A working girl

"Some men find her sexy, some men disagree
But if she's not, it's not because she doesn't want to be
She wears a push-up bra from Fredericks, five-inch high heel shoes
Maybelline and Rubinstein, and Avon's best perfume
She's a working girl

She's a working girl, she is single and free
She's a mother and wife and she's proud to be
A working girl

Some find her to aggressive, she don't know how to stop
Cause she's the kind that don't look down until it's from the top
She's elegant and stylish, French perfume and a fur
Designer clothes by Holston and Diane Von Furstenberg
And she's a working girl

She has taken her place among the tallest of trees
But she weeps like a willow when she's brought to her knees
Cause she's a working girl

You'll find her dressed according to standard uniform
Cause she must dress in comfort for the job she must perform
She has so many faces, she wears so many names
She goes so many places and she does so many things
Cause she's a working girl!"

Thank you Mama Dolly Parton for best describing US - modern women.

Yes we are working girls. We are single and free. We are mothers and wives and we are proud to be:

Working girls.

We have busted out of the kitchen. What really can women not do today. We are in Engineering, Agriculture, we are in Leadership.

What can a sister not do really? Sisters, sisters let us give ourselves a pat on the should for being who we are.  We are not just brunettes and blondes and red hairs and African heritages we are beautiful. We have brains. We got strength. We are warriors! We are phenomenal!

I am a working girl, she is a working girl = we are working girls. Where I work - office or sweeping at Park Station don't matter. I'm a working girl!

:-)

Bad attitude is like prejudice

It is not the best weather in South Africa to wake up and leave the house. If I was a CE0 or President I would order breakfast in bed. But I'm a single mother and black! So black I tell you. It is days like these when I wish I were the President's daughter. Not that his children do not have to make a living on their own but their doing so is voluntary.

To make things worse I tip toe to my car, hurriedly jump inside and guess what? The car would not start. I look up at the grey skies and at the windscreen wipers. I check the battery and all other fault-signals at the dashboard. Trying to diagnose it myself. All seems to look fine. I decide to kickstart the car and wala! It starts! I laugh childishly as I cut the curve to join the main street. Oh-oh I do not have enough gas. So I must stop at the petrol station. Here again the car refuses to start. And this time it gives me an ultimatum. Call the local mechanic or call my boss and tell him I am not coming to work. *how I wish it was that simple*

So I call my mother, before calling the mechanic. I leave my car keys with the gas station manager. The mechanic knows who to look for when he arrives. But somehow I must get to work. That's the thing with us women we always have alternative plans. Before I left the car I scrolled my phone looking at a possible friend to call. There is no one but some guy that I don't really like. I just can't stand him so the only open option is public transport.

So I grab a local taxi to the taxi rank. Fortunately for me there was no queue. So I boarded the first taxi that arrived. It is raining. Commuters are wearing rainsuits and carrying umbrellas. I also have an umbrealla luckily. *thank heavens my boot is a mini storage. Where would I be in this rain?*

So I got in and went to occupy the back seat. All the other seats were filled up. Only two seats at the backseats were vacant. So I greeted the old woman and young gentleman who both looked so grumpy. *LOL I could swear the weather being unfavourable was my fault*

The last person to board was a lady. She walked straight to the only empty seat and stood there. Without greeting or a smile at least she looked at me and said: "Give me tissue". I looked outside the window in disbelief. I looked at her again and she was looking at me. I don't know what she was thinking but I bet in her mind I had wet the seat. Geeeez! I found the seat like that. The gentleman was wearing a rain suit. The water came from him.

So I became the decent lady and reached for my pack of tissues and pulled three sheets and gave it to her. I waited for at least a thank you. Did I hear it no.

Then I looked at her again. And I thought to myself "I'm even better looking that her but geeezz apart from the beauty bestowed in me I still have some humanity and deep respect. What is the attitude so early in the morning? Is it hormones at play? I'm just as unpleased by the weather as everyone else. To make things worse my car let me down but hey! I'm not taking it out on innocent people.

I understand the old woman's mumbling when I greeted her she is probably menopausal but what is up with her (the young lady)?

Sisters please! I beg! Can we be a generation that strives for humanity?

