Tag: Southern Africa

Laugh at your own risk in Zimbabwe

Laughter is the best medicine, wisdom says. But not necessarily in all places at all times. In Zimbabwe, laughter might actually be the worst poison, depending on who or what you are laughing at.

A Zimbabwean man living in the east of the country near the belly of the rich diamond fields drinks a few quaffs of his frothy beer, the semi-traditional Chibuku. It is President Robert Mugabe’s birthday. And the 2012 presidential birthday party is in the eastern province’s capital, Mutare.

The man, who is stubborn in the wholesome traditional personality of that region, does not go to the stadium where the party is being held. He has probably attended many in the past and has come to the conclusion that standing in the queue for hours for a small cup of his favourite drink was not to his liking.

So, the man goes to his favourite bar, which is screening the festivities. As if to torture him further, the national broadcaster is airing the lavish birthday party live. The birthday cake is a crocodile-like monster of a sugary thing weighing 88kg — a kilogram for each year. A massive affair with 88 lit candles fluttering in the wind like tiny butterflies blown around by a soothing breeze.

The half-drunk man chats with a stranger sitting next to him: “At the age of 88, where does this old man have the breath to blow out 88 candles? Did he ask for some assistance?” He is referring to Mugabe.

The stranger walks out of the bar with a stern look on his face and shortly returns with two aggressive-looking men at his heels. “Secret police!” the boozer whispers to himself, recognising them by their dark glasses and familiar, wrinkled suits.

The court trial about a pub joke lasts for weeks and weeks, and people all over the country sympathise with the offender. They feel inspired to make more jokes about the president, despite the risks.

(Graphic: John McCann/M&G)

In Zimbabwe, joking about the president is a serious crime, and many citizens have lost their freedom for having the courage to laugh at the president. If the South African artist who painted President Jacob Zuma’s privates had been a Zimbabwean, he would probably now be languishing in Chikurubi Prison.

The crime: insulting the president. The punishment: months behind bars in a dingy prison cell, or, if the magistrate feels pity for you, a sentence of hundreds of hours of humiliating community service in a public place in the scorching sun.

But one man seems to have gone too far in the southwestern part of the country. He supports Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party partly because it gives him free T-shirts every now and then. Unfortunately, he did not like the president’s portrait on the front of the T-shirt, so one day he laboriously erased the portrait with white paint. When the secret police saw him wearing the stained shirt, they asked him what he had done to the presidential portrait.

As honest as the people from that part of the country are known to be, he declared: “I removed the face of Mugabe. I like the ruling party, but I don’t like the leader of the party.” He says this with a straight face, not knowing what he’s getting himself into — which turns out to be the mouth of a lion of a magistrate, who sentences him to many hours of community service.

The commandment: thou shalt not deface the picture of the president on a party T-shirt.

In the extreme south of the country, near the border with South Africa, an agitated man speaks to himself in a bar. “I am well educated, but have been unemployed for a long time. It is this Mugabe madness. The man has ruined our country.”

He promptly finds himself in a police cell for the common crime that is now called “insult” by the police. Later when they arrest a journalist, they say he is in a police cell for “the crime of the pen”.

The crime: thou shall not introspect maliciously about the president. The thought police are everywhere, you know, the law seems to say. It is already past George Orwell’s 1984! Life gets worse.

Zimbabweans fight in many different ways for their freedom, including the fight for the right to giggle or laugh. But the law instructs otherwise in the area of what or who not to laugh at. It seems the secret police have a secret manual on guidelines to Zimbabwean laughter.

In another incident, a man was walking home during the day. He came across a herd boy who was taking care of the animals in the open valley near the village. The boy was wearing an over-sized T-shirt with Mugabe’s portrait emblazoned on it. The man was annoyed and called the child to come to him. The boy obeyed, as decent African children are always expected to do.

“Why are you wearing a T-shirt with the face of this old man with a wrinkled face? Take it off!” The man then broke a small branch of a tree, whipped the boy and then let him go.

The following day, the man was in front of a vicious magistrate. The practical joker was sentenced to a year in jail with labour. The offender was not charged for whipping an innocent boy. He was charged for protesting about Mugabe’s portrait.

