In all the change and chaos this week brought to things in general, what with last-minute about-turns and an 11th-hour resignation, there was one little gem that I choose to pick out. It involves hippopotami, crocodiles, and isaga sesiZulu (a Zulu proverb). You see, just before 18:30 on Wednesday (usuku lwezithandani, futhi) I was on […]
Tag: proverb
There’s been a lot of this lately, in various different forms. Asinavalo. Abanavalo. Uvalo. For those of you needing clarification, here’s a short dissertation on the word. Firstly, it comes from a verb – uku-vala. The verb means the following things: close or shut suppress or deceive; bribe; bluff; cheat protect against evil or use […]
When one talks about ubuntu, it’s easy to swallow the final few drops of euphoria left over from the Rainbow Days and drift off into a reverie where everybody loves each other and we are all free and honest and tolerant and forgiving. There might even be enough of it to drown out the smell of […]
In the Inqolobane yesizwe, by Nxumalo and Nyembezi, there are 41 different categories of proverbs in isiZulu. 41. Just think about that for a second. The 41st one is ‘miscellaneous’. It alone has 100 different proverbs. There are 929 proverbs collected in this one book. This list is not exhaustive, at all. And all of […]
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umhlaba (k)awunoni
The earth does not grow fat. It eats and eats and eats, young and old, men and women, great and small. It has eaten brothers and fathers, sisters and friends and colleagues and mothers. It has eaten whole nations, and yet it does not grow fat. Just once, I wish that the earth would say: […]
uMabhengwane 