During their lifetime, people experience all sorts of things and go through numerous events that mark them. Being blinded and at the same time guided by love, we make mistakes that sometimes cause us immense pain; that is why breaking up with someone we dearly love is so unbearable at times and we find ourselves in the position of willing to do anything to get our ex lover back.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to get back with an ex lover, but the problem appears when this thought is beginning to be obsessive. No matter how calm and calculated you are in general, when being obsessed with something, you turn into a totally different person and unfortunately the transformation is not in a good way: you become nervous, agitated, hypersensitive, and impulsive.

The more you try, the harder you push, the less you succeed. That contributes to your already amplified anger and, in the end, nothing good comes out of it. The result will always be one on humiliating defeat. But how can that be true? How can all your attempts of getting your ex back be doomed to failure?

Here is why:

1. Your obsession is taking over your lucidity and keeps you from distinguishing sense from sensibility. You simply don’t know when to stop and keep going like a rolling stone towards harming yourself and your ex lover as well. Your ex is just as hurt and shocked as you are and the more aggressive you get by trying to reach him or her when all he or she needs is to stay away from you, the more rejection you generate.

2. Obsessions are crossing the line of conformable love; therefore it is hard to motivate obsessive behavior as being generated by love, but by pure madness. This calls for imminent and necessary separation.

3. Your obsession of getting your ex back is unconsciously putting a strong mental pressure on your ex’s shoulders. Overwhelming at first and harder and harder to bear as your insistence grows, your obsession is suffocating your ex.

4. A broken relationship traumatizes both parties: the dumper and the left-behind. Even if you find it hard to believe and need more and more proof for that, your ex is hurt too. Since time is known to be the best healer in such cases, you both need to spend some days apart from each other and heal the wounds in your hearts. Repeatedly showing your ex how hopeless and desperate you are won’t allow your ex to get over the pain and bad feelings that have led to your separation. In other words, your efforts of getting your ex back kidnap your ex’s time to get back to positive feelings for you.

5. Your obsession of getting your ex back is affecting not only your chances of having a relationship with your ex again, but other aspects of your life again. You will start to neglect your professional and social life, which can lead to a personal disaster. You’d better stop now before it’s too late!

Now that you have seen what can happen if you keep insisting on claiming something that is no longer yours to claim, you also need to know what to do to turn things into your favor. The thing is simple: do not to parasite your ex’s life and understand their need of space. Think of the time you need to spend away from your lover as a necessary detoxifying cure in which you both rid yourselves of hard feelings and pain.

Be patient about it and let time be your medicine. You shall feel revived after this “cure” and your ex will come back to you without any desperation or rage. If getting your ex lover back is what you still want, and then make sure you are ready for a start over; see what good comes out of it.

Joe was a great customer of mine, who purchased security cameras from me some years ago, and he was your typical small to medium-sized business owner. He had to keep an eye on payroll, operations, marketing, sales, hiring, firing and, generally speaking, keep the company moving forward.

When Joe came to me about security cameras, he was mainly focused on watching the outside of his building to “catch someone” if something were to happen on his property. We discussed many different options, went over different types of cameras, the number of cameras needed, what areas of importance he wanted to cover, and of course, all within budget. We eventually came up with the perfect solution to watch the outside of his building. After so many months, he wanted the same type of coverage for the inside of his building and got indoor cameras, as well.

As far as we were concerned, he had the perfect security system to deter theft and protect his property and employees. Most business owners are looking for the same thing when they begin looking for security cameras. Either a product has gone missing off the shelf, your building gets broken into or you’re just in a bad area and are concerned. What Joe soon realized, is that these cameras offered more than security and safety.

One day, he called me and said, “Hey! You didn’t tell me these cameras can be us for more than security.” I wasn’t sure how to respond. Obviously, I replied, “Tell me more!” Joe told me how his cameras were being used for more than security by giving me 5 reasons on how they have saved him time, money, headaches and stress.

