STANZAS, SCENES & CHAPTERS

  I I have a fair idea of how the world bares its teeth at failure yet pops champagne to success when you finally rise. Of how suffering earns little sympathy, but prosperity suddenly attracts investigators.... everyone wanting to trace the source of your shine. Then, without warning, doors that once swallowed keys and slammed in your face now cough out welcomes. Drinking glasses gossip. Walls that ignored your knock learn your name by heart. I have a fair idea.   II I have a fair idea of laughter that leaks betrayal. Of praise rehearsed before mirrors, pressed like Sunday fugu, kaba and slit, shouted boldly in your presence and folded behind your back like collapsible chair. Smiles that arrive authentic and depart counterfeit. Smiles that clap in careful sycophancy, counting your steps as you climb the stairs of uncertainty, awaiting your big fall!! I have a fair idea.   III I have a fair idea of the day my body becomes motionless....

  Always in a hurry!! Feet speaking faster than the heart. Running as if tomorrow has a whistle and today is already being fined. He overtakes traffic lights, argues with junctions, insults roundabouts for delaying destiny. He pushes his way out of church before the final Amen settles, because even God must understand he is in a hurry. Hurry to where? Last to enter the meeting, first to vanish from it. Body present, soul already halfway home. He nods at discussions his mind did not attend. Always in a hurry.  He walks like a scooter under his heels! It is as though he is in a marathon contest with the winds of the world In a hurry to build mansions his pockets protest against. In a hurry to chauffeur wagons whose engines drink salaries. He eats fast, prays fast, loves fast, lives as if life is a queue he is desperate to escape. He hurries, hurries, hurries, just to arrive at the one place that does not rush anyone. Six feet under. No traffic! No...

The email is still vivid in my mind. “Please can you just come and take photos of our workshop and post them on social media?” Please, we have visitors. We need photos. Please take communication along. I paused before replying. Not because I was busy. Not because I was unwilling. But because I knew the request was not about climate communication. It was about photography. Nothing more. Across climate projects in West Africa, communication professionals are quietly being redefined. Not as interpreters of science. Not as translators of risk. But as official photographers with Wi-Fi. The routine is familiar. Arrive early. Capture the keynote. Snap the banner. Line everyone up for the group photo. Post it. Add the word impact to the caption. Everyone relaxes. Something has been “done”. Nothing changes. Somewhere along the line, we confused visibility with meaning. We began to believe that if it appeared online, it must have mattered. Climate communication slipped from helping people ...

   It is 2026, and COP30 is taking place in Brazil. The world has once again gathered beneath the tense, watchful skies of climate negotiations. Nearly two hundred nations, along with numerous non-state actors, have converged to confront what has become the planet’s most relentless threat: climate change. My gaze, as always, shifts to Africa, whose voice carries both the weight of loss and the rhythm of resilience. In the halls of COP, the familiar rituals are underway. Countries review their commitments under the Paris Agreement, present new pledges, and wrestle over the core issues of climate action: finance, technology, and justice. Yet Africa must change the tune this time. The old call for aid must give way to one of partnership and shared purpose. The Global North carries an undeniable moral debt, for its smokestacks and factories have long darkened the skies while Africa has paid the price through droughts, floods, and hunger. But remaining forever at the mercy of sympa...

  The story of climate change in Africa is often told through figures: rising temperatures, shrinking farmlands, or the billions needed for adaptation. On September 21-22, 2025, that story will be retold in a different way. The Stories for Change Foundation, through its Climate Communication Africa Programme, in partnership with Africans Communicating Africa, is convening the first Africa Climate Communication Summit (virtual edition), where voices, performances, and storytelling will take centre stage in shaping Africa’s climate narrative and setting the tone for the continent’s engagement at COP30 in Brazil. The summit will open with a creative spoken word performance, setting the mood for a gathering that blends science and storytelling. Instead of technical jargon, participants will hear words and rhythms that echo the daily struggles and resilience of communities living with droughts, floods, and unpredictable rains. “This is Africa’s opportunity to shape the narrative on clim...

  I went to Mali expecting heat and dust, but what I found instead was rhythm. In Bamako, the very air seemed to hum with the stories of the kora, that ancient harp-lute whose strings carry the memory of empires and the laughter of griots. I was so absorbed in the swirl of music, tea, and tales that when the chance came to chase another story, to board the boat to Timbuktu, I missed it. Perhaps that is Mali’s gift: the stories are so alive where you stand, they root you to the spot. I had come as a communications specialist, charged with organising the Malian media to tell impact stories on climate change and agriculture. I expected a challenge, but found a nation whose rhythm beats through its people and their stories. My work began not in conference halls but over cups of sweet, strong tea: kinkeliba, ataya, and others. With journalists, bloggers, and editors, our discussions moved easily from our project to the Mali Empire, the hypnotic music of the kora, and the symbolism of ...