I constantly think about issues of self esteem and wonder how they can be introduced to the Swaziland personal text of girls. I have thought about this for years. I have come to a few conclusions. I have thought that we need to unpack some of the definitions of the Swaziland girl's personality. A few things seem to be misunderstood. Among these is what we call "similo." Sometimes we speak and say "simo sakhe vele, unjalo." I think some of these contribute to an inflexible personality that results in the inculcation of a rigid way of looking at oneself. We could begin to emphasize a role-oriented persona that changes.
There are many ways of talking about life that I could add to this. We say, "ubotithulela wena." This is so repeated that people end up thinking that there is a rigid way in which to view oneself, whereas in today's world the roles require a personality that is dynamic, one that changes with place and people and still retails self-love. On this one we could emphasize the opposite, "ubotikhulumela wena." that you can speak up without being annoying or making people feel annoyed.
I think we need to emphasize the lovely side of speaking out and letting people know how you feel. There is something good about telling the truth all the time in talking about your feelings. It really establishes who you are. I keep thinking about our culture and domestic duties of girls and the personalities that are created when people are taken in as "sidzandzane." The meer use of the word has never been positive. It does not even have an opposite. Even when a young man is taken into the family as "umfana wetinkhomo," the type of life that he lives is not similar. It is very much an outdoor life compared to that of the young maiden.
Some people will think that I am musing about something that is not important. I think it is important for our girl children to learn self-love at home. It creates the base on which to build one's self esteem. I am asking people to think aloud on this topic. Some topics I handle in short stories in siSwati, but others I struggle with and then end up just thinking of ways in which to create a discussion on an open type of media such as this one. I would like young girls to be taught the truth about themselves. Our culture emphasizes outside beauty, sometimes at the expense of the strong inner-person.
I am thinking of ways to engage this topic with young people. I wish that young people would make it a goal to be more focussed on the type of person they would like to be and then build that person. I know that the environment does not do much to create a strong inside. I grew up in a Swazi home. I have many examples on how the girl's life is different. What aches me most is that girls always face the unknown because the parents always see them as people who will go away somewhere. This is not what I wanto to discuss here. It is a topic for another blog.
However, about the "similo lesihle issue," there is a lot we can do, especially now that the family is under tremendous stress with other people looking after other people's children. There can be a lot of abuse of these girls who are taken from other families.
Girls can be taught to be strong. They can use as role-models strong women around them. I have found personalities such as the late Make Mary Mdziniso good role models. They were out-spoken, but not loud and noisy.
Girls can be taught about feelings; that is alright to feel and talk about your feelings. We can speak our feelings all the time and always know that it is good to say what you mean without hurting anyone. Give yourself a bbig pat on the shoulders for everytime you stand up for yourself. This habit has to be one that you cultivate all the time. It is important to know that very few people care about your success. Most people have a low self-esteem, actually all people. It is the way life is. They are more eager to criticize and back-stab. Beeing seen pulling down somebody else is more important than helping others do well in situations. In these cases the self-esteem keeps going down.
However, one can build a self esteem by first faking it and then always doing good to those around one. Eventually the self gets to love its own actions and then developts a way of seeing the world that is about one person who is in everybody's life in a positive way. While some people are back stabbing and trying to get ahead through evil means, you will be building a person who can stand for him or herself in future. Do not think it will be easy to all of a sudden change. If you make a mistake, make sure that next time you get and opportunity you correct the mistake. Sooner your inner spirit will know that you are a person who is about doing the best in serving and living with others in a positive way. This is the Swazi way. If you keep quiet and fester inside, eventually you will be unable to do the positive expression of life. Your Swazi way will be a negative way, and therefore very unsSwazi. For you life will become and accummulation of "let me try to be better than so and so," Eventually you become better than nobody because you have not cultivated a personal strength in anything.
The positive expression of life is the Swazi way, I repeat. It is about speaking out, doing good to the next person and repeatedly building a personality of the positive actions. That way you grow a strong sense of who you are. This is for you Swazi girls out there. Eventually, you will hear people talk about your "buntfu." You will by then have done a lot of good things that are of service to others. Start now by talking about this issue to other young girls. Don't forget, go to www.girleffect.org
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
THEY SAY POOR PEOPLE NEVER WIN A JACKPOT
THEY SAY POOR PEOPLE NEVER WIN A JACKPOT
When you walk into the building of the place where I work, you are dead tired. The building has no elevator. If you are forty seven like me, you make the last five flights of stairs and feel like collapsing on the last step. That was how I felt when I walked up the stairs. I could tell that some people had clocked in when I saw the red and blue ribbons that were off the wall. Everybody took theirs when they went to the machines. We had to wear them and make sure that the customers see them. Our name tags were not enough.
