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"TO KNOW THE TRUTH, YOU HAVE TO FIND THE TRUTH, ONLY THERE DOES THE TRUTH LIE."

Saturday 21 January 2023

PAINFUL FAREWELLS; MY STAPLE DIET!

BACK ON THE ROAD AGAIN AFTER A TEARFUL FAREWELL. Post No.42 (A 7 minute read) 

The tears that fell on my parting from my beloved group of Wodaabe ladies and children!!?? I FELT that my heart would never recover from the pain of that moment. I had to move on, that is to live. I had a quest and part of that quest had been to meet some Wodaabe women. Now my eyes, ears, nose, mind and heart, were all flooded with Wodaabe women.

I read through those chapters in my book last night and the tears still come, I did not want to say goodbye. I cursed the mosquitos and all the other flying insects that made every day so cumbersome. I could not take it. I knew a place where there were no mosquitos, my homeland!

I FEEL as though all my life I have been subjecting myself to painful farewells because there has always been something missing and so, I have had to continue my quest for the truth. Because I find only lies where I am at! So, do not want to stay. I am in that situation now too. The truth of all around me is so ugly that all I want to do, is change it to a more beautiful truth.

I have been alone in that sentiment for so long as to give up hope altogether of a better world. I do not believe in MAN-KIND to change, EVOLVE. I have no faith in HUMAN-KIND either. Me, myself, I, that is our modern world! Not so in the Wodaabe world; it is us, us, us and us. All the way it is US! Our HUMAN superiors. The living examples of how we could be if only we became more African again.
a very colourful sunrise on my horizon
THE DAY DAWNS AGAIN FOR THIS INFJ, FAR FROM HOME!

Chapter thirty-nine is entitled ON THE ROAD AGAIN. Having had a long, long train journey down to Abidjan and spent some days there with my Wodaabe ladies, I had to head back northwards and had some good luck and managed to get a grande taxi to Bamako, the capital city of Mali. I quote myself from this chapter:

As such, much of that morning went by without me registering it. I was still with my ladies. I kept feeling my earrings, yes, they were there, it had all been real. My bracelets and my necklace, yes, it had all been real. This has been one of the most special meetings of my life, without any doubt!

My travel group today, were a group of Ivory Coaster´s and Malian´s. There was so much to learn, if only I could bring myself into today. Sadly, what happens when you are having so many experiences back to back, is that they seem to catch up with you and even steam roller over you, leaving you flattened out. Rather like the Roadrunner´s coyote!! 

But just like the poor coyote, you have got to peel yourself off the ground and re-inflate yourself and quickly too, if you are going to continue enjoying your trip. Maybe there is a limit to how many times you can re-inflate yourself in a given period of time! I know it was coming hard to me that morning! End of quote.

Some days were spent in Bamako,which was so mosquito laden that one did not want to hang around. I was headed north now to the Dogon Valley for another taste of ethnic peoples and their traditional life styles. These are a small statured peoples and I found myself taller than any of them. It was a mind-blowing experience to visit and stay in an ethnic village up on cliff tops with these wonderfully warm people.

I had found all of my expectations exceeded by many times. What it is to really be able to FEEL something. INFJs are all about FEELING and following their INTUITION and making their own JUDGMENT of all things (no man-made taboos). I have no doubt that these ethnic peoples, just as the Wodaabe peoples and the Tuareg peoples, are all INFJ personality types!!

Never have I felt more in tune with the inner me than in these days of African discovery. This is where our previous youthful desire to share, which maybe led us to appear EXTROVERTED, is left behind. We were maybe bolder as youths and as we so needed to share, so we would find the courage to speak up and let ourselves be seen!

I believe that having that support from your peers is a very positive factor in an INTROVERTED person´s life. You come out of your shell and you receive praise and evaluation. You enjoy coming out of your shell but you can only do so with others who want you to come out of your shell and SHARE some of the beauty that you have within.

