Nonqaba said ...

The body tells the story of what we eat, and we cannot lie  about  exercise.  It will give us away. We may not want to admit it but the beer gut or hanging jiggle jiggle belly is proof of purchase. I was caught red handed at the grocery store last week. I stared at her hanging garden and got consoled. My belly is better than hers. Meaning? It’s smaller. Sounds crazy right? Proof of purchase is exactly that, proof that I purchased things that are injurious to the belly. My apologies. I’m conceited. It’s like a 5 cigarettes a day smoker saying his lungs are in a better shape than his wife’s who inhales 10. The proof of purchase are items that are savory, cheesy, melt in your mouth, buttery. How can I put it? Tasty. I purchase them to keep body and soul together. Hunger pangs must be pacified. I eat when I’m hungry because I have a very assertive stomach. It growls when I ignore it. Colleagues tend to be insensitive and ask: Is that your tummy? I guess we can understand that, but when at

We chase kids away because we are married to our phones. It’s criminal, but it doesn’t have a sentence. Does that make sense? Probably not. It is also not regarded as child abuse.  Kids hurt when we reject them for cellphones. They don’t want to make mummy or daddy angry, so they try not to disturb them, but it’s like a stream that froze midway, for no apparent reason. Kids cannot help themselves, just like streams. Their destiny is going through rocks and vegetation. The direction changes from left to right or east west. The journey might end in a river or a waterfall. Streams don’t have a choice, so do kids. They wish they could be fascinating things in the phone, that hypnotize mummy or daddy. What is most painful is electricity. It is cut off. Sitting next to mummy or daddy is forbidden. That’s why they are banished to another chair. They approach cautiously to touch parents when they’re hungry. They don’t like potato chips but it’s ready made food to stop them from being a nuisanc

We here, for the long haul is Coach Prime's narrative. I’m just saying, because there are certain things that jump at you. Example. College football fans and players are younger than NBA players and they are high volume social media tenants. 'Coach Prime’ understands that. That’s why CU Buffaloes’ practice jerseys before the football season, had their social media handles on their backs. @xavierweaver @shilosanders @shedeursanders @MikeyMHarrison Because of the ‘Coach Prime’ effect college football fans do not identify with one team, like basketball fans. Deion Sanders has created an ecosystem of either identifying with Coach Prime or against. Television networks love him because of the millions that tune in to watch Colorado Buffaloes whether they love or hate him. They keep tabs on what Boulder Colorado is doing, like Shedeur Sanders pushing his watch in someone’s face in anger. It has become a standard way of saying ‘up yours.’ Whether that is a good thing or not, is another

I failed to convince a friend we should acquire a piece of land that had possibilities. It was a short car drive, about 15 minutes away from a large residential area that had to expand but could not, because there was no available land. She declined to come on board because of her motto. She only buys rental property because of the monthly cash flow and its tax benefits. Dead right, no doubt about that, but I still believe that everything starts and ends with land. Land can be vacant for a long time, but somebody will want it one day. Flawed investment thinking you say?  It might be, but my conviction was resuscitated today.  I thought I was in the wrong street. I wasn’t. I got disoriented because the blues hotel had vanished, reduced to rubble. They demolished it. I called it the blues hotel, because of the sign outside advertising it as a premium blues club. Television came along, and blues singers did not have to cross the border into Canada to perform anymore. It later became a boa

Thieves are not the same. There are thieves, then there are ‘stealers.’ Thieves steal with the intention to use the merchandise, cook the box of macaroni and cheese or sell it. Stealers steal because they are addicts. They steal because an item can be stolen. They’ll steal a camel although they don’t know how to ride it and find a water source for it.  It is a hobby. Shoplifting is frightening. I once saw a woman in a wheelchair stealing at a drugstore’s make-up section and hiding items under the blanket. Before you say anything, we don’t know whether she has some disability or not. The misuse of wheelchairs by healthy people adds to their problem, which is being invisible. We don’t want to see them, as if there are lepers or something. Anyway, she looked at me with eyes as cold as iron. I got the message and moved to the next aisle. Dollar stores also have security guards now because of shoplifting. They patrol the aisles giving you the evil eye. First of all, dollar stores have upgra