When I saw the customer pull in hers towards me, I put on the usual plastered smile. I had learnt to really do it as if a lot of happiness was all over me for having seen her pull up at my station and take out the items she had bought. She looked at the Enquirer and put in on the groceries, and I nodded under my breath, “God bless, the reader of the Enquirer.” She then looked at the next “People” and put it on the groceries. I relaxed when I saw all the printed material made it into her cart because I knew that it would be quite some time before I did anything that was the usual. I had something interesting to watch. My customer was not the usual drab housewife. She was trim, trendy and seemed to have it going for her. So why was she raking the store up into her mind? Was she going to get the time to read all this? I was glad there were people like this to watch. My math did not need to be put to the test all the time. “Ping” I would put this under the sensitizer and the number would pop up on my screen. The only problem I had now was waiting for her to finally make up her mind.
I was shocked when she put the card on the table. I had never seen this one. “Wachovia,” I had heard of that when I was in Indiana or Michigan, some state way out there in the Midwest where I had worked. So she had a card with Wachovia, I let her swipe the card and said under my breath, “that was an interesting one.”
She smiled back and said, “they sure give you a lot of credit you know, ten thousand. I am using it for the eleventh time and I still have money on it. They never give me problems. They said I will not pay interest for three months when I started. If they did, my husband would have a fit. I steal it from him and buy whatever, wherever.” She went on and on while I finalized putting her loot in plastic bags so that she can go. I looked at the next customer and realized that he was bored. He was blind and did not go far when shopping. He just went to the cigarette shelf and picked a pack of (Cigarettes) and then made it to the counter with the box. Always the same price, yet he complained about the money as if it could even change.
“Me again. Paying six dollars and fifty cents. I told you one day I will lick this habit because it is stealing from me. One day I will be honest with myself.
“Hey Todd, how many cigarettes do you smoke a day?” I asked.
“Manatji, it is you again. It is you asking me? Listen. I have cut down. I used to smoke twenty four cigarettes. Chain smoking as if I was in a competition with each box. Now I have cut down to four cigarettes a day. I call that an achievement,” he said reaching out for the box.
“Do you want a plastic bag?” I asked and then held out the box to him.
“You know that I always come when I really need it. You are just teasing me,” he said when he heard me laugh. I pushed the cigarette box into his hand when I saw that he was moving his hand all over. I waited for the next customer and the next and the next. I got out for lunch and walked to the nearby Kentucky Fried Chicken and bout a meal for the last two dollars I had. When I walked back to the worker’s lounge it was half past and I knew I still had five minutes before I resumed work.
I decided to go to my apartment and rest for a while. My apartment was two blocks from the building. I entered the building and turned to the right and saw my box. It had my name, exactly the way it had been when I arrived at the apartment complex. Even though there was an “a” after the first letter in my surname, the landlord had written,I had not changed it, but just thought each time I went to the office to pay rent, I would always tell him, “silent M,” until he got the fact that there was no vowel after the first letter in my name.
I carelessly picked up the mail and then went and put it on the coffee table. I did not like the clutter that was caused by the junk mai, so I sorted it and threw it into the garbage can. I was throwing it in there when I saw it. There was an interesting envelope that showed a greenish-yellowish color on its window. “I,ll look at it when I get back from word.” I said that to myself and then walked out. I realized that I had left my purse and walked back. This time I decided that I would take that letter with me to work, to read in the last five minutes. I did not like bills. They caused me to be sick. I hoped that this was not another bill.
The road to work led me through the apartments. I walked past and headed for my workplace. It was getting close to the hour when I stepped into the door and my boss was already waiting near the entrance. “I’m not going to be in today, I am asking you to take care of the counting of the money.” my boss was the typical “boss from hell.” I read this on a website and it really helped me to understand the type. I remember yelling at the top of my voice that day. “Eureka!I found it. Just the name I have been looking for.” When my boss from hell came in she gave orders even on the things that had been done. When she had time, she was on twitter and facebook with her friends. I really hated social media because I felt that it should have never been invented. It made me angry to count the money when I could see that she was in her office talking to her friends. The answer was always the same, “Something keeps coming up you know. You know the job. One of these days you will be promoted. “Promotion, my foot.” I always said when I finished with my work. I never had time to do what I wanted. I was always making sure the company was making more money. I vowed that one of these days, I will have to face up to her and talk about my promotion.
