Nonqaba said ...

Heavy is   si-nda  in Zulu.  Si-nda  also means to escape injury or death, but we will concentrate on heavy, for now. Miscarriages are heavy on grieving parents.  A woman is heavy with child. Polygamy is heavy on women, but it is still practised in Africa and certain religions.  It is illegal in Europe and north America, so men have mistresses. It is heavy on workers when car plants and factories move to no minimum wage countries.  It’s not, on owners, because they can declare bankruptcy and relocate to another state or country, manufacturing the same thing. Si-nda .  The first part is pronounced like Cindy and the second one like Linda. ZULU ENGLISH Ma-ma, i-ya-si-nda. Mother it’s heavy. A-yi-si-ndi. It is not heavy. Lo-mshi-ni u-ya-si-nda. This machine is heavy. A-wu-si-ndi. It is not heavy. Joyce be-le-tha i-nga-ne. Joyce put the child on your back. Nge-ke i-ya-si-nda. I wont, it’s heavy. I-ya-si-nda le-nya-nda. This parcel of wood is heavy.  Women in Africa and other continents go

Quebec businessmen and women must speak up about immigration. It is good business period. Capitalism can be described as a create, consume and discard process. Immigration sustains it, as older people lose the propensity to buy at a whim. Most of them have lost the appetite for travel and entertainment, and that makes them low impact consumers. Immigration provides new consumers to buy winter clothing, video games, food processors, lawnmowers, cars, laptops, diapers, strollers, bicycles, start small businesses, rent apartments or buy houses. Most importantly, immigrants pay tax on these goods and services like everybody else. That’s money for the government, but it short changes the public because it doesn’t stress the connection between immigration and the dollar. For some political parties, anti-immigration is bait for elections. Real estate companies and used car dealers depend on immigration, but they’re not standing in front of the Twitter class extolling its virtues. Capitalism c

Canada is a collection of identities that form the national identity. Meaning? Let’s explore. "It’s hard when being Native means different things depending on who’s asking and why,” he says. “And to some people, you’ll never be Native enough,” I add.   Page 55, Fire Keepers Daughter, by Angeline Boulley. Identity is like coins. It has two faces, the interior and exterior. The interior is the most important. It’s the foundation, the bullet proof vest or parka to shied the child from the exterior onslaught. Having said that, we must admit that the exterior can be a blizzard that threatens to erode the interior. Time and place. We are born somewhere but might end up living somewhere else. The question of interior identity vs exterior identity doesn’t come up where you are surrounded by people who look like you, talk like you, live with grandparents like you or have pets like you. It becomes an issue when you move away from the center to a ballpark where people see race first, before

Rest/take a break in Zulu is  phu-mu-la . Be careful at work about taking breaks. Staff members that are close to the boss don’t look at the time. They take more than 15 or 30 minutes. They take even more if they smoke outside with the boss.  It’s a privilege you don’t have, so don’t try it. I’m on vacation, you proudly tell your friends. That is supposed to be resting, but we take our laptops to Barbados. Mama used to come home tired and I would bring a basin of warm water and massage her feet.  It is still done in many parts of Africa. Parents are always on the lookout for plain laziness shrouded in resting.  You don’t say elders have had too many drinks. They are sleeping because they are resting.    Phu-mu-la  also means men and women resting.   A-sa-mbe si-yo-phu-mu-la da-li wam  (Let’s go and rest my darling). It is difficult it console someone who has lost a loved one, so people say the deceased is at rest from all the hustle of being alive,  u-phu - mu-li-le .  Most tombstones