These nomadic peoples that I had met were all very INTROVERTED people. They are very deep and very intimate. Their personal feelings are very private, they do not make their own feelings everybody else´s business. They share their feelings with their intimates only. This was what I could see was now missing from my life in Europe.

I had friends at times but I had no intimates anymore! And I still do not have any intimates. I have known intimacy between that date and this. That has all come from the southern hemisphere though!

At that moment in time, my FEELINGS were overwhelming me and I had to appeal to the THINKING part of my brain to keep me on track because no, I could not JUST stay down here indefinitely. My heart wanted to but my bite ridden body was telling me that severe sickness was always just around the corner. Money was very hard to come by. No, I could not stay.

None the less, I did still have some of my dreams yet to become reality and so my quest continued. Having got back to Mopti, on the banks of the great River Niger, I find myself a place on a river boat and spend some days slowly floating up the River Niger towards the ancient crossroads city, formerly known as The City of Gold, Tombouctou!

Next post then, will be chapters forty and forty-one, GOING UPSTREAM, RIVER NIGER and UP THE RIVER AND ROUND THE BEND respectively. So, check back for that. I really did enjoy that part oh, yes I did!

Anyone been boating on the River Niger? Have you done any boat travelling? Have you enjoyed boat travel?

Thank you for reading as always. Please do FEEL free to comment in the box below. If you are FEELING lost, check out the Post Index and start from the beginning, usually the best place to begin!! I have just noticed that I have been joined by readers in Hungary and Sweden, welcome to you all, I hope you will keep checking back with me.

If you would like to read my book, you can find it with these links: ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN Paperback and ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN e-book

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Thursday 19 January 2023

GETTING ETHICAL AND GOING ETHNIC DOWN IN NIGER!

ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN BECOMES ON THE INSIDE LOOKING OUT! Post No.41 (A 9 minute read) 

Having enjoyed the hospitality of the Agadez police chief and paid my bills, it was time to move on towards the capital city of Niger, Niamey. And well, it was swings and roundabouts trying to get my onwards visas for Burkina Faso and Mali! Patience is a virtue and I do not know that as INFJs, we are born with much patience.

Now if we are interested by something, try taking us away from it! So, visas all done, kit all washed and neatly packed, I head down to the travel park to see what transport I can find for the next leg of my journey down to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. I had paid my fare for my place in a taxi brousse and now had to wait until all the other places were filled. I quote myself from today´s chapter thirty-seven, THOSE EARRINGS ...... AT LAST:

I had whiled away the morning wandering around, chatting here and there and checking out the wares that were being sold and the arts and crafts being worked on during the wait. I was wearing my Agadez cross and my nine very large hooped earrings and I noticed that I was getting a lot of curious looks from a group of male Wodaabe, so I wandered over to them and they shyly greeted me and asked me to sit with them. Some were crafting metal and some were braiding each other´s hair, typical good uses of time out here!

They commented on my earrings and said that they thought that I was one of their ladies. "Where are your ladies?" I asked. It was the shifting eyes that had me turn and see a group of twelve females with a number of small children of various ages, now laying their mats on the ground and settling themselves down to get some food on the go. I could have fainted!! They seemed to have come out of nowhere whilst my back was turned.

The Wodaabe male´s behaviour had changed instantly. Suddenly they were on display! They were being watched and they knew it! The females had black muslin cloths loosely draped over their heads and were peeking from lowered eyes and chatting animatedly between themselves. The two groups were so aware of each other´s presence that it was delightful to behold! Just like our hens and John Travolta type cocks!! End of quote. 

on the outside looking in front cover
THIS FEMALE INFJ HAS NO TABOOS! TAKE A LOOK!

This was me stepping right into my dream territory, but this was real! The men went on their way. My driver disappeared into town, everyone else was set for an afternoon snooze. I had got my sleeping bag down from the roof rack to sit on but where? I quote myself again:

Whilst there was plenty of spare ground to sit on, there was no spare ground that was not in the sun. I looked left and right, trying to decide which group I should try and join under a shady tree! "Did I read that right?" I asked myself. "Were those Wodaabes ladies really beckoning me over to them?" I really was not sure and I really did not want to do the wrong thing. I moved slowly closer, not wanting to stare but at the same time, trying to catch the eyes of one of them, which is supremely difficult to do!

