It’s divine conception of the heart

All I know is that rastas rarely ply the same route twice, save for when they’ve got no other option at hand. When a rasta goes to the neighborhood boutique for Ibinyomoro or cucumber, he will return to his home using a different route. In the same vein, rastas are known for this other habit of wanting to both spell and pronounce most words differently from how other right-thinking members of society do it. So while the rest of us say “boy”, rastas add a twang to it; “bwoy”. A girl to them is a “gyal”, and youths are “yutes”. As in, “ghetto yutes”, as opposed to “ghetto youths”. Rastas say “dis” instead of “this”, and “dat” instead of “that”. Dat bwoy. Dat gyal. Recently, a rasta friend shocked me when he pronounced “Imbuto Foundation” differently from the way we all know it. What I heard is something that sounded more like; “Imbuto Fondieshan”. I mentioned dreadlocks somewhere, something that the ‘tafari community is well-known for, so let’s talk dread locks. For starters, it is a known fact that most of the dreaded heads you see around belong to people that are self-professed rastas. They variously refer to them as dread locks, locks, roots, while the bearer of the dreadlocks may be referred to as a natty head or simply dread man. This is not to say that rastas own all dreadlocks in the world. In other words, not everyone with dreaded hair professes allegiance to rasta livity, which is the way that rastas refer to their way of life. I have talked to a few rastas, both those with and without locks, and their general consensus seemed to be that you don’t really need a particular style of hair to be identified with the community. That it is a ‘divine conception of the heart.” A world-famous reggae band, Morgan Heritage has actually done a song to that effect, so who are we to argue? However, this has not stopped caravans of self-professed rastas from queuing up in the crowded and dust-swept back streets of Biryogo, in Nyamirambo, for a cheap and quick dread job. Rastas generally don’t dance, but skank. What is to skank, or skanking? It is to lazily bounce from one feet to the other, like a fully-blown balloon dancing on the ever-gentle waves of Lake Kivu. This skanking is always best done to the rhythmic and repetitive one-drop reggae beat that was so popularized by one of the leading Jamaican Rastafarian and reggae icons, Robert Nesta Marley, aka Bob Marley. Talking of Kivu, how come that its waters appear emerald green, as opposed to sky bue, the natural color of water as we were taught in primary school? And how come that, even with this seeming discrepancy, its waters are some of the most tempting to scoop and drink straight from the source? Some rastas usually go by simple “Ras” names that clearly reflect their rasta personae: Ras Simple. Ras Cobra. Ras Buffalo. Ras D. Ras Tallowah. Ras Brown … Finally, most rastas like to pepper their talk with words like “babylon”, “ghetto”, “meditation”, so for a sample, I recently ventured deep into Gatsata, and penetrating a gang of “ghetto yutes”, asked them for the meaning of “ghetto”. One of them, whose eyes looked rather red and cross retorted with full force: “Ghetto lights is bright but I got a short fuse”, while pointing to his dreaded head.