Nonqaba said ...

Sa-be-la, a Zulu word, means respond when someone is calling you. Sabelani is a popular boy’s name which might be directed at ancestors, that they should respond when the family is calling them with a particular request or a general one.   Families also have other reasons for giving sons that name. Elections are about political parties calling voters, with the hope that they will respond and vote accordingly. The system of call and answer is also one of the pillars of traditional African music, where in a gathering, some people ask questions using a song and others respond.   Soldiers sung these songs at the king’s palace before going to face enemies.   Question :   Are we afraid of them? Answer:   No.   We are not. As for kids, they have no choice but to respond quickly when parents or anybody older than them calls them.   It is the height of insolence to ignore elders when they call you. Friendship.   You realise who your friend is during a crisis.   Real friends step

Midterm election in the U.S. Provincial elections next door in Canada and there are many voters that are not harvested because they are not on Twitter. Twitter and online presence in general, is a time-consuming feat.   You need to follow politicians’ utterances regularly and monitor public response.   This is a mammoth task because Twitter is as fast as a heartbeat and many tweets are lost in space, unless they are from the Tweeter in Chief who has millions of followers, not counting hashtags, the foot soldiers. In addition to time, being active online also needs some basic knowledge of English, French or Spanish, for North America at least.   China is not in this equation because people in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and other Asian countries are millions more than Canada and the U.S. combined, and their phones and tattoos are in Chinese. Despite our love hate relationship with social media, it is here for now and affects how politicians are elected and how their per

Missing Wedding Ring (film concept in development). HE:   It’s great to be home (flops on the couch ) . SHE: Good to have you back honey.   How was the conference? HE: Boring as usual. SHE: ( She stares at the white mark on his finger) Honey, where’s your ring? HE: What ring? SHE: Your wedding ring of course. HE: (wiggles his finger ).   It’s here……… SHE: See what I mean?   You’re not wearing it. HE: It must have fallen off at the conference. SHE:   After ten years? HE:   I lost weight, so it has been loose lately. Home phones rings.   She walks to the phone table to answer it. SHE:   Yes.   Yes.   Great.   You’re very kind. Toronto, as in Canada? Once again thanks a lot. (she puts the phone down and looks at him with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes). SHE:   That was the Digital Lovers Hotel in Toronto.   Housekeeping found your ring.   They called to confirm your address.   They want to send it by courier.   Great customer service, don’t you t

The wife always knows. How she reacts to the realization that the cold front at home changes to a warm current in another woman’s arms is the crux of the novel, Freud’s Mistress by Karen Mack and Jennifer Kaufman. Martha Freud is a harried mother of six and the wife of Dr. Sigmund Freud an unapparelled egomaniac shunned by the medical profession for his views on dreams and sexuality. His woes are compounded by being a Jew around 1900’s, in a Vienna where anti-Semitic Nazis are knocking on the population’s consciousness and doors open to embrace them. It is a bi-polar book, if we could be so bold as to liken it to bi-polar disorder, the mental illness associated with wealthy women.   Bi-polar, because in addition to how Martha Freud manages her husband’s infidelity, it is a highly academic novel that needs the reader to know who Sigmund Freud was.   His theories on psychoanalysis and his interpretation of the Oedipus complex in particular, are still fodder for academic and

Photo: Nonqaba waka Msimang. Repeat is phi-nda in Zulu and a popular name for both boys and girls. Phinda a boy’s name. Phindile a girl’s name. The English language has an idiom: history repeats itself.   Life is about repeats and we all want good repeats.   Parents make mistakes.   Hopefully, the next generation will not, otherwise we hear words like curse.   That family is cursed. Power is strange.   Politicians want a second term and they justify it using all kinds of crazy messages.   Is there a politician in history that voluntarily stepped down after one term?   Film producers want their films to win at the Cannes Festival and Berlinale in Berlin, all the time. Toronto Raptors is a Canadian basketball team that won the 2019 NBA Championship.   Now loyal fans want a repeat performance in 2020.   Can we just enjoy the moment please and stop putting pressure on them? Phi-nda .   You say the first part like peace and the second one like pa nde monium. P