But then, the area is renowned for its traditional voodoo power; mysterious things originate in the area, including the ability to create lightning. Lawyers arrived to defend the culprit for free so they could make a good legal reputation for themselves. While the case was still in the court, the magistrate collapsed and died in his courtroom.

The new magistrate, probably in utter fear, decided to fine the culprit a few dollars, perhaps just in case his magical powers could be summoned with more potent and fatal force.

And one thing to learn from Zimbabwean public transport is never to mention the name of the president in an argument. Two brothers learnt this the hard way. In their argument about domestic issues during a bus ride in Harare, the elder brother, rather fed up with the younger one’s stubbornness, shouted: “Don’t be as hard-headed as Mugabe, young man.”

Silence during the bus trip
All of a sudden, the bus changed its route and stopped outside a police station. One passenger pointed at the joker and said: “That one, he insulted the president.” Soon, the whole country knew the president was “hard-headed”, and they laughed in subdued ways in isolated places.

The law: be silent on your bus trip if you don’t want to arrive at a prison cell instead of at your house. Although technology is the new miracle in human relations, it can cause much heartache. Case in point: a Zimbabwean woman sent a friend an SMS containing a Photoshopped picture of Mugabe in the nude. Imagine, an 88-year-old man in the nude!

She soon realised the gravity of her offensive joke when her friend appeared with a troop of police officers in tow to arrest her. Poor woman, she is still in the courts, waiting to know when the doors to a dirty prison cell will swallow her. The law: thou shall never imagine the president naked under any circumstances.

In Zimbabwe, insulting the president can simply mean complaining about the way the man has ruined the country politically, economically, culturally and academically, or in any sorts of other ways.

I had a share of it myself when a secret agent asked me what I thought about the president’s academic achievements. “Seven academic degrees,” he said. When I said I was neither impressed nor amused, the agent was burning with fury. “Why?” he shouted, spraying my face with his spit.

“They are all undergraduate degrees. Didn’t someone tell him to advance to a master’s degree?” I retorted as I wiped the new washing liquid from my face.

The man then threatened me with the possibility of disappearance: “We will not arrest you. That will make you more famous. We have other ways, disappearance, accidents, many more,” he warned.

Cruel, beloved homeland, deprived of the permanence of laughter, but allowed only to cry with wrinkled faces of sadness, or dance with commandeered joy.

Even our balancing rocks of the Matopos Hills have given up the hope of teaching us to balance life in all its aspects.

Chenjerai Hove is a Zimbabwean writer living in exile in Europe. This post was first published in the Mail & Guardian.

11 years ago

Tata ma chance love in Jozi

Long before P Square and Akon had made that risqué endorsement of gold-digging, insisting that “she must chop my money!”, and even before Ridge Forrester had gone down on his knees for the umpteenth time to propose to Brooke in The Bold and the Beautiful, the Johannesburg Casanova had already reconfigured the flirting game. Thanks to this change of rules, most women in South Africa have had the displeasure of having The Question popped at least a few times, often from the most ‘unlikely’ quarters. It is not the most affirming experience and in fact, the other extreme of this trend manifests in horrendous ways. But that is a conversation for another day.

My friends and I have christened this trend tata ma chance love, in honour of a long-running lottery advert which encourages people to ‘take a chance’ because ‘one day is one day’. In a similar vein, these men try their luck ‘just because’. It is a democracy mos. Unlike mainstream lotto players though, these men have neither the expectation nor the desire to win. In fact, ‘winning’ this Casanova lotto would be rather like Lucky Kunene (Rapulana Seiphemo) getting shot with real bullets by Blakkie Swart during the making of the movie Jerusalema. It would attract the same degree of scandalised shock as Taffy’s in Caribbean author Earl Lovelace’s novel The Dragon Can’t Dance.

One day, Taffy, a man from a slum suggestively called Calvary Hill, declared himself to be Christ and, put himself up on a cross, and told his followers: “Crucify me! Let me die for my people. Stone me with stones as you stone Jesus, I will love you still.” And when they started to stone him, he got vexed and started to cuss: “Get me down! Get me down! Let every sinnerman bear his own blasted burden! Who is I to die for people who ain’t have sense enough to know they can’t pelt a man with big stones when so much little pebbles lying on the ground.” You see, like Taffy’s flirtation with the crucifixion, the Casanova lotto winnings lie in the make-believe rewards of a chuckle, a smile, a laugh, a playful friendliness from a familiar-stranger. The Freedom Charter neglected to put it in writing, but the people shall flirt.

