Paying for what we've asked for, not for what we're getting

Speaking of the Nkandla squabble, how about we put ourselves in the shoes of our president? No, read further.

To the Gautengers, do you remember those days when you used to drive through those narrow Joburg highways which slowed you down? How you used to be inconvenienced by the barricades? Do you remember how you obliged by the rules, despite the fact that you were getting late for your appointments? Many people got fired for arriving late for work. And my heart goes out to them.

Do you remember how many meetings you missed because you were late? Hey, at some point, Midrand was a nightmare, especially during peak times. You’d bake inside your car, or taxi, if you found yourself crawling around there. But now we are boasting up to 6/7 lanes. Driving past Allandale offramp is like flying. Keep that benefit which you are enjoying in mind for a second... And come with me.

Don’t you think that our president must have gone through similar episodes of inconvenience? He has sacrificed a lot, people! Imagine our president arriving home one ordinary afternoon and... alas, his home is a mess. That thatch roof has been removed; that wall has been demolished; that fence has been pulled down; the kandakanda is digging in what is supposedly youngest wife’s hut. He looks around. Some neighbour’s house has been flattened. Nobody is telling him what happened. He must not dare ask. Asking is tantamount to security breach.

Serious-looking people are busy around the yard. They are not vetted. Nobody is. There are barricades to the hut of MmaKhumalo. The MmaNtuli hut is completely cordoned off. To get there, president has to walk round the fence to the opposite end, which means passing by the hut which he is not scheduled to be in this time around. Damnit! By that time, his chiskop is baking like your entire self would be near Allandale offramp.

He will not be driven in that rough, sleek, but dirty Navara belonging to Mr. Makhanya. Doing so will compromise his security. Makhanya is not vetted either. And who cares? The president spends an hour inside a spaza shop (it is still intact, for now). The shop-keeper gives president a glass of Oros. It’s all she can afford. It is not security breach. He has been instructed to wait for Project Manager (Makhanya) to fetch him using a strategically safer path.

To kill time, he strolls around with his young children. They’d been playing on a fresh mound of sand. 'Baba, ba yenzani labantu la ekhaya?' asks a curious of them. 'Heeheeheehee,' laughs the president. He finds himself walking on a freshly dug patch. Some labourer, unbeknown to president, in blue overalls, points out to him in a deep Zulu 'We are building you a soccer pitch here, Mr president.' (translated). 'And we are building you a fire pool over there.' he concludes. ‘Heh madoda!’ exclaims the president.

Mr Makhanya arrives. He has sketched out a rather "ballooned" short-cut to president’s scheduled destination.

Let’s leave the president to enjoy his treasure. We are simply judging him because we are not the ones whose security has been “upgraded.” We are forgetting that it is our highways which have been upgraded. How hypocritical of us! The president says he did not ask for the upgrades. Judging by the concocted evidence, or lack thereof, the president is telling the truth.

The other truth is that I am enjoying the broader, faster and nicer Gauteng highways. And the good news for government is that I am not going to pay for the e-tolls! I did not ask for them.

Media propaganda gives everybody no place to hide

It is Thursday evening. You are sitting at home, and trying very hard to ignore the Oscar Pistorius-type of news. You don’t even want to hear what Hlaudi Motsoeneng has been up to since the day he came out with guns blazing, threatening to take legal action over the Public Protector’s report on the SABC… on him, actually. 

So you avoid the news channels, because really, you don’t understand why the Gauteng Premier is stealing the show at the trial by “showing support” to Reeva Steenkamp’s mother. You try to ignore this by visiting facebook. You are looking for light-hearted updates from friends who never disappoint.

Alas. Javas Xanti is updating about Jesus. He is clearly not on humorous form. Zimbini Madikwa has been missing for two weeks, allegedly after drinking bottled water with hordes of tenderpreneurs in Limpopo. And Matela Mthwalo is suffering exhaustion over Vavi-COSATU showdown. Indeed it must be tiring to keep ordering S’dumo Dlamini to go to hell when he cannot even hear you.

You stumble upon Sandile Memela’s update. He flings you back to where you came from. He is employing his blog to tell Mrs. Khumalo why madam Premier is not showing support to her.  Because ‘Mrs Khumalo, your daughter is not Reeva,’ concludes Memela. Mrs. Khumalo is mourning the death of her daughter, Zanele Khumalo, who was strangled by her boyfriend, Thato Kutumela, at their home in Garsfontein. The murder trial is happening right next door to where Oscar is being swarmed, morning and afternoon, by stampeding media mob.

Sandile Memela sometimes admits that he suffers from RFD (Race Fatigue Disease). I don’t know what that is. So your eyes wander off his blog. You feel that this case of bathroom murder, with all its celebrity attitude, defence Lawyers showing off their mettle in front of cameras, and white supremacy connotations propelling it to prominence, has a long way to go and therefore you will let it exhaust itself.

So you log off facebook. You walk past the bathroom, which you don’t even want to enter into because, hey, places like these are not safe anymore. So you hold it in. And with the speed of any Olympic blade-runner, you reach for the remote controller.

Your options are limited. The sport channel is repeating that game everybody want to forget - the 5 nil hammering at the hands of Brazil. Forget that already there is war on whether the president of the country got booed or not. The Minister of Sports confirms the incident. He does it in style. This time he is not bashing “a bunch of losers.” They know what he thinks of them already. He is telling those who love “bunch of losers”, even in these tough times, that their booing actions directed at his Boss, in these glorious political times, are satanic.

