1. Three beautiful children is what God and His Son Jesus of this Christmas have blessed me with (over and above hordes of other relatives who live in South Africa, Swaziland, Britain, Tanzania and Zambia). My earliest Christmas gift came to me this morning from my last-born, Miss Tamara Sibusisiwe Phiri
(Meaning 'None-a-blessing-greater-than-thou!', 'Sibusisiwe' is a name given her from Swaziland by her 45-year-old bordergate Police-Officer-Cynthia/Thandeka for a maternal foster great-aunt.
You can see on the video below
, Among other personalities featured on the video above are are Swazi bearded Prince Skoshi Dlamini (my child Sibusisiwe Phiri's first-cousin-twice-removed where their common ancestor is Swazi Prince Sigeyeza).
There is also Mr Dick Mnisi (husband to Sibusisiwe's paternal great-aunt Bella Eldah born Mavimbela)
Officer Cynthia featured on that video above is a friend to Swazi-King's subject: 49-year-Mr Enos Jabulane Tsabedze who is one of my daughter's three maternal great uncles, all fine gentlemen from the prideful Kingdom of Swaziland!)
Video below is of Sibusisiwe as a little, but very little child, held by her paternal first cousin Mr Kwanele Phiri and only son of my younger brother, Robert (video was taken at Robert and Swazi's house in Piet Retief)
Below is Sibusisiwe's maternal grandfather, Mr Blessing Sibusiso Tsabedze of Big Bend, Kingdom of Swaziland
Swahili-speaking first-cousin-once-removed for Sibusisiwe. She lives in Dar es-Salaam, the United Republic of Tanzania. She is the daughter to Goodman's paternal uncle, Moses Mpili.
The video below is lengthy over and bove being in the Kiswahili Medium (rather than your familiar Englis), but if you you click towards the 15th minute, you will see Sibusisiwe's elder sister at age-15 and in the very cosy language of the Queen, African accent notwithstanding
Sibusisiwe at Age One here in Mamelodi, Pretoria, South Africa (Culmination of a birthday party)
Next video was shot in the Kingdom of Swaziland around the Year 2009 (and a place called Vuvulane apparently where Sibusisiwe's maternal grandfather and his brothers were born) and the children you see on the video are invariably some distant cousins of Sibusisiwe's.
Sibusisiwe's second cousin twice removed: Princess Agatha Ntombikayise Nkhosi (Wife to a Swazi prince in South Africa, Agatha is also the daughter of Princess Sfaphi who is daughter to Prince Mfolozi, son to Prince Khenkhana Dlamini: the common ancestor between the videotaped princess and Sibusisiwe Phiri [Emjindini Swazi Prince Khenkhana wa Somhlolo had two sons: Mfolozi and Sigeyeza the latter of whom is whence Sibusisiwe paternally descends])
But back to my 2013 Christmas present!
2. You
see, I am currently very broke and I am not sure as to how this occurred and so
I walked my daughter (she turned 3 October 10, 2013) to the nearest Auto-Teller
Machine.
3. The
Machine turned out to be one of those ones owned by private businesses in the
name of ABSA Bank.
4. “Hold
Papa’s 2014 diary while I work!” I commanded.
5. “It
is too heavy!” she justifiably complained after my recent buying of a more
voluminous capacity for my Pitman Shorthand entries for my diary in 2014 (if
God allows me to live it through).
6. “Who
cares? I have carried your 20 kg already for an entire kilometre for 30 minutes
and so what is your three minutes’ load of
a quarter-of-a-kilogram diary?”
7. Tamara
is so far the only child God has blessed me with in order for me to intimately learn
what parental care is all about, but I am never soft on her, 3 though she is!
8. For
that matter, in the company of other children, particularly from the extended
family of the Phiri Clan (if all in order to cushion her against vanity in
relation to the children whose parents may be less fortunate than her parents)
I REFER TO HER AS ‘MFENE’ which is SiSwati/Swazi language for ‘Monkey’. (Hello,
Cousin! Have you by any chance seen my Monkey in the past 10 minutes? Monkey?
You mean your daughter Tamara? Yes,
indeed. Where is she? OH SHE HAS JUST
WALKED DOWN THE STREET TOGETHER WITH HER FIRST COUSIN SIPHESIHLE!)
9. I
call my children with all derogatory names among my relatives not because I
want to emotionally abuse them. I am
trying to make them never feel special for being children of a madman who has
been lent by the gods what powers of expressing himself. When I die, my children should continue to
receive as much warmth as they did before my death, and so I am taking something
from my monkeys today what belongs to them in order to turn them into humans
once I, like everybody including Nelson Mandela , will be gone one inexorable
day!
THE EARLY
CHRISTMAS PRESENT.
10. I
had finished counting my R500 Rand and ordered Monkey Tamara to follow me out
of the kiosk when the animal protested o so vehemently: I AM NOT GOING OUT,
PAPA! YOU FIRST TAKE THAT MONEY OUT OF THE MACHINE!
11. I
checked the ATM dispenser for more money and I was amazed to find ONE MORE R100-note that I had not picked!
12. But
how was it possible there was another R100 when the R500 I had requested was
complete in my hand?
13. I
had no time to find out but to make a beeline for the nearest café where I
ordered her a Minute Maid drink while I went ahead to buy myself a 'Trend Tech
Keyboard via USB'.
14. But
before I left her among ladies inclusive of the highly hospitable shopkeeper (one
Miss LaNdlangamandla), I had the common sense of checking the exact amount I had
received from the ATM after my request for R500 and guess what?
15. TAMARA
HAD IN FACT SUCCEEDED TO GET ME THE EARLY CHRISTMAS OF R100 AS THE MONEY
TOTALLED INSTEAD R600! And who is going
to sneer at an extra R100 when you have already gone bankrupt/platsak/bankrot?
16. But
how did this all happen?
17. I
believe somebody had before me gone to the ATM only in a hurry for his ‘girl’
or ‘alcohol’ (both words in Pitman’s shorthand are written with some similar
horizontal line respectively for hard ‘g’ and hard ‘c’).
18. Now
who is going to catch fastest all al-C-ohol or G-irl hunters? It is of course
another G-irl named Tamara!
19. It
was for me a wonderful gift my daughter gave me for Christmas. Wish I could tell ABSA Bank SOME IDIOT LEFT
R100 NOTE IN THE ATM SLOT. But there is
of course a better chance of a snowball surviving in hell than ABSA or the
owner of that money outlet in Mamelodi to get the identity for banknote
ownership to what Tamara gave for her first-ever early-X-mas present to her
father, Goodman Manyanya Phiri!
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