Hear Jack, “She breaks up with me, apologises, comes back, everything seems ok, then the cycle begins again.” He is at a crossroad at this point and doesn’t know what to do. Uncle Leke serves him some wisdom that is hot, fresh and applicable to his concern.
1. Dear Jack, you really can't afford this yoyo relationship. It's dangerous to your health. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
2. I'm not really sure your girlfriend knows what she wants. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
3. Have you read Mine Boy? It's a critically acclaimed book by Peter Abrahams. His father was Ethiopian, his mother "coloured". #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
4. One of the first few books to draw attention to the barbaric problem of apartheid in South Africa. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
5. It was actually published in 1946, two years before apartheid became an official policy. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
6. To help you situate the theme and historical context I'll quote a paragraph- (Xuma is the protagonist): #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
7. 'You say you understand,' Xuma said, 'but how can you? You are a white man. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
8. You do not carry a pass. You do not know how it feels to be stopped by a policeman in the street. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
9. You go where you like. You do not know how it feels when they say "Get out! White people only"…. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
10. You want me to be your friend. How can I be your friend when your people do this to me and my people?' #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
11. Xuma was a strong and well built black South African. Migrated from the village to Jo'burg in search of work in the mines. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
12. The mine conditions were terrible. The miners 'cough and then spit blood and become weak and die'. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
13. Xuma was accommodated by a lady named Leah, a moonshiner. She sold prohibited gin (ogogoro, burukutu, kainkain). #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
14. He soon fell in love with Leah's niece, Eliza, a very beautiful teacher. Unfortunately Eliza was a conflicted soul. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
15. Eliza had the 'sickness of the city'. She suffered from a sense of identity. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
16. She's described as wanting all the things she couldn't have. She wanted the things of the white man. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
17. Xuma had all the manly attributes she desired. But he wasn't educated and cultured. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
18. Her cultured suitors on the other hand lacked his manliness. They were representational verisimilitudes. 2D characters. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
19. This created in Eliza a yoyo desirability for Xuma. One moment she loves him, the next she cuts off. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
20. She swung from one extreme to another. If only Xuma could be that composite dream. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
21. Never mind the contradictory nature in the aboriginality of the constituent elements. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
22. Seemingly resolved at a point in the narrative, she offered herself to him as "his woman". Then she skittled off. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
23. Xuma was frustrated: 'Did your woman leave you because she is mad with wanting the same things the white man has?' he asked. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
24. Xuma had in his own words, "the understanding of the heart and the pain of understanding". #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
25. But there was Maisy. Ever smiling, wasn't pretty. But Maisy loved Xuma, made him smile. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
26. You are Xuma. Your girlfriend is unstable Eliza. Your life just became a novel! #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
27. Writing a review, Nana Fredua-Agyeman described the Xuma conundrum as… #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
28. "psychological dilemma, the torment of wanting and not having… #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
29. …or needing and knowing no matter how hard you work at it you simply would not achieve it." #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
30. I don't know how long your heart can endure the flickering cycle of emotional thawing and freezing… #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
31. Or how well it can take the altitudinous vertigo of passionate hope- the sudden drop of shattered dream. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
32. Surely you must suffer from emotional sea sickness. You live in hope and fear at once. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
33. You're what your girlfriend wants and not what she wants at the same time. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
34. If only she can adjust one or two things in you… A little trim here, a little snip there. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
35. Sort of an autochthonous plastic surgery until you become the Stepford husband. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
36. Your present state is an inconvenient truth. But tell me, how are we going to scalpel your nativity? #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
37. We can edit your history on paper, even your parentage but how do we edit their contributions to your constitution? #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
38. If you're not the man now, can you ever be the man to her? #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
39. And after you become a cardboard character will she still have "you"? You know she's never asked herself that. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
40. You keep trying to be who you're not. Your relationship has become a synthetic lab. Alchemy going on. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
41. But if we accuse your girlfriend of not knowing what she wants how about you? Do you know what is good for you? #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
42. Your vanity is clashing with your needs and peace. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
43. You're like a man who walks into a clothing store to buy a shirt. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
44. There's this shirt you like. Only the neck is too tight. You keep assuaging yourself in front of the mirror. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
45. You insist on buying it despite feeling suffocated; like someone pressing your Adams apple. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
46. If this lady were not pretty is there any redeeming quality left in this relationship? #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
47. Isn't her looks the only reason you keep going through the ritual of transforming into an emotional regurgitate? #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
48. Your girlfriend has become a bad habit. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
49. You can't marry a shell. Content is what invariably determines happiness in a marriage. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
50. I know young men want to physicalize dreams of marathoning sexual congress. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
51. But you won't remember all that beauty and dreams of coitus when the trouble starts. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
52. Your marital relationship will occupy a major chunk of the pie chart in the determination of your happiness in life. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
53. You can't be happy if your partner is emotionally unreliable. You can't plan. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
54. A double minded woman is unstable in all her ways. Ditto a man. This thing is going to spill into other things. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
55. And your girlfriend is just being selfish. And she knows you'll be waiting. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
56. My analysis? You can't afford her emotionally. You'll become a wreck. I've said this to you before: #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
57. Sometimes what we want does not really want us. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
58. Sometimes what we want is not good for us. Your mentor, LA. © Leke Alder #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
59. NB. Forgot to tell you the end of the Xuma story. Eliza went on a long train journey and never returned. #Letr2Jack
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) November 23, 2013