You are sitting there and thinking: the Bafana Bafana games are bad for Minister’s health. How about he stays away next time our encounter with Ghana or Germany leaves us with a 7 – 0 hammering? Yes, Nigeria gave us 3 (equals “bunch of losers.”) Brazil added 2 to make it 5 (equals “satanic supporters.”). So, you do the math. And only God knows what the Minister will say.

Before you flip to movie channels, you check out international news. Ukraine. There is ongoing showdown between the U.S.A and Russia over this. President Viktor Yanukovich, whom Vladimir Putin prefers, was removed. The Americans say he desert his post, much to their delight, obviously. What is funny is that Yanukovich himself is comparing this alleged “coup d’etat” with the 1930 Nazi-style of grabbing power. You go off in a raucous laughter, because Hilary Clinton has just stood up to compare Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler for sending his war machinery into Ukraine, and then she sat down, giving Obama the stage to stare down his Russian foe.

You also realise that the Syrian altercation by the two presidents has merely shifted to a cold Europe, with Bashar al-Assad returning a huge favour of protection to Putin by backing Russia on the stand-off. Obama is threatening sanctions. Putin is threatening to halt the assets and gas supplies in the America-friendly Europe in the western/northern side of former communist bloc.

You are still trying to pull yourself back to the couch after a satisfying, but devilish laughter (because this is not a laughing matter), when Studio Universal floods your white-washed brain with The Marksman. Wesley Snipes is some round-house kicking ring-leader who descends upon enemy territory with a handful of trigger-happy guys to bring bloody justice to a Russian war lord who violently seized a nuclear facility with intention to wipe the American interests out of existence. So Wesley Snipes, just like Sandile Memela has done to you, is flinging you back to the news you are running away from. Now you find yourself in the middle of a huge propaganda, home and away.

https://www.facebook.com/sandile.memela.7/posts/600925603319126?comment_id=4082484&notif_t=like

http://www.democratichub.com/2014-ukraine-conflict.aspx?o=pv&gclid=CO2E4ZeZhb0CFQcewwodz7QAHg

The rock 'n roll of Cultural differences

My first encounter with the concept “cultural differences” was when I was in my first year class. But, sadly enough, the understanding of the concept eluded me until I was in third year. You know how it goes. Getting above 75% exam mark isn’t always a sure-fire proof that you know what’s going on in page 3 of Introduction to Human Resources Management. Ever heard of cramming? Now you are following.

I know that this revelation will shock many people. Siphiwe Moyo, Tshepoetsile Mokolobate, Michael Mosia, Nonkosi Sihlali-Siko, Thabang Thabzozo Moyo, Lebohang Moshoadiba, Tintswalo Kubayi and many others. Docky Ngubeni and Carter Mofokeng, go ahead and judge me if you so wish! To all of you, my class-mates, I want to say: if it seemed like I already got the hang of fancy concepts in our first year, chances are that I was pretending.

Anyway, the first time I ever understood the concept was in my third year. It didn’t happen in class. No. I had invited a likeable fellow called Matsobane Frans Kwakwa for supper. He lived in the next room. I guess I was returning the favour because Matsobane enjoyed cooking (but he usually did so mostly late in the evening; hence I gave him the nick-name “Nightfever”, a long story on its own.)

When he had cooked, it was awkward for him to chow alone while I was making small talk by his door. The guy cooked the type of food you’d only eat at home on a Sunday. So surely you cannot judge me for employing small talk around 23:47 just to score a plate.

One Saturday evening we had been chatting loudly, marveling at the music of Dan Siegel, and dancing to “madambadamba” by Sankomota. I served lephotho [phuthu] with fresh milk. I cooked the best, at least by my bachelor/ student standards. If you don’t believe me, ask Lindiwe Khoza. She should be embarrassed when she looks back now, that she used to bring a 1litre pint of Clover full cream milk to my room so that we could get the feast going.

All was good, on the evening of hosting Matsobane. After about 30 minutes of having eaten, with the conversation having evolved in and out of music to the shenanigans of student politics, women, cars and dream jobs, Matsobane’s mood changed somewhat. He was eyeing the pots. ‘Ai Motaung, kanti when are we eating supper,’ he asked me. I was taken aback. So I asked him, ‘What supper?’ Akere re qeta ho ja?’

Matsobane was so amused by my response he literally rolled on my single bed. I was dumbfounded by this. He got up to pull himself together ‘Heh Motaung,’ he said as if mimicking some academic ancestor who liked to make intelligent arguments in a rowdy, sometimes half-asleep, student parliament at 22:55 pm, on a Wednesday, ‘You mean phuthu with milk is food? Where is proper supper, Motaung?’ He protested before repeating the “rock and roll”.

I was starting to feel small, thinking that my menu was indeed low-class diet. Then it hit me, that while the Basotho culture from Qwaqwa recognise lephotho with fresh milk as being food, a Mopedi fellow from Polokwane was seeing this as just the starter ahead of real food – meaning rice or pap with meat, and gravy.

If only my first year Lecturer had used an example similar to this experience unfolding in my third year to explain the concept of cultural differences, damn, I'd be a cum laude graduate, as we speak!