Scramble for Women’s month presented on Toastmasters

I don’t think we should wait for August to celebrate women.

Considering the fact that every month women go through a period of pains, and timeously the 9 months of labour and yet be able to brighten up our days…

Fellow toastmasters, we are at a difficult time, worse than the time of the 1956 women, the struggle is at a different landscape than it was in the years leading to 1956. Women find themselves to be isolated, with men so detached, in a different path from their role of protecting women.

Let me begin by saying;

There is no theme befitting the month of August to celebrate women, like today’s theme “Bravery in Pink”…. Just in a month of October we’ll be wearing pink, a symbolic gesture in support to the fight against breast cancer, in that context the combination of ‘Pink’ and ‘Bravery’ in one sentence… tells a story, a woman’s story, your story… so, nonetheless, right now; August is your time…

When I was preparing for this speech, I asked myself; how is it possible, how do you do it.

Being a sister, a mother, a guard and still be yourself at the very same time…. After all you have and still endure

I was then taken aback to a particular story from Stephanie Nolens’s 28 Stories of Aids in Africa.

Stephanie Nolens narrate a story in Swaziland prior 2006, a place where women’s freedom and prosperity is limited, women are treated inferior.

Stephanie tells a story of a young Swaziland woman in the 80s, who had been a mother of three out of wedlock, fortunately from the same boyfriend from a society where women would require a husband’s consent in a form of a letter to access contraceptives, and in this case the lady didn’t not qualify for contraceptive, she was not married….

So, While she struggle to complete her degree, inside she was tortured by thoughts as “who will marry me now, with all these children?” Close quote. Already her father had written her off, made it known that she was unmarriageable…

When the boyfriend finally marry his woman, the mother in law as they usually do harshly suggested: I quote “Go to the clinic like these other women and do something so you don’t have all these babies” and she did,

However 5 years later the INTRAUTERINE device inserted on her started to give problems, a month later after its removal she was pregnant with a fourth child, and right there she opted for tubal litigation…

She went on to complete her degree in Agriculture, thereafter scored a scholarship to study masters degree in University of Bradford in England only to be crushed by a doctor after a medical test done: “you won’t be going to the UK”, she was HIV positive.

With rage, the man distanced himself from accountability, spewed accusations of illicit sex, and eventually left claiming “I cannot live with a prostitute”

To me It is clear that

Woman are selient, you are destined to fill and own the space, UyiMbokodo, you are strong.

You are not defined by adversity nor are you defined by your gender, when these men carelessly remind you that you are a women to demise and derogate your ability… do not fold, you have the power to make the world go around like a merry-go-round, sometimes they (MEN) just need to shush and ride along, like Maya Angeloou’ says: you are a phenomenal woman.

You smile at a point when hope seem to further away,

Soberly draw in humanity and humility when bolts and nuts wear off, home built about to lose its synergy.

And you blush away as the world shines on your way, to give glory

because

You not in the nature of glory but that of compatibility and unison

beneath you stronger than your appearance, tougher than they bend your heart to break your soul ,

there is an appetite for love, the depth of warmth is unmeasurable.

hang around with people that are lauding and embracing your worth.

Because

It is not ‘just okay’ being a woman, but okay to be loud, okay to be yourself and okay to know you are the most important thing that ever happened to men, to the world

and HERE to this toastmasters club

Jesus Christ! Woman, you are supposed to be safe with us, safe in our hands and… because you lighten up the space.

I am not supposed to be exploiting your weaknesses.

I am not supposed to be body-shaming, lashing out and beating you up… I am not supposed to murdering you…

You are beautiful,

Do not only sing women emancipation but free yourself from these toxic men…

take ownership, and tackle a bull by its own horns.

For the fact that years beyond 1956, the struggle continues to see women fighting for recognition and equality, it goes further and even worse… GBV

Even though I said it’s your time, it’s your story, it’s women’s month but I concur with Meghan Markle, when she says; “it’s very easy to sometimes compartmentalize or silo this idea of Women’s Day solely being about women—but it’s not—it’s about all of us.”

But Right now, with all that the world is, it’s your time, it’s your story, it’s women’s month.

Fellow Toastmasters,

I Thank you!

My Toastmaster Ice breaker speech

A research by Gary Lubyan and Daniel Swingley finds that “People often talk to themselves, yet very little is known about the functions of this self-directed speech” in such regard that;

studies observed the commonality of children spending considerable time talking to themselves.

Let it then not surprise you when I say;

I have been writing speeches for as long as I can remember but I was never the one to stand before the audience and indulge myself… often, I simply crumble…

Funny though in my line of work situations compels me to make speeches, to motivate people to do what they are paid to do.