1. Improved Employee Productivity – Employees aren’t surfing social media sites all day, because they aren’t sure if they are being watched or not.
2. Reduced Liability Claims – Liability claims almost went away, from both employees and customers.
3. Wrote Off for Taxes – The security system was able to be written off for tax purposes.
4. Lowered His Insurance Rate – The security system helped lower his insurance rate.
5. Gave Him Peace of Mind – As a business owner, this is priceless.

I’ll be honest; I wasn’t expecting to hear this. It makes sense, though. Ever since then, I have told his story to every business owner I have talked to that is interested in buying security cameras. They couldn’t agree more, and not only did my camera sales increase, these business owners got more out of their camera purchase than they were expecting.

By definition, getting divorced means you got hurt. Your initial hopes and dreams for the relationship have been smashed to smithereens. Much of the pain of divorce seems unfair. You’re angry at the person who hurt you. You are angry at yourself for letting it happen to you. It seems only fair to let your ex-spouse know how poorly you were treated. It also seems fair that you let friends and relatives know how you are in the right and your spouse is in the wrong. Hence, it is extremely easy to become seduced into obsessing over your being right, and your spouse’s being wrong. Even to the point of giving up your own happiness in the process.

This raises the question, “What do you really want in your recovery from divorce?” Or, more pointedly, “If you had to choose between being right or being happy, what would you choose?”

Sounds Silly! Is This an Actual Choice People Make?

Who wouldn’t choose being happy? The real-life dilemma of having to make the “obvious” choice between being right or being happy was brought home to me by a change consulting client back in the early 1990’s. Until this incident, I did not even believe such a choice existed, because I believed anyone would choose being happy over anything else, including being right, regardless of the situation. How naive I was:

Janet’s story. Janet was a manager in a government organization. She was having trouble with her two highest-performing subordinate supervisors over some minor office issue. Her supervisors were close friends and they were turning in routine reports using a format that had too wide of a left margin on the form. Clearly, no big deal in the overall scheme of things. Janet told them multiple times to change the formatting, but they never did. Clearly, they were doing it to annoy Janet who was not widely liked.

Janet’s choice alternatives were either to make a formal issue of their “insubordination” and “write them up,” or to simply ignore it in order to maintain a calm working environment for the entire department, knowing it would go away if she no longer made such an issue of it. It was driving her crazy. She spent time trying to find a basis for firing them, knowing if she used as her reason “improper margins on reports,” she would be the one who would be in trouble. Not to mention she would lose her two best employees.

So, thinking I could force her to see the ridiculous nature of her upset, I asked her, “Janet, would you rather be right and make a big deal out of their minor insubordination? Or, would you rather be happy and overlook what is in the overall scheme of things no big deal?” Without hesitation she looked me straight in the eye and said “Jerald, I’d rather be right.”

The Pros and Cons of Being Right

We have been taught from an early age that to be “right” is a good thing. What kid doesn’t want to get the “right answer?” However, sometimes what we learn as children isn’t always as black and white as it may appear.

The upside of being right. When you are right, you can gloat and tell your ex, “I told you so.” You can humiliate you ex by reminding him or her over and over “I was right and you were wrong.” You can enjoy feeling superior and self-righteous. You will feel competent, in control, and powerful.

The downside of being right. The rush of being right does not last. So what if you won a game from the past? What about now and the future? People who you forced into a corner by being right are less willing to cooperate with you in the future. They are less likely to be willing to adhere to the rules of the divorce, at least willingly. They may follow the letter of the law, but not the spirit, which dooms such things as asking your ex to switch the kids’ visitation schedule to accommodate a last-minute change in your work schedule. Imposing being right on your ex breeds resentment. It can easily make a difficult relationship practically impossible, especially if you are co-parenting children with your ex.

The Pros and Cons of Being Happy

People do not simply “flip a switch” and suddenly they are happy. After going through a divorce, there are two conditions that are necessary for you to feel happy with life after divorce: (1) the removal of all attachments, both positive and negative, tangible and emotional, to your ex, and (2) a sense of optimism about the future. You know you have erased all attachments to your ex when you cannot conjure up any currently existing positive feelings or any negative feelings about your ex or the past life the two of you shared. A sense of optimism comes from realizing the next chapter in your life will let you become the person “you want to be.”