Bad attitude is like prejudice which is like an old skin of a snake. Let us snap out of it!

To Mom - with love

One grateful daughter once wrote to her mother:

"Mama, you gave life to me
Turned a baby into a lady
And Mama, all you had to offer was a promise of lifetime of love
Now I know,
There is no other love like a mother's love for her child
And I know,
A love so complete someday must leave
It must say goodbye

Goodbye's the saddest word I will ever hear
Goodbye is the last time I will hold you near
Someday you will say that word and I will cry
It will break my heart to hear you say goodbye

Mama, you gave life to me
You turned a young one into a woman
Mama, all I ever needed was a guarantee of you loving me
Yes I know, there's no other love like a mother's love for her child
...And it hurts so
That something so strong
Someday will be gone
It must say goodbye

But the love you give will always live
You'll always be there everytime I fall
You are to me the greatest love of all
You take my weakness and you make me strong
And I will always love you till forever comes

And when you need me
I will be there for you always
I will be there your whole life through
I will be there this I promise you, Mama
I will be your beacon through your darkest night
I will be your wings that guide your broken flight
I will be your shelter through the raging storm
And I will love you till forever comes
My mother does know I love her. And my grandmother knows my mother loves her. And I know my daughter loves me.

Sisters let us not break this bond. Let us love each other unconditionally. Let us try...that is all I ask.

**Lyrical words extracted from Celine Dion's Goodbye - The Saddest Word song

Who do you confront?

Ok sisters, I have a question for you. No it's a series of questions. A deluge.

You have been having this hunch that he is cheating. All the signs have been prominent but you just could not get your hands on it.
All of a sudden he jumps whenever you play with him phone. He is unusually defensive and edgy. He has become extra sensitive. He comes home tired. His favourite dish no longer makes him beam. He stares blankly at the TV and frequently pressing his phone buttons. If you ever ask if he is expecting a call two things happen: either he tells you of a business opportunity or becomes worked out and aggressive. 'Baby, it was just a question'. All of a sudden he gets a lot of wrong numbers. Mhmmm, so your man has become famous girl! LOL!

Then things happen, we know they always do. Then you sister, assign yourself as a 'detective'. First stop, is his cellphone. Need I explain what we do when we lay our nicely manured hands on our men's phones? I know you are chuckling because you know I know what we do. And sometimes our womens instincts had been right sometimes they are not.

So as you go through his phonebook and messages you find nothing but one SMS from a woman saying "Hey stranger. Long time, when are we seeing you?" And there goes you sister creating a big puzzle. You think to yourself "Aha! I knew he is cheating. And they have a baby?" You misinterpret the use of 'we' by the sender. You are fuming and crying. In your head, you have all the facts right.

Or best case scenario...

You find what you have been suspecting. Messages, images - everything. I mean enough evidence that he is a cheat.

Big question is:

Who do you confront?

The other woman or your man?

Don't answer, I know what you will do. Well, may be I do, may be I do not.

But many a times we confront the other woman. And it becomes her fault. She becomes the bad person. What about the man who is mostly likely to have made the first move on the woman? How do you feel when the other woman gives you the impression she thought she was his one and only?

We become all hormonal and stoep sooooo loooow that our boobs kiss the ground LOL! We swear at them and call them cows and blitches. If it was their men that had approached you and never told you about them, would you expect them to understand?

I have no time to scream at another sister because chances are it is my dog that barked at her. Told her it loves her and a sea of lies and promises. You know what I would do? I would deal with my man. The other sister really would not have wronged me. Not unless she is someone I know or a colleague or friend. Then I would know it was a deliberate act. But what friend would do that to her own friend?

This is making me emotional. Yes we get hurt by such things but what disappoints is the way we handle or resolve the situations.

Sister 4 Sister

Ladies, who remembers that song that by The Best Man Quartet? It was a single called Best Man? Who would forget those hunks that made up the quartet? Tyrese, Genuwine, Case and that guy that sang We Can't Be Friends with Deborah Cox? Well apart from the movie and characters and video of the song that got us drooling until the end of the song; the song had the most profound lyrics.