Some people use pets to avoid rejection. Pet-lovers like to stop, pet the animal  and talk to owners who experience rejection for being born in a certain way. Rejection. We are rejected with harsh words or physically, by being pushed out of the room and doors shut in our face. Being ignored is also rejection. Fall is here, kids are back to school. You can pick out new kids, all alone anxiety written all over their faces. That’s why most parents send younger ones to schools attended by big brother, sister or cousins. ‘I’m leaving.’ We expect people to protest and say it’s too early to leave the party or some fun place. We feel rejected if they don’t utter a word, just look at us and go on with what they’re doing. In one Yoruba movie, Odunlade Adekola, a Nigerian producer, director and song writer told his friends he was leaving. They ignored him. He kept moving towards the door, repeating the intended departure. Nobody said anything. He knew something was wrong. It also happens between

Deion Sanders 'Coach Prime' flanked by his sons Shedeur and Shilo. Let's hope he also coaches them on how to pick up after themselves and boil some rice when they are hungry. OLD PHOTO: they play for Colorado Buffaloes now.  Some students will live in the dorm or share an apartment with other people for the first time in their lives. They should also expect messy room mates that have never picked up after themselves, have never washed a toilet, bathtub or a plate because mummy did it, or the family had servants. I have a new Zulu word for you   inono , a neat person. There’s a proverb for it: ubu-nono be-kati , which means as neat as a cat. The word cat came with the British, ‘kati’ is the Zulu version. Inono is very easy for you to pronounce because it is like: Nomad Norman Nozzle Notting Hill REMEMBER: the first part is pronounced as e -mail, not identity. Inono : the neat person Ikati : the cat Izwe : the country Ingane : the child Iqola : the thief Ingqondo : the mind T

Parents need help. Kids see famous movie stars celebrating birthdays in lavish style, on the internet. In some cases, they even have photo shoots where mum, dad and kids wear matching outfits. This is not real life but parents are on the bench now. Social media is the new parent. That’s why kids demand birthdays parents, cannot afford. All teenage kids have cellphones whether parents can afford them or not. Therefore, they see how rich and famous people celebrate their birthdays. It’s even more destructive in Nigerian movies, because movie and YouTube actresses even get marriage proposals on top of the phenomenal gifts like cars, on their birthdays. Life is hard for poor parents in Africa because of school fees. British colonizers not only stole the land, they instituted an educational system where conquered people had to fund their mental slavery by going to school, as well. Parents still cannot afford school uniform, books and school fees. Some kids don’t go grow up with their parent

There are many reasons for homelessness. It’s bad choices we made when we had money. It can be the desire to be independent from mom and dad, so that we can drink or inhale and exhale what we want, which ends up in the inability to live in the compromised space. What is that? Family. It is a compromise and one of the leading causes of homelessness. Some people end up on the street, sleeping under bridges or bus shelters because of emotional and physical fire at home. Some girls decide to be sex workers because mothers turn a blind eye to sexual abuse by stepfathers or relatives.  All families have untold painful stories, that make drivers relish evening bumper to bumper traffic. Just sitting in the car, delaying the inevitable, facing the music at home. Some people take out the dog to avoid confrontation. Others kill time in coffee shops and libraries. They dread being told time and time again, how evil Canadian women are because of how they dress, something they knew before choosing t

Essence magazine did a cover story on Black Panther, directed by Ryan Coogler.  I had  dreams  of being a film producer and director. I downgraded to being just a film critic.  We watch people on TV and say, ‘She’s living her dream .’ What’s your dream? A jail documentary does not inspire us to occupy a space made from steel and iron and monitored by guards with all kinds of hardware around their waists. Being homeless and combing thrash cans for food is also, not anybody’s dream. That is why most dreams are about being rich and famous.  Actresses and singers might marry soccer stars like David Beckham, royalty like the Prince of Monaco, Prince Harry of England, and Indian film royalty like the Kapoors and Bachchans. However, there is something besides money, that can spark a dream. Pilot uniforms and the blue sky sparked mine. I would sit in the shade at home and watch planes take off and land from the airport, fifteen minutes away. I had fantasies about where they had been and where

"I want my children to bury me." That was then. Parents bury their children now, because of internet secrecy and diseases with no cure, because they are strange.  Young people that commit suicide because of strangers they met online and what they did with them or for them, die with the cause of death. That’s why it is impossible to identify causes of death caused by internet activity. There are no suspects and no paper trail. Cellphones might provide a lead but parents don’t know the password. Even if the phone is open, they cannot follow the conversation because of false names, special language, abbreviations and code we use online to hide what we are doing. There are two kinds of friends: human beings with feet on the ground and online friends that cannot be traced, but offered what the dead person regarded as love. Online lovers and friends prefer secrecy away from other people, especially parents. Suicidal thoughts  come into play when online friends and lovers withdraw t