The upside of being happy. Well, not to belabor the obvious, being happy feels good. Isn’t happiness and contentment the goal of your life in the next chapter? You feel competent at handling the difficult divorce situation to your satisfaction. You feel powerful in knowing that you honored and played by your inner principles. You are proud that you had your head on straight and kept your eye on the prize without being distracted by ego or social pressure.

The downside of being happy. Happiness comes with a price. You don’t get to feel all-powerful, in control, and intimidating. You will probably have to give up some things that rightly belong to you. You melt into the background rather than being upfront on the throne with the TV lights shining on you. You must be okay with the other person’s thinking they won. You may look “weak”” to family and friends.

So, What’s the Point?

It comes down to how you handle the internal conflict between your ego versus your humility. There is no “slam dunk winner” in any divorce. We all suffer pain and endure disappointment in a divorce. To be happy often means you have to swallow your pride in order to get what you want – an attachment-free, optimism-infused life after divorce. To be happy enables you to see clearly what you need to do to dissolve the sources of resistance to change that prevent you from enjoying your life after divorce.

In his song, The Gambler, Kenny Rodgers describes the key to being happy thusly: “You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em. Know when to fold ‘em. Know when to walk away. Know when to run.”

Turns out, one of the most courageous acts a divorced person can make is to choose to “be happy.”

The way I would describe this choice is by asking the most important question any divorced person could be asked, “Are you willing to let being happy be enough?”

Whether visiting, working, investing in or moving to Kenya, there is some paperwork and fees. The process is quite standard with straightforward guidelines and fee structures, but with payments and regulations that vary based on country of origin and reason for the visa or immigration.

With the threat of global terrorism and kidnapping of foreigners by terrorists on Kenyan soil, especially near the Somali border, in the Garissa District, and on coastal areas north of Pate Island, entry into Kenya by foreigners is strictly regulated. Check with the Kenyan embassy in your country for travel advisories.

Points of entry into Kenya

Strategically located, Kenya allows entry into its borders by roads from the neighboring countries of Uganda, Tanzania, Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia, by sea through the Indian Ocean, and by air through its international airports, Moi International Airport and Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. See Kenyan transportation information article for more information.

Visa requirements for Kenya

Every foreigner intending to enter Kenya for various reasons must meet certain conditions:

Valid Passport

• The passport must be valid for at least six months beginning on the date of entry
• It is important that your passport has validity of not less than six months beyond expiration of your visit
• You will be required by the immigration department to have at least two blank visa pages in your passport that are unstamped (for use in any exit and entry stamps). Missing blank pages can mean refusal/difficulties obtaining entry.

Appropriate Visa

Depending on which country you come from, you may need a visa to enter Kenya.

Citizens from neighboring east-African countries are not mandated to have a visa, they simply use visitor pass from the immigration unit at the airport or border points.

• Visas are also not required for citizens from certain listed oversea countries such as Bahamas, Cyprus, Gambia, Seychelles and Singapore, among others (although the list changes regularly).
• However, there are nationals who cannot enter Kenya without advance visas, such as nationals from Iraq, Libya, Somalia, as well as stateless persons, etc. This list is also eligible for frequent changes.

There are two ways of obtaining Kenyan visas:

• At the airport upon arrival, though often tedious and marred by delays
• Advance applications

Visa Options

Irrespective of the kind of visit you intend to make, there are two primary visa options:

• Single-entry visa
• Authorizes only one entry into the country.
• Multiple journey visa
• Permits several entries into the country. You may need triplicate copies of required documentation and to pay more for this kind of visa.

Both options require you to present specific documents:

• Official visa application forms
• Cover letter for the application or copies of an invitation
• Copies of your passport
• Recently taken passport sized photos
• Any other important paperwork that aligns with your aim of entering Kenya, such as work permit or marriage certificate for spousal visits.
• As of July 2011, any visa applicant, irrespective of their age and their means of obtaining visas, must pay USD$50 charge for single-entry visas, and double the amount to obtain multiple-entry visas.