I learnt so many things from those lyrical words. Those gentlemen valued the friendship they had. They looked out for each other hence the chorus 'what can a brother a brother do for me if he can't help me up when I am down? If he can't be my eyes when I can't see?' Somewhere in the video the friends fight because the one has cheated with the other's bride but they forgive each other. The wrongdoer shows some remorse and is forgiven. Hence the line sang by Genuwine 'I am still your boy...I don't like the men I used to be...help me be the best man'.


These gentlemen with their hit song taught or should I say teach us so many lessons sisters: 1) Humbling ourselves 2) Apologising and showing remorse 3) Interdependency - that we all exist because we are part of a whole.
This is a lesson from men.


I say we women can do better. We are softhearted by nature and feeling for each other comes naturally. We have these warm motherly qualities bestowed in us. We can do it.


We can start by seeing each other as the same. There's no better people. Whether living in a mansion or in poverty striken rural settlements. We are all women and from time to time encounter the same life challenges from our cheating men, to raising children with the aid of partners or single-handedly. Some of us may have helpers so don't get down to the domestic science but we all carry our breasts on our busts (LOL). Well some of us chose to be lesbians but that does not change them from bearing the same features as the rest of us. We all concerned about rapists whether bisexual or straight.


One thing though that we seem to lack is respect, from all angles of the word. We just have lost it especially when it comes to respecting each other's territories. And this seems to be a global plague, that of snatching each other's men. Sisters! Oh that's the worst thing to do unto each other. How do you drop your panties for another sister's man? Why do we despise each other so much?


Instead of being sources of strength and support and lifting each other up we seem to be in a spree to with so much deliberacy stab each other. I can't overlook the various reasons that vary from sister to sister but all I know is I would rather die a loner than be happy at an expense of another dear sister.


That's what Sister 4 Sister encourages.


Let us be like the gentlemen in the song: love one another, respect each other, be the wind beneath each other's wings.


That is what I call sisterly love. All the way.

Being A Single Mother

Being a single mother in our era has never been easy. Apart from the costs of raising a child or children that rise daily, we still put up with a lot of criticism that we have never subscribed for.

Mostly those that stereotype us do not even know the reasons why we ended up being single mothers. But before we know it we are blamed for our situation. Everything becomes our fault. We become the reason why the fathers of our children left us. For heaven' sake the man could be dead; or left because of other reasons. Reasons we are not even prepared to share with the world. But no! We live in a society where people are quick to assume and believe so much in their assumptions that they spread them like they are facts.

It hurts even most when I hear what church members have to say. They should know better what the Holy Book says about gossip and spewing lies. These deeds are shunned by God whom they claim they serve with their souls. A single mom is often referred to as a non-repetent sinner. Or a "parent" with big invented commas. Remarks like 'you can tell just by looking at so and so' that s/he was planned referring to children born in wedlock. And our children 'the unplanned ones' get labelled with names like 'bustards' and 'magic' and even Jesus. Jesus implies there’s no physical fleshly father presence in the child's life.

Many a times it is said that our children came to be because of our lose conduct. Our children are said to be fathered by married man and many other bitter names follow them.

In their eyes we can never achieve anything. They question our successes because in their minds we are a bunch of irresponsible airheads. Whenever we are seen in the company of the opposite sex they say: "Oh she's looking for a daddy for her bustard" or "three months from now she'll be pregnant, watch her".

Is it not enough that we play both parents' role in the life of our children? Why do we not ever get credit for the police, accountants, doctors and many professions that we single-handedly raise? Is it not enough that we have to deal with questions of all sorts from our little ones explaining why their daddies never pick them up from school and why they are never in their life.

Good lord, does anybody know how we sob under the bed covers because of all the pain and load we carry on our shoulders? No one cares to stop and ask how we are doing. No one sees the tears maybe it is because they are not there but they are there if someone cares to look!

If anybody is ever there for a single mother that person is God, or her mother or another sister.

Single mother out there, I'm here. I know what you go through. You are not, I repeat you are not alone. Don't let it get the best of you. I know the pain that no career and amount of money can fill. But keep your head up, it is not your fault. Forget those bigmouths. One elderly woman once told me: When people scratch you the wrong way; they are helping you. At the end, you will be the finest shining gem. And what about your ridiculers? They will remain the same people.


This is sisterly love - all the way.

