? is the Love @

It has been an interesting couple of weeks that I've had. I wanna mention my gratitude to everyone that's been a part of the joy and fulfilment during each of the past 14 days. Thank you. Life is certainly such a story -of course you miss the beauty of it when you are so caught up in your own little world trying to make it better, losing out on the details in the bigger world picture. I am not the most important thing in the world; you are! Sometime ago I was discussing this with one of my close friends: who is more important? you or the other person. Later I figures that one can only be in a good position to answer that question when they 'die to self'. Only then can one begin to realise the true meaning behind such words as -'LOVE', 'FRIEND' and 'NEIGHBOUR'. Archbishop Desmond Tutu captures it best in his definition of the African humanist philosophy, Ubuntu: I AM BECAUSE YOU ARE! "A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed." -Archbishop Desmond TutuShall we all say that together again: U-B-U-N-T-U -the African concept of loving your neighbour. Who knows, that could be all the difference we need in this world! One wise person said once that you begin to get wiser when you realise you actually didn't know very much. If we knew any better, we would be advocating for our children to learn the simple notions of Ubuntu right from day one at school.***Last week I encountered an animal back home that I'd never before seen in my life -it looked a little like a raccoon except its snout was much rounder and its tail longer. It moved with extreme caution and calculated dexterity. When I came eye-to-eye with it, we both froze instantly -it possibly because it wasn't expecting a stranger in its path; and me because I had never seen the little thing in my life. I had heard stories of stubborn little creatures that could bite through the girth of a 5-tonne truck because it obstructed their way. And I also once saw an angry colourful salamander chase a fully-grown man down a tree and pursue him to a cabin house on an Indian ocean island. With this little animal, I didn't know what to expect. I was in its way because I was trying to get a nice photo-shot of a rare species of butterfly (I take nature photographs for a hobby) that I had followed into an overgrowth. The little animal shook its head and made some sounds with its teeth then disappeared back from where it had come. I thought it was over until a few moments later, still transfixed in my spot, because I was awaiting 'my butterfly' to settle down onto the flora before I could take my shot; the little animal returned with a whole army of similar looking creatures in line behind it and they all marched past me -each one stopping only just a metre short of where I was, for what seemed like a fraction of a second, to make the same sounds with their teeth that the first had made on our previous encounter- until they all disappeared into another nearby thicket. As the last one went by, I thought I'd return the gesture and make a few sounds with my own teeth, but I only managed a poor imitation of whatever it was that they had uttered. 'When in Rome after all...' I was fascinated at how extremely sociable the little animals seemed -among their species and also at what I considered their stopping to acknowledge mankind with their -however annoying- sounds. So I thought about our own species and then it hit me that quite increasingly, we (mankind) fail to do that even for ourselves. It's every (wo)man for themselves most of the time. Today when I reflected upon that episode again, I fancied to believe that perhaps the little animal upon our previous encounter had respectfully gone back to bring with him his whole family to say 'hello' to the 'representative of mankind' that had suddenly appeared in their habitat. Of course he could have just been scouting the territory too before he called out the 'all clear' signal so that his colleagues could pass but I'd love to go with the former perception -it's more appeasing to the mind. I guess the moral of that strange encounter with an animal of the wild for me, was: are we (mankind)really the most social beings on this earth? And if we aren't, what are we doing about it?***The XVIIth International HIV/AIDS Conference is on now here in Mexico city. The sessions are more than just interesting! Incidentally this is also the biggest global gathering of HIV experts from all walks of life: doctors, researchers, advocates, development workers and people living with HIV. What are you doing to fight HIV/AIDS in your community? A group of fellow bloggers and I are doing our bit here as we wear our red ribbons proudly. Check it out and see how you can add some value to what's being done already. See you guys later.