You bought your house so selling it at some stage is inevitable, because you are not the Prime Minister of Canada who lives at 24 Sussex Drive in Ottawa.   Justin Trudeau, the current tenant will pack his bags and all the family bicycles to make room for the next guy who wins an election.   Barack Obama, the 44 th U.S. President did not sell the White House.   He packed his books and basketball sneakers and left it for Donald Trump. But Trump refused to leave Queen Elizabeth did not sell Buckingham Palace because George, Prince William’s son will need it one day, when he becomes king. Selling the house begins when you buy it.   There’s great excitement, especially after living in an apartment before kids started arriving.   You rip off natural wood kitchen cabinets and replace them with aluminium cabinetry common in restaurants and school kitchens.   Out goes the breakfast nook, in comes bar stools.   The colour scheme of your new study is black and white, two black wal

What is known as ancient civilizations had many things in common such as respect for mother earth and only disturbing her for sustenance: food and shelter.   These civilisations also worshipped the sun and moon, two things that do not have a plural.   We never say suns or moons. Ama-Zulu regard the sun as the very essence of life.   That is why they call a day i-lan-ga .   A day is also called u-su-ku (see 25 June 2019 post).   The sun always comes out, bad mood or not.   Human beings are not that fortunate.   There is no guarantee that we will wake up in the morning or cross the street safely without being hit by a car because the driver was on the phone, sending a hate message.   That is why Ama-Zulu believe that we are given one sun (a day) at a time.   It is the benevolence of the Creator that makes us rise like the sun. However, that privilege can be withdrawn anytime.   Bham! we fall dead on our expresso at the coffee shop. one day = i-la-nga two days = a-ma-la-nga

The Queen doesn’t read. That is why she hasn’t read The Motorcyclist , by George Elliott Clarke.   Halifax is the novel’s backdrop and we will assume the Queen knows that Halifax is the capital city of Nova Scotia, one of Canada’s ten provinces. There is no doubt she has a couple of in-house libraries here and there, but not one book about authors of her empire.   Sorry.   Calling it the British empire is verboten , to borrow a German word. The polite word is Commonwealth now.   English is the commonality. Therefore, it is in the Queen’s best interest to read The Motorcyclist because the author pinches, pokes and prods her language.   “New Brunswick is a realm of saints – St. Andrews by-the-Sea, Saint John, St. Stephen – all along the Fundy coast.   Too bad the saints be impotent and the Devil vigorous.”   Page 131. It is also loaded with British history including men who died in her wars while being called ‘niggers’.   Carl, the main character works for Canadian Natio

It’s anonymous media actually, because we don’t know the identity of all these people who are judges of our lives. Priorities shift, love wanes, content becomes stagnant or people fall on hard times and cannot afford being hooked up to the internet.   Fortunately, there are no cameras in your face when the bank repossesses your house or the landlord kicks you to the curb, a familiar sight in Hillbrow, Johannesburg with people sitting on their beds outside buildings.   It is the only advantage of being a non-celebrity.   Whatever the reason, we forget to say goodbye to followers, de-followers and ‘might be’ followers when we close online accounts.   The only people who seem to have manners are celebrities who used to share their perfect ten marriages on Instagram and Face. “We have decided to go our separate ways, but we will always love each other.   We request some privacy during this difficult period.” Fine, but you must give it to them.   They have class, instead of d

Wedding magazines are pretty, pretty, pretty! Dentists still keep them as reading material to take your mind off things to come: X-rays and instruments that hum, scrape and poke. Inside pages of wedding magazines have advertisements that are not realistic, something contrary to the marriage reality.   Bride and groom came to the reality that they are really into each and would like to hang around each other through thick and thin: in-laws from hell or from semi-heaven, makeup-less mornings, stubby chins and joint bank account budgeting. That budgeting might not include items depicted in ads for coffeemakers, slow cookers, cutlery, glassware and pots.   Sorry, are the ads for the bridal shower?   Let’s say there are.   Very few guests can afford them unless they are of the Harry and Meghan ilk, and those two will definitely give them away. Wedding magazines have to survive.   They are scared.   They might be the next in line for the guillotine, because advertising revenue ha