I have had The Question popped countless times. Very unceremoniously. No bent knees. No rings. No ridiculously perfect bouquet of flowers. No candlelit dinner. No Enrique Iglessias crooning syrupy songs dripping with sticky sweet Spanish love like wild honey. Nothing cliché. No. All my roadside proposals have been simple, point-blank, no-frills affairs, in true tata ma chance tradition; whose vocabulary ranges from variations of “Ngiyakuthanda sweetness” (I love you) to the Twitter-compliant “Ushadile?” (Are you married?), which stays safely under 140 characters, to “Fanele si’shade s’thandwa sam” (We should get married, my love). Often without preamble, often from strangers who have known me for all of fourteen seconds. These amorous grooms are men of few words. They have stuff to do and proposals to make. So they have long dispensed with such bourgeoisie niceties like greetings and getting to know their bride-never-to-be.

‘The Freedom Charter neglected to put it in writing, but the people shall flirt.’ (Graphic: Kenny Leung/M&G)

My strangest tata ma chance proposal came from a parking attendant at the corner of Jorrisen and Henri Streets, in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, across the road from the Senate House entrance into Wits University. It happened on a sunny October morning, as I walked from my flat a few metres away to campus, like I did every morning just after 8am. I often saw this parking attendant, whose name I never got to know; and we often exchanged polite greetings – a quiet nod, a wave of the hand, sometimes a “hi” or “hello” (me) “Sawubona sisi” (him on a formal note), “Hello ma’darl’in” (him on a playful note).

On this October morning, I nod at him from across the road as I walk past, and he says, “Hey, my sister! Linda kancinci!” I stop, and wait a bit as requested, slightly puzzled at what I imagine is an unprecedented request for some coins; a request which will most likely involve a complicated tale of an urgent trip to Krugersdorp, inadequate money for the taxi and a sick child. I have heard infinite versions of this tale before. For me, the bottom line is that the narrator needs the money. Whether the story is convincing or even true at all, is immaterial. I mentally check my purse to see if I have any money to share. I know there will be no trip to Krugersdorp, and in fact, my coins are likely to make a welcome contribution towards a nice cold Black Label dumpie at that shebeen down the road. By now he has walked across the road to my side. He stops in front of me, looks me straight in the eye, and says, “Asishade sisi.” A confused “Mmmh?” is all I manage. He repeats: “Ngithe asishade.” (I said let’s get married.) Straight-faced. Not a smile in sight.

Now, there must be many possible responses to a slightly unexpected marriage proposal from a parking attendant (whose name you don’t know) at 8:06am on a sunny Wednesday morning in October; when your mind is busy trying to figure how to fix that chapter in your dissertation which, your supervisor declared, has no argument. When you are in the middle of pondering whether you are so clever or so domkop that you can write 46 pages of argument-free waffle, it is hard to give the correct answer to a parking-lot proposal, with only the Johannesburg morning traffic for a soundtrack. There is something to be said for the inspiring power of Enrique Iglesias promising to “be your hero baby” or Linda Ronstadt declaring “I don’t know much, but I know I love you…” after all, syrupy or not.

But as they say, when in doubt, keep it simple. So, I return his unsmiling gaze and say, as straight-facedly, “Yes. Let’s get married. Today.” His turn to be briefly scandalised, a la Taffy. I’ve just shot Lucky Kunene with real bullets. “Yes” is clearly not the answer he had in mind. I was supposed to play the usual script of “No, I have a boyfriend” to which he would reply “It is fine, I don’t mind” in true Casanova-lotto player spirit.

“Yes; today” was clearly a possibility he hadn’t considered. But he quickly bounces back from my humorous subversion of the official script and bursts out laughing. Hard. So hard, he bends over and slaps his thighs, too amused. Then he straightens up and waves me off. “Hayi, suka! Khaugqibe isikolo kuqala, then ngizokushada,” he says as he walks off, shaking his head, amused at this ridiculous student. (Get off! Go and finish school first then I will marry you.)

Where do you find a comeback to that? As I walk into campus, one useful Nollywood phrase comes to mind: “It is so bad, it is worse.”

