Nonqaba said ...

Government has always sent immigrants to the west  but some  do not stay long.  They move east to Ontario or U.S. Photo: Union Station wall. We have jobs, but no takers. That is the message from some industries, but what is not highlighted is that they are minimum wage jobs.  This is particular acute in rural areas because they historically lose workers to big cities. That is why the federal government directs new comers to such areas.  Canada is a two-part series: the federal government based in Ottawa and governments of the 10 provinces and the 3 territories. The federal government is responsible for immigration. Most newcomers want to hit the big cities like Toronto and Vancouver. That is why it prefers to send its sponsored immigrants to provinces. You can also be sponsored by a church or family members. For example, we were brought to Canada by the federal government and it placed us in Manitoba, one of the provinces. We later moved to Toronto in the Ontario Province where salarie

Hackers don’t pay taxes because their income cannot be traced. Lost in transit, is more like it. It is income to hackers, but outcome to victims, which brings me to taxes. There is a deluge of videos and blogs about making money online, but very few about tax implications. The dollar you make online is income. Let me break it down for you. Income is money coming in . If it is made in a country called Canada, the government wants a bite. There’s no place to hide if you make the income across the border, in the U.S. of A. It will find you. Hackers don’t make videos about their successful family business for obvious reasons. Most videos that are out there, about making money online are well planned. They give a step-by-step guide but nothing about taxes, except one. The host is a Canadian lady that lives in the U.S. I saw the video some years back so I can’t remember her name. I didn’t write it down because it didn’t occur to me that it was blog material. Anyway, most of her YouTube video

Foreign students need a Social Insurance Number (SIN) if they want to work in Canada. It’s a government thing. It loves taxes. You work, get paid, the government wants a cut. Both local and foreign students work for the same reason: extra cash. However, they are in college for different reasons. For Canadian and American students, it is the next step in preparation for employment with substantial benefits. Foreign students also have a rosy future in mind because of the perception that a degree from the University of Manitoba or Columbia University in New York, is better than any degree from Africa or Asia. Parents in these continents still hold foreign degrees in high esteem. It is just a perception because there are only 24 hours in a day and a student has only one body. Therefore, if part time jobs are the priority, they don’t have enough time to study and absorb all the book elements, supposedly exclusive to a Canadian or American university. Universities in Africa and Asia are fost

The sweetest corn is orange like the sun. Come to think of it, I don’t know its true color because I never stare at the sun. I’m not a billionaire. I will not damage my original eyes because I cannot afford to buy convincing new ones. What is the connection between corn colour and Russia’s presence in Ukraine? Because we take sides on the issue despite the fact that we don’t know what is under tight corn leaves. Government determines the corn colour we eat: organic orange corn from the farmer’s field, or pale yellow corn from a heat-controlled indoor farm. It is difficult to take sides on Ukraine because our governments filter the truth. They do it against our will most of the time because they are forced to follow America, the pied piper, or should we say the paying piper? America decides which country lives or die. We suspected it for a long time, until Afghanistan. Afghanistan defeated America, the foreign policy sponsor. That is why U.S. President Joe Biden decided to pull out. Can

Life is wonderful. Are you nuts? It’s Monday. Yes, but it’s raining. Rain washes away the stains in the air we caused through industrialization and tree felling. Rain also nudges the soil to sprout out food destined for supermarket shelves. However, it is bad news for food delivery because of hard to fulfil promises. ‘Your pizza in 20 minutes or it’s free.’  Nature cannot be dictated to so it rains, huge rain brushes on the window that remind us life is not so bad after all. The 20 minutes’ promise, gets a top-up of more minutes if it is raining. The rain demands caution on the road for obvious reasons. We all want to arrive at our destination in one piece. This reduces the pizza travel time to your home or corporate boardroom. What compounds matters during the summer is road construction. Rain plus road closed signs, are two scoops of frustration for food delivery drivers. Then there are unforeseen circumstances. It rains heavily resulting in a water main break at a busy intersection.

