When money’s the name of the game
Grateful for the Mani
When Vera’s former colleague wrote on Facebook how the crowd from one particular part of Mzansi reads too much into everyday language – and finds unintended messages – I dismissed it as idle talk, born of boredom.
The scribe gave an example of how they would take the mickey out of a word such as xenophobia and convert it to “uze no four beers”.
But it all made sense to Vera when the rags-to-millions, weaves, whiskey, and-back-to-rags story of one varsity student broke this week. Vera chuckled when the names of the protagonists came to light.
The agency that “erroneously” transferred the loot to the student known as Sibongile Mani is Intellimalli. How’s that for an open invitation to anyone handling funds to do the obvious, “thel’ imali’. And to do that they needed someone with a suitable name, and voila, Mani was in the money. Only in Mpuma Koloni...
Not ready for Nkosazana
It may well be that this is his way of showing he is ready for Nkosazana, as per the instigation of Badakiwe and the ANC Blouses’s favourite song, but Vera is not celebrating Namba Wan’s unexplained noshow this week – bar the question time in Gogo Baleka’s House.
Many have been chanting “Zuma must go” but Vera, the first one to confess she’s unlike the Badakiwe crowd – who sing “We are ready for Nkosazana” at the drop of a doek– is having none of it.
We’ll miss him once he’s gone, proof of this was in the way Vera struggled to put together this column in the virtual absence of Namba Wan. Where was he?
Vera withdraws her previously stated wishes to banish our hero into MaKhumalo’s warm embrace. Not just yet.
Gone underground
Vera suspects that many others, without acknowledging it, will miss Namba Wan when he finally goes into the Nkandla bunker, never to be seen again.
What will Juju talk about in Baleka’s House without uBaba ka Duduzane? Will we even have known there was such a thing as a vote of no confidence without uBaba ka Duduzane?
Circus still in town
Will we have come to know of classic clowns such as Badakiwe, the Hole in the Head, Des van Weekend Special and many other national treasures in his cabinet were it not for uBaba ka Duduzane?
Vera took out the crystal ball and is afraid a Nkosazana presidency will make watching body hair grow a much more entertaining pastime. You’ve been warned.
Running scared
A South African who has made the nation really proud on the back of all these shenanigans of our politicians is Caster. Now, haters may have a track-and-field day trying to soil Mokgadi’s achievements, but doesn’t this super South African hold her chin up and show them the proverbial middle finger nonetheless? And Vera likes it. You go girl!
She has also wondered what is it that makes our Caster such a champion, and chanced into a little secret the rest of the world will never catch on.
Now, dear reader, take a closer look at the picture below of Caster burning the track on her way to gold in the 800m.
Do you see what Vera sees?! Would anyone not run for dear life like Caster did when they have someone in hot pursuit with a message spelt out so boldly on their vest?
Vera knows for sure that that Niyonsaba was a misprint, and Caster knew it too, and read it for what it really was “niyong’saba” (meaning: you should be really afraid of me).
So what does anyone who is really scared do? Vera is certain she too would have annihilated the world record at the sight of Caster’s pursuer breathing down her neck like that.
Umsaba ungamazi!