These are such private and intimate people, that to look deep into one´s eyes, is to reveal much. Flashing glances and glimpses are all that you have to go on. As I drew closer, the children began to pay attention to me and those that could move by themselves, stood up and made to come towards me, their curiosity aroused. Yes, they were definitely beckoning me over to share their shade.

What I could never have imagined was just how much we all had in common! End of quote.

I have written a book as I have already said before, so that I do not have to keep repeating myself. This was one of the most special encounters of my whole life lived. Nothing I think, will ever mean so much to me. To have been invited to sit with these Wodaabe women and children was so MR. BENN, to me! What I found out though was even more MR. BENNish!! They were taking the taxi brousse to Ouagadougou as well, they would be my travel companions too. Oh, heaven is in my world!!!

It was some days later that we all arrived in Ouagadougou after some nights sleeping outdoors. Our friendship was deepening by the hour and I was sleeping snuggled up with these ladies and their children. I was a female travelling alone and they were all female. What could be more natural!!

The wealth of mosquito bites and the bites of every other winged creature that lived down there, finally took its toll on me and I discovered what sleeping sickness really is. The Wodaabe ladies waited for me to recover and we continued our travelling together and took the train right down to Abidjan in the Ivory Coast.

We had a spectacular journey and I spent almost two weeks with this group. They made the holes in my ears larger and put Wodaabe rings in my ears, oh, WOW!!!! How heavy they were!! All beautiful times must draw to a close and I had to part company with them. I had hurt deeply when I parted from my Tuareg group some weeks before but this parting was brutal.

I FELT that I did not want to go. It was only the mosquitos that pushed me to carry on with my plans. Never will I forget those ladies and children, never!! I learnt so much from them and yet it is only in recent years that I see and understand fully all that I learnt. These men and women had got it right. The females had never lost their right to choose their male partner. They are INFJs by nature too!

Oddly enough, the Wodaabe are nicknamed the People of the Taboos!! The Wodaabe have resisted indoctrination which has turned the tables on the female world wide. In this culture, the female is still respected, the males are respected. Everything they do, is done with respect. The most sexually free and the most sexually aware peoples that I have ever known anywhere.

Chapter thirty-eight is entitled SLEEPING SICKNESS and these two chapters are all about our travels through Niger, Burkina Faso and the Ivory Coast. Some of the most memorable days of my life. From there I go on to chapter thirty-nine, ON THE ROAD AGAIN and head back north and into Mali via the Dogon Valley at Bandiagara.

So, if you would like to know a little about that, come back and have a read of my next post. 

Have you had the pleasure and privilege of meeting ethnic peoples? If you have, were you able to communicate? Did you see your similarities? Would you fight for their rights to continue existing without man-made taboos? I know I wish to do just that!

Thank you for reading and please FEEL welcome to comment in the space below or make contact via the contact box. Why not become a follower, there is a follow tab in the right-hand panel? I would enjoy that. And the book is on Amazon: ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN Paperback and ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN e-book

Until the next post, happy learning!

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FINDING THAT POINT OF COMFORTABLY NUMB!

COMFORTABLY NUMB IS A GREAT STATE FOR CREATIVITY! Post No.40 (An 8 minute read) 

The Great British music band PINK FLOYD have an album entitled `COMFORTABLY NUMB´ and there is a song on the album with the same title. It is a hard won state of mind that is comfortably numb. Even coming to the decision to opt for that comfortably numb state has been a long, hard battle of wills and your own has succumbed to the stronger will to destruct.

Your only chance of mental preservation rests in becoming COMFORTABLY NUMB. You have long since isolated but now you have to become insulated, very well insulated. So well insulated, that the knocks and the blows no longer have the same damaging effect. To achieve this state you do need to cut emotional ties with the stronger will first and foremost.

