Nonqaba said ...

All normal people get hungry so they cook.   Cook is –pheka- in isiZulu , one of the many languages in the country called South Africa.   The sound –phe- is like pack or Pam in English. ZULU ENGLISH Ngiya-pheka. I am cooking. Uya-pheka. He is cooking. She is cooking. Baya-pheka. They are cooking. U-phekani? What are you cooking? Ngi-pheka inyama. I am cooking meat. Ngi-pheka ithanga. I am cooking pumpkin. Ba-phekani? What are they cooking? Ba-pheka utshwala besiZulu. They are cooking Zulu beer. Ba-pheka imifino. They are cooking spinach or collard greens. Uphi umama? Where is mother? Uya-pheka. She is cooking. Uphi u-Boris? Where is Boris? U-Boris uya-pheka. Boris is coo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBEtQMSq9FM Amber Rose, hip hop star, 2015 Trinidad and Tobago carnival. Summer snow?  You got that right.   I’m thinking about summer in all this snow.   Both of them start with –s-.   Other good things I miss about the summer also start with this letter: sun, sea, surf and sand. I never understood why American and British singers always sang about the summer, until I found myself here, where -28 degrees is regarded as a good winter.   I grew up on the other side of town, or should I say the other side of the globe.   It was always hot in my corner of Africa.   Sweaters came out after a little shower.   Africa has all the seasons like the rest of the world: autumn, winter, spring and summer but you need a magnifying glass to find the difference.   Leaves sit stubbornly on trees during autumn or fall, as North Americans call it.   Leather jackets are a fashion statement, not garments for the cold. ‘Summer time, and the living is easy

Bankrupt or broke?   Same-o.   Same-o. There will always be rich and poor because life is about opposites.   There is the sun and there is the moon and these two circular objects will never meet and do lunch at the Claridges Hotel in Mayfair London, period.   Robert T. Kiyosaki even called his book Rich Dad Poor Dad.    I had a copy.   I wonder who nicked it. The rich are lucky.   The government has their back.   I am a billionaire, so I’ll just set up a foundation to help families with many kids who sleep together in the same bed, instead of sleeping with ten teddy bears like my only child.   I don’t have to tell these poor folks that my foundation is a means to hide some money from the taxman. Canadian bank notes and silver. I don’t mind what the rich do with their money, but I object to name calling.   Society calls me broke, if I’m short of cash, but rich people are called bankrupt.   Governments love bankrupt people so much, they have all kinds of bankruptcy laws, whi

Valentine’s Day is on 14 February, but it comes in two parts. Some people are loved 24/7 i.e. the whole year, all the time.   Others, only on 14 February.   Either way, love is in the air.   It is called uthando , in isiZulu (the Zulu language). Love makes the world go round.   It also makes birds to cuddle up on a tree branch, and lions to go on a hunt to impress their lovers with some meat, hopefully it is not human meat.   I love you, says the male lion.   Ngi-yakuthanda . I love you too, says lady lion.   Nam’ ngi-yakuthanda . ‘ thanda ’ sounds like English words task, type or tally. ZULU ENGLISH Ngiyaku-thanda Rihanna. I love you Rihanna. Ngiyaku-thanda Missy Elliot. I love you Missy Elliot. Ngiyaku-thanda mama. I love you mum. Nam ngiyaku-thanda. I love you too. Ngiyaku-thanda baba. I love you dad. Nam ngiyaku-thanda. I love you too. Ngiyaku-t

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.   The equation becomes messed up if the beholder is me, as in me, myself I.   No problem.   If I have money, I can fix ‘mistakes’ my parents made when I was born. People add and subtract things from their bodies to make themselves beautiful.   Trim a nose, add some breasts, iron my wrinkles if I’m over 40, elongate eyes, enlarge lips, buy hair or eyes the colour of the rainbow and even a new butt. I wanted to write a piece about butt enhancement.   I didn’t know that was stale news.   I didn’t get the memo about the new term on the block: buttock augmentation. I got it.   Butt augmentation it shall be.   The problem with flying to Beverley Hills to get a new butt is fashion cycles.   What happens when it is no longer in fashion?   Do you take the next flight to remove the augmentation? Beautiful is a dangerous word because it is unattainable.   Just watch those old National Geographic underwater videos.   There are all kinds of differe

I mi ss taking cabs in New York, London and Toronto because they allowed me to act like a movie star.   I did not take them in Paris because I went there as a student.   I was dirt poor, but it was cheap and easy to hop over to Europe when you lived in London.   Cabs allowed me to become a character in a film, on my way to steal a precious jewel, attend the first exhibition of my paintings, or to meet a married lover, who was my childhood sweetheart.   Reincarnation   That is why I will become a cab driver in my next life.   It is much better to be called a cabbie than A FARE.   I was very sad the first day I learnt that I was a fare.   I always regarded myself as a passenger, a human being, not copper or silver with a photo of the Queen of the British Empire. The word fare reduced me to pounds and pennies.   I am using the British currency, because only the British, with their weird sense of humour will call a human being, a fare.   After learning about this folklore, I cri

Pic: Nonqaba waka Msimang. It is -27 in Winnipeg, Canada so we shall do a post about the cold. For starters, let us refresh our memory: ·          Cold is banda in Zulu.   ·          Water is called amanzi in Zulu. ·          A human being is called umuntu in Zulu. ·          Food is called ukudla in Zulu. ·          Tea is itiye .   Please note that Europeans brought tea to Africa.   That is why itiye is a Zulu version of tea. ZULU ENGLISH TRANSLATION Kuya-banda. U-27 degrees. It is cold.   It is -27 degrees. Kuyabanda e-Canada ngo-February. It is cold in Canada in February. Kuyabanda e-Moscow. It is cold in Moscow. Kuyabanda e-Arctic. It is cold in the Arctic. Kuyabanda namhlanje. It is cold today.