Ndzo pima. A thread

Is Coronavirus a blessing in disguise?

I don’t know. What I know is that just as the happenings of 9/11 in the USA changed the way we travel, this will also change the way we do things, ...

...the role of the state on social and economic activities, our view of the important role of public sector workers and essential services from transport, food, informal and formal shops, water and sanitation especially in rural areas and informal settlements and food security.

Some of what we are complaining about as being harsh are a reversal of foreign things that had crept into our ways and classified as traditions. Take the huge funerals and the expense to which we go to.

Some of what we are complaining about as being harsh are a reversal of foreign things that had crept into our ways and classified as traditions. Take the huge funerals and the expense to which we go to. By way of illustration....

When I was growing up, children did not attend funerals. In fact many of us had no idea someone had departed from this world to the land of the dead, only that they had gone for a visit. When a funeral procession was passing by kids went inside homes.

Today, even toddlers are taken to go view the body. When this started I have no idea. Even when there were mortuaries, people buried within a few days with those who were around attending. Those who were not around would when they have the time, visit the home of the deceased, ..

...be given a grain of salt and would pick a pebble to go lay at the graveside, come back home, wash hands and that was the end of the story.

Even those who attended funerals did not linger around waiting for food. They came back, washed hands, ba gasiwe ka metsi, babtsamaye.

Va hlamba mavoko, va xuviwa. Ku va makumu. Depending on ability, some families would provide meat and pap from the beast that would have been slaughtered for use of the skin to wrap the remains of the deceased. This elaborate feast is not our tradition but new.

In fact it puts pressure on poor families as people expect to be fed for a whole week after evening prayers, wake and funeral day. As an aside, my brother arrived a day later to find my father already buried. He did not take it as a sleight..

...but the necessity to have as little delay as possible. So even as we bemoan the strict regulations on burials, ask oneself whether it is worth the effort, wipe a whole family for a burial. The love is shown when the person is still alive not when dead as we please one another.

Some of us mill around during the service talking to friends. We do the same at the graveside. Whereas guys went there to help fill the grave with soil, now we go there to milk around with only a few involved.

Se lweng, I am just sharing my view. A ndzi lwi ndzo pima.