You cannot insulate totally if there is one tiny little chink in your armour! You must be as that beautiful mollusc who turns grit and coral dust into exquisite gems, tightly enclosed in her hermetic shell. Exposing a craggy, time-worn, weather-beaten exterior and concealing all the beautiful work going on within.

You must become your own protector; from your protector! Concentrating on the beauty within, that is what really matters. That the production never comes to a standstill because of that stronger will, is the oh, so important factor. Find that insulation by not being his emotional partner anymore, you are home sharers, full stop. COMFORTABLY NUMB!!!

Hello and good morning to ALL around the world. With all that said, I am struggling to get back to my newly found COMFORTABLY NUMB zone of positive productivity. As the rare personality type, the INFJ type, I need to share so very much. I am living as that mollusc, deep down on the seabed, it feels like a good place to be right now; I do not want to be on view to all!

my orange sky, which became filled with saharan sand
A COMFORTABLY NUMBING VISIT OF SAHARAN SAND TO ALMERÍA, SPAIN!

I come from a small country village and I like space without people in it, I do. I love to go out and about and see no one. I do not live around people, I live around my mind. That is the major difference between the I`N´TUITIVE and the OB`S´ERVANT types. Your own mind is your driver or you follow the tinkling bells of other´s.

I have no positive communication with my partner, which leads to an increased need to share with someone. It can become an obsession, I am sure. I believe that is why we have half a world stuck on social networks. We are desperate to share ourselves and our thoughts with others, so desperate that we will go fishing in the internet ocean and sending bait (photos, videos, blogs, etc.), to try and entice someone into making contact with you.

You FEEL that you get a bite (read, like, view), wow!! No comment! Maybe they were carnivores and did not like my bait. You cast your rod again and again and again and again. Each time you do, you have less hope than the last time. You are searching for someone somewhere to support you and no one seems to want to do so. COMFORTABLY NUMB, is where we need to be.

What is so sadly apparent though, is it not, is how we are ALL wanting of support and communication with those that we really do know in the flesh! We are ALL isolated and the layers of insulation on our youth are ten times thicker than mine already. I did have support and communication in my youth from real people that I knew in the flesh.

But I do not have that luxury now in my fifties, oh, no! I am just the same as the youth, isolated as of a very long time and piling on the layers of insulation as best as one can because we ALL know that this will only get worse. That is why we feel so desperate. We are trying to self-protect as we have no other source of protection. We have none who care for our psychological and emotional well being, we have got to look to our own mental sanity.

COMFORTABLY NUMB is part of that strategy for psychological survival. Do not let the collective of fools break your will to see righteousness and worth reign throughout the planet Earth!

Writing your thoughts on paper, or as I am doing now, typing them out, feels like syphoning these thoughts out of your mind and leaving it clearer again. These are negative sensations and thoughts, you have to overcome the negatives and get the positive charges revving up again. Get the positive vibes taking over again.

The more bites on the bait, the more difficult it becomes this COMFORTABLY NUMB state. After so many bites and yet not one comment, well, you have to find a new point of COMFORTABLY NUMB! You stop expecting comments. Ah, expectations, new people bring with them new expectations, here we are!

We had high expectations of all those that we knew, they have all decieived us and now we have to look elsewhere. But we have no reference at all for these `biters´, do we? We cannot see them, we do not know where they are or who they may be? Therefore, I am now moving into my next phase of COMFORTABLY NUMB! How to insulate from these external deceptions as well as my close-up, recurring deceptions?

I get the FEELING that the more fishing lines you get out there in the ocean, the more open you are to ALL SORTS. I have got to thinking that well, maybe no comment is a positive sign. Nothing bad was said and people will comment most often on what they do NOT agree with.

Can I see any patterns which indicate someone following my trains of thought, absolutely NO, is the answer to that? I FEEL that it is haphazard nibbling of the bait and deciding to move on! Fair enough! I know that I am a rare type of person, I am looking for other rare types like myself. INFJs who have no taboos like this female; your narrator.