Masai Ujiri, Toronto Raptors President and Kawhi Leonard, the 2019 NBA Most Valuable Player knew in 2018, that the Buzzer Beater will not return to the Raptors.   They cannot be accused of secrecy because it is the nature of the beast: contract law. Two parties of sound mind, over the age of 18 come together and map out an agreement on a piece of paper (not a coffee shop napkin) and sign on the dotted line.   You are familiar with secrecy because of the contract with the bank that enabled you to buy your house or car.   Guys that dabble in the Stock Exchange will tell you how they raise loans for take-overs, hostile or otherwise.   The terms of all your contracts are nobody’s business.   They are confidential.   That is even a better word in this context.   Some contracts have a section on confidentiality. That applies to how Kawhi Leonard briefly came to Canada on a working visit, did the job, got paid and returned to the U.S.   Toronto Raptors wanted something from him, he w

Goodbye is va-le-li-sa in Zulu. Ma didn’t play.   I couldn’t go back to university without saying goodbye to her mother, Khu-lu .   I gladly took the bus to her place because I knew that I would come back with a cooked farm chicken, steamed bread, fresh vegetables and pocket money.   My grandmother was the best, hardworking, loving and tolerant of her crazy kids and grandchildren.   We say goodbye when we leave a job, leave home, leave a country but seldom when we leave a relationship.   That’s another story. North America loves elections.   The current mayor or president is defeated, so he calls supporters and says goodbye, we ran a good race but lost.   Thanks for your support. Va-le-li-sa .   You say the first two parts like valet, as in car valet service in those fancy hotels. You say the third part like Lisa and the last part like some. The Fort Garry has car valet service. ZULU ENGLISH Va-le-li-sa ku-baba. Say goodbye

Online shopping is not the only culprit. The closure of department stores like Sears in Canada and stores that specialize in women’s clothes in particular, can also be attributed to the dress casualization of formal spaces. Casualization, is a terrible pretentious word typical of higher education which uses big words to describe ordinary things like dressing up, with the intention to exclude people who did not go to school or attained higher education. Casual and formal dressing has been there since the beginning of time.   Traditional societies have day to day clothes for working the land, tending animals or seducing fish from rivers and the sea.   Then they have special clothes for ceremonies to thank nature for its generosity and pray for future produce. The current book on this confused desk is The Bones of Paradise by Jonis Agee.   Someone dresses the dead girl in a white deerskin dress that was intended for her wedding.   It’s a wild guess but, weddings have n

Song of Solomon. Toni Morrison’s novel has a scene where locals complain that a stranger arrived and did not greet them.   I hope I’m quoting the correct book.   I can’t double-check because someone nicked Song of Solomon .   Borrowed probably.   We do forget to return things, don’t we? Toni Morrison is the only person who can confirm or dispute what I’m saying about that scene.   Fortunately, she doesn’t read this blog. Greetings are the icebreaker, even the two cents ‘ Hi ’ mainly used by Canadians and Americans.   Greetings are more elaborate in traditional societies where people live off the land and whose lives are determined by the sun and the moon, and food is provided by animals, fish and plants.   Greetings are also more intimate among African Americans because they use the whole body, shoulders, arms and hands to connect.   Their style has been handed down from generation to generation because of slavery, when they were truly blood brothers and took care of each

Kawhi Leonard and Jodhaa Akbar. Copyright: UTV Motion Pictures Reality vs. movies.  Kawhi Leonard is a real person, an American basketball player who was based in Canada while playing for Toronto Raptors, the 2019 NBA champions.  The NBA is waiting for his decision: leave Raptors to join one of the basketball teams courting him or stay in Canada for a while.  Whatever his choice, he will have conditions for where he is heading, which brings us to Jodhaa Akbar, directed by Indian filmmaker Ashutosh Gowariker, starring Aishwarya Rai Bachchan as Jodhaa Bai, a Rajput princess and Hrithik Roshan as the Akbar, the Mughal Emperor. King Bharmal, Jodhaa’s father had a problem.  Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar had a problem.  Jodhaa’s father was scared that the Mughal emperor was going to attack his kingdom.  Mughal Akbar did not want Hindus to be forced to convert to Islam, but some of his generals completely disregarded his instructions.  There was tension at the borders o