Cindy Duhe: Our Future in Zaire
Our Future In Zaire
©1999 Cindy Duhe
She stands tall for her age wise beyond her years sweet smile appled cheeks and a chip that grows larger on her shoulder.
So much possibilty for this sweet, little youth could be good could be bad but, with much bang, whatever the case.
She lovingly greets people at the door strangers but no stranger than she, the enigma of kindergarten, brightly shining through her cool, dark skin.
Like molding clay just waiting to be sculpted into what fate brings her way, ever hopeful that her parents treat her right, and turn her into the greatness that is seen through my eyes; little Zaire.
Old Mama
©1999 Cindy Duhe
Hands strong with labour the work in the fields picking cotton bent over for hours at a time when slavery was the staple of the free world.
Feet covered in calluses and blisters lead onward to the fields walking miles before the rooster's call soles in the shallows of dirt wallowing in mud trickling blood into the soil.
Eyes that saw so much babies brought alive burning crosses at night war and freedom for those already free changes that reverted to the way things were and, all the while, repetition of the same life.
Eyelids now shut covering the time of the past hiding it from the current sight that will someday discover what it meant to be her; a hard working woman living each day at a time never taking for granted though there was little to take strong soul heart of gold story to be told.
Lesotho
©1999 Cindy Duhe
You promised me the world, but gave me Lesotho, a land that bares people with smiles like Bengal tigers roaming the plains freely with the ease that respect brings.
You took me to a place in your mind where the mountains lie between the valleys crinked on your grandmother's forehead.
You showed me this country that lives in a way beneath the surface so far out of the grasp of the American dollar, yet, happy, nonetheless.
You lived, grew tall, loved this place with all that inhabited your heart, the mountain goats and mice running round in circles under the sun.
You were my guide in the place that seemed to suffer misery under the toiling brush and sweltering clay ground, but taught me to love it, as you had, without anything modern in the way of this infatuation.
When my blonde locks wrestled with the Lesotho winds it was easy to see why the Boers wanted to win; the same reason I had now seen, as on the mountain tops, I stood, hand in hand with my guide, my friend, the man who found me a new home.
Nappy Hair
©1999 Cindy Duhe
My friend had nappy hair always braided and black and still without kinks when relaxed and with perpetual curls when left to its own how curious, I was, about this. Being only five in a world of long before I had many things left to learn, every chance I would get to brush against her head would be taken, as the thrill of my day. When touched, it was course on days left with wave, oily, when straight to the touch, so much was different from my long blonde hair but no less beautiful, from my eyes and my hands.