Nonqaba said ...

Bonding with co-workers. Unfortunately, kids are sent to college with the expectation that they will get better jobs after graduation.   If they are not in Economics or Business Studies, they are not conditioned to start their own businesses so that they can pocket the lion’s share of profits and also have people to boss around. If they are lucky in the year of the lord 2019/2020, they will get jobs but there are two main hurdles: ·          the boss and ·          co-workers The boss is no problem because if he says JUMP, you say how high.   Co-wor kers, however, are more complicated.   You need kid gloves to juggle egos and claims of superiority and a constant smile on your face to demonstrate that you are a team player. There’s also the coffee challenge.   You get a job where your section goes out for coffee once a week to bond in an informal setting.   How do you contribute to the camaraderie when you don’t know anything about Bugs Bunny, baseball batting average

                                                                                                                                                                                                                Canada the entity, feels lonelier on July 1. Why? Because it is a federal holiday called Canada Day.   Lonelier because the entity (country) does not have grout that binds patriotism tiles like other entities.   France has Bastille Day. Spain has All Saints Day. Sweden has Midsommardagen.   United Arab Emirates has Eid Al Fitr.   Lesotho, in Africa has King Moshoeshoe’s Day. Canada the entity envies these countries because they have longstanding cementing agents such as a language, religion, geography, history or struggle for independence. Canada is not solid like floor tiles joined by grout.   It is like confetti which does not lose its colours when it hits the ground.   Canada, the entity has people from all over the world who embraced it, to free themselves from reli

Canada Day is July 1. Photo:  Nonqaba waka Msimang. A day is u-su-ku in Zulu. Many days i-zi-nsu-ku . Life is 24/7, which means 24 hours a day, seven days a week.   African Americans have had this English for generations.   It was frowned upon as Ebonics until it got into the mainstream and once again strengthened American English.   The U.S. has also incorporated into standard English, phrases like being on the same page, a line in Rick Famuyiwa’s movie Brown Sugar , starring Taye Diggs and Sanaa Latham.     Seven days in Zulu is i-zi-nsu-ku e-zi-yi-si-kho-mbi-sa .   A teacher would therefore ask Grade One: How many days do we have in a week? The class would respond in unison:   Ziyisikhombisa . U-su-ku .   You say the first part like Urma, the second like Suzy and the last part like kudu. ZULU ENGLISH Usuku lwami lokuzalwa. My birthday. Luhamba kanjani usuku lwakho? How is your day?

Book or product? Relaxing with a good work of fiction is not relaxing in the true sense of the word, because of anticipation.   Readers don’t know whether the story will stay in the north or gravitate towards the south.   They have a jaundiced view of certain characters to the extent of treating them like humans, by either loving or hating them. That is why publishers’ propensity to cubby hole books into genres: romance, thriller, sci-fi, chic lit etc. militates against that anticipation, because readers can predict the DNA of characters.   Authors tweak characters’ make-up from time to time for example, making the FBI or CIA agent a woman.   For example, in Duplicity , the suspense thriller jointly written by Newt Gingrich and Pete Early, the fictitious U.S. President is a woman, Captain Brooke Grant is African American, her uncle is the Joint Chief of Staff and the terrorist an American of Somali descent, seduced by online religious fanaticism. Sliding fiction in appropriat

Serving food is pha-ka in Zulu. This blog offers Zulu lessons when time permits.   Isi-Zulu is one of the languages spoken in South Africa, where the umbilical cord is buried.   It is also spoken in neighbouring countries like Lesotho, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. Pha-ka is the comprehensive action from the source (pot) to the final destination, which could be a table or someone sitting under a tree. Kids don’t have jobs.   They play, eat and sleep.   There is even a rhyme they sing when they play in the evening, just before electricity is switched on:   Bakhanya ogesi, sekuzophakwa meaning, lights are on, food will be served.   Aaayi!   These guys are something else.   Well!   They better rush home before mothers come out, hands on their hips and shout their names. Traditionally, strangers who dropped by on their way to another part of the country were given food and shelter. It was in the spirit of u-bu-ntu, treating a human being the way you would like to be treated

Kawhi Leonard. To stay or not to stay.                                                                                                          That is the question, to tweak what my English teacher attributed to Shakespeare.   The 2019 NBA Finals MVP has already decided whether he will stay with Toronto Raptors or move back to the U.S. to play with another team and that decision is purely personal. It was not based on some change, a few million dollars here and there and other dollar-full perks.   It is the outcome of what he is comfortable with on and off the court, his family’s future plans and his need to play basketball. Another motivating factor was what went down with the San Antonio Spurs, before Masai Ujiri burnt the midnight oil, and decided that Kawhi Leonard is part of the mathematics to win.   We don’t know what went down.   San Antonio Spurs know.   Kawhi Leonard knows.   Whatever it was, that experience was a factor in his decision to stay or not stay with Toronto