Work and Resident Permits

If you intend to work and live in Kenya, you are required to have advance work and residence permits respectively, which are often difficult to obtain in good time.

Working or living in Kenya, in any sector and at whatever capacity, without a permit is illegal.

• Application for work and residence permits is included in the visa application process.
• There are twelve different classes of permits depending on your reason for entering Kenya.
• Class A: covering specific employment offered by specific employer such as foreign assignees
• Class C: covering humanitarian employees in aid organizations such as UN
• Class E: covering foreign missionaries operating in Kenya
• Class K: covering independently affluent foreigners hoping to settle in the country

Vaccinations

You may need to get a Yellow Fever jab especially if you are coming from nations with high risk of transmitting Yellow Fever.

More information

To obtain more information about the visa and immigration procedures and laws, or for travel advisories, please visit the embassy website for Kenya in your country. Additional information, such as price lists and entry points, can be found on Kenya’s Immigration Department website, http://www.immigration.go.ke.

—

Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double.

~Zechariah 9:12 (NRSV).

I am not optimistic, no… I’m quite different from that; I am hopeful. I am a prisoner of hope.

~Desmond Tutu, 10 Questions for Desmond Tutu, Time Magazine.

What Desmond Tutu talks about here is being truthfully hopeful despite realities of contrast. As we look upon our world we’re often given to sadness, anger, and even disgust, for the iniquities of injustice, rampant abuses, and widespread suffering. But, many of us cannot help but hope. It’s in our moral DNA.

HOPE – A PERSONAL BLIGHT?

We can, at a low point, consider ourselves cursed because we hope so much. We don’t seem to think we can live without the spiritual journey. Many of us can’t.

But it’s a blessed curse. It can feel like a prison, but in fact it’s the safest place we could ever be; our spirits entrusted to God who loves us.

Being a prisoner of hope means that when we lose our hope we feel strange, away-from-home; even kidnapped. Desperation, via contemplation, retrieves it for us.

Hope pushes us on but it also tires us. We don’t have the best of both worlds – we swim merrily or we struggle amid drowning. Hope gets us through when we’re spiritually ready but it also sees us flounder when things are awry.

The reality of our spirituality is we conform to the truth, but the truth is not always, on the surface, a friendly thought. The truth can both liberate and bind us, though we may always find it liberates us – as we respect it – eventually.

We’re pressed forward in hope or we aren’t; it’s as simple as that.

HOPE – THE BRIGHTER SIDE

We can know with a sense of confidence and surety, that whilst we’re bound in the love of hope, we’re safe from the castigating clutches of the evil one. We don’t really understand what gets into some people who don’t seem to care. We cannot help but care.

This is not a curse at all. If it’s an incarceration were thankful to be there – safe, at a spirit level, with our redeeming God. We’re imprisoned within the boundaries of care; confined to an eternal safe-house of conscience.

So instead, we understand the contortion of time and space on this planet earth. We expect things to be confusing, perplexing, confounding. We live with it. We help others to adjust and we let them help us to adjust.

Adjusting is the process of adapting, in a continuing way, to this prison of hope – home in the body, but away from the Lord.

The brighter side of hope is this:

We don’t need to have it all together. Hope is beyond all this.

Hope is something beyond our understanding. Our unexplainable confidence will be vindicated.

Hope sees to it.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Being a South Indian, I know the importance of Makar Sankranti and the manner in which it is celebrated in Andhra Pradesh. My neighbours are from Bihar. I was narrating to Urmila(my neighbour) that I would be preparing Dahi Vadas, Cabbage Vadas, Lemon Rice, Coconut Chutney and Milk Pudding for the occasion. She added that she has to prepare GHUGHUTIS. I looked at her in a zapped manner. . . what are they now?