When I left home at five, I was exhausted. I was eager to read my mail, get down to watching Wimbledon tennis, and then retire. I took the letter which was in my bed and read it. I read it a couple of times. I checked if it was really addressed to me. It had an official address of some place out there in Philadelphia.
Settlement ID: 002500189
This is how the letter reads: United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennyslavania and Comptroller of the Currency of the United States
:-[ P.O. Box 37765
Philadelphia, PA 19101- 7765
To: Me
Enclosed is the payment based on the claim form you submitted as part of the Settlement in Faloney v Wanchovia Bank. No. 07-1455. The amount that we are receiving was determined in accordance with the Settlement Agreement approved by the Court.
If you have any questions about the legitimacy of this check, please call 1-866-680-6659. For further information, please see the following websites:
http://www.occ.treas.gov/ftp/release/2008-143.htm
http:/www.usdoj.gov/usao/pae/wachovia.html
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/01/wachovia.shtm
There were many questions on my mind. One of them was, how did this happen to me? There was no reason to doubt that it had happened. I picked up the phone and called my bank of eight years ago and they said they had closed my file. I wanted to find out what had happened. They also wanted me to pay them thirteen dollars for the search. Why did I want to do a search about something that had happened a long time ago? I was not sure. I think, by then, I was used to not letting things go. I felt that in this example I had seen the good results of somebody not letting things go. If Faloney had done this “on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated,” what was I going to do? I had failed myself by not balancing my check book and was not doing a good job even after this. What else could I do? I vowed that I would write a short story about this, so that other people can learn about what happed to a woman who could not balance her check book eight years ago.
I also wantged to findnd out who Faloney was and what all this was about. I had received hundreds of scams on my email, but this was a cheque. It was real. I went to my bank thinking that they would reject it and they did not. Out there in the world was a person called Faloney and she/he had done something I should thank him/her for. I vowed that I would never rest till I found him/her.
The website led me to one of the lawyers who had represented the case and I told him that I wanted to say “Thank you.” He passed on the message and said that he would tell Faloney and the others that I had called. I was happy that I had done this. I closed the case that afternoon in March when I put down the receiver.
When I went to the bank and deposited my check, I was sure that this was not a scam and also that I had not won a jackpot, but learned that banks do things we cannot find out about if we do not go through the entire statement. I vowed to comb my statement with the finest tooth when next I next one. Please do the same and also BALANCE your checkbook.
Written by the author: for all women who still do not balance the check book.
Sarah Mkhonza
When you walk into the building of the place where I work, you are dead tired. The building has no elevator. If you are forty seven like me, you make the last five flights of stairs and feel like collapsing on the last step. That was how I felt when I walked up the stairs. I could tell that some people had clocked in when I saw the red and blue ribbons that were off the wall. Everybody took theirs when they went to the machines. We had to wear them and make sure that the customers see them. Our name tags were not enough.
When I saw the customer pull in hers towards me, I put on the usual plastered smile. I had learnt to really do it as if a lot of happiness was all over me for having seen her pull up at my station and take out the items she had bought. She looked at the Enquirer and put in on the groceries, and I nodded under my breath, “God bless, the reader of the Enquirer.” She then looked at the next “People” and put it on the groceries. I relaxed when I saw all the printed material made it into her cart because I knew that it would be quite some time before I did anything that was the usual. I had something interesting to watch. My customer was not the usual drab housewife. She was trim, trendy and seemed to have it going for her. So why was she raking the store up into her mind? Was she going to get the time to read all this? I was glad there were people like this to watch. My math did not need to be put to the test all the time. “Ping” I would put this under the sensitizer and the number would pop up on my screen. The only problem I had now was waiting for her to finally make up her mind.
I was shocked when she put the card on the table. I had never seen this one. “Wachovia,” I had heard of that when I was in Indiana or Michigan, some state way out there in the Midwest where I had worked. So she had a card with Wachovia, I let her swipe the card and said under my breath, “that was an interesting one.”
She smiled back and said, “they sure give you a lot of credit you know, ten thousand. I am using it for the eleventh time and I still have money on it. They never give me problems. They said I will not pay interest for three months when I started. If they did, my husband would have a fit. I steal it from him and buy whatever, wherever.” She went on and on while I finalized putting her loot in plastic bags so that she can go. I looked at the next customer and realized that he was bored. He was blind and did not go far when shopping. He just went to the cigarette shelf and picked a pack of (Cigarettes) and then made it to the counter with the box. Always the same price, yet he complained about the money as if it could even change.