Do I want two word answers accompanied by a hieroglyph or two? Absolutely NO, is the answer to that! That is what I get TALKING to people, by writing to people as yet unknown, my expectations are higher of the people unknown than the people known. Here we are again, clutching at straws. The people unknown still hold hope, it is only when the people unknown become the people known, that you see them for what they are. And all hope disappears!

As INFJs, we are I believe, always looking for someone like our own selves, as such, none will ever meet our good expectations of them and they will show that very quickly too. Hence the solitary status of the INFJ. So, I take it as a positive sign that none have made bad comments thus far.

I would love to have some comments and feedback not only from other INFJs but any with their thought processors working! What I most yearn for in all honesty, is a reciprocal relationship. A two-way thing going on. An accumulating relationship which is always adding as it is growing and exploring the two minds.

Reciprocity is so very difficult to find but is it not just that, RECIPROCITY, that is missing from the lives of so many. This female INFJ does not have taboos and I will say that RECIPROCITY is what I most yearn for. Until then I will work on the COMFORTABLY NUMB.

Have you known a reciprocal relationship of any kind? Has it been an accumulating relationship? Why is REPROCITY so difficult to find? Do you know the status of COMFORTABLY NUMB?

Thank you so much for reading and please FEEL welcome to comment below or send me an e-mail using the contact box at the top right of the screen. For any of you who wish to following my trains of thought, click the follow tab in the right-hand panel. 

Until the next post, happy learning!

Here are the links to my book on Amazon.com: ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN Paperback version and ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN e-book version

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Monday 16 January 2023

DIVING INTO SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA HEAD FIRST

A FISH OUT OF WATER OR IN YOUR ELEMENT? HOW DOES IT FEEL TO STAND OUT IN A CROWD? Post No.39 (A 14 minute read) 

Nothing quite prepares you for sub-Saharan Africa as a European born person. Or should I say, NO ONE prepares you for sub-Saharan Africa as a European born person. On the contrary actually. We are taught to be prejudiced where skin tone is concerned. We are taught hatred towards darker skin tones. We are taught to believe that pale skinned folk are superior to darker skinned folk. What we are never taught, is to embrace our modern African sisters and brothers!

With great pride I can say that my first teacher in life my mother, taught me equality. We are all HUMAN beings just we live in different worlds; which we do! I have already talked of the documentaries watched at home. Dark skins were always my favourite. They seemed much more HUMAN to me. They seemed to have an exotic appearance by comparison to our own. Their lives seemed so interesting to me as a child and I would even then, have enjoyed Africa and all of its splendour.

Hello and good morning to each and every reader around the world. I have now been joined by readers in France and South Africa. A very warm welcome to you all. I remind you all that this is a continuous thread going on here. My trains of thought are unravelling chapter by chapter in my first book ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN and I am reviewing post by post this book. 

The post index is on the left side of the page and all my posts are filed by date and number, beginning in November 2022. So, if you are feeling a bit bemused, may I suggest that you start at the beginning??????

To see on my global statistics map of my blog visitors, my beloved Morocco lit up and now South Africa too. Africa is looking my way! I love you mother Africa and all my brothers and sisters there. We are all African just that I did not develop pigmentation as my folk did not need it up in the north with our low sunshine levels!! That is the major visible difference. But what about the similarities. That was what was now about to change my life permanently.

I found out for myself just how wonderful are the myriad of complexions around this sub-Saharan region but also how, in spite of all those different complexions, all those different shades of brown, how they all lived peacefully side by side. I was reminded of my home city as it had been just a few years earlier in my teenage years. The beautifully coloured hairs of the Punks and all of our adornments, the tribe of Punks! 

Then there were the Mods, with their dress style and hair cuts. There were the Rockers with their long hairs and leather studded clothes. Then there were the new romantics, men wearing make-up again and feminine clothing, big hair and big make-up!! It is like this in Africa and the crossroads towns in particular are quite a sight to see.