Grace A. Musila is a Kenyan who studied in South Africa.

11 years ago

African debut novelists to watch out for

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo and Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi are two highly anticipated books by debut novelists. Bulawayo won the 2011 Caine Prize for African Writing for her short story “Hitting Budapest” about a group of children navigating life in a Zimbabwe shanty town. Read it here. She turned it into a full-length novel, which I was fortunate to get an advanced reader copy of. The book is scheduled to be released on May 21.

I first encountered Taiye Selasi on a radio interview. She shared her experience of meeting renowned author Toni Morrison who encouraged her to write after she shared her love for the craft with her. Her first short story “The Sex Lives of African Girls” was published in Granta in 2011 and featured in The Best American Short Stories of 2012. Ghana Must Go has generated a lot of hype in the literary world thanks to rave reviews by Morrison and Salman Rushdie.

A common thread in Bulawayo’s and Selasi’s novels is the issue of home. Where in the world do the characters fit in; where do they call home? Both writers show how immigrants fit in (with mixed results) when they move to America, and how they relate to the folks they left the longer they stay away.

We Need New Names

The story is told from the point of view of 10-year-old protagonist, Darling. We first meet her and her friends Bastard, Chipo, Godknows, Sbho, and Stina as they cross a forbidden road which takes them from their shanty into a nice suburb called Budapest. She describes Budapest as having big houses, with satellite dishes on the roofs, neat gravelled yards, tall fences and huge trees heavy with fruit. And for this group of hungry children, it’s the fruit they’re after – guavas. Though they know not to overindulge due to the resulting constipation, they still do because the guavas are the only way to kill the hunger.

As each day passes every one of them shares their dream of leaving for a better place. Times are tough in Zimbabwe; economic and political instability have rocked the foundation of many people’s lives. Jobs and money are scarce, and those with means (or sheer courage) have fled, often leaving behind the elderly and the very young. Darling’s dream is to go to America, to be with her Aunt Fostalina. Her friends mock her, saying this will never happen but she hangs onto it against all odds. They each hang on to the promise of a better future, elsewhere.

Darling eventually gets her chance to move to America but not before bearing witness to some pretty grim happenings that could have been pulled from the front page of Zimbabwean news dailies. These would otherwise be painful encounters to describe but Darling’s naïveté and innocence take away some of the ugliness.

In the second half of the book, Darling is now in America living with Aunt Fostalina and her family. She bears the bitter cold winters and homesickness with a shocking level of maturity for someone her age. She reasons that she can deal with the snow and the absence of her closest friends because at least she has food, lots of it, and all kinds of it. Here, she doesn’t go hungry.

Though she struggles to make friends due to the typical, idiotic behaviour of school children, who make fun of others for looking and sounding different, she remains focused and adjusts quite admirably to her new life.

As time passes, the more she adjusts to America, the further she drifts from Zimbabwe and the people she left behind. This guilt eats away at her, and she becomes exiled in a sense.

Overall, this is an enjoyable book. Bulawayo does a good job of illustrating the effects of poverty on a nation’s psyche, the alienation felt by those who make the difficult decision to leave home, and their longing for home.

I had some minor quibbles. There are some areas of the book, particularly in the second half, that I felt could’ve been touched on better and perhaps even tied up a little neater for better flow. It felt a little disconnected at times and took away some of my enjoyment.

However, if this book and its writer has been on your radar, definitely give it a try.

Ghana Must Go

“Kweku dies barefoot on a Sunday before sunrise, his slippers by the doorway to the bedroom like dogs. At the moment he is on the threshold between the sunroom and garden and considering whether to go back to get them. He won’t.”

These are the opening lines that introduce us to Kweku Sai, “a renowned surgeon and failed husband”. It is through his dying that we learn about him and the family he leaves behind. In this three-part story, Selasi goes back and forth in time unravelling the tale of the Sai family.

As a young man, Kweku leaves Ghana on a scholarship to attend medical school in the US. In New England, he meets and marries Folasadé (Fola), a young Nigerian émigré. Fola abandons her dream of attending law school with the understanding that supporting Kweku’s dream is enough. Together they have four children – Olu, Taiwo, Kehinde and Sadé (Sadie).

