Hello Friend,

Greetings from Cremona! I hope you’re doing fine. We’re deep in the summer over here, my favourite season, but it’s also a scorcher and there are reportedly more than ten thousand deaths due to the heat in the EU alone. Spain, France and the UK are literally on fire right now, and authorities are working to contain the wildfires while dealing with the extreme heat sweeping across the region. Fun fact: You need a special permit to install a fixed air conditioning system in your home is some cantons of Switzerland 🤯 So, whether Europe is home or you are on holiday here, please take care! Stay cool and drink water.

We - our family that is - managed to escape the heat briefly with a trip to South Africa. I was so glad to reconnect with family and deepen our bonds with close friends. Our lead pic this month was taken on the hills of Kwa-Zulu Natal where we took a walk while visiting some dear friends. How epic are South African winter colours? It’s like getting a golden hug from the universe.

So…you’ll notice that we have a new name: Life Notes. This is deliberate because in addition to voices from the podcast, this letter has always included some notes on life here in the northern hemisphere. Over the next while, I’ll be adding a new layer to these life notes and to the SAL podcast focus on women in the African diaspora: Afro-Italian voices, as well as reflections on our Cremonese life.

Hit reply to say hello and let me know what new layers you’ve added (or have been added) to your life lately or what kind of season you’re living through. I promise to reply.

Here’s what’s coming up in this edition:
-From The Archives
-On My Mind
-Giving Me Joy

SAL Life Notes is free and one way to support it is by sharing with a friend and asking them to join the circle by clicking on the button below. THANKS.

Over this season of change, I’ve returned to an episode that I always find comforting when I contemplate the next steps in any project, and it’s all about self acceptance and being kind to yourself. Episode guest, Abiola Akanni is a yogi who has changed the lives of many through her teachings online. She centres bodies of colour and her practice is rooted in non-performance. If you’re looking to start afresh or pick up where you left off without judgement, this is the episode for you.

Since our family is in Italy for now, I’m even more invested in understanding the place my husband calls home. First things first: Italy is notorious for racism and its ongoing flirtation with fascism. While this is true, I don’t intend to focus on who wins the racism Olympics since mistreatment of Black and people of colour is still the norm all over the world. Name one country where people of colour are not mistreated. I’ll wait.

I can say this because South Africa’s treatment of Black African immigrants is deeply embarrassing. There was unrest in the country throughout June, culminating in a protest led by the March and March Movement, demanding the deportation of illegal migrants by June 30. The label ‘illegal immigrant’ only applies to foreigners of African origin, regardless of legal status. As long as your name sounds foreign or you don’t ‘look’ South African, you fall in this bucket and any dandakop can ask you to show your ID and proof that you’re in South Africa legally.

People died and lost their homes. Some countries evacuated their nationals - Ghana, Nigeria and Malawi - fearing their citizens would die at the hands of criminals who are taking advantage of legitimate concerns by South Africans and turning them into a political platform. There are no jobs. People are poor. These are facts. Is it the fault of Zimbabweans, Malawians, Nigerians and Ghanaians? The lack of nuance when people talk about this is one thing, but the refusal to blame the liberation leaders who have failed at their jobs and failure to hold them accountable for the chaos makes me livid. So, you deport illegal immigrants (and nobody should be in a country illegally) and then what? You suddenly have jobs and are no longer poor?

Meanwhile Western immigrants (the so-called expats) are overstaying their visas while living their best lives in Cape Town as digital nomads. Nobody talks about the real consequences of allowing these kinds of immigrants into the country with an automatic three month visa in the first place. They’re mostly white and escape police scrutiny and racial profiling. Try renting an apartment in Sea Point as a South African being paid in ZAR. Good luck competing with those Euros, Pounds and Dollars.

Anyway, back to Italy. There are two race and culture/politics conversations that have me concerned at the moment, especially as a mother to young black boys. The first one is about an unarmed Moroccan man, Abderrahim Fakir, who was recently killed George Floyd-style in Bologna, and the aftermath sparked by the distribution of the video capturing the six plus minutes-long incident that were captured on video. The killing led to a city-wide protest that ended with clashes between some protesters and police. There were protests in Rabat too, demanding answers to this cruel death. What is most concerning to me is how Prime Minister Georgia Meloni’s government intends to handle cases of this nature. Police officers are no longer automatically charged as criminals if a victim dies while they’re carrying out their duties. What in the America? In all fairness I don’t know what systems are in place to ensure accountability, but the fact that there were protests to demand justice for Mr. Fakir says everything. Also, you can’t hand the police a blank cheque in this manner and expect them to exercise restraint. The previous death of a victim in police hands happened in 2014. You can read more about it here.