They are known as Ethnic groups, we were known as Urban tribes. I could always see an affinity with ethnic peoples and their strong desire to resist being pulled into a life style that they did not agree with. A new life style of someone else´s making!! It is just the `N´ that differs between Eth- N-ic and Ethic. Ethical, the Ethnic peoples live by Ethical laws; not by man-kind´s laws!

That was where we as Punks could really see our affinity with all of those that we knew something of. We would talk on these subjects and the rights and wrongs of colonization and culture changing against people´s will. We were always challenging the powers that be and their ETHICS. Ethical, man-kind never was and he has built his man-made world without giving a thought to ETHICS either. Everything HE does, is UN-ETHICAL. HE is that which ENDANGERS all life on Earth.

I had my personal friend at school who was African and well, those ever increasing circles encompassed much I can assure you and within that much!!!!!????? There were guys from Africa directly, there were guys from the Africa-America-Caribbean-British route as well. I had been travelling for some years now and so, had experience of Arab guys too. The males were a hundred times more HUMAN than our typical pale skinned male!

So, I had no qualms whatsoever stepping into dark brown skinned lands, none at all. I was longing to be surrounded by my most modern family members and I do now today, finally understand why that meant so much to me. What I could not know from a distance, that wishful thinking distance, was just how it would all FEEL. OH, YES!!! You have to FEEL Africa. And I went to FEEL Africa and its people. I quote myself from this chapter thirty-six, DIVING IN:

I am not quite sure how I thought a modern African African might be really. I knew that poverty and famine went hand in hand with the majority of them, all through their short lives. Lives coming to a close so early through sickness and disease! I expected living conditions to be very basic, I certainly was not expecting any luxury of any kind on this trip and I knew that even eating was going to be a lean affair. 

None of that surprised me therefore, that is not to say that it did not shock me! It did, because seeing is believing!! What really surprised me were the smiling faces, the gay chatter amidst the African busy-ness, the friendly forward nature of the people and the beautiful bright colours of their clothing which made up for the lack of any other beautiful object in the surrounding area! My fear melted away almost instantly as I began to communicate in French once again with the locals. Not that I was afraid of anyone in particular, I was maybe fearful of my own lack of knowledge!

Was I really prepared for these coming months ahead? Had I bitten off more than I could chew? That said, I did not even once think of cutting short my trip, which I could have done at anytime. Like my Mum would say, "No one is forcing you to go!" NO MUM, only me forcing myself to go wherever I have to, in order to find out what I need to know! Travelling can seem intrepidating sometimes, particularly when you are travelling through terrains and cultures so different to your own. End of quote. 

a group of african men in their traditional robes
BEAUTIFUL AFRICAN MEN IN THEIR TRADITIONAL ROBES.

This is a very chunky chapter it is. I explore the why of this desertified land of poor production. Centuries of domestic animals are responsible for much of that land clearance. No electricity supplies mean that wood fire cooking is the norm. Cutting down over time, all the available kindle for cooking that meat. The two go hand in hand, we were wrong to become meat eaters and we were wrong to keep domestic animals for food. 

That is one of the biggest issues that we have as a world right now. We produce more food for our domestic animals than we do for human consumption. We just take the old learning to a new location and begin the process all over again. I am witnessing here in Almería, Spain, the desertification of the region. 

This is a man-made cycle. HE cannot get out of his cyclical behaviour patterns. Lack of knowledge here in sub-Saharan Africa is to the detriment of the communal future of the whole continent. But it has always been in the interest of the west to keep Africans down, keep them empoverished and they will be so desperate that they will even be grateful to work for us! SLAVERY!!!

The heads and the rumps scenario, wishing no offence to any other rumps like myself, yes, I am a rump right now, going round and round in circles. That is why for me, it is so important to follow my trains of thought that run on very different tracks to the HEAD to my rump. Unexplored talents, none even know what they could achieve if given an opportunity to aspire to achieving something beyond pure survival!

