THOUGHTS OF AN AFTER ACT




Let us pose for a this moment

To think about the whole moment

Turn it around with a fork

This fanatical reading of my life

This after thought this relishing

What it was we did together

And spilling myself over the side

Of this bed where you and I were



It frightens me when he wakes up

His toes are like interesting sticks

That will hide inside his shoes

The way they hid from me.

When he decided not to come again

And be the one who sidles

In this lonesome feeding of my being



Nothing seems to matter to your curly head

Your hair uncombed his beard forming

The mirror the man with the lean hips

Is stranger than the loan bin that I

I throw my remains in daily



Who said I would ever know my grief

When somebody is standing in my world

Looking at himself in a mirror

Where half of my body is looking

Its eyes searching for the parts of me

You failed to see when you were close



What is fake begins fake and ends fake

My mother used to say I should know

How to undo what is for what was not

Yet here I am not knowing that she was right

For what will become of the foreheads

Between which were words

That eat and open the deep

Where my not knowing lies.



My mirror self, my divided me

Sits up on the bed with the half

That was hidden from you

And wonders which part of it really works

When I am done with this punching

Of the thought that I clasp into one



Like my thighs closing

To their own loneliness.

They Say She is the Bravest

When she talks you hear what she says
She speaks louder than them all
Her voice rings into the nearby forest
Her body stands firmer than you know.

They say she is the boldest
Her body stands firm when she walks
She does not take hurried steps
She speaks softer than you know
When she gives instruction.

She laughs only when nobody is looking
She makes her point short all the time
She speaks into your ear sometimes
And does not want everybody to know.

We will Meet at the Women's Reed Dance

Women too can dance
Women too can get the reeds
And pile them outside the kraal
At the women's reed dance

July comes and women wait
No reed dance for women this year
They wait and wait
No reed dance again

When will we dance together?
When will we meet?
To do the dances of our people
With feet that are in shackles.

We danced yesterday
We will dance tomorrow
We will dance forever
And yet still be in chains

This dance does not free us
This dance makes us shake
Our bodies are released
Only for a short time.

When will we dance
and be the women
We really want to be
Where we can be loved
The way we want?

Klibhi Said It Is Alright

She said I should not feel sorry
When I take another woman's man
Because I cannot find one
That belongs to an animal

My sister symphathised with the wife
I was surprised
That she did not
Sympathise with me.

Klibhi said it is alright
To react funnily
When we see the wife
And pretend we have done
What any other girl would do.

Klibhi finds it easy
To upset others
Make as if they are nothing
When we aree also nothing

They say we like
To be seen in public
And be the talk of the town
They say I am "the Nori,"
The friend of Klibhi.

He Married Her afte Me

In single file we go
The wives of Mvasi
Same bags we carry
The wives of Mvasi

There came a time
When all was talked about
Was our outside looks
The wives of Mvasi
Are so beautiful

Did anyone ask
How beautiful Mvasi was
To have such beautiful wives
I ask the question
Because I hear he will add another one
Whom I can always tell, "He married you after me."
That is all the pride I have in this thing
Of being one of the many
Wives of Mvasi.

Lesson Number Two, Woman

I kept telling you
He says I cannot do it
He wants me to feel small
Says marriage is not for people
Who walk and talk like me.

Am I the one who comes back late?
Am I the one who spends all the money?
Am I the one who tells all the lies?
Am I the one who is doing it all
Like life only started with me?

He says I cannot doi it
If I leave him
I will never find another
Nobody wants people like me
Who have been around
And done it all

What have I done?
I just scrubbed the floor of the house
I washed our clothes
I sat in the sun outside the house.

He says I must not complain
I cannot do anything
He is not alone in this
His sisters also join him.
What can I do now?
Lesson number two, woman
Answers are in the question.

When Last Did you See Him?

The father of my child
Has disappeared from our lives
Everybody wants to know
When last I saw him.

My mother asks me all the time
My friends ask me too
They want to know the answer
I am too ashamed to speak out.

Now he is no longer with me everywhere
He runs away when I appear
Turns into another street and took a corner
When I needed milk for the baby.

My mother is the provider
She gives me her market money
To buy food for the baby
A soul from God cannot starve
While she is alive.

Shame on you to throw away
A boy like this one
He will grown and look for you
He is yours today and tomorrow
When you sober up come and do
What is needed of you.

Hleksile in Tears Over Money

He gives me money for the child
And says I must not spend a penny
I must be as good as the other woman
Who has his child is good to him.

I am not a money person
I am a mother in need
I buy things for the baby
I do not buy things for everybody.

He gives me a little bit of money
And says it must do a lot
Take care of everything
When he has never tried
To look after a baby himself
And get to know what it means.

They are Praying for the Wedding

Last year they were praying
He said he will marry
When the marula trees bloom
Now the aloe is blooming.

He said he will mary her
Now we hear of another
For he changed his mind
And did not change the plans.

Is a man alowed to think
When the elders want the wife?
Is he allowed to change his mind?
Is she allowed to change her mind
When the word is out there.

Lesson Number One, Woman

I am coming over there
You will not laugh when I get there
I will show you what I am
I will teach you a lesson

I will tell you the buttocks of a frog
For it does not wear panties
Just keep laughing when I talk
You have never seen a mad me.

