Zulu Lesson Neat Person

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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

The harsh reality is that baby girls are brought up to be neat. Boys are free as the wind. In Why did I get married, Tyler Perry had a character that left his girlfriend played by Jill Scott, for a younger woman. He soon complained to his friends: ‘she doesn’t cook, clean, she don’t.' Ha! Ha! Ha! You don’t know where the floods of life will throw your darling son. That’s why you should teach him how to take care of his drawers and stomach.

Inono (a neat person).

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.

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