TO HELL WITH YOUR DONATIONS.

“Let’s go to Africa, salvage our slaves,

Let’s donate money, make names for ourselves,

Call local and international media,

Let Africa rejoice, here is their redeemer.”

Well, to hell with your donations!

Oh come fellow slaves, come let us rejoice,

Let us sing, dance, write and recite poems,

Let them take pictures and videos of us,

Playing around with our hopes and dreams.

But I refuse to. I refuse to join in the applause.

See, today I am here, raising my hands to feed my stomach,

With new shoes and new clothes, bales of flour and cooking oil,

With smiles and great high spirits.

Tomorrow, back to the same shack, taking beer and spirits,

The shoes you gave will be sold; my feet know not how to be sole-d;

The clothes will be sold, for my body knows not how to be clothed.

So go, go back to your filthy rich homes, rich and filthy homes, be out of my sight

Out of sight, out of mind, you make me wish I was blind.

Every donation you make, I feel you dancing on my grave.

Without you I will still I see myself together,

Through the holes of my tattered sweater.

I will sew myself together,

Mend my broken and torn life together.

To your face I say; to hell with your donations!

But then again don’t go,

Keep donating food, money and clothes; dig a well.

We’ll take and sell, use to pay bills and settle debts  as well.

But what would be better,

Is if you would make us better,

Empower us with skills and knowledge,

Show us how to make the clothes, how to grow the food,

Then we will make money.

But till then; to hell with your donations!

Befado