Sisters of the soil

The title of my column in The Flair magazine (Gleaner) often intrigues people.

Fe-mail Ties, what does it mean? I'm exploring the ties that bind women across the waters, via the Internet. It's a conversation that spans our experiences, our nature, our joys and life's challenges. It's about a female bonding culture that brings us together as women, no matter where in the world we may be.

The ties that bind us also speak to an innate connection, encoded in oestrogen and travels soul deep. When strong, our female ties provide for solid, stable relationships. More than a shoulder to cry on, I mean a friend who will look you in the eye and tell you the truth you might not want to hear. I have girlfriends with whom six hours race by as we sit, face to face, drinking tea and simply bonding. We thrive as we honour and nurture our female bonding culture.

As we look across the globe, we can see communities are fragmenting more deeply than ever before. Often the divisions are based on culture - our ways of seeing, being and doing.

Issues of identity and belonging
In the African-Caribbean Diaspora communities, issues of identity and belonging are becoming even more poignant as, three generations later, migrant Diaspora communities struggle to bridge the divide between our ties to home and the place we called home.

So, in this pervasive reality, where are the female ties located? Do they still exist or are they spooling out of kilter as we attempt to grasp new dimensions of belonging?

For it is the women who typically grow and nurture a community. Of course, men and boy children play a valuable role, but as you shift from successful businesswoman to homemaker, to mother, to wife, are you doing all you can to tighten your female ties?

While pondering the question of unity during the recent Africa Day events, I explored the female dimension to this question. A few weeks back, I came across a young Ghanaian woman, Afua, who was sharing appreciation for her South African sister-in-law, Thembi.

As we sat drinking tea she described her Diaspora journey. Growing up between the United Kingdom, Tanzania and other countries across Africa, Afua had hardly spent any time in her native Ghana. Though her parents did all they could to maintain a connection to her heritage, she lamented the fact that she didn't really feel Ghanaian.

Joyfully, it was through the birth of her nephew that Afua was able to reconnect to aspects of Ghanaian culture that she had never witnessed. Though the child was born in South Africa, Thembi wanted to follow traditional Ghanaian rituals for naming her newborn child.

Affirming role
Afua glowed as she spoke of how she, affirming her role as aunt and sister, had become after she participated in the ceremonies. She was able to touch a deep part of her heritage, a gift presented through a female connection, her sister-in-law, Thembi.

Afua and Thembi now share a bond woven tighter than ever before - a bond expressed through culture but which has always been deeply ingrained in their souls. What is your female bonding culture?

Each One, Teach One

The transition from the industrial era to a knowledge economy over the past decade, has spurned many developments. From the business world to our intimate social spaces, the ways in which we go about our daily lives have evolved to greater heights.

As we strive for optimum efficiency and better connectivity, the advance of technology sends us spiraling into hazy spaces where it's all about 'me'. The focus on the up close and personal has morphed into exactly the opposite!

You can sense the growing thirst for a more personal touch in our everyday business; the need for bonding time and focus re-anchored in quality not quantity. It's the humane response to the fallout that we're experiencing in the Information Age.

We are all players and consumers in the knowledge economy, but how far do we actively craft a brave, new knowledge culture to support our souls in this evolution?

Not surprisingly, one of Africa's greatest knowledge cultures is currently undergoing a revival. What does the word Timbuktu mean to you? For many in the Western and Northern hemispheres, Timbuktu is a mythical, unreachable place that languishes in a mindset tarnished by colonial (mis)education.

In fact, Timbuktu is a city in the West African country of Mali. Boasting a rich cultural heritage, Mali is cited as one of the poorest countries in the world today. Located in midst of the Sahara Desert, Timbuktu is home to what remains one of the world's greatest knowledge centres and one of Africa's most valuable riches - the Timbuktu Manuscripts. Over the last three years, the South African and Malian governments have worked in partnership to revitalise the knowledge heritage of Timbuktu.

Beautiful documentation
Far from being a twilight zone, intellectuals and scholars wrote tomes about all aspects of life from astronomy to civil law, dating back as far as the 15th century. Thought leaders of the day scribed their works in beautiful hand-crafted leather-bound books on handmade paper in beautiful calligraphy. There was a veritable industry created through the documentation and preservation of the word.

Apart from the knowledge economy of the day, the ways in which knowledge was cultivated was defined by a culture of dialogue, debate and contribution from all who cared to participate. Often scholars refrained from naming (owning) their works as they saw their manuscripts as a contribution to the greater good of society.

The manuscripts were read in discussion groups and the insights and conclusions gleaned were systematically documented, adding to the body of knowledge. While the craft of manuscript making has been eroded through the passage of time, the culture of knowledge sharing and evolution continues to exist in the arid sands of Timbuktu.

Brandishing BlackBerrys
Maybe it is we who, brandishing BlackBerrys and high-octane lifestyles, are the ones who will continue to feel bereft and adrift until we are able to drink from a life-enhancing source of knowledge. A fountain that we have crafted in a deliberate effort to create a 2009 knowledge culture devised for our common evolution? As they say, each one, teach one. Let's start there.