“Me again. Paying six dollars and fifty cents. I told you one day I will lick this habit because it is stealing from me. One day I will be honest with myself.
“Hey Todd, how many cigarettes do you smoke a day?” I asked.
“Manatji, it is you again. It is you asking me? Listen. I have cut down. I used to smoke twenty four cigarettes. Chain smoking as if I was in a competition with each box. Now I have cut down to four cigarettes a day. I call that an achievement,” he said reaching out for the box.
“Do you want a plastic bag?” I asked and then held out the box to him.
“You know that I always come when I really need it. You are just teasing me,” he said when he heard me laugh. I pushed the cigarette box into his hand when I saw that he was moving his hand all over. I waited for the next customer and the next and the next. I got out for lunch and walked to the nearby Kentucky Fried Chicken and bout a meal for the last two dollars I had. When I walked back to the worker’s lounge it was half past and I knew I still had five minutes before I resumed work.
I decided to go to my apartment and rest for a while. My apartment was two blocks from the building. I entered the building and turned to the right and saw my box. It had my name, exactly the way it had been when I arrived at the apartment complex. Even though there was an “a” after the first letter in my surname, the landlord had written,I had not changed it, but just thought each time I went to the office to pay rent, I would always tell him, “silent M,” until he got the fact that there was no vowel after the first letter in my name.
I carelessly picked up the mail and then went and put it on the coffee table. I did not like the clutter that was caused by the junk mai, so I sorted it and threw it into the garbage can. I was throwing it in there when I saw it. There was an interesting envelope that showed a greenish-yellowish color on its window. “I,ll look at it when I get back from word.” I said that to myself and then walked out. I realized that I had left my purse and walked back. This time I decided that I would take that letter with me to work, to read in the last five minutes. I did not like bills. They caused me to be sick. I hoped that this was not another bill.
The road to work led me through the apartments. I walked past and headed for my workplace. It was getting close to the hour when I stepped into the door and my boss was already waiting near the entrance. “I’m not going to be in today, I am asking you to take care of the counting of the money.” my boss was the typical “boss from hell.” I read this on a website and it really helped me to understand the type. I remember yelling at the top of my voice that day. “Eureka!I found it. Just the name I have been looking for.” When my boss from hell came in she gave orders even on the things that had been done. When she had time, she was on twitter and facebook with her friends. I really hated social media because I felt that it should have never been invented. It made me angry to count the money when I could see that she was in her office talking to her friends. The answer was always the same, “Something keeps coming up you know. You know the job. One of these days you will be promoted. “Promotion, my foot.” I always said when I finished with my work. I never had time to do what I wanted. I was always making sure the company was making more money. I vowed that one of these days, I will have to face up to her and talk about my promotion.
When I left home at five, I was exhausted. I was eager to read my mail, get down to watching Wimbledon tennis, and then retire. I took the letter which was in my bed and read it. I read it a couple of times. I checked if it was really addressed to me. It had an official address of some place out there in Philadelphia.
Settlement ID: 002500189
This is how the letter reads: United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennyslavania and Comptroller of the Currency of the United States
:-[ P.O. Box 37765
Philadelphia, PA 19101- 7765
To: Me
Enclosed is the payment based on the claim form you submitted as part of the Settlement in Faloney v Wanchovia Bank. No. 07-1455. The amount that we are receiving was determined in accordance with the Settlement Agreement approved by the Court.
If you have any questions about the legitimacy of this check, please call 1-866-680-6659. For further information, please see the following websites:
http://www.occ.treas.gov/ftp/release/2008-143.htm
http:/www.usdoj.gov/usao/pae/wachovia.html
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/01/wachovia.shtm
There were many questions on my mind. One of them was, how did this happen to me? There was no reason to doubt that it had happened. I picked up the phone and called my bank of eight years ago and they said they had closed my file. I wanted to find out what had happened. They also wanted me to pay them thirteen dollars for the search. Why did I want to do a search about something that had happened a long time ago? I was not sure. I think, by then, I was used to not letting things go. I felt that in this example I had seen the good results of somebody not letting things go. If Faloney had done this “on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated,” what was I going to do? I had failed myself by not balancing my check book and was not doing a good job even after this. What else could I do? I vowed that I would write a short story about this, so that other people can learn about what happed to a woman who could not balance her check book eight years ago.