In my community, back in the village where I come from, I have been dubbed as one of the better ones. This community view those of us that are working as change agents and we are often expected to make speeches to motivate our young brothers and sisters to view life differently…

BUT

I am just a mechanic, a graduate who performs well behind the scenes than being in the forefront of presentations, exactly like most black children from the village.

Obviously a “cause and effect” exists;

Beyond the fact that we are all capable speech writers in our own rights in our lives.

Fact is we all come in different packages, others are made for small settings, intimate gathering, others for arenas, and others are internalised.

And we often normalise being in our own shells and cells, defining ourselves as reserved.

At times we are conditioned to die inside our own safe horizon, suppressing our own voice, underestimating the power of our voice.

Perhaps

Our demons are our audience, our fears and cheers are our audible audience, in which we are formed to connect with. This kind of audience have no eyes, it does not see, react and ridicule…

This kind of thinking romanticises with the idea that

I have never thought I was a good speech writer nor a great orator, because reality is… I am not.

Evidently to that

At 16 I had written a speech to say my last goodbyes to my mother and I never had the courage to stand in front of an audience.

I had put a pen to a paper too many other times, speeches that I never breathe life to

How many speeches do we often write in our lives and yet never seen the light of the day?

Sometimes all our dreams are written in our hearts, our mind, in sweet and beautiful speeches but we are not audible for the audience to hear them out, yet the master key to unlock these dreams could be lying in the hand of a particular person within an audience.

Toastmasters would you agree with me if I told you that

I always believed the drive that propels the day to day work deliverables, the full time single parenting, my time spent at charity organisations and the money spent to help other’s

… could echo in audiences from a close proximity to far-lands… and impart change.

Obviously you wouldn’t agree to that because you are supposed to assist me with the skill of communication.

Even though sometimes to give a speech, it takes anger, hurt, grief, love, excitement and disappointment,

However, settings like toastmasters are formed to defer that, and externalised the internalised speeches and speaking.

Leigh, Dawg, Mukesh, … and all of you fellow toastmasters… you are required, the situation right now requires you to constantly make these speeches from inside out, to motivate, to in-still hope, to change lives – our communication, most of it all please raise your glasses to;

toast to health,

to love

to our guests and

… to many other life changing events because you have been writing these speeches for as long as I know you… Fellow toastmasters, I thank you!

Covid-19 philanthropists

Covid-19 came like HIV/Aids, suddenly people want to save, change society and the world at large, yet their aspiration is self enrichment. How are they going to change the world when their principles are primarily centred on volumes and income, a dilemma of trade-offs… what do they call them, philanthropists not entrepreneurs? A system of a ‘willing buyer, willing seller’ kind of love… #justthinking

2021

I’ve sat with em, shared a laughter and shed a tear with em, they were my friends, colleagues and some families, they taught me how to do work on my profession… since March 2020 they’d been dying, we buried them, but we still here not because we were better but fortunate… Thank you Lord, Camagu ko Bhayi 👏🏿 Before nine o’clock, before 2020 ends at 21:00, according to our South African minister of police I dedicate 2020 and 2021 to the medical professionals and volunteers across the globe… Wow, you guys are something else.. You deserve all the blessings. Thank you👏🏿

iZulu love letter

Ngifisa sengakubhalel’inkondlo

Ikuland’egol’ ikuwez’uthukela

Woth’ ufik’oLundi

Uyong’fica ngikulethel’ubhaskithi, nocansi

Ngikufukule, ngikonyus’intaba

Mang’qeda ngawe, nawe

ngikhombis’izwe nomhlaba

Woth’ungekaciphis’inyembezi

Ngikhumul’ijazi ngikulekelele

Uth’usabhekile, njalo

Ngithi mi naw’uswidi😜🤣🤣🐇

Ng’cela, ng’cela nje ugibel’ibhanoyi

Ndiza bhelukazi,

ulethe leyo nhliziyo😘😜

Uzongfica phakath kwe Nsizwa

Ukhombe nje owakh’insizwa zibhekile.

Okwamanje

Sengohlala ngibhek’iposi

Incwad’ebhalw’ uwena Bhelukazi🤣🤣🤣.

Kuze kufike lelolanga🐇

A gift of life is life itself

At my knees

As I burn an incense,

early hours of the morning.

Fire from a candle,

A nip of gin, a shot to myself,

shot to my great warrior kings and queens

My dearest forefathers

a tin of snuff in my hand

Trying to connect with my inner being

Tradition that lingers on

An act of African customs

Significant gesture of gratitude

Calling them by their traditional names

oMvundle, oMsuthu, oBhayi ka Khetshe

I thank their riveting spirit

To have cleared my foot path,

and

endlessly watched over my head.

Camagu!

I weeped,

with content,

counting all my blessings.

