Generators.

Generators.

If there is no electricity from the government, you'll hear them in every neighbourhood,

Many of the small shops,

Because electricity is life, right?

I'm too sensitive in hearing to live in a country like Nigeria.

My body is too un-fond of loudness to be forced to hear this repeated buzzing -

Angry buzzing of a mechanical, dog-sized bee.

It's a cry in a barren desert filled with nothing but scarcity.

An attempt to do better, be better than our leaders.

An act of self-reliance and yet we pay them for electricity anyway

The money bleeds from pockets,

Fuel prices get higher,

They give us next to nothing for the price of much.

I wonder what our ancestors would say if they could see us.

I suppose it depends on which one.

Humans are an enigma.

Perhaps some would count us lucky.

Our smart phones, our smart watches, our ingenious machines.

The fans and the acs and the coolers, all designed to subvert the conditions of a sweltering climate.

I think if I was one of them, I would laugh

At the brilliant tech designs of our age -

Ask what it means to have these magical boxes of so-called goodwill

When the British still rob us of our resources - with the Chinese and the Americans and the French and Lucifer knows what else.

O Africa, my Africa my ass.

Look who we were before colonialism.

As with PTSD, there is a before and an after

And I am afraid we will never be able to recover that person.

The body is weak, its inhabitants are too tired to be angry and too angry to allow themselves rest

Madness is as common as it is hidden

The world is in flames, even for our exploiters, past and present.

We kill our planet,

Pollute our world with noise and fumes,

Desperate upon desperate to live on

The cost bleeds us dry

But we force ourselves to carry the burden our leaders only increase

As long as we have our tvs and acs and fans and pretty fluorescent lights.

They help us to forget and who would deny themselves memory loss in times such as these?

The generators purr on.

Our ancestors watch, silent, shaken.

I suppose they might not laugh, after all.

I think they would weep.