Let the people rejoice!

"Ah! Zanexhoba!"

"Zanexhoba!" The crowd of guests respond! Hail to the king! Hail Zanexhoba! Here present, at home in his kingdom! The land of amaMpondomise.

The king himself sits serene on the podium, calmly resplendent in his embroidered robes of raw cotton, a crown of animal skin upon his head. He wears a pair of dark glasses and wields a scepter of polished, blonde wood.

We are here to pay tribute to Bhuti Magida on the occasion of the opening of his homestead. We have crossed the Maluti mountains, crossed the frozen Barclay Pass to get here, but eminent guests have come from across the region.

Indeed, nine kings are present. Ah, Zanokhanyo! Ah, Zwelixolile! Ah, Zanomvuso! Ah, Dalubuhle! Ah, Gwebindlala! Ah, Zwelobusi! Ah, Bhatobele!

The Qadi clan convenes to pay tribute to their brother. The speeches begin at noon. The imbongi praises the noble bloodline of maQadi. The kings are introduced by their praise singers, and they in turn outline the values of the community, which are in turn manifest in the building of this house, by Magida, who grew up just over the hill, on the south side of the sharp pinnacle of Tsolo mountain.

"I have worked as a traditional healer since 1974," screams a lady speaker in yellow traditional dress. "In Eliot! I have never stood back for a man."

Family, community and mutual support are emphasized, as the temperature in the marqee rises. Outside, in the kraal, men chop the limbs of a freshly slaughtered cow, and cleave the flesh from the bones with their Okapi knives. The meat is salted and boiled in enormous metal pots. Or blackened over naked flames. Soutvleis. In the rondawel behind the homestead, women prepare umqombothi.

A cultural group of barebreasted virgins sings the songs of affirmation, dancing and whistling to the beat of the cowhide drum. Doe-doef, doe-doef, doe-doef, doe-doef.

As Dr Luyenge prepares to take the stage, there's a commotion outside. The speeches are suspended as Mr Magida‚s gift is presented. A bull, specially dressed for the occasion, and donated from his parents‚ kraal as umgido, a gift to mark the ceremony.

Led into the marqee by the nose, the bull is wearing a duvet cover, a dress and a scarf. Two oranges are impaled on its horns. A bouquet of yellow flowers is perched daintily on its head.

As the speeches stop, the guests crowd forward to get a glimpse of the gift. The band breaks into song and the people dance around Magida's gift. The lady from Eliot dances forward and flicks the bull with her scarf.

Wide-eyed children crowd around the bull's hindquarters. A forest of hands surrounds the animal, brandishing cameraphones.

The bull remains stoic. A man in a wig holds the bull by a rope. Soon there will be dancing and umqombothi. The band will play. There will be horse races. More speeches, and singing throughout, as the sun sets behind the Maluti mountains, here at the homestead of Buthi Magida of AmaQadi in the land of amaMpondomise.

