Garbage the Resurrection
Rewind. We once had the mental capacity, but we grew up. We lost it, at five years old. Because we like borders, we restrict the meaning of words, put them in freezer bags and label them.
That’s why we don’t see the relationship between things, natural phenomena. The sun and moon get on very well because they know their relationship. Take the word birth for example.
She has given birth. West Africans have a wonderful way of putting it. ‘She has put to bed.’ Makes sense doesn’t it? The baby was in the stomach, now it’s on the bed.
Birth means something new, unique. Birth should not be restricted to something totally new. It must include recycling and its relationship to the environment. Take compost, for example.
The Zulu language whose umbilical cord is buried in the province called KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, has an interesting word for compost.
Ezaleni. You peel vegetables to make lunch or dinner then throw skins in the backyard ezaleni. They’ll disappear back into the soil that gave birth to them. What does ezaleni mean in English?
To give birth is ‘zala’ in Zulu. Ezaleni is the place where the re-birth for vegetable waste, takes place. Mama taught us, so did our grandmothers before her. It has been done since nature allotted Africans that piece of land.
But, how can you call a vegetable and fruit garbage a ‘birth’ place? Because of limited resources. The earth, just one earth gave us collard greens, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, corn and mango.
Therefore, skins and leaves we peeled should go back to the earth, to be born again. We have to, because there’s no back-up earth.
That’s why compost is called ezaleni where things will be born, again.
By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.
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