutato the Great
For Sankara's re-written notions of leadership
By humbly and heartily serving Burkina Faso

For the positive actions of Nkrumah 

An icon to pan-Afrikanism, a gift of our liberation

For his and Sobukwe's contributions to the Pan Afrikan Congress 

Sons whose ideologies painted a canvas that depicted freedom at last

I said I will Love Afrika,

And all her descendants

The children of my mother, our siblings in solidarity

For the insights of Shabazz on who the real enemy always was 

And letting us know that for being Black we should be Proud

For Marcus Garvey, a black star who called us all to unity 

His vision of an undefeated nation of blaques

For Huey Newton, a black panther roaring in anger

Of a two faced system that preached integration and practiced segregation

For Dr. King who preached the revolution,

Anticipated days when colour held no barriers on our progression

For Harriet Tubman, the underground star of the night

A true master of the anti slavery movement

I will Love Afrika,

For the turmoil it has been responsible for precipitating

I will love it with all its self inflicted conflict

Sundiata's strikes at his fellow brothers

The Aminian theme noted in every chapter of our every country

For the misruling of Idi Amin, Jean Bedell Bokasso and Robert Mugabe

The ravages they caused and left their countries floating in 

For its rulers who suffer from megalomania 

Who would rather die than to forfeit their power

I will Love Afrika ,

For even in its state of a freedom complex

This land still has birthed my nature

It has molded my being and knows of my struggles

This is the only place I will ever call home

Where I share similar stories and sentiments 

With those that came to battle with me

This land where momma nurtured me towards greatness

Where real learning is never in congregated classrooms

But rather in street corners and folk tales that have no records 

I will Love Afrika,

It is where my journey commences

It is where my story continues to unfold

And it is where my bones and my soul will be rested.

I will Love Afrika!

" But late is never a bad start in
Africa my beginning
And Africa my ending
No easy way to freedom...

I was there I will die there
In Africa my beginning
And Africa my ending
Lets do something..."

  - Ingoapele Madingaone