Not Again...Catch Up with scenes from Sankara: My Brother, My Enemy

The past month has really been filled with blessings for me and I can't possibly show my gratitude. My computer is the only one functioning here, so I've had to write in my notebooks so that my mom and Nadia can use the computer, too. I have enough poems for my March collection, and I have completely revamped the Sankara play to a form that is both theatrical, poetical, and excitical...smile with me there, lol.
I also have to say it's 5 am here and I'm tired from a night of writing and poker, but before I leave, maybe I could post a speech from my Sankara: My Brother, My Enemy play...I hope you enjoy it.

President Mirrount

 Look around you and observe

the creeping tide threatening

to drown your home and family.

Stretch but your arm and grab

the line I offer in faith

of a future shared between

my household and yours.

Hear the thunder from the Southern shores

whose birth will soon overtake time.

Heed not the doubts of your mind

for the heart is easier to satisfy

than thoughts of unattainable dreams.

Come, hold my hand

and feel the warmth

of a pleasant future

with stores of indefatigable food

and nights of unquenchable rest.

These are but an iota of that which

awaits the silencing of the hopeless drum.

In this scene President Mirrount, the leader of the former colonial nation, is enticing Capitaine Copa - Sankara's second-in-command - with promises of safety and wealth to betray Sankara.

In the next scene, Copa has finally given in to the action, but his heart still pains him.

Copa

O that I would be a rock

unmovable by the coming storms.

Would I to become soaked

by the deluge threatening the horizon

and see my fields chocked by the waters

whose rage would have doomed my flocks?

How do you - or I- save a wretch like I?

I am now trembling at the still shadows;

cowardly seeking refuge from an enemy's chamber.

What is to be shall be

but from my forced will.

A shadow, but I am, to wither

and pass with the memory

of him to whom I was an imitation.

Goodbye, faithful brother;

farewell to the land of our fathers

whose toll was your sweat and tears,

which your blood now joins

in the holiest of sacred trinities.

In the end, Copa gives in and accepts to betray his friend and former comrade. Something is still gnawing within, however, and I am playing around a lot with this "guilt" in the play. Sankara might have been wrong when he told his wife that: "Fear not the whispering of mongrels for they have an owner to whom they whimper for an insult and morsels of discarded crumbs...We are the ones to be feared." I want to examine the thought that maybe "mongrels" should be feared and dealt with before they wreak havoc.

Anyways, I hope you are all doing well, and I promise to start updating regularly again.

Another day!!!

On any given day, you can find me hatching plans of projects left and right. Lately, I have tried to consolidate, compartmentalize, and prioritize these projects to make sense - even to myself. Today, I am going to go back and edit the Salamander stories (without starting on the next part) and the Woman poetic prose. I will, also, touch up the Hunter and His Leopard, which needs a big face-lift. Talking about The Hunter and His Leopard, I found a picture by photographer Andy Biggs online that captivated the leopard I had in mind when the piece was flowing through me. I tell you, I believe in omens and, lately, they have been flocking to me...either that or my eyes are more open to recognizing them.
The other day, I would refer to her as a friend, definitely an ally, send me a link about an interview that implicated current Burkinabe president, Blaise Compaore, as having actually pulled the trigger and killing his former best friend, then-president Thomas Sankara. This was interesting to me because I had Compaore doing exactly that in the ending to my play "Sankara: My Brother, My Enemy." I feel a strong link to Sankara, and I regard this as an omen that I am on the right track.

What's in the works:::Sankara: My Brother, My Enemy

Sankara is more than a man to me. He is a gift from God. Leaders like him are so few and far between that, at times, we tend to forget that it is possible to be led by a simple, intelligent, self-less fellow human being. We have come to regard politicians as leeches hindering progress, especially in Africa. Sankara proved that you can lead motivated by helping the country and its people develop socially, economically, and politically. After much research into his life, I undertook the task of writing a play based on this great son of Africa. If you don't know about him, please google, wiki, or youtube him. (the reference points these days, lol). The play begins as he is freed from detention by his friend, and installed as the president. Among his first acts is to change the country from Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, meaning Land of Upright Men. The play progresses with the goals he sets for himself and accomplishments in gender equality, public health, social justice, etc. However, this success comes at the expense of alienation of the rich, who are supported by foreign powers. The disgruntled finally convince his best friend to overthrow him in return for riches, and return Burkina Faso to the darkness of poverty and corruption that allows them to once again pillage its resources.
The play's ending will highlight the conflict raging within his best friend as he realizes the consequences and severity of his actions. I will parallel it to the Judas incident in the Bible, but, rather than committing instantaneous suicide, the best friend's demise is a long time coming; culminating, however, in the same destruction of the soul.

Who Am I and What Am I currently working on?

My name is Eddie and I come from a small country in central Africa with a big, horrendous past. Rwanda is a place of indescribable beauty, where my heart still longs for after all these years outside. It has been 15 years since I crossed into the Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire) and left my beloved motherland behind. At the time, I did not look back, but I know I would go about doing it differently were I to be given another chance. I doubt my 11-year old mind even contemplated the possibility of spending so much time away from the only place it had known. that excitement of crossing into another country did not wear off until a decade later, when my heart, at last, began to long for the dusty roads my feet had trod in those bygone days.
I keep alive the memories by recounting my adventures to my friends and colleagues. I tell of the old mischievous doings, the thrashings I received for a milliard of offenses, and I tell of the stories of joy. Visiting my cousins (a welcomed reprieve from staying home as an only child), my first bike, learning to use a photo camera. I tell them all so I can remember. So I can relieve their thrills and terrors through the reactions they receive. I tell them because without them, I would not be the same person.
Now, I'm here blessed with experience of living in 6 countries and countless communities. I have been high and I have been low. I have laughed much and I have wailed much, but through it all I have had the guidance of a higher power, and, for that, I am grateful.
I currently have finished a full-length play "Where Flies Flock" and a 10-minute play "NoGood, NoWhere." I also have finished and am about to submit a couple of lyrics. As for what I'm working on, my biggest and proudest work is a play about my hero, Thomas Sankara. He is the assassinated president of Burkina Faso who worked to make Africa free and dignified. I am also working on a play about smuggling Africans from Africa to Europe, and a prose about a man falling in love on his way home from the market.
I will keep this up and we will stay in touch...please leave your mark, let me know you dropped by.
Thank you.