Zulu Lesson Likes The Spotlight

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There are people who will die if the paparazzi lost interest in them. That’s why they do anything to be in front of the camera lens. They buy babies, adopt kids from somewhere else, share personal information or plunge into causes that have a high photo shoot possibility.

The desire to be in the spotlight all the time, is ukubukwa in Zulu. It comes from -buka, which means to look at. Look at me when I’m talking to you. Look at the mess you made. Look me in the eye and repeat that.

Bu-ka. You say the first part like Buganda of Uganda and the second like karma.

Bu-kwa. You say the first part like Buganda of Uganda and the second like Kwame, a boy’s name from Ghana.

The full sentence to describe someone who loves to be seen is: uthanda ukubukwa.

Trump, uthanda ukubukwa.

Madonna, uthanda ukubukwa.

Pierre, uthanda ukubukwa.

Zelensky, uthanda ukubukwa.

Maybe this lesson is obsolete because we all do it. You take your phone, raise it up, pout your lips to iron out rude wrinkles, smile and click. You’ve taken a picture of your wonderful self and you send it to the whole world. It’s called a selfie. U-thanda ukubukwa. Men avoid it because Girlfriend A might have ulterior motives for taking a joint selfie. She wants Girlfriend B to see that he spent the day with her.

Secondly, we have podcasts, blogs, Tik Tok, YouTube Shorts and other social media because we want ‘to be seen’ by strangers. It is not home-based, like kids pleasing the family with trying to walk or proudly showing off they can tie their shoes. It’s not private, two people who like each. The world must see how they do it.

OPPOSITE: Then we have people we cannot stand. A-si-bu-ka-ni translated into: we don’t look at each other.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang. 

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