Zulu Lesson Luggage or Destiny

Zulu is a language spoken in southern Africa. We post Zulu lessons from time to time. To carry is thwala in Zulu. Thwa-la. You say the first half like twilight, and the second like luck.

We don’t carry heavy bags on our heads anymore because they have wheels and that pull-on thing, making us look like pilots and flight attendants, striding on the airport floor, pulling bags. Women in rural Africa, South America and Asia still carry firewood and water containers on their heads. Women in the European Union, Canada and the U.S. don’t carry kids in their arms.

They push them in strollers, conditioning them at an early age that mummy and daddy will buy them cars when they turn eighteen. Women in Africa still carry kids on their backs. Certain animals carry their kids while they teach them the A-B-C’s of life (the eat or be eaten situation).

This lesson becomes even more interesting when we come to the noun, the thing that is being carried. It could be luggage or destiny. It’s called um-thwa-lo. A woman whose son is a murderer puts her hands on her head and cries that it is her luggage. The Republican Party in America has a selfish destiny, in the name of Donald Trump, who doesn’t love or like anything except himself.

Your destiny is your um-thwa-lo. It is what life allotted you and you cannot change it no matter how hard you try. People around you sigh and say ‘um-thwalo wakhe.’
Women stay in marriages where they are beaten black and blue on the regular. Parents visit sons convicted under Georgia law called RICO. We are all, a huge disappointment to our parents.

On a brighter note, it is amusing to see kids running to help visiting relatives with luggage, too heavy for their little bodies.

ZULU	ENGLISH
Thwala.	A common surname in South Africa.
A-bantu baka Thwala.	Members of the Thwala family.
Ba-thwala izinkuni e-khanda.	They carry wood on their heads.
Thwala le-li-saka lempuphu.	Carry this sack of corn meal.
Thwala nge-bhala.	Carry it in a wheelbarrow.
Izimoto e-zithwala abantu.	Cars that carry people (taxis/cabs).
Ngi-thwele kanzima.	I have a hard life.
A-bantu besifazane ba-thwele kanzima.	Women have a hard life.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.