Their story is typical of most immigrant families in the country: both parents working extremely hard to make ends meet while demanding academic excellence from their children so as to escape the traps of poverty with which they are all too familiar. Kweku loves his children but he struggles to understand and relate to them. His duty is that of a provider, not a friend or confidant. When the eldest three children are in their teens, an unfortunate situation spirals out of control and Kweku leaves. Fola must regroup, pick up the fragments and forge ahead.

The second part of the novel focuses on how Fola and her children, now adults, react to Kweku’s death. Each of them carries painful personal secrets. These secrets, like boils, are painful and need to be lanced and drained before healing can begin.

In the third part of the book they all agree to travel to Ghana (where Fola is now living) for Kweku’s funeral. Though not easy, their time there allows them to finally deal with the emotional fallout of events that have held them back for so long. This time is fraught with incredible pain, confusion and mistrust but ultimately they emerge better from it. Kweku’s second and final departure brings his family together again in every sense, in contrast to his earlier exit which fractured familial bonds and sent them all reeling.

Selasi’s writing is enjoyable, poetic and quite dense, but at times the writing gets in the way of telling the story. Since the story unfolds through flashbacks, it’s often hard to follow who the speakers are and what exactly is happening. This is true especially for the first part of the book, which I found to be slower and difficult to read due to the amount of detail the reader has to wade through.

With the added psychological dimensions given to each character, it’s hard not to be affected by their pain and anger. My heart grieved for this family.

Ghana Must Go is definitely worth the read. I look forward to seeing how Selasi’s writing evolves during her career. There is strength in it that begs for more stories.

Bwalya Chileya was born in the early 80s and raised in Malawi and Zambia. She holds a masters in business administration and works as a project manager. She reads and writes stories in her free time. Connect with her on Twitter.

11 years ago

#263Chat: Taking Zimbabwe’s pulse on Twitter

The use of social media in Zimbabwe and amongst Zimbabweans in the diaspora is increasing all the time, especially between the two groups. We have tools like blogs, Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp to thank for this. The internet is still one of the few places where we can freely air our views with the advantage of anonymity.

Back in January 2012 I used the #Twimbos hashtag on Twitter and asked fellow Twimbos if they were interested in participating in a regular Twitter chat revolving around our beloved country. (Zimbabweans are commonly known as Zimbos; Zimbos on Twitter are therefore Twimbos.) I received a multitude of responses, but I was left a little unsure about it all so I shelved the idea. However, in late September, I embarked on what #263Chat has become to date. #263Chat evolved from a proposed fortnightly Twitter discussion on five different topics to the current format, which is a weekly discussion every Tuesday at 6pm CAT with one main focus. To gauge the Zimbabwean pulse on Twitter, search for the hashtag #Twimbos and #263Chat.

The #263Chat journey so far has confirmed many of my perceptions about fellow Twimbos:

We generally want to engage in discussion about Zimbabwe and/or Africa with other Zimbabweans and get an idea about what others are doing;
We often seek to maintain relationships with family and friends scattered across the globe;
Given our high literacy rate, we yearn to exchange ideas about other opportunities in business or generally about other Zimbabweans across the globe through robust discussion.

Why #263Chat?

I started #263Chat for a variety of reasons. Firstly, I love engaging with others. Secondly, I believe that to tackle any problem (and Zimbabwe has many), a conversation is the initial step. #263Chat was created to have that national conversation, but more importantly to crowd source solutions to challenges that we face in our own daily lives. I believe that local problems require local solutions. There are often solutions we can implement if we work together. Sometimes #263Chat is about gathering new ideas from Zimbabweans based all over the world or from those in different parts of the country. The topics are set by the community depending on the current issues of the week and they vary widely: we’ve discussed the recent referendum on the Constitution, as well as indigenisation, women and bullying.

(Graphic: Kenny Leung)

I suspect that some Zimbabweans don’t discuss issues openly, but issues we discuss in private regularly affect us all. We may know someone who has suffered from domestic violence or wondered how others feel about gay rights in Zimbabwe. The challenge is that we rarely discuss these issues with complete strangers. I have always thought that perhaps we are afraid of the consequences, whatever those are, so we believe talking won’t help. What I have since discovered with #263Chat is that there is a genuine need to talk as a nation, and not just on social media. We have issues we need to resolve! Not to suggest that we don’t already, but #263Chat taps into the minds of those in the diaspora and links them with someone living in Masvingo, for example. I believe creating that link is powerful. The exchange of ideas from that connection is ultimately why #263Chat exists and continues to grow.