Pic: Nonqaba waka Msimang. We don’t have to know everything about the sun and moon because it leads to the desire to change them, instead of concentrating on basic life. That is how we scarred the environment which resulted in climate change and kids wearing masks. We don’t have to know how two birds fall in love from two million of the same species. Falling in love is a Hollywood phrase that often results in women’s degradation and murder. I’m using it for lack of a better word.  I assume birds fall in love because they gather twigs and make a home, a nest. We don’t have to know how lions fall in love. It’s enough that we see a lion family, lounging on the grass, contemplating how to attack the ambitious photographer. There’s a she lion and he lion. How does the man know he’s the father? We don’t have to know. We don’t have to know why a snake crawls because it will lead to the attempt to give it fake legs. We don’t have to know why a leopard has spots because a multinational company

Old post 4/11/2018, before Harry and Meghan’s wedding. Doria Ragland, Meghan Markle’s mama has already advised her daughter about in-laws.   Patience.  Most cultures tell daughters to exercise patience, observe how things are done and respect immediate and long distance in-laws.   There’s a Zulu saying that marriage is  kwamfaz’ongemama,  translated into, it’s not your mother’s house.  Meghan Markle will spend a lot of time in Buckingham Palace and other mini-palaces after her wedding to Prince Harry on the 19 th  of May 2018. Little girls who were brought up to believe that they will meet prince charming and live in castles might envy her, but Meghan Markle needs prayers and a thick skin, not envy, because she is entering a house that is short on love but long on appearances. She doesn’t have to worry about the love aspect because Prince Harry is really into her.  She should just fine tune the strategy on appearances, and pretend that all is well with the Queen’s family. Meghan Markle

Kids and sports dreams. In the U.S. they want to play for Major League Baseball or NBA teams. In Canada they want to be part of the National Hockey League (NHL). In countries colonized by the British, they want to play cricket or soccer. There are many stories about parents supporting them, but we haven’t heard about how they teach them about basketball and beans. Parents who think ahead placed  laundry baskets in their rooms, took them shopping for detergent and showed them how to use the washer and dryer at home or coin laundry. We say parents who think ahead because they know the rough road. Kids grow up and leave home, especially if they are determined to be professional athletes. There is nobody to pick up after them while they pursue their dreams. The connection between basketball and beans is about learning how to cook. Put an egg inside some water, boil it, cool it, peel, slice and drop it on chopped tomatoes. Eat. This might be an outlandish example because everybody over 16 c

Was it made in Italy or Scarborough Ontario? What does authentic and dinosaurs have in common? Extinct. Did dinosaurs really exist? I’ll take Hollywood’s word for it because it defined our existence, before the internet hijacked that function. Authentic is also extinct because it is more expensive. Dress designers stitch every gown, give it to a celebrity to wear on the red carpet and orders start coming. China is always on stand-by to make thousands of the same gown, to be sold in discount outlets. It is particularly damaging to countries like Nigeria where ordinary people make a living, tailoring. KiekieTV , a comedy show, likes to highlight designers’ lives. China discovered their passion and reproduces men’s outfits cheaply. Food items, are they authentic? This piece was inspired by a trip to a super store to look for olive oil. The near-by store slapped $6 more on a bottle they had sold for nine dollars, for almost three years. My eye caught this bottle of spaghetti sauce as I zig

Leylah Fernandez, relax and have fun at the '22 U.S. Open. You're still young. The tennis tournament called the U.S. Open is a milestone in any player’s career. It doesn’t belong to any particular player. It has been there long before Novak Djokovic got here. That is why the media or anybody with a pole microphone or cellphone, should stop asking tennis players about him. He is not important, here and now. The ‘22 Australian Open put a tombstone on the matter. The media should let us enjoy the ‘22 U.S. Open without tainting it with one player’s stand. Tennis players who vaccinated and played in Melbourne dread the same questions. No problem. When sports media ask them about Djokovic, they must have one answer: NO COMMENT. It is no comment because of personal sacrifice. Besides the prize money, players sacrifice a lot to play grand slam tournaments. We might think it is exciting to be a professional tennis player, but it isn’t. 1.  they have no love life to speak of 2.  they don