Dragon Lady

Observer 1: Zandi is callous, they say. She lacks feeling, I just fail to understand her. She is mean. She wears this serious face. She is a she-bear! No, dragon lady. Dragon-lady, that is what she is!


Observer 2: Oh Zandi's the sweetest soul there is! Boy is she funny! Amiable! Charming! Angelic smile! She so serene!


I am not sorry for being the person I am no will I apologize for my callousness; my lack of feeling as you may define it. For it is not that at all. I feel many things these days, much more than I was able to feel in the days when I was young and everything happened, and there are reasons for this more than the consequence of age. Therefore I shall not apologize but begin by recalling the facts as I remember them that led to my callousness, the events that put me in a position to write this piece.


Once upon a time in my life...
Before life removed all the innocence, before humans showed me who they really are, I trusted, I loved unconditionally, I obeyed - respected, I was a true definition of meekness kindness and justice and love. I was Casper, the friendly ghost cartoon. Know him? Yeah, that was me. First a hurricane visited me. It blew my surroundings so hard, eroded and destroyed all my shelter and opened me up to all other unbearable weathers. I'm talking about life trials. When they come they evade your space like a hurricane...when it quitens down it leaves you with no roof, no food, and no security can save you from it. That is what life has done to me...taken away my innocence, all my kindness and filled me with fear and rage.


I had to learn to defend myself, I had to withstand the next hurricane and tornado. I had to be flexible, easily acclimatize to all sorts of weather. I had to develop a personality that would ensure I'm no easy target - I needed resistance. I needed a character that will endure the winter, summer, spring and autumn. And I looked around me - I saw a rock. A rock remains a rock in rain, it bears up the harsh sun, it's not moved by winds and it feels nothing. I decided I will be a rock. My emotions died...


I felt nothing.


I was ok like that until I decided I missed my kind - humans. And I opened myself up for another hurricane...criticism, heartache, gossip...the list goes on.
I looked at Zandi as a rock, I looked at Zandi as a darling - the darling is always crying, broken, hurt and the rock - the rock knew no sadness. It knew no laughter - it was callous.


I will be that rock...till I perish. Better that way...


Call me a Dragon Lady...I careless.

I am the Child

I am She,
I am the child of the Soil
I am the child of the Nation
I am the child of the World
I am the child that writes these thought provoking articles
This is my world
I reside here
I love it here
I am free here
I am understood here
I speak my mind here
I speak a language known to me but so universal
I speak a child's language - understood by the old

I am She
I am Child
I am the child that loves
I am the child that judges nobody
I am the only child with equal eyes
Everyone in my eyes is equal

I am Child
In black and white I write
I am the child that loves you unconditionally

I am a child so small with a heart so big!

I am Child.

A mother's daughter

She is her mother's daughter; well groomed to be what she is - respects the low, the high, the meek and the haughty ones; passing out judgement on no one.

She gives praise and honor to the deserving; constructive criticism and opinions when asked. Oh and she loves boundlessly; her love is bounty as boundless; oceanic like the ocean waters.

She despite her earthly achievements still performs the chores of a mother's daughter and still pleases her masters and mistresses in the ruthless corporate world.

Her heart is engraved with the words: kindness, humanity, long-suffering,righteousness, love, strength, courage and wisdom. It's her fear of God that sustains her.

Her true beauty is not what the eye sees. Her  serenity and warmth is what draws the young and old to her. She's a sister, a friend, a pillar of strength, confidante but above all her mother's daughter.

Because she is her mother's daughter - she remembers the wise words from her mother: "you are more than just your hips and thighs"; "respect and treat people of all walks equally"; "do unto others as you would like them to do unto you"; "forgive those that err against you"; "say I'm sorry and thank you - it doesn't demean you". She knows life's journey is thorny and mountainous - she journeys on, who said it would be easy?

Despite the soreness of her heart from being repeatedly hurt, stabbed and betrayed by those she trusted - she still trusts hoping not to be broken.

She laughs and cries - it's all expected of a mother's daughter. It's all the pain, misperception and betrayal - being scratched in all the wrong ways that's made her the finest gem she is - her mother's daughter.

This is whom I am.

I Beat Cancer - A Sly Thief

I wish I could explain to you,
about just how I feel inside.
My love for man and nature
and my feelings that collide.