The second incident involves a jewellery store owner, Mario Roggero (72), who was convicted of murder and jailed. The story goes that two guys carrying a toy gun and a knife entered his store, raided it and ran out with his merchandise. He took his real gun, followed them out and chased them Wild West style and shot them dead in the streets. He then shot and injured their accomplice in a getaway car. The courts rejected his self-defence plea and gave him a 14 years and 9 months sentence which he started serving this summer. His appeal against the sentence was rejected by the courts and now he’s petitioning for a pardon, with the support of a certain Georgia Meloni and her political allies. According to Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right Leganord Party, it’s unfair to go to jail at age 72. I shall leave it here and reiterate my concern about the political winds sweeping through the world right now.

On a positive note ….

One thing I appreciate about Italian life, is the way people treat time. It’s a study in the meaning of expansiveness. Since moving here, I’ve learned to slow down and paradoxically, I find that I have more time on my hands. It’s a stark contrast to living in the USA where I felt I never had time for anything. It was the biggest oxymoron of my setup since I intentionally designed my working life to put me in charge of my own time. Over here, no matter what is happening, you have time to have a mid-morning coffee with a friend. You break for lunch and more often than not, you catch a whiff of fresh cooking while walking in the streets. Sometimes, on the same day, you will also go for an aperitivo with the same friend. Aperitivo is not to be confused with cocktail hour, which is more about getting as much alcohol into your system as possible. This is more like a pre-dinner snack accompanied by a spritz or non-alcoholic drink of choice at the end of a workday. I’ve never seen anybody stumble out of the bar or cafe after an aperitivo, but that could be a factor influenced by life in a small town and the places I hang out at this grand stage of life. All this to say that, even in a day when these two times are spoken for, I find that there’s still time to do the rest of life without feeling rushed. And like a good bean in the capitalist machine, when I account for my time at the end of the day, I’ve done so much more than I could have in suburban Boston. There’s a study there within…

Life in South Africa is a mixed bag and I love it when it is captured through real life stories. Radio Workshop is one of my favourite go-to’s when I need something wholesome and life affirming. I loved this episode about a project focused on teaching women to cycle in the Cape Town township of Khayelitsha. At the core of the project is giving women independence and word is that there are lots of women cycling around in Khayelitsha. Have a listen.

Speaking of South African stories. Have you seen The Polygamist on Netflix? I always delay watching the latest streaming or cinema craze until after the hype has died down, but I’m right on time with this one and oh my word, it’s worth every bingeable minute. What a drama! Not only in terms of the story itself, but the actual Adapted from a novel of the same name by Zimbabwean author, Sue Nyathi, the 22-episode series is the story of a black power couple Jonasi (Sdumo Mtshali) and Joyce Gomorah (Gugu Gumede) whose lives get upended by Jonasi’s inability to keep it in his pants. He’s basically a scoundrel and the people who pay the highest price are the women in his life and their children. There’s just no order in the Gomarah family, and there’s a perverse abuse of the traditional institution of polygamy, which is legal in many African countries.

It took a lot of discipline not to binge the entire series, but also, there’s only so much time in a single day. Joyce is the anchor of everything and everyone in all the drama. The minute she truly understands that her man, Jonasi, ain’t shit and that he will continue to make her life hell, it’s gloves off. And then she waits for the outcome of her handiwork. She plays dirty so cunningly and subtly that you could mistake it for being classy. World class and unapologetically African entertainment.
Have you seen the Polygamist? What did you think? Hit Reply.

And that is all from me this time around, wish me luck as I officially become the mother of a teenager. Yes, first born is turning thirteen in a few weeks 🫪 and I’m curious to see what his search for independence will look like.

Look out for new episodes of the podcast soon. We will be adding some Afro-Italian voices as we expand our diaspora circle.

Until next time, please do take good care.

Kutloano (your host with the most)

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