Waiters (servers) have their mental health in danger all the time for a variety of reasons. We don’t tip anymore. If we do, it’s not cash money. It is included in the bill settled with the credit card. We are rude to waiters. We keep them at the table for ten minutes asking questions, just to impress the girlfriend or boyfriend. We don’t hear about waiters’ mental health because they are not tennis players, NBA or soap stars. If waiters wrote books, they will include these customer questions.   1.         Can I substitute the French fries (also called chips) for a salad?   2.         Are the anchovies in the  Salad Niçoise   fished in pollution-free oceans?   3.         Can i have two plates because we will share a meal?   4.         Do you have bottled water from the Swiss Alps?   5.         Can I have the  Fettuccine Alfredo  without the ham and cream?   6.         Is your chicken grain-fed?   7.         Is your cheesecake gluten-free?   8.         Can you stir-fry the stir-fry witho

If you speak Technology across the board, you can work from home for a business on the other side of the globe. It has been happening for quite some time. That’s why parents do not understand how sons and daughters prefer to be in tech, and not go to university to become doctors and lawyers. Education is for commerce, to enable kids to function in activities that put food on the table and money in the government wallet. That is why school subjects are discarded and new ones added. Once upon a time, universities taught Philosophy. Apparently, it helped in the thinking process, to reason logically. Latin was once a requirement for law students. What universities did not teach is that Philosophy had its origin in drawing rooms of the upper class, dukes, lords, earls and other titled men who had time on their hands. Men who have never had dirt in between their nails because they had servants. That is why they had time to ponder. Education is for commerce. That is why there are subjects lik

 "Only a homeless person knows the value of a roof. A rich one wants a new roof." by Nonqaba waka Msimang. Money has no value. That is why billionaires and under the radar millionaires are never satisfied. They want more. Money is not like a kettle which boils at a certain point. It even hisses to get somebody to come and switch is off. Newer kettles on the market that switch themselves off are not part of this discussion. Photo credit: online pic. The internet fuels the perception that money has value. It is like a casino, where all kinds of bets are made. Gamblers drink coffee throughout the night perfecting the perfect online con. They know they will catch some fish because the world is constantly looking for easy money. When we say we want to be rich, we don’t come up with a limit for example, I will consider myself rich when I have two million dollars. Hands up if you ever reached your set limit, then stopped making money. Because money has no limit, very few gamblers in

Senator Elizabeth Warren one of the high profile campaigners for student debt cancellation. This week U.S. President Joe Biden announced that student loans for borrowers who earn $125,000 will be canceled. The issue is what binds twins in the womb: the loan and interest. We cannot talk about free enterprise without mentioning interest. Students signed on the dotted line that they’ll pay interest on federal student loans. It’s the American way. It is called capitalism, the grout of so-called developed countries. Interest. What is interest? Punishment. It’s punishment for not having cash money thus forcing you to approach banks to buy a house, car, vacation or starting a business. When you buy a condo or a flat, you sign every page of the bank loan agreement. There’s another punishment down the road. Interest is somewhere in those pages but you’re are so happy about being a homeowner, you miss the little section that says interest keeps growing, if you miss payments. The Biden administra

Kristina Mladenovic, French tennis player. One of her matches against  Serena Williams belongs to tennis archives. Serena Williams is not the first athlete to take a break for personal reasons, and come back after a few years. It was her choice to return after the birth of her daughter. It was also her choice to either retire gracefully or be remembered as a player who shed tears after a first round loss. The former confident Serena relied on her serve and Autobahn strokes. The latter Serena will be remembered for her apologetic tears. Old 2018 post about the best of Serena Williams Kristina Mladenovic  ’s finesse in round 3 of Wimbledon 2018 against Serena Williams, can be attributed to burning the midnight oil, working on a game plan. Although Serena won, the figures 7-5,7-6 are an indication that the game plan worked 80%.  What eroded the 20% were her overhead shots designed to remove Serena from the net because Serena flattened them down Kristina’s baseline, landing high up like Mo