Estates. The perception about estates. I thought it was about size, extra large to be exact and only rich people had them. Crop and animal farms; sugar cane plantations in Africa, Caribbean, Brazil and Cuba; cotton plantations in the U.S.; land for grazing horses or cattle; vineyards in Bordeaux France; Buckingham Palace and related mini palaces; and homes of the rich and famous like Oprah.   That was my idea of estates. Then mother died. A jewellery store where she bought her kids and grandchildren wrist watches called telling us to pay what was owing on the account.   We said the person who was their customer had passed on to our ancestors.   They said her estate should settle the bill.   What estate?   I said we were not rich enough to have an estate.   The jewellery store then explained that it was not only about wealth.   Estate meant possessions, what a person had when she died including debt.   What estate could a woman born black in a white country like South Af

I don’t like ads. They seem to have more rights than us mortals, even though we used our money to buy computers and cellphones and pay for internet connection, from telecommunications companies. Enter the NBA playoffs and I was forced to tolerate advertisements.   O.K. You have something to sell.   What is it?   Make it fast.   Remember I’m mad already because of the interruption. Nestea had the best ad because the story did not overshadow the product.   Boy likes girl. Boy is shy.   He finds solace in his manufactured Nestea.   We know the product already from the store fridge, when we buy fruit juice, water or fizzy drinks.   Girl notices boy.   Boy still scared.   He drinks his Nestea.   He wants to offer the girl some, but zero courage.   It’s an ad I’ll always remember. Enter Tangerine, which I understand was the marquee ad at the Toronto Raptors’ Victory Parade.   It says it’s a bank.   No, I won’t Google it.   The ad should talk to me.   It should answer the f

Fashion designers want to sue Goodwill stores. The potential lawsuit might seem bizarre but European and North American fashion designers claim that Value Village, Goodwill and other stores that sell used clothing, display items similar to their latest creations, tanking their credibility.    Fashion designers believe that these stores choose for their display windows, creased pants and dresses that look like they were chewed by cows, jeans with legs that look like they were sliced by a machete, jackets the colour of mud mixed with blood and leaves, dresses with tails, tops that look like cotton candy, army jackets, and shoes that look like boots soldiers wore in World War 11. Designers want to initiate the lawsuit for lost revenue because while a designer rag promoted by a famous rap or movie star might retail for $1 000, a hand-me-down that looks like it, costs $7 max at thrift stores. Used clothing stores find the whole thing ridiculous because clothes are donated.   Canad

Canada a cold country?   Yes and no. This post was prompted by the 2019 NBA playoffs and related basketball commentary.   One of them was that American players don’t want to shoot hoops in the Toronto Raptors’ jersey because it is cold up north. Visitors to provinces like Ontario, tend to give Canada a bad rap.   They think it’s cold because they see locals wearing dress boots and leather gloves around Christmas and all the way to February.   Dress boots? Yes maa’m!   For a long time, I thought boots were boots, until I landed in Canada, in a province called Manitoba to be precise.   Now we are talking very cold.   Visitors cannot scream cold if they’ve never tasted provinces like this one. You see, dress boots are photo-shoot boots, pretty leather things to go with designer jeans or long skirts.   They are not for the cold because it penetrates the boots and freezes your toes.   Try wiggling them?   No, won’t do, because they are in prison, arrested by the leather.

Terence Davis (centre): New great kid on the block, Raptors block. Coaching for the unknown. That is Steve Kerr’s quandary.   How does he brief his Golden State Warriors in this 2019 NBA playoffs, when he is clueless about what coach Nick Nurse and his Toronto Raptors have up their sleeve?   It’s much better to lay down logistics if you know the opponent’s arsenal.   Let’s borrow from the ancient Zulu idiom: ufihle induku emqubeni   loosely translated into, hiding a big stick in the compost heap. That is what Nick Nurse is doing, has an ace up his sleeve, an English equivalent. How about previous games?   Can they give the Warriors’ coach an indication of where the sticks are buried?   That is where he faces a cul-de-sac .   Raptors have a new game plan for every game, literally.   What Kyle Lowry did in Game 1 as the courier, sending coded messages to the likes of Kawhi Leonard was not what he did in Game 3, where he was a free agent to the basket every time the coast w