Sun Surf and Pick Pockets

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 housekeeping.  She runs away when Girish throws kerosene at her and lights a match.

On-line pick pocketing.  That is the name of the game.  What is the lesser evil?  A street pickpocket or a faceless online one asking for your bank details?  Your husband knows you bank at Digital Dollars Bank on Main Street but doesn’t know the account number and pin.  How then, do you surrender it to total strangers?

Banks have it nice because their pick pocketing is protected by contract law, commercial law, the constitution, United Nations even god. How?  They give you a $350 000 loan to buy a house. This generous act of kindness comes with a price: 20% or 25% interest depending on how the loan is structured. 

You lose your job or become disabled.  Oops! The bank takes over your house. In her memoir Becoming, Michelle Obama, former U.S. First Lady informs the reader that she grew up in a rented house because of that.  “Our family was never going to be house poor, because we weren’t going to own a house.” Page 26.

Khu-thu-za.  You say the first part like cook, the second like tool and the last like Zara.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.