The onus is on people to take care of themselves. Doctors cannot perform miracles. I used to be mad at doctors for the long wait. Example. The appointment is for 9 a.m. I sit in the waiting area for almost an hour waiting to be ushered into one of the examination rooms. Sometimes I get the impression doctors behave like hair salons. They don’t tell you there are four people already in the 3 p.m. slot. Therefore, it is no longer 3 p.m. if the hair is washed at 4.30. I’m no longer mad at the medical profession because I found a way out. I book just-before-closing appointments. If the clinic closes at 4, I request a 3.30 appointment. It works like a charm. One day I found the doctor waiting for me at the Nurses’ Station. She said I was her last patient for the day. I gave her a sweet smile and waltzed in. No, I wasn't late. I was expected. But what if I’m responsible for the long wait? Sometimes we go to the doctor when we are not sick, we just need somebody to talk to. We pretend to

Labor shortage. It is mainly happening in minimum wage jobs for a number of reasons. The internet is one of them. Many kids in Canada and U.S. still have part time jobs on campus, hamburger and fries places, jeans store or stocking grocery shelves. They need the money because they are not trust fund kids. However, there is a large part of that work force that has a dream: to be  young, single and technology. No, they don’t want to go to MIT or University of British Columbia to study IT. They want short cuts. They don’t want to deliver pizza to 18-year old customers that make easy money online. Besides, the internet is peppered with making money, NO EXPERIENCE necessary schemes. Online followers also follow not just a face, but a face that is a possibility. Let the government and Chambers of Commerce worry about labor shortage. Kids that want to be young, single and tech do not want to wake up at the crack of dawn for minimum wage  jobs and set work hours, when they can make money in be

"Yes Mr. President, we see eye to eye." Former U.S. President Barack Obama,  was  very good with baby real intelligence (not artificial intelligence). Artificial Intelligence (AI) cannot sneak into a one year-old baby’s mind, siphon off information and sell it as data packets. What a relief! Babies have their own AI. It is on top of the head, that soft part that is always ticking. Put your hand on your head. Dead. No ticking there, died years ago from government propaganda, advertisements and religious dogma. You must be kidding? I kid you not. Babies have AI, that’s why they don’t understand your baby talk: tshu tshu tshu tshu  or ne ne ne ne . They just stare at you and give you complimentary names like moron or cabbage head. They want you to speak to them in languages they inherited from their parents. How? Mum and dad did not know each other. Dad made a move. They went out on a date. It was not enough. Voila ! They got married and mum got pregnant, all because of talking.

Criminal Law students learn about what crime is in various states, provinces and countries, but I don’t know of any school subject that teaches kids about consequences of doing time in prison. Rape is one of them. Peer pressure leads kids to believe doing crime is cool, showing off ‘the piece’ in their trousers which they eventually use to kill each other or running some errands for unofficial ‘mayors’ of where they live. They’ll go to prison if they are convicted and they will be raped. Prison authorities know that incoming convicts are regarded as ‘fresh meat’ by long serving inmates, but they don’t care. Prison rape is a man treated like a woman. Women do not have any value in most societies, that’s why they are raped. They are just things. You do crime, you do time, and you will be raped in prison if other men decide to treat you like a ‘woman.’ This fact is not discussed when friends plan crime. I guess it's not because they think they won’t be caught. If that happens, the law

Businessmen have sumptuous lunches they write off as a business expense,  like this rack of lamb .  Long lunches are in the pipeline today to discuss the implications of Judge Engoron's decision  that Donald Trump is liable for fraud.   O ld post, 6 April 2023, about the indictment that led to this civil case. Businessmen are mad at Trump, not because of money paid to Stormy Daniels. For them, that is just a storm in a teacup. It’s giving them a bad rap as a tribe. They are having insomnia because of his housekeeping. Very untidy. Unkempt. Sloppy. He could not keep in order, standard paperwork about the reason for being in business: making a profit, which involves moving money around, and more importantly, away from the taxman. Internal Revenue Service (IRS), very irritating government department. Trump’s indictment is bad news for Wall Street types because it will attract unnecessary scrutiny to their line of work, which is quite legitimate and protected by the laws of the land, g