It’s no mystery I’m still standing

Be it on the sideline or mainline

Life itself exceeds all benefits

As I mark three decades

and some odd years,

Bant’abadala (my ancestors)

You giving me a gift of life,

Yet for another try, for another day

Well packaged in a form of a birthday.

I shall continue with the cause

Rising and falling against the odds,

Just keep the light burning.

Yesterday, today and … COVID-19

Yesterday, today and tomorrow in tenses

Past, we wondered these dirty streets,

Unswept pavements with broken bottles and,

drinking glasses that stabbed generations

as they drank themselves to death,

Whilst dancing to sounds of disruption,

From music to voices

Rants here and there,

today the streets are forcefully at peace.

Presently we miss walking,

same spaces we walked a month ago, touch and go

nodding to familiar faces,

waving hands free from officers.

Police and Soldiers,

They were forever here,

we just didn’t see them.

Now they’re holding our breaths as never before.

Yesterday’s news:

There was my neighbor,

with a broken spirit,

suffered the loss of her young soldier.

She chose not to die in pain

and let her son’s death to be in vain,

Rather be a street vendor,

than to bury her face into a pillow.

She

wore her pinafore,

tied a doek on her head,

her scarf in her waist

Picked a spot,

built a stand and sold sweets.

Days;

the same table stand extended,

her items expanded,

humility unchanged.

She wears the same smile,

like her sweets however,

now bold to the size of her stand,

So firm yet warm,

like the taste of her gatsby and vetkoek,

along a tenable work ethic.

Today, she woke up to the news,

that demanded her to remain indoors,

so to speak ‘flatten the curve’.

With her flat stomach from starvation,

She tightens her belt and,

Soldier along.

Because she doesn’t know what tomorrow would be like.

Mhlab’uhlabile🦠🦠🦠

Mhlab’uhlabile

Ngesiquphe singahlelile

Liyabhubh’ihlabathi

Kambe

Neli lixa lizodlula.

Ibhentsil’inkxalabo

Inkxunguphal’ uxhatshazwa

kukuxhaphazela kwamaphaphu.

Ngenxa yokuphaxwa nokuxikizwa

Zizifo zemihl’esiphila kuyo.

Ubuxikixiki nobuxakaxak’

Ogqirh’imek’imaxongo

Ixesha lixhatshwe yinja

Amaxhal’axeli ndlala

Inqab’intw’engenasiphelo.

Nabo torho babhityel’ebhulukhwen’impilwe ndoda.

Bathi sihlambe izandla

Ucoceko lelona khubalo,

Kusaphel’amaqhinga.

Umhlola,

Okwangoku,

Ibayinkom’edla yodwa,

Impangampanga ye lolo

intw’ehamba yodwa ngath’inotokoloshe

Ongqondo ngqondo basabhunga

Zihlangene ngentloko, zihlinz’impuku.

The real essential members of our community

Politicians always thought they were the only ones that are holding the country, but it’s the teller from a retail store (food and pharmacy), the black garden men and women who make sure the white farming lands are well taken care of so to produce more crops, the petrol attendants, the security officers at every entrance and exit, at any cash vehicle transporting monies to ATM’s, it’s the Miner at coal mines, the Artisan and Assistant at Eskom, Telkom, Petro SA and Transnet as well as the Operator that moves a container from ship to stack to truck to retail stores before those goods lands to a consumer, it is the Bin/Garbage collector, the Truck, Taxi and Ambulance driver, it is the Medical Doctor and Nurse that spends sleepless nights worried about another patient while the other one perished in his/her hands, is the Telecommunication Technician at Vodacom, Telkom, Mtn, and Cell C that is making sure we are able to connect and converse to one another amid of crisis, it is the Production team incl the journalist in the streets for us (people) from SABC and Multichoice ensuring the civilians are well alert of current state affairs throughout the day, it is the Pastors and Traditional healers depending on individual belief that counsel our people during this time of hardship, most of them all is the Maid/Nanny that look after children whilst these essential people are out there making sure each member of the state is able to survive yet another day. #COVID-19

This time COVID-19

I APPRECIATE ALL OF THOSE ESSENTIAL SERVANTS WHO ARE UNDERPAID BUT CHARGED WITH SUCH DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF CARRYING FOR THEIR PEOPLE, I SALUTE YOU!!!

I have seen medical doctors and nurses crying fearful of their lives,

I have heard Business owner’s, CEO’s of big organizations such as Edcon weeping in need of keeping companies afloat amid and beyond the virus, most importantly to be able to pay salaries and preserve peoples jobs,

People are dying the whole night and day while some remain infected and overwhelmed with anxiety.

Yet other children are at work, parents are worried sick and grandkids are left alone at home.

A greatest test of all times.