She narrated the story of Chandra Vamshi King Kalyan Singh and his cruel minister Ghughuti. After her story, I was amazed to find out that the festival is celebrated in order to pay salutations and thank BLACK CROWS by small children. As an environmentalist and caring feminist, I was very happy to know more about it. In short, the story is about the Prince toddler of the king who was kidnapped by the cruel Minister and was making plans to kill him. The young kid was always busy playing with his precious necklaces and sharing his left over food with the black crows at his palace. When the black crows observe that the prince was being killed by the Minister, thousands of crows get together, create chaos by their harsh sounds and injure the Minister very badly. In the end, they are successful in saving the life of the boy and the royal parents are very happy with this. They punish the horrible minister by putting him to death and chopping his body into pieces. These were distributed to the crows. However, it could not suffice the hunger of the crows. The couple make the arrangements to cook various snacks and sweets for them and pay their salutations to these birds. They tell crows that the eatables are ghughutis for them. It turned out to be an annual affair for them. Now it has become mandatory and essential for the individuals from Bihar to continue the tradition. This is the story behind the vast celebrations.

Next day I observed Urmila preparing sweetmeats and snacks. They were taking the shapes of pomegranates, drums, knives, swords, etc. She took a thread and needle and made a beautiful necklace out of these eatables. She fixed an orange at the middle of the garland. The small children were ready and in their new clothes. They gathered at the main gate. They had worn these garlands around their necks and singing the following song-

“Kale kauwa kale, Ghughuti mala khale,

Le kauwa talwar, mein ke diye bhal-bhal parivaar,

Le kauwa bada, mein ke diye bhal-bhal sununka ghad,

Le kauwa nearing, mein ke diye bhal-bhal sununga sainga.

Le kauwa poori, mein ke diye bhal-bhal sununga cchhuri.

Le kauwa gojaun, mein ke diye bhal-bhal sununga bhojho.

Le kauwa dhal, mein ke diye bhal-sununka thaal. “

The kids were trying their best to attract the crows by showing the eatables. These were broken into small pieces and thrown to the crows. Once the birds consumed, they thanked them loudly. They continued to say, “Thank you Crows, I want you to visit us next year also”. This really touched my heart and really admired them.

Being a traditional environmental feminist, I started thinking about the following argument-

a) If there are customs in our culture wherein the adults and children know how to respect their environment and non-human animals, then there would be no harm towards them.

b) I was satisfied and convinced in a very positive manner that there are customs and rituals where each one of us is responsible towards the environment and animals whether they were cows, bulls, goats, hens or black crows. In this case of Makar Sankranti, it is observed that God Sun visits his sons Lord Of Death-Yamaraj and Shani Deva-The Lord Of Misfortunes. Black crows are the ambassadors of Yamaraj and Shani Deva. It is customary for all Hindus to pay respects to their ancestors and offer part of their food to crows. This is a mark of paying salutations to the departed ones. The dishes are also prepared for them. The children are groomed and taught by these customs to care for their environment and animals exiting in it. This has been observed through the rituals followed in the celebrations of Makar Sankranti.

c) Thus, we know that there would not be any harm caused to the non-human animals in the given society. Each one of us know how to respect them.

In fact the festival is celebrated to honour the non-human animals. In every region of India, young or small or adult pray and offer various things to animals. These might include rice, corn, jaggery, pulses, wheat flour, sweetmeats, snacks, etc. In Bihar, the festival is called KALE KAUVE meaning “BLACK CROWS”. Senior folks teach and show the ritual and participate with the young children. I really liked the zeal with which the festival is celebrated and how certain values are passed on from one generation to another in the spirit of religion. HAIL BLACK CROWS and we pay our salutations to you on this day. . . we honor you!!!

Lori Foroozandeh grew up as a much-abused child, sexually and mentally. She began to wonder what was normal in life and if the “games” her family played with her were good or bad for her. As it always turned out, they were extremely bad for Lori. Her “tickling” episodes turned into so much more than tickling. The only reason I emphasize the abuse is so you can realize what much of the rest of her life became because of abuse. She got to the point where sexual and physical abuse was something she grew to accept as being normal.

Lori originally married at age fifteen to a much older man when she felt she had to emancipate herself. That marriage didn’t last very long. At seventeen she joined the army and fell in love with her recruiter and got pregnant at once. They got married after he had gone AWOL and was given a dishonorable discharge. Lori did go to army training and was selected in a group to see how women reacted in combat. Lori went AWOL several times and finally decided the army was not for her future. Several years later she was caught and was separated from the army. Lori’s life had become quite wild!

