Today we finish our list of words. We will continue to look at the dictionary meaning ant then we will look at the word more as what it means to me or people in my life.
Word #5: Freedom
Miriam Webster defines this as the quality or state of being free.
I will attach here a link to a. video that shows my favorite definition of this word lately:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YHVC1DcHmo. The joy and movement in this video by John Baptiste, the dancing, the song, I wish we all could feel like that.
Freedom can mean so many things. As a teenager I longed for the "freedom" of living on my own. I moved out and quickly realized that I wasn't free to do whatever I wanted. Everyone wanted money from me.
Freedom was an explosive word at the end of the civil war. As so many people who had been born into slavery found that they no longer wore their lifelong bonds.
Word #6; Sadza
This word isn't in the dictionary but I found many explanations of it when I went on line to learn how it was made. It is a cornmeal mash that is like a cereal. It is almost pure white in most of the pictures I saw. and as near as I can tell it is similar to grits or polenta. It is boiled for some time and used like a starchy base (like rice)
I look forward now to making a chicken stew with chicken, onions, tomatoes and peppers and serving it with greens and a serving of sadza. this will be served with a light amber beer, probably a gluten free one made from sorghum to help keep the meal more authentic.
Word #7; Civilization
Miriam Webster definition;
1.) a relatively high level of cultural and technological development
2.) The culture characteristic of a particular time and place
This word could go on with definition after definition. Everyone seem to have a different one. But the image I have of that word is Europeans secure in their own superiority crossing the world to take whatever they wanted. There is a joke about the National Museum of England that has to do with the fact that while there are artifacts from England in the museum it has things from all over the world that the English just took from countries when they were there.
But to me civilization is a place where we all respect each other and support each other. I think that restorative justice, food justice, fair pay, These are the things that make a civilization great.