High speed trains in Tokyo or Washington run on computers now, but there is still somebody in the drivers box. How about cities? Do mayors run them? No, I won’t Google it. Let me use my experience in living in cities. For starters, mayors love big scissors, not small like kitchen scissors or a dress designer’s pair of scissors. Mayors use them to cut ribbons. They must be quite big so that television and cellphone cameras can see them when the mayor officially opens a shopping mall, school or hockey stadium. Mayors also deliver opening remarks, speech writers prepare for them, for the opening of multicultural festivals and national celebrations like Canada Day and Veterans’ Day. In a nutshell, they attend community events with the potential of high velocity media presence. There’s money involved so I guess mayors oversee the housekeeping budget, cut and paste here and there, rob Peter to pay Paul, or permanently rob somebody. It won’t be cyclists for sure because the bicycle lobby is v

America, England and G7 countries are courting Rwanda, an African country. In fact, they have secret dealings with Paul Kagame, the president for their own personal interests. They are after African trees, and for whatever reason, he is not aware that trees represent Africa’s wealth. G7 countries have no love for Africa and never will. The problem is opening Kagame’s eyes, so that he can see the deception. Here are a few Kagame’s secret dealings with the west, dealings he was naive enough to think that the U.S. and G7 love him. 1.  Afghanistan. In August, 2021 Rwanda accepted the school for Afghan girls, gave them land and immunity, which means Kagame and President Biden made arrangements for the school before the withdrawal of G7 countries from Afghanistan. What did President Kagame gain from the deal? We don’t know. 2.  Canada and Rwanda. June 2022 Canada announced the intention of opening an embassy in Rwanda. Why does Biden and Trudeau think Paul Kagame is their gateway to Africa’s

The customer is always right. That is the first thing they tell new employees in the service industry and customers also know it. That is why some abuse waiters (servers), hotel and industrial cleaners, petrol attendants and cashiers. One day we saw a young woman running after a woman in a motorized wheel chair. Did she catch her? We shall never know but either way, she must have lost her job at the care home. The customer is always right is strictly enforced for obvious reasons. They don’t want to lose business because some complaints are not in person or e-mail, but through word of mouth, which is more damaging. How about social media, it is more lethal? That brings me to the bare bones of this blog. The customer is not always right because we are human beings. Customers have potholes in their souls, just plain nasty and this shows up in online complaints. Most of them are vindictive, like women who wrongly accuse men of abuse, when they refuse to marry them or when he wants a divorc

Best selling author.  That’s right. I should re-package myself and add a trailer to my name otherwise, I will never convince more readers to buy my book. Seemingly, you folks only buy books by best selling authors.  I never used that trailer before because I thought it was based on actual book sales.  Let’s leave e-books out of the equation for now, because the best-selling author designation, was born before e-reading. Is that the correct term, e-reading?  Never mind. Sales. Yes. I thought best selling author was about numbers.  Author A sold 5 million copies of his last book, followed by Author B with a lukewarm 900 copies. My colleague Mushroom depressed me even more when he said it is also based on countries. What is a best seller in Country A might be peanuts in Country B. I’m older and wiser now because I know that the best-selling author hashtag is not based on sales, whether it is Ireland or the U.S.  Anybody can use it.  It is not illegal.  I cannot be accused of treason. It i