Challenges

As expected, not every Twimbo is going to accept and/or participate in the conversation. Many view #263Chat as ‘all talk and no action’. Some have suggested that perhaps I set up this initiative as a way of entering politics or that I have some other hidden agenda. I find that quite amusing. Some are tired of talking and want to see visible change in society. I can understand that. I maintain that change is a process which takes time. If we band together, change is easier to implement. We can achieve simple things like teaching our kids about bullying or informing our helpers at home about registering to vote and what the referendum means in real terms. Simple things like that.

The future

Three weeks ago, we held our second #263Chat live event, which focused on tourism. We partnered with The Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, NewsDay and C1rca 1964, and hosted the Zimbabwean tourism minister, Walter Mzembi, and the Zambian ambassador to Zimbabwe, Ndiyoi Mutiti. They, together with Barbara Joziasse, the Dutch ambassador to Zimbabwe, were keynote speakers. This event reflected an increasing awareness of the importance of social media in Zimbabwe and indeed how useful it can be in creating a space for much-needed dialogue.

Our website will be launching shortly, and more 263Chat live events will take place later this year including community initiatives such as ‘Adopt a School’. Meanwhile, our Twitter conversations continue – I invite every Zimbabwean online to join in!

Nigel Mugamu is founder and host of #263chat. Visit his blog and connect with him on Twitter.

11 years ago

From farm girl to city brat

I called my mom a few days ago. Our conversation went from how business was doing to my daughter, and closed with an invite to Nyanyadu, Dundee in northern KwaZulu-Natal. This small town is full of culture and history, and boasts the Blood River heritage site, where the Boers and the Zulus battled, as one of its main tourist attractions.

My mother grew up here. She left the village when she went to varsity in the late 80s and worked her butt off to make sure she did not have to return permanently.

I too spent the first four to five years of my life in Nyanyadu but it’s been years since I’ve returned. My last stay was in 2004, for about a month. My parents would ship my siblings and me down to Dundee twice or thrice a year – depending on how much we had pissed them off – so they could have a break.

The five-hour ride (sometimes it took eight or nine hours) was uncomfortable and always overcrowded by at least 40 people (this is how people die!). We would take our seats and wave goodbye to our parents but by the time we got to the third pick-up spot, before even exiting Johannesburg, somebody would have told us to “give a seat to your uncle” and we’d find ourselves standing the rest of the way.

Being a kid, these trips, although mostly disastrous, were opportunities for adventure for my siblings and me. We would enjoy seeing something strange happen because it meant we had endless stories to tell when we were back home.

Years later and now grown up, I’m looking forward to going back to my roots and seeing my sweet grandmother but the discomforts of rural life are too real to ignore. Discomforts like walking a kilometre to get water from the well, another two to visit family, and dare you run out of airtime, it’s another 500m walk to the tuck shop. That’s not all though. Everything else is just a process. One has to think long and hard before making decisions about simple things like breakfast.

Several things must happen for my full English breakfast to materialise. First I must wrestle the hens to get some eggs, and then risk a kick to the chin from the cow for some fresh milk. The night before, I need to make sure that bread is bought or baked by my gran. I have to pick veggies from the garden and make sure there is enough water. By the time I get around to actually enjoying breakfast I am exhausted!

I had to consider this trip carefully. I am now, although not always proud of the fact, a thoroughbred urban woman. I no longer enjoy endless cow herding and long works to the stream. I want my technology working all the time; I want proper roads and shopping experiences. Simply put, I cannot survive where I come from anymore.

Not wanting to lose family contact, we have tried to get my grandmother to move to Jo’burg and join the rest of our family. “The farm is far too big for you to be on, gran; you’re old and have no one to take care of you.” Her response is always the same: “The farm is my home, why do you think your grandfather left it to me?”

I suppose everyone has that one place they end up calling home. For a young, urban African girl like me, that home has been redefined as somewhere with comfort, working technology and a vibrant economy. Until Nyanyadu, Dundee can offer me these things, I am staying a city brat.

Ntokozo Khumalo is a business writer, reporter, and producer. She is also the director of Hot Content Media. Connect with her on Twitter.