I'm not sure what happened,
or just what it is I feel.
But what's going on inside of me,
is not something I can conceal.

I'm striving to explain it
in words I try to write.
I hope that they will bring
my readers some delight.

After I had my cancer
and I survived that scare.
There is many things now
in which I've become aware.

I don't know what happened
on that table there that day.
But I find it much more easy
to make time to stop and pray.

I know now man and nature
are connected to each other.
And if there's no respect,
mankind is soon smother.

At times I feel as if I'm one
with what ever it is inside.
I wish that love and peace
could grow to be worldwide

What Men are NOT Telling Us

This is an interesting revelation and confession by a man. It’s in the current O Mag…Bless the heart of the author of this good piece!

Here goes nothing sisters...

That women are mysterious and unknowable is something every young man grows up believing. Men, on the other hand, never think of themselves as mysterious or confusing, and we are often at a loss as to why women want to figure us out. But since you asked:

When you say we don't really talk to you or reveal ourselves to you, we wish you knew just how much we have had to suppress about our desires, pains, fears, and vulnerability over the years to conform to the script of masculinity that we are given. Sometimes we don't open up because we are afraid of what we will find. We are also afraid that if you see who we really are, in all our flawed humanity (and not the flaws that annoy you, like being untidy or driving fast), you won't like us.

Men do communicate, often very directly, but women sometimes cannot accept how simple what we have to say is. We seldom play games—we aren't that sophisticated. If we don't call you for a couple of days after a date, it is because either we are afraid you will think we are stalkers (and we will call on day three) or we aren't into you. That's all there is.

We are as nervous as you are about sex; I don't care what you've heard. Your anatomy is a mystery that nobody bothers explaining to us. Even when we think we have mastered one woman's body, every body is different. We feel inadequate if we can't satisfy you in bed, and since no one has told us what to do with feelings of inadequacy, we project them onto you. Sad but true.

We are very insecure about how we look and what you really think about us, and we are excited when you do small, nice things for us like make coffee or come with us to the barber or just buy us a good book. We've been trained never to show this side to you, but it is there.

We are not subtle creatures. You might think that when you play with your hair in our presence, we know that means you like us. We don't know for sure. Men who do are bad men (sorry, guys!). And anything you've been told about playing hard to get is wrong.

We crave cuddling and hand-holding, maybe even more than you do.

We are desperate to please you because we know you are far sexier and more beautiful than you will ever admit to yourself, and we're confused (but extremely happy) as to why you like us.

Here's the thing: You rescue us every day in small, quiet ways, so why not in this way? Let us into your mystery, tell us how you would like to be loved, show us how to see you, really see you.

A Woman - An Epitome of life

It was a Saturday this cold afternoon, inside this house there lived a frightened young girl. She didn't know what she should do because she missed her mother sorely. She was left all alone with her stepfather. He touched her places that he should not have touched. He did some things to her that he should not have done, so she ran into her room; paged her mother 10777. She told her mother and family and friends but sadly no one believed her because before this happened - she was filled with hate and anger towards her stepfather because he had taken her mother from her when they married.
She looked for a father in the man that she saw in a quest for love, security and happiness. One day the young girl rebelled and she fell in love with a like her stepfather. He abused her emotionally and made her like she was worthless...

To all the sisters, aunts, mothers, daughters - all the women and girls who have been down this route or are treading on this path, I want you to know one thing: it is not fault, it will never be! How is sexual abuse ever an innocent girl's fault? How is emotional abuse a wife's fault? Is this what nature intended for us? No, never! God created us to be valued as complements in men's lousy lives not punching bags and sexual objects and domestic slavery!

Sisters we are beautiful, we are strong! We carry a 4kg baby in our bellies and still do all domestic chores and still carry the weight of a 90kg man when the sun sets! Could this self acclaimed leaders called men do that? And we still walk in heels and get the floor spotless clean?

We are fortresses, pillars of strength, epitomes of life!

You have not lost your feminity and woman beauty and pride that God deservedly bestowed in you simply because a man has vandalised your physique.

I'm not angry but mad as hell! Afforded a chance to sit with a women abuser or rapist: heaven only knows the outcome.
Fed up!