When twenty-seven, Lori met her next husband, Mohammad Foroozandeh, who also had children. He talked her, or in reality, forced her to go to Iran where he said things were changed so much for women and her wild record in the United States would be over. Upon arrival in Iran, Lori was forced into wearing the Muslim clothing. Lori became a teacher of English. She hated living in Iran with all the customs she had to follow and to add to the misery, Mohammad started hitting and slapping her even more so when he found out Lori was trying to find a way back to the United Sates.

Mohammad and Lori were kidnapped while together on the streets but each was taken to a separate place. These places were camps, certainly no camps as we know them. From here on things went downhill fast for Lori. She was chained 24/7 to another girl. They received little food most of which they scrounged from what the guards of the camp threw on the ground or got water from mud puddles. They ate insects, rats, or whatever they could catch, mostly raw. Was it Mohammad’s drug dealing that caused her to be in such a place? She didn’t know.

This went on for months and in various camps as they moved her from one to another. They were yanked from their sleep or rest, taken to another area of the camp, and were tortured and repeatedly raped. The soldiers would take their turns with each woman doing what he wished to them. The women got to the point of just staring in space as this was going on but there was no way for any human to get used to such a disgrace. Some of the things that occurred to them while in the camps are so gruesome that you will cringe as you read and wonder how they stayed alive. The truth is that many did not survive it.

As I read I wondered myself how any human could do such things to other humans. Some sadistic things would not be carried out on animals much less humans. I will stop here so as not to spoil any of the final parts of the book. Occasionally I would stop reading and think, “did this really occur in our world?” Only Lori and the many in her camp, many of who did not make it, know what they went through.

Child abuse can be defined as the crime of harming a child in a physical, sexual or emotional way. Against the wrong conception of many who believe that whatever the child becomes in future is nothing short of the architectural designs of the parents. The blame for child abuse, with its many ugly faces has often been shifted on innocent parents. But contrary to this, parents are not to blame because of other contributing factors of which a few are presented in this article.

Firstly, child abuse is an offshoot of the so-called modern, highly westernized age and not the parents. Since the assimilation of the western culture into our system especially in Nigeria for instance, our own culture had been jettisoned and replaced with westernized culture. In Nigeria today, children are wrongly influenced and enticed by their peers; this had in most conditions resulted in sexual abuse, which is about the most common form of child abuse in the world today. Can one therefore say that parents are responsible for the peer group influence on their wards? No, it is a decision taken by the child himself. According to the 2001 Child Rights Acts, a child has the right to freedom of character.

Another fact is the economic crunch in the world today, especially in the developing countries of Africa and Middle East, everybody wants to get rich and as a result of this, children suffer abuse. How? You see, UNICEF reported in 2001 several cases of murder, many of whose victims were children, corroborated the fact that some people still look for wealth and power through fetish sacrifices using certain human parts, notably genital organs. Children returning from schools are kidnapped like Christmas chicken without the knowledge of their parents. Can we then say that parents are responsible for such abuse? No! Not really; parents are not in anyway responsible for this and they are not to blame for such demeaning action of others.

Besides, let us look into the culture of most developing countries like Nigeria, Morocco and Kenya in Africa. In these African countries, young men are largely influenced by a highly promiscuous culture. As a result, young women in that country suffer from sexual abuse. Studies have shown that the boys here engage in early premarital sex and parents do not have any means to alter the existence of the culture.

Why then should we accuse these innocent, caring and loving parents we have for a crime they never committed? So my reader, it is sheer ignorance, to believe that parents are to blame for child abuse.

For centuries, fairies have played a mystical role in folklore that filled the minds of the young and young at heart with an enchanting world of magic and beauty. Today, pixies of all kind still fuel children’s imaginations through stories and movies. Check out this list of old and new movies that carry on the tales and legends of fairies.