Yesterday 26 September, a New York judge found Donald Trump, the businessman-turned- U.S. President liable for fraud. Let’s use simple English so that we are all on the same page. It means the judge ruled Trump and his sons, cooked the books in their New York businesses. Judge Arthur Engoron explained how the ‘cooking’ was done. “In defendants’ world: rent regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air; a disclaimer by one party casting responsibility on another party exonerates the other party’s lies ….” Clearly, it is a real estate case, but I’m interested in how college and university professors will handle this particular quote, because it is relevant to what various departments teach. Nonqaba waka Msimang Executive Blogger

This blog also offers Zulu lessons, a language spoken predominantly in South Africa. We try and give you words you can say in English. Wave is tha-tha-za  in Zulu. Wait! Translation dilemma? Tha-tha-za.  Means to wave. You say the first two parts like tally and the last part like xylophone. Tha-tha-ze-la.  This is to wave  at  somebody. You say the first two parts like tally, the third part like Zelda and the last like love. 1.  Justin Trudeau waved at supporters when he won the election in October 2019, allowing him to be Canada’s Prime Minister for round 2. 2.  Prince Harry, told Meghan Markle to wave back at fans, long before the wedding. 3.  Kids on strollers/prams wave when mothers wheel them off the bus. 4.  Somebody across the street waves ‘hi’ to you. 5.  Cousins wave goodbye when they go back home after a visit to your home. Tha-tha-za . There might be an emoji about this, but what I’m sure about, is that tha-tha-za is a happy motion that involves the hand and a smile on your

What does the proverb say? Beggars cannot be choosers. Some of today’s beggars are proactive, to the point of being intimidating. I once saw a cartoon in a South African newspaper. Drivers in Johannesburg close windows despite the heat, because beggars target major intersections and bomb cars when lights turn red. The cartoon showed a beggar on his phone. The caption read: I’ll call you back. I’m with a client . This summer, a beggar wearing a sun hat with a flower, blocked two guys on the pavement. They walked around him. I had to go past him so I changed direction and dived into the train station. It was Canada Day. The weather was in a good mood, so city folks flocked to The Forks, a popular entertainment area. Beggars also came out. One positioned himself at the corner of Main and a side street leading to The Forks. He had a camping table with a glass jar and a message: CHANGE. The one near Union Station at the corner of Main and Broadway was aggressive. He accosted people crossing

Supermarkets have bottles of mango chutney. I’ve never bought it and have no intention of buying it because it is clean, polite and precise. Since it is in a bottle, it means I can measure it with a spoon. That is not mango. Real mango is messy, drips down my shirt and entangles itself in my teeth. Real mango makes me lick my fingers and wish for more but I remember mama’s standard warning for anything excessive:  It will make you sick. Bad news. Local farmers’ markets have packed their stands brimming with yellow green beans, beetroot, pumpkin as big as a tambourine, garden tomatoes with an attitude and cabbage that looks like lettuce. I was surprised when I saw it. Store cabbage is a tight ship, a dangerous weapon in fact. The ones I saw this summer had loose limbs, like a limbo dancer. Nature is a genius. There were no mangoes at the market for obvious reasons but they had corn, two for a dollar. I cannot imagine a farmers’ market without corn. Corn is like mango, no manners at all.

When you say you have a roof over your head, you don’t mean a bus shelter. Homeless people in this city do. They started using downtown bus shelters as bedrooms around 2020-2021. They are not the same size. High density bus stops like the main library and bus stops that feed the local university have bigger shelters than uptown ones. City Hall politicians always push and pull each other about the issue, but there is no consensus because political party affiliation gets in the way. City Hall’s current strategy is asking homeless people to leave, clean bus shelters and then remove doors and glass panels. The shelter becomes a structure with just a roof and four pillars. During the summer, bus passengers stand outside when they see people sleeping inside bus shelters. They open umbrellas if it’s raining. The challenge is winter because the city is one of coldest in Canada. They wear layers of clothing because they’ll wait for the bus outside in snow blizzards. It is so cold, bus shelter s

The box is still there in bedrooms, on its stand or the dresser. Your kids don’t turn it on anymore because television moved to a more private neighbourhood: the cellphone. Bedroom television sets have gathered so much dust kids write PLEASE DUST ME. Teenagers have gone to college but the box sits there waiting for them to come home for Thanksgiving. Cellphones take privacy to higher heights, as in pyramid high. Every room had a television because every family member wanted privacy. Kids don’t pay bills so they have no interest in the 7 or 10 o’clock news. They wanted to watch sports, comedy or music videos. We can even stretch the privacy assumption to include cable. In the stone age, families had a common interest. Survival. The 21 st  century family lives under one roof but has different interests. Therefore cable and its 20 + channels, was a must to keep family peace. One author said his wife’s family had cable just to keep his father-in-law out of the way. We don’t take bedroom te