We go back a while

My first soccer was played in the form of One-Bounce. Standing outside the back door of the Hankey Golf Club with ten of the caddies. I had a ball and they had skills. We couldn’t have been more than nine.
There are a lot of thorns in that area. It’s near Thornhill after all. So my ball was soon punctured. A handsome one with red-and-white panels that we’d brought back from Germany, at least we got a good afternoon’s play out of it.
There was a time at primary school when soccer enjoyed a brief flowering of popularity too. Probably the summer of standard three. John Nel was the best at dodging during touch rugby, and indeed he was the best at dribbling too. He would score the goals, and Jonathan Barlett executed the first slide tackles I ever saw.
The next summer holiday I was sent to a football training clinic at the Westbourne Oval. I’d broken my collarbone in an under-nines rugby match against Altona, and my mom might have been hoping I’d change codes.
Sadly, my few weeks of soccer experience were no match for the other boys there. They’d all been playing for the Callies club in Sunridge Park. I didn’t actually understand open-field football. I’d never seen it played. I ended up doing dribbling drills around some cones while the other boys played a match.
The next year. I went back to rugby and stayed there.
By the time I got to university, the skills deficit was massive. I played one res football game for a lark and scored a goal from the edge of the box. But I knew it was a fluke, so I left it. It was all about surfing those days.
It continued to be about surfing until the inevitable, dreaded day of the move to Joburg. There would not be much surfing after that…
Not much rugby either. You can get hurt doing that.
I’d been going to the old Health & Racquet Club for a few years, so gym it was. At the Cresta Virgin Active. A bit of cardio, a circuit and some treadmill.
The year after I arrived, 2003 or so, my company joined Johannesburg’s Corporate Soccer League. The FHM Pumas.
In Joburg the boys all play soccer at primary school, so I again found myself with a skills gap. I was sent to play defender, left back, with the following orders: “Just kick it out. As hard as you can.”
I’m still playing there, at left back. Same strategy. Kick it out.
I’ve gradually come to accept that despite the rugby, the surfing, the gym and all the other sports I’ve played and supported, football has also been there.
So as I settle in to watch the World Cup final, I’m doing it because I’m a footballer myself. I only realized that the other day.
That’s the thing with football. You reconnect. You cross paths again after several years and carry on where you left off, like old friends.

10 Reasons why being rich is a fuck-up!

1 You’re never actually rich. The harder you work and the richer you get, the more you realise you’re not actually rich and that you need to work even harder to get richer, but even then you won’t be rich. It’s a fuck-up.

2 It’s expensive to be rich. The more you earn, the more they tax you, the larnier a place you’ll stay in, the kiefer your car will be, the hotter your wife will be and the more it’ll cost you to just fuckin’ exist! So basically, fuck being rich. You do get a hot wife, though.

3 Ous wanna steal your shit. The more awesome rich-guy stuff you get, the more people covet it. Then they break in your spot, stab you in the eye and steal the fuckin’ shit. Like a diamond-encrusted Glock. Only a rich guy would have one of those. And if you had one, I would rob that fuckin’ thing from you. One time.

4 You become a ponce. When you’re rich, you develop sophisticated tastes, which makes you want to hang out with other rich cats. Pretty soon you start thinking you’re better than everybody else. Which you’re not. You’re just a rich ponce. That’s why being rich is a fuck-up!

5 It seems like a good idea. Even though being rich is a fuck-up, it looks fuckin’ sweet. So everybody wants to be rich. That turns society into a materialistic, superficial, selfish bitch-fest where everyone’s out to schnaai money off each other, at whatever cost.  And where is the love? Not here. It’s a fuck-up.

6 You work your poes off. In order to get rich, you have to work like a bastard non-stop. By the time you eventually get rich, you’re such a workaholic that you can’t stop. So you neglect your family, have no time to enjoy your bucks and you peg of a stress-ulcer at 51.

7 You’ll go to hell. The moral decay will fuck you. Because you’ve spent your life accumulating your fortune, you’ll do almost anything to avoid losing it. That will mean lying, embezzling, bribing okes, suppressing evidence and all kinds of other kak stuff. It’s a fuck-up.

8 No one digs you, bru. They just hang with you for your bucks. Every babe who pomps you is hoping to score a X5 out of you, every lightie who’s polite to you hopes you put them in your will, and your so called chinas only want you to buy them ales and a R500 ticket for the lucky draw at the Bowls Club.

9 You gonna get the clap. Precisely because you’re so rich and women only want you for mercenary reasons, you will be able to have sex with all manner of promiscuous individuals. You will have clap within a month of making your first billion. If not the chivy. It’s a fuck-up.

10 You’ll never be truly happy. You’ll never again know the simple pleasure of having a chat about Boks’ chances in the Tri-Nations while getting a lift from the Radium to Max-X in Edenvale with a oke you bummed a smoke off in the bogs. And that, sir, is a bit of a fuck-up.