Kalangas are not a lesser tribe

Owing to statements vomited by his not so excellent robert mgabe who has been misruling that unfortunate country without a currency for thirty five years I thought I would share a story I witnessed growing up that taught me the need of treating all people equally no matter their tribe or station in life is. It is a lesson robert mgabe needs though I hear you can't teach an old dog new tricks but I will try hoping that one of the legions from the murderous CIO reads this article and has the guts to tell him what I as one of the citizens of that country really feel about his "Kalangas are lazy, uneducated thieves who think South Africa is heaven" statement.

Unlike others I won't share complicated theories or deep analysis as I am uneducated though I should say I am not a thief and I don't think South Africa is heaven but I will share a lesson taught to me by my late paternal grandmother uNaMgazo who was a hardworking Kalanga.  During my grandmother's and grandfather's time they were born in 1918 and 1910 respectively, our family and that country mgabe is now misruling were rich. Back then wealth was measured in terms of the number of cattle one had and if one had many like our family did they hired a herdboy.

It so happened that one day of my many uncles who worked in South Africa (it might be a new thing to some people from other provinces but in Matebeleland South where I am from working in SA is the norm rather than exception and has been for a long time my grandfather worked in SA  in the 1920s) complained loudly to my grandmother trying to show off by asking "NaMgazo don't you pay your herdboy? He is asking me for money." Grandmother answered equally loudly so that everyone within ear range could hear her answer, "Reuben is not a herdboy but one of the many children I look after in this homestead who helps us with all the chores like any other child I stay with and he will ask you for money like any other child, if you have it give it to him if not tell him so and stop pretending like you better than everyone else because you work in a whiteman's garden in South Africa picking up dog shit".


My uncle was only silenced but brought back to his senses because grandmother and grandfather really treated Reuben and many other herdboys they had before or after him as one of their own children. Reuben was of a Tonga extraction but that didn't matter when we were woken up at 4 am to go to the fields all of us were woken up. When we went to herd cattle all of us and not only Reuben went to herd cattle. When same said cattle were lost we the children of the Ndlovu household were given thorough beatings having our supper given to the dogs and were told to come home only when we had found the cattle. Come to think of it I don't remember seeing Reuben or any herdboy being beaten up by my grandfather.  

So mr mgabe, Kalangas are not a lesser tribe different from any other tribe in the country you are busy misruling please treat them as equal to the Ndebele, Shona, Sotho, Venda, Shangaan, Tonga and any other tribe in that country you treat like your tuck shop. Thank you.