I also wantged to findnd out who Faloney was and what all this was about. I had received hundreds of scams on my email, but this was a cheque. It was real. I went to my bank thinking that they would reject it and they did not. Out there in the world was a person called Faloney and she/he had done something I should thank him/her for. I vowed that I would never rest till I found him/her.
The website led me to one of the lawyers who had represented the case and I told him that I wanted to say “Thank you.” He passed on the message and said that he would tell Faloney and the others that I had called. I was happy that I had done this. I closed the case that afternoon in March when I put down the receiver.
When I went to the bank and deposited my check, I was sure that this was not a scam and also that I had not won a jackpot, but learned that banks do things we cannot find out about if we do not go through the entire statement. I vowed to comb my statement with the finest tooth when next I next one. Please do the same and also BALANCE your checkbook.
Written by the author: for all women who still do not balance the check book.
Sarah Mkhonza
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
THE EARTHQUAKE IN HAITI
After the earthquake had destroyed three-fourths of Lisbon, the sages of that country could think of no means more effectual to prevent utter ruin than to give the people a beautiful auto-da-fe, for it had been decided by the University of Coimra, that the burning of a few people alive by a slow fire, and with great ceremony, is an infallibl3e secret to hinder the earth from quaking
I begin this commentary with a quotation from Candide by Voltaire. Candide is a satire that was written in 1759. It is about Candide, the disciple of Dr. Pangloss. It is with sadness that we have watched the results of the earthquake in Haiti. We have seen people alive long after we all thought nobody would come out of the rubble. At a time when hope is all we can have about people and their lives, I want to just say, we need to keep hoping that the situations of the world will change for the better. With Swaziland going through the most difficult of times because of money shortages that have been worsened by the termination of the Customs Union benefits, we need to start thinking about what we can do to make our country stronger. We need to begin to plan how to make each individual count.
I have asked myself many times how Haiti will cope with so many people who are maimed. But in a country where the roads, bridges, government offices are all gone, it is quite a question to ask. It is like asking where the fish would swim when rivers have dried up. Even this is a poor comparison for what has happened because we cannot liken people to animals. It is just the lack of words one has to express the shock about what has happened.
It is with great sadness that we express to the Haitian people our expressions of connectedness in this catastrophe. We feel sad with them and hope that the situation will improve. We are all joining in creating places where people can donate for the Haitian cause. Never in the history of a country have we seen a situation where everything went down at once. We are hoping that the world will join in rendering help to our fellow brothers and sisters and bring about a recovery. We express our sincere condolences to the families of those who lost loved ones in this catastrophe. We hope that they will heal and gain strength from the fact that they are still alive and start building a future even thought it will be difficult to do so. As fellow human beings we have been called to be strong in the face of challenges. It is with this ability to live on and do the best we can that we ask the people of Haiti not to give up, but be stronger.
I begin this commentary with a quotation from Candide by Voltaire. Candide is a satire that was written in 1759. It is about Candide, the disciple of Dr. Pangloss. It is with sadness that we have watched the results of the earthquake in Haiti. We have seen people alive long after we all thought nobody would come out of the rubble. At a time when hope is all we can have about people and their lives, I want to just say, we need to keep hoping that the situations of the world will change for the better. With Swaziland going through the most difficult of times because of money shortages that have been worsened by the termination of the Customs Union benefits, we need to start thinking about what we can do to make our country stronger. We need to begin to plan how to make each individual count.
I have asked myself many times how Haiti will cope with so many people who are maimed. But in a country where the roads, bridges, government offices are all gone, it is quite a question to ask. It is like asking where the fish would swim when rivers have dried up. Even this is a poor comparison for what has happened because we cannot liken people to animals. It is just the lack of words one has to express the shock about what has happened.
It is with great sadness that we express to the Haitian people our expressions of connectedness in this catastrophe. We feel sad with them and hope that the situation will improve. We are all joining in creating places where people can donate for the Haitian cause. Never in the history of a country have we seen a situation where everything went down at once. We are hoping that the world will join in rendering help to our fellow brothers and sisters and bring about a recovery. We express our sincere condolences to the families of those who lost loved ones in this catastrophe. We hope that they will heal and gain strength from the fact that they are still alive and start building a future even thought it will be difficult to do so. As fellow human beings we have been called to be strong in the face of challenges. It is with this ability to live on and do the best we can that we ask the people of Haiti not to give up, but be stronger.
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