Nonqaba said ...

Paul Watson, Toronto Raptors. It must be in their contracts and the NBA must have rules about how basketball players are traded, for example. l   Notice. How much notice are they given? Surely, it can’t be as soon as possible. l   NBA players’ kids. Are they taken out of school when daddy leaves Toronto for Orlando? Can wives stay behind and let kids finish the term? l   Rental property. Most landlords want you to sign a one-year lease. Do they understand that their tenants can be traded anytime? l   Who is on the lease? Who rents the apartment, the player or the team, let’s say Toronto Raptors for example? l   Does a player call the estate agent to cancel the offer they had put on a medium-sized house in North York, Ontario? l   If they already own property, do they let it out or put it on the market, which is very frustrating because you don’t get a buyer for your house overnight? l   Do NBA teams have psychologists that counsel players about being traded. ‘ Nothing pe

Photo: Nonqaba waka Msimang. School is out, so I can’t find English Literature professors to ask them about the definition of fiction and non-fiction. Loosely defined, fiction is playing house, make-believe, if you will. The John and Mary in the novel, we will call Handless Hands , don’t exist. They are characters the writer made up, to tell the story. Non-fiction is real life like the U.S. during World War 11. President Truman bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, when he knew that Japan had already surrendered. Fiction pretends to be real life so we assume that Mary carries a handbag, a back pack or money belt around her waist. Mary is not poor. She has a job. Maybe she is a trust fund baby. How do we tell the reader that? We mention the brand name of her handbag. Handless Hands  becomes a best seller. Jordan Peele directs the movie version. Women who cannot decide anything without watching royalty and movie stars buy the handbag. Therefore, the author gave handbag

In front of the line. Photo: Nonqaba waka Msimang. In front is pha-mbi-li in Zulu. They do polls for almost everything to decide who is in front. Sports is about being in front like a relay race, goals in soccer, basketball, tennis, boat racing etc. Polls are popular during a presidential race, provincial and municipal elections. Polls can be off or right on the money. Barack Obama was the first African American to be U.S. President. How did polls handle that, yes he will or never? I don’t remember and I don’t have time to do some research right now. Being in front is a human vice. We want to be rich so we dabble in some insider trading. Accountants re-engineer the books. We ruin someone’s name to the boss so that we can get that promotion. We have become technology hostages and there is debate about which country is leading in this ‘ app -titude.’ Kids want to be in the passenger seat which results in mayhem because the seat is a unicorn, for one person only. School has

Photo: Nonqaba waka Msimang English is my second language. I’ve learnt to live with it because I need it to get around. What I’m still grappling with is the other English, the hiding English. There is no other way to put it. This English is used to camouflage things and not call a spade a spade because other gardening tools like the fork, rake and hand shears will get upset. Hiding Behind Bushes English Straight Forward English Insufficient funds in your bank account. You’re broke. No money in your account. Cellphone charges will be adusted in 2020. Using your phone will go up 2020. Impaired driving. Drunk driving. They are alcoholics. They are drunks. Guest services in shopping malls. Customer service (I’m not a guest at the mall. I do eye-shopping and split). Correctional Services Prison/jail/lockdown. Security was compromised in the liquor store. Thieves broke into the booze store. Restructuring. Lay-offs. Firing workers. Ind

The world map is a great Christmas gift for many reasons. Globes eliminate that destructive word ‘mine, it’s mine ’ because parents, cousins and brothers and sisters can share it, calling out countries of the world and their languages. A globe is a circle, like the sun and the moon, which makes it a tool that can be used to illustrate other school subjects. It can also be used to teach anti-racism because the home can be a breeding ground for hatred. For example, kids should be encouraged to identify Japan, Korea, Vietnam and China, on the globe thus teaching them that saying ‘he looks Chinese ’ is wrong.    Parents already have some strategies for raising kids to understand that Canada is a garden with many different flowers. l   Attending annual festivals of other cultures l   Eating out in different restaurants l   Trying out world recipes at home l   Attending foreign film festivals in their city l   Telling kids that, ‘I’m reading an interesting book, the autho

Photo: Nonqaba waka Msimang. Canada Day celebration. Baphile is a girl’s name in Zulu which means, they gave something. Maybe the king gave the family land for farming when she was born or, the family had four sons and wanted a daughter. Baphile lives in a city. In this scene, she is visiting her grandmother for the December/January holidays. Baphile : Grandma, you said we were going somewhere important. Grandma : Yes. We are here. Baphile : In the forest? Grandma : Yes, to see your sisters. Baphile : I see trees and not a single woman in sight. Grandma : Touch here. Touch it. What do you like about them? Baphile : Strong, sturdy despite being battered by rain and toasted by the sun. Grandma : That’s right child. The tree is a woman. Baphile:  Man and woman grandma. All things are in two’s. That’s nature for you. Grandmother : Point taken. What do they have up there? Baphile : Branches grandma, remember I used to climb trees with my brothers. Grandma : That is w

Turn around is phe-ndu--ka  in Zulu. You say the first part like pet, the second like the mighty Indus River in Asia, and the last like Kamala Harris. Phe-ndu-ka  means turn a new leaf Phe-ndu-ka  also means turn around or go back U- lala ephenduka , is a Zulu proverb that means you can’t trust someone. It literally means he turns this way and that way when he is asleep. Whistleblowers for example. They turn around and give damaging evidence because they are disillusioned with their circles and what they represent. Wa-ba phe-ndu-ke-la  (She turned against them.)   Husbands and wives fight all the time. Call it an occupational hazard. It’s what they do, add spice to their life. Then the sun goes down. One party sleeps facing west instead of east. ‘ Phenduka dali wam ,’ begs the other party, meaning turn around darling. Such is life. People who claim to be Christians, Muslims and other religions are always shopping, asking people to convert, turn to their religion. It can be