Canada in winter. Where's the car? I parked it right here. Wyoming Republicans chose Trump and the lie, over America and the truth. No problem history will vindicate Liz Cheney.   She doesn’t speak Zulu, a South African language. If she did, she would say Akuna nkinga  (no problem). All languages have the phrase no problem. Disney even has it in the Lion King, HAKUNA MATHATA, although I’ve never seen the movie. ‘Kosi wala.’  (Yoruba, Nigeria). ‘A-yikh’ inkinga. ’  (Zulu South Africa). ‘A-kuna nkinga.’  (also Zulu South Africa). Can you give me a ride to the ball game?  A-kuna nkinga . May I have the last pizza slice?  A-kuna nkinga . Do you take Canadian dollars?  A-kuna nkinga . It is a casual way of agreeing with somebody and it applies to light situations. Let’s get married. You  hope she will accept the proposal and say,   A-kuna nkinga . However, there’s a problem if the bride or groom does not turn up in church. Cold feet?    Politicians cannot expect the same response during

Picking pockets is - khu-thu-za  in the Zulu language spoken in South Africa. As a tourist remember that some locals don't like you or the country you come from. Don't touch kids, give them a ride in your rented car or take them to a hotel. It might be suicidal.  In some countries tourists are targets for pickpockets. They should be aware of men with jackets or newspapers over their arms. They can lift your wallet and pass it on to their partners in crime.  Cellphones are also in demand in some countries. Khu-thu-za  also means extortion, getting money through blackmail, kidnapping or sheer evil like in the book,  The Golden Boy , set in India and Texas. Leena, the main character marries Girish through an arranged marriage.  Her parents work extra hard to give her a substantial dowry. Life with her mother-in-law, sister-in-law and husband is pure slavery. To rub salt in the wound they go back to her parents and extort a monthly payment, claiming Leela doesn’t know the basics of

Teenagers rule O.K. Britain's Emma Raducanu took the  2021 U.S. Ladies Singles Trophy by defeating Leylah Fernandez from Canada. The ‘22 U.S. Open is here. I won’t be in New York to watch premium tennis, for reasons best known to my wallet. Plan B is vintage stores to hunt for that old school desk calculator accountants used to tally up our tax returns, many moons ago. Why? I want to punch in numbers because the U.S. Open and all major tennis tournaments for that matter, are big money for players. Sure, they play for the game, for the experience, for the Hall of Fame but let’s get real. They serve, lob and backhand for the dollars. Once I find that vintage desk calculator, I will punch in the prize money for: Men’s singles winner Ladies’ singles winner Ladies’ doubles winners Men’s doubles winners Mixed doubles winners But, I will get stuck at the taxes. The prize money is before tax. The phrase ‘after tax’ means the government in its benevolence, has grabbed its share. It doesn’t

Some mothers resigned in 2020 at the outbreak of the pandemic and they must take another decision. Do they go back to work, or continue home schooling their kids? There is no doubt about legal equality of the sexes in industrialized countries like Canada and U.S. but the reality is, when it comes to kids, women feel the pain more than men.   Zulu  is a language spoken mainly in southern Africa and this is how women put it:  ku ya sika  (it cuts). When a child cries, the woman is reminded of labour pains she experienced to bring it to this world. Schools have their phone numbers in case kids get sick. They go shopping for school uniforms. They schedule birthday parties. They drive here and there to drop off and pick up kids for school related events. In other parts of the world, raising kids is not a problem because mothers are primary caregivers aided by aunts, female cousins, neighbors and grandmothers. Grandmothers are super important because they are the granary of knowledge and hav

The government of Canada, like all governments, does not want to tell citizens bad news. They feel our weak mental constitution cannot bear it. Funny though, when it comes to health issues like COVID-19, it provides information that convince us to play ball, for example, vaccinate   en masse . But the government doesn’t tell us why we are in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a Europe ‘watch my back’ thing formed in 1949, after World War 2. Oh! Let me guess, Britain. Canada was a British colony, so it had no alternative. It was an, all in the family situation. We shall ignore that. However, we will not ignore NATO putting pressure on Justin Trudeau to increase Canada’s defence spending to 2% of the national gross domestic product (GDP). Don’t ask me what the GDP is. I don’t fully understand it. What I know is that it is money the government deducts from paychecks and from toothpaste, which I’m using to represent everything we buy.  But Canada signed on the dotted line in 20