FernGully: The Last Rainforest

FernGully was released in 1992 and is an animated movie about a young fairy, Crysta, and her curiosity with humans. Crysta’s fascination grows when she discovers a cloud of smoke that leads her to Zak, a human who works for a logging company. Over a series of events, Zak is shrunk by Crysta but prior to that, he marks a large tree that contains Hexxus, an enemy of the fairies made from environmental toxins. The tree is cut down and Hexxus is released and seeks revenge on FernGully. Together Crysta, Zak and the rest of the fairies team up to stop Hexxus and the destruction of the forest. The film features many environmental themes including animal testing, deforestation and pollution.

Thumbelina

Based off Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, Thumbelina is another animated film released in 1994. It follows a thumb-size girl, Thumbelina, who has a beautiful singing voice and falls in love with a fairy prince, Cornelius. Before he can return to her, Thumbelina is kidnapped by a toad that wants to marry her. She escapes only to be captured by a beetle, released and recaptured again by a mole. Eventually, she is saved by Cornelius and turns into a fairy herself.

Peter Pan

Peter Pan was written by J. M. Barrie, but is probably best know for the Disney adaptation. The story focuses on a boy who doesn’t grow up and introduced the world to perhaps one of the most famous pixies of all, Tinker Bell. Since the 1953 film, Tinker Bell has become a Disney icon and is featured on merchandise as well as in her own movie, which was released in 2008. The movie gives a back story to the fairy and was followed by another film, Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure in 2009.

Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty

Let’s not forget about the fairy godmothers. Like Peter Pan, the stories of Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty are best known by the animated Disney films. Cinderella was released in 1950 followed by Sleeping Beauty in 1959. While neither story focuses on fairies, their magic plays important roles in the princesses’ lives. In Cinderella, her fairy godmother transforms her ruined dress into a beautiful gown and provides her with a carriage to the ball. Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) is blessed by three good fairies as well as cursed by an evil fairy. Together, the three good fairies are able to save Aurora with the help of her true love.

Tooth Fairy

Not your typical fairy movie, the Tooth Fairy is a live-action film. It’s set for release on January 22 and stars Dwayne Johnson (the Rock) and Julie Andrews. The movie is about a minor hockey league player who gets an attitude adjustment by being punished to serve as the tooth fairy. Along the way, he discovers his mistakes and his own forgotten dreams.

Ghana, like other African countries, has a large proportion of plus size women, especially amongst those over thirty, but there is a minority of women who retain a small and slender stature throughout life. One such young woman, Akosua Akomwa, was trained as a welder at the Kumasi Technical Institute, a vocational training school established in Kumasi with the help of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). This tiny person was a pioneer in a movement to bring more young women into the engineering crafts. Akosua ran a successful workshop for several years but her Auntie Rose led a very different career.

Some years ago Auntie Rose had been arrested on arrival in England and charged with attempting to import cocaine. Whether she committed this offence knowingly or was an innocent victim of the drugs traffickers is not clear, but after serving her time in prison she had agreed to assist the British authorities in combatting the illegal trade coming from Ghana. She often joked that as at that time most female couriers concealed the drugs in their brassieres, her slender build and short stature rendered her of little value to the cartel which preferred to recruit tall women with flat chests.

Auntie Rose had been helping to combat the drugs trade in England before she met other Ghanaians similarly involved, and she readily agreed to join a team to take the battle to Ghana and play a role in disrupting the cartel’s operations in its headquarters city, Kumasi. When a reformed cartel member was kidnapped, she helped secure the intervention of the Asantehene, King of Ashanti, who detailed his king’s men to secure the captive’s release.

The shoe queen in Kumasi’s famous Kejetia market had been convicted of involvement in the drugs cartel and had served a prison sentence. When after her release it was suspected that she might be involved in reviving the cartel’s activities, Auntie Rose posed as an agent of a British shoe exporter to gain access to the shoe queen’s Manhyia mansion.

Auntie Rose’s Ghanaian friends were intrigued by her unusually small stature and likened her to the mmoatia, imaginary forest dwellers the size of children featured in Ghana’s famous Ananse (Spider) stories. She certainly possessed the cunning and quick wits of a mmoatia. When she was seated on an office desk swinging her short legs in a characteristic manner they watched to make sure that her feet were not pointing backwards.