Nothing is   lutho  in Zulu. What’s wrong? Characters in movies like saying it’s nothing when clearly something is bothering them.  I don’t mind the question.  It is only when it is asked three times that I freak out. Women used to be on their feet 24/7.  Not anymore and some men are not pleased at all, like a character in  Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married ? The man told his friends that his new young wife doesn’t know anything.  ‘She doesn’t cook, doesn’t clean.’ You enter a room.  Friends stop talking. What’s the matter? Nothing.  Somebody answers.  Busted. They were talking about you. Lu-tho .  The first part is pronounced like loom the second one like tall.  The noun is  u-tho , something. You say the first part like ooze and the second part like tall. ZULU ENGLISH A-nga-zi lu-tho. I know nothing. Zenith, u-ba-ni o-su-zi-le? Zenith who farted? A-nga-zi lu-tho. I don’t know anything. Yi-ni-ndaba? What’s the matter? A-ku-lutho. It’s nothing. Boris, yi-ni ndaba, wathula? Boris what

Olympic Stadium, Montreal Quebec. Photo Credit: online pic. Politicians can say what they want about immigrants, but the fact remains that there is no Quebec way of life to be preserved. It’s not the Canadian way. The country is a patchwork of nationalities that come here with the intention of preserving their identity. That is why Canada works. The province of Quebec speaks French because it used to be a French colony. France, a country in Europe claimed a piece of land that belonged to indigenous people of Canada. Britain also wanted it because it was the biggest colonizer on earth. The countries fought against each other in a European war called The Seven Years War (1756-1763).  France and friends lost. Britain and company won and Britain got the French colony that is known as Quebec. Here we are in ‘22 and politicians are crying foul over immigration, claiming it will dilute the Quebec way of life. It doesn’t make sense. Quebec, like any part of Canada is made up of immigrants. In

Define capitalism. Everything is for sale, including soil. 'Poor countries'  are under-developed  because they don't want to recognize that. Photo taken outside a grocery chain. Nobody wants to visit a dirty home. France and England colonized Canada because it was clean: the air, the water and the ground they walked on. If they had found it this year, in this state, they would have sailed on. There seems to be no reference to how indigenous people respected the land, which they call mother earth. They used it in small doses today in order to find food tomorrow. They hunted and fished what they needed and left the earth and air pristine for future generations. France and England regarded that as foolishness because nothing was sold. Climate change is caused by tampering with nature, something we don’t know about. All the science in European and American universities will never know how nature functions. Our immediate concern is that it must be destroyed for economic developm

Canada will be wearing orange on Friday 30 September, to observe National Truth and Reconciliation Day. It’s big money for all sectors of the economy. Just think of retailers that learned their lesson last year when they didn’t have a single orange T-shirt in stock. This year, they ordered them well in advance. They will make a killing, for sure. The National Truth and Reconciliation Day is Canada’s admission of guilt. The Indian Act failed indigenous children by removing them from their land to residential schools, where they were ‘civilized.’ Cancel culture was the knife. Strip them of their identity. Most residential school survivors will explain to you why they have English and Christian names.   The Indian Act regarded kids as sub-human. Roman Catholic priests who ran most of these schools, buried them as such. In May 2021, hidden graves of 215 Indian children from the old Kamloops Catholic Residential School in British Columbia , were discovered. That is why orange T-shirts, Cana

First step to anti-racism is the name. What does your name mean? That's the best approach instead of saying 'I'll just call you Mary .' Slavery is over. You only name slaves, your property. Thola .  To find something or someone. It could be lost or you can just come across something.  It could also be wages or salaries.  How much do you get a month? Tho – la .  The first part is pronounced as in talk, the second part as in lark. Zulu                  English Thola-kele.       A girl’s name.  The loose meaning would be:  she has been found.  Maybe the family wanted a daughter.  It could also be that a relative who is in the army was presumed dead.  A baby girl born when he comes home could be named  Tholakele  in his honour. Ba-thola malini ngesonto? How much do they earn a week? U-thola malini nge-nyanga. How much do you earn a month? Uyi-tholephi? Where did you find it? Ngiyi-thole e-khishini. I found it in the kitchen. Ngiyi-thole e-khaya. I found it at home. Ngiyi-th