I talk of our concrete man-made world in comparison to this world of natural materials. How we are living in such different ways and our own knowledge levels are so very different. But it was I who had FELT a strong NEED to come travelling in Africa, I knew there were answers to the questions that I still did not altogether understand. I quote myself again:

The next morning´s bus was a national bus service which ran once a day. The African people really do seem to travel with everything bar the kitchen sink. Great big holdalls and the `COULIS´ as they call them, the bundles. Literally a large piece of cloth with the four corners coming together around the items to be carried and tied together! A COULIS would have pots and pans, clothing, food, you name it and someone would have it in a COULIS!

As ever in Africa there were more bums than seats and my available lap saw me take my first little African child from the mother of two who was sat beside me. Well, she only had one lap! What a beautiful little boy who was plunked on to my lap! I was still just twenty-two at this time and still had very little experience of children. It was time to start learning. This little boy set about exploring me and satisfying all his curiosities before falling asleep, cuddled up to my chest!

Everyone around us watched with smiles as I allowed this sweet little child to feel his way all over my face. He loved my hair and was fascinated by my earrings. Within ten minutes, he had decided that I was absolutely fine and settled down to sleep. Each and every step of my journey was to follow the same pattern. 

The mothers would try and stop their children´s hands but I would say, "It is ok, he has never seen a face like mine before, has he? He is finding things out for himself. I do not mind at all!" And the Mums, seeing that their child was happily settled, would nod off too knowing that their child was in safe hands.

This acceptance right at the beginning of my sub-Saharan trek was a source of great happiness to me and from that point onwards, communication with everyone who I crossed paths with, was the REAL joy of every days hard travelling! End of quote.

Arriving at the ancient desert crossroads town of Agadez, I had my first encounter with the ethnic Wodaabe people and I have a good chat over mint tea with a group of Wodaabe males. I learn first hand from them something of their traditions and life styles. The importance that is placed on their amorous encounters, the art of seduction and working always to improve yourself as a man! I paint the picture of us young things out at the weekend in our discos hoping to find a mating partner.

I draw the comparisons between  our respective courtship rituals as young males and females here in Wodaabe world and my own in Norfolk, Gran Bretaña! Obviously one major difference that I found between the Wodaabe men and every other man that I had known to date, was that the Wodaabe men were amply aware that they needed to be able to sexually satisfy their female partner, otherwise she would not look to you again. Rightfully so!!

The Wodaabe woman has the right to choose her sexual partners and expect sexual satisfaction from that encounter. She also has the right to choose who she has children with and when. She also has the right to decide to enter into a semi-permanent realtionship with a man (marriage!). I had come in part, to know these Wodaabe women. This culture absolutely shows me the way to go as male and female relationships.

Marriage has become a dominance tool of our communal puppet master, man-kind. Marriage has become one of the major institutions of the man-made world. Trapping women into ignominy and into becoming personal whores and substitute mothers. Fortunately as males have begun to accept divorce, divorce has now become a frequent use tool!! Thank goodness for that. The whole concept of a marriage union needs to be revised world wide. So, as you see, there is a lot in this chapter.

In the next chapter which is thirty-seven, is titled THOSE EARRINGS........AT LAST. Yes, I finally meet some Wodaabe women and wow!!!!! I found myself reflected back at me and they FELT the same way too. Heaven is in my world!!!!

What do you think about the institution of marriage? Does marriage actually mean anything to men? Have you had a good marriage? Are you having a good marriage? Has marriage lived up to your expectations?

Thank you so much for reading today and any other day. I am pretty vacant and so, I write a post at least three times a week but I am a spontaneous type of person. I respond to myself and my FEELINGS and so, they will come as they will! They are all dated and numbered! I would love to hear any comments that you may have about my posts. 

Please FEEL welcome to do so, there is a comment box below and a box at the top right should you wish to send me your e-mail address and make contact. Or why not click the follow tab and keep up to date? And if you would like to read the book, you can find it here on Amazon: ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN Paperback and ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN e-book

Until then, happy learning!

For more INFJ reading: https://lifestyle.feedspot.com/infj_blogs