Rickey Henderson, baseball legend for 'stealing' bases. “Give me a boy, I’ll bring back a man. ” Deion Sanders ‘Coach Prime’ Head Coach Colorado Buffaloes. He has been saying that long before he got to Colorado University to coach the football team. However, he also cautions not all players will end up in the NFL. That makes sense because it is a small village and cannot accommodate every man with that dream. That is why we want to help Coach Prime mold those players to men, and real men know how to write. Writing skills will be needed, wherever they land. Yes, there’s money to be made in YouTube channels, but the next level needs writing skills. Writing Tips   1.  Writing is a house call. You knock. Somebody comes to door, lets you in because you are expected, and offers you a seat. The same with writing. You cut to the chase. ‘ My name is Tim Timmini from TM Recycling. I’m here to show you how we can recycle plastic from your 34 offices.  That’s the hook. It shows you’ve done

Education is like ice trays. We take water and put it in trays we keep in the freezer. It is comes out as ice cubes. We place them in a glass and use a line from old movies ‘Waiter, scotch on the rocks .’ Water has a long history before it gets to the freezer and it is up to us to tell the whole history, since the school system is bent on cubing it. Kids that are too young to have cellphones love going out with parents. They are claustrophobic. They want to leave cramped apartments for fresh air. You can try and dodge them, but somehow they can sense it when adults prepare to go out. Parents can turn all car trips into the story of water. How? City kids are born in elevators, go to school in elevators, go to work in elevators and visit the sick in elevators. Taking the stairs instead of the elevator, can be part of the whole story of water. The elevator is electrical. It is man-made so something is bound to go wrong. Mom, can we take the stairs? You taught them buildings have stairs in

Silent voters are not identified by shoe size, pet ownership, mode of dress, race, male or female because they are offline. Silent voters see things on television or scroll down their phones. They don’t understand headlines because they are initialized. The whole world seems to belong to a box, with initials. They are not in a box like new cellphones @mkbhd, the YouTube tech falcon unveils. Sorry. Unveil is old school. The current term is ‘un-box.’ These silent voters don’t belong in a box but they vote. Despite our love hate relationship with the internet and social media in particular, it is here and affects how politicians are elected and how their performance in corridors of power is assessed. But, politicians’ exclusive use of social media might cost them some votes because there are thousands of potential voters that are not active online. Silent voters do not care what is trending. They don’t know socially accepted words for certain lifestyles. They don’t want their photos onlin

Slaves in America used to get married by 'jumping the broom. ' Men in this century are so cynical, they call it a financial transaction. That's why some of them don't want to go near that broom. They fear their wealth will be swept away during the divorce. The problem is right there, in this proverb: tying the knot. The relationship is regarded as a knot hence, marriage phobia. Most men don’t want to get married. Most women do. Let’s qualify that. Men in controlled societies don’t have a choice. Religion and culture demand it and aunties, mothers and grandmothers push that toboggan sled. Men in free countries are wary of marriage because of divorce which nibbles away at material things like mansions, Amazon profits, Microsoft profits, successful YouTube musicians, million-dollar earnings from NBA, NFL, MLB, soccer and other sports. Therefore, things are skewed up in free societies. Men don’t want to be tied down while women want to walk down the aisle, preferably in a w

Where’s your mum? Where your mom at? Kids know the warmth in that question. At what age do they know? Hard to tell. They don’t think about it, because they are too busy with kids’ stuff, which is playing. Subconsciously, it also teaches them how to relate to the outside world. Kids give innocent answers because they are not old enough to have a database of lies, like us. Is your mom in? Yes. She said I should say she no here. Kids bask in parents’ love. Delete that. Let’s use adoration. Every time someone says I love you, run for your life. He or she wants something. Kids are not hackers but they understand code. They know why dad keeps looking through the window. It’s because mum is unusually late. Kids protect that adoration from the world. Are your parents in? Yes, they are resting. The visitor smiles and remembers it’s Sunday afternoon. Thou shall not disturb resting folks. However, kids also feel the other side of midnight, when parents fight. They cry. By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.