Whose money did you spend?
Whose husband did you take?
Whose radio did you take?
Whose blankets did you take?

You went to that house to steal
You stole what I bought
You will see me for who I am
And know me for what I am
Lesson number one.
Whose cows did you sell
You will see the ral me

Have You Head What Hleksile Said

My friend humiliating yourself
Speaking to a spare wheel
That will get torn down on the tar road
That is what these girls are today.

They take a man, run him down
Dump a man, the way you throw
Thrash in its can.

No use crying over what was done
And forgetting what you did not do
You loved a man and then what did you do wrong?
Let us begin here.

Your story is yours alone
Two people are not her doing
What they did last night
Me and you untangling
This myth is the end of it.
Goodbye Tears Lady,
I will cry with you tomorrow.

Mvasi Replies With Pride

Woman of God stop crying
I did not take a man
I was spoken to lovingly
And told you are no more.

Bad news, yes it is for you
For me good news is good news
To be honest with you
I am just tasting these grapes
They are sour in my mouth
Tomorrow you can come and get him
When I am done with him.

You should have told me he snores when drunk
He also is not that much to write home about
He is just a log I am floating down the river with
Let us talk when I see you walking down
Allister Miller near the traffic light
We can stop this madness in your head
For you will know and see the truth.

Mvasi Has Stolen My Husband

She walks with him everywhere
She rides in the car everywhere
She has taken over my world
And loves him like he is not a father.

My children are naked
They have no money for school
They did not eat today
She took it all from me.

I am alone with the children
I am nothing even to myself
I am looking for answers
One is "what did I do wrong."

What love did I not give him
What walk did I not walk
What part of my body did I not give him
That he should walk away from me
And leave my children with questions
I cannot even look at
For they are written all over thier needy eyes.

They Killed Even Before She Died

They took all her things
They said their son worked
They said she was milking him
And never brought anything

The marriage is theirs
She has no say in it
Nobody speaks to her
Because she is now a thief.

She walked away empty handed
They took her children away
They would not let her
Grieve the loss of her loved one.

She walks away crying
Her black clothes beckoning the wind
To hug her at least
And be the love that is lost

As A Woman Said

Life with a man is hard
I try and try and try
I fail sometimes and cry
I stand and sit and stray
To the places in my mind.

Life with me is hard
I think and think and sink
My thoughts get deeper
The place is big
The journey gets longer
And ends where I started thinking

Life can be better
Thinking never changes
Unless you move from where you are
And go to the other place
Where your minds sees the freedom
Then things improve
For you have started to create
The world you want to be in.

The Opinions of A woman are Important

Let her speak, let her speak
Do not stifle her air
Let her breathe.
She needs to be heard.

Do not skip her
Let her participate
Let her become
The person she was meant to be.

THE GIRL'S SELF ESTEEM AND SWAZI CULTURE

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

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

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.

Let us Keep Fighting the Problems of Swaziland

Let us Keep Fighting the Problems of Swaziland

To all of you activists on the Swaziland situation, I would like to send a word of encouragement. We are facing a difficult situation where children have been left without parents. We need to work even harder because the future of the country depends on these children. We are asking all people to try what they can. It may mean adopting one or two children or just sending to school more people than you had planned to send. Even that will not be enough. We need to just keep on keeping on, if I may borrow an expression that is not Swazi. Overseers of children have to be all of us.

Gone are the days when one would only look after the child they brought to the world. These days we are asking people to learn leadership skills and regroup the society. We need to be willing to see all other people as our brothers and sisters in a way we did not before. We need to share medical supplies, the little money we earn and still do what we were doing before, taking care of the old people who live in the countryside. This means we have to learn to be united in love.

I am happy that we are registering more and more organizations. We need to all see ourselves as leaders and take initiative when there is a need to do something. There are projections that food supplies will dwindle. All this means a more efficient way of finding and sharing the little food we have.

Even finances are dwindling. The Ministry of Finance is having problems. This means there will be less money to run the country. We are fast getting to a point where our currency will be meaningless. With over 50% of our people living on next to nothing, we are facing a real crisis. As it is we are dependant on donations. We need to start looking at what we can do for ourselves. Anybody who has a piece of land needs to start a garden. Church organizations are sprouting everywhere. We hope they will feel for the poor and not just get rich from the tithes of the wealthy urban members when the poor are suffering.

Our leaders also need to help us to focus on these problems and spend less in their lives living lives in filthy opulence. It is time for all of us to tighten our belts. I know that there is a point beyond which we cannot go in tightening belts. We long reached that point, but as Africans we only reach that point when we go into the grave. The year 2010 marks the beginning of a decade of suffering for our country. We are still asking for the same things, more accountability from our leadership, a sharing of the resources in the Tibiyo fund with the rest of the nation and unbanning of political parties so that we can have a voice. As an activist, I am asking for more teaching on women's rights. We need more advocacies. We passed the laws that make women equal, but when illiteracy rates are still high such laws mean nothing. I am just writing to request that we form new resolutions in 2010 so that we can se some progress in the real areas of concern. My resolution is to read the Human Rights Charter in siSwati and start writing about it. What is your resolution? Happy Xmas and Happy New Year to all the readers of this blog.