Pounding Fufu

Many times when Natasha stepped off the Passing Cloud boat onto foreign terrain, she felt that she might be making history as the first Black person to explore and forage the land.

https://www.danicasamuel.com/poundingfufu/006

Growing up on Toronto's Danforth, the Habesha culture was fluid from Greenwood to Victoria Park. Aunties and uncles sipped buna, and friends shared Injera amongst each other. This chapter of Pounding Fufu is a memoir of the moments in Toronto's Little Ethiopia, a place vibrant with the sounds of Teddy Afro, sweet-smelling Buna, and people cheerfully anticipating to dance the Eskista at the millennium.

https://www.danicasamuel.com/poundingfufu/005

After the arrest, Gisyeni's peace and Lake Kivu's stillness evoke introspection. With attentiveness to her surroundings and dedication to learning more, Danica uncovers the weight of a nation trying to heal from genocide. 

https://www.danicasamuel.com/poundingfufu/004-ii

After a traumatic arrest in Kigali, more incidents from the airport to the mountains mirrored the complexity of a nation still recovering from genocide. 

https://www.danicasamuel.com/poundingfufu/004-i

In this chapter of Pounding Fufu, Mount Kilimanjaro teaches an important lesson: When you judge someone, you take away the time to love them.

In Chapter 2 - Popsicle Mansions, Mr. Langevine taught students how to turn their popsicle sticks into mansions. Here's a letter he wrote to his Graduating class of 2003/2004.

https://www.danicasamuel.com/poundingfufu/002

Those who teach us skills and trades are important, but the teachers who beautifully orchestrate the fundamentals of life are the ones who last in our souls forever. For chapter 2 of Pounding Fufu, Meet Mr.Langevine, one of the Toronto District School Board's (TDSB) most prominent educators.

https://www.danicasamuel.com/poundingfufu/002

For the first chapter of Pounding Fufu, host Danica Samuel learns that pretending to be something you're not, will block you from becoming all that you are.

https://www.danicasamuel.com/poundingfufu/001