THE NGUZO SABA
Kwanzaa is one of my absolute favorite holidays and one that I initially rejected in childhood because it came with ridicule and more being different. While everybody else around me was talking Santa Claus and Christmas, our household was talking about Kwanzaa and the Kwanzaaman. Ridiculous, I KNOW. I'm laughing out loud as I write about this. In me sharing this though, there are so many gems for you to pull out but two important ones: Things in your life are not happening TO you, they are happening FOR you; and The things you experience in life are preparing you for your future. All things are a seed until cultivated. I first came to know of Kwanzaa by someone who was a Five Percenter (see source list for more on this), which in short held the belief that being Black was both original and supreme. So I spent a lot of time hearing about what Black people should and shouldn't be doing, reading the Holy Qur'an and being anti-holidays...but the seed had been planted. I reconnected with Kwanzaa as I was building adé PROJECT and knew I wanted these principles to be the values of our coop organization.
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