The learner

HAMMERING THE NAIL ON THE HEAD

In the family, in the church and in the community at large, many things happen. Things happen because man is a happening Saul. Where men are not happening, society is dead. That is the reason why for a society to be live ,you need different people including mad ones.

in the family as the smallest unity you have all sorts of people. You have those who talk a lot known as the talkative ones. Such are the ones who talk without making sense. You have those who when they speak, what they say makes sense. You also have those who don't talk even when wrong things are going on and it is these ones you should be careful with. You should be worried about these ones because they have the capacity to stab your back.

In a family meeting, in a church meeting, in a board meeting, those who bring out issues to your attention, regarding what actually transpires in the background have a capacity to build your reputation. But those who reserve their comments and complain after the meeting are not ready to stand with you.

That is where we see the so called bootlickers. Bootlickers will normally come to you and pretend that they are with you when in actual sense they are not standing with you. Bootlickers only appreciate your weaknesses and take advantage of you.

Due to the foregoing, I have now come to learn that you can build a strong team if you pay attention to those people who approach you openly because they are only revealing the things being said about you in the background.

Someone once told me that when you fart in public and excuse yourself, you are better off than a man who belches secretly. When you fart, what comes out is unpleasant and it makes people uncomfortable. As long as you are able to excuse yourself, the air is cleared. Contrary to a situation where one releases bad gas through the mouth and decides to remain unonimous. This leaves people to continue wondering nobantu. Nguni wacita Makani? Ani mwaalu wacita boobu.

If you decide to hate those who bring out issues to your attention as they happen in the background where you are not part of, you are a dead man in waiting. Another man once said monkeys are notorious animals because they turn the bin to display it's contents. The bin may contain rotten food, dead rats and cats with a lot of maggots. Bootlickers may lie to you that things are well, when in actual sense your image looks bad because they have eaten you up and you look like the image below.

The silent ones, often marginalized by society sometimes perform wonders just like the monkeys which embarrass the bin owners by turning them upside down. This time around are capable of steering the still waters so that things can begin to happen. When the air is still or not moving, you need a wind to blow ,thus facilitating diffusion. For information to move from mecca to medina and vice versa you need people to pass it. For cargo to be relocated to the right destination you need a marginalized character to do it. The bubble fish carried Jonah to Nineveh instead of going to Tarshish. Mention on another day , the big role played the pigs when demons were discarded through them.This qualifies my argument that society needs all sorts of people, for it to be live. Imagine what could have happened if there was no bubble fish, a creature dimmed unfit for consumption, but capable of carrying the whole lot of Jonah to go and preach the word if God .

CHOOSING A SEED FROM A ROTTEN COB

DEAR DEAD DAYS

Relaxing in the staffroom, after preparing my lesson plan for my grade twelve class. I hear a knock on the door before breaktime which i ignore for the first time. Then i hear a small voice saying" HODINI". This interests me and i respond only to find it's a small boy putting on rinkled uniforms with a very shot tie like a tail of a goat. I realise that form ones are reporting this morning. "Come in please" i respond. The boy comes through and greets me. " Good afternoon madam" i respond " good morning to you" This snario reminds me of our old days at school. I remember that even us we did not know how to speak good english when were in grade eight. Not only were we unable to speak good english but we were also very backward, i must confess.

Because of growing up in the village, most of the things were not familiar to us. I still remember one colleague from one province whose name was Lubasi Ikachana. He had challenges with using the toilet. At one time Lubasi had an accident. Instead of sitting nicely, he had a habit of climbing on top of the toilet pan. Unfortunately, one leg slipped and it ended up into the wasis. When he entered the domitory, everyone became suspicious because he introduced a new quality of oxygen which was so disgusting. We had to pinch the nose and run out of the domitory to catch the original air because the room was polluted with a pathetic pangent smell.

In some occasions we exibited some backwardness when it came to dancing. Those days we were treated to intertaiment, especially during the weekend. We would watch people as they danced on the stage. Instead of going to dance on the stage we would go outside and dance abit and go inside to copy more styles. This and many other habits made us look dull and this dullness was only gotten rid of by what was commonly called mockery.To narrate this mistreatment again makes me very annoyed that if i can have a chance to meet those people who mocked me, there can be total war.

My first day at Monze boys secondary School, a boarding school in 1987, was so interesting. I remember being addressed by someone who i thought was actually one of the teachers. He was too smart to be a pupil. His surname was Kaposa. This was a kind of personality who would just stand on the stage and the who group would go like sheeeee! Then he would continue. "Good afternoon boys" and we would answer " Good afternoon sir" Although, Kaposa the Headboy looked as if he was a teacher, he was actually a very kind person. Up to now I do not remember seeing him cane anyone. He was one of those people who are not easily seen and as a result he commanded alot of respect.

But there was this prefect who looked even older than my uncle by the name of Clement. A prefect who never used to tack in his shirt. To make matters worse, his shirt was very big with curved lines at the back, making it look like a running track. As if that was not enough, i do not remember seeing him in shoes. He always used to were tropicals. Clement was a very fierce man and word had it, that even some teachers used to distance themselves from him. He always carried a short horse pipe in his pocket. One day he caught us across Namwala road. That was the time i experienced heavy caning. He caned us 6 strokes each. I felt as if my buttocks were melting. We had a rough time during our early days. To avoid such experiences, i started moving in the group of grade elevens. As a result of this mockery thing, many of us became jackedup. Our spocken english as well as written english improved drastically.

Therefore, the english spocken around especially nowdays, can not deceive me in anyway because it's not a measure of intelligence. Ask the chaps of nowdays to write a composition. Worse more ask them to write an essay. They can not go beyond ten lines, they run out of words. Those days we would even go for easy writing competitions. Looking at the spellings, it's something else contrary to how they speak. Nowdays, puuu nothing. Those days, on other days we would go and listen to debate. We had a very powerful debate group which included people like one Emmanuel Hamatwi, Francis Sakufiwa and My good friend Doubt Cibamba, the PS

THE EASIEST NAME TO DESTROY IS YOUR OWN

Many people have a habit of wanting to destroy other peoples names. Little do they realize that, the easiest name to destroy is your own. In the end whatever, was said in the dark corner is brought to light and everyone comes to know who the poison is.

Many are the times, people decide to destroy other peoples names because of failing to mind their own business and sometimes because of jealous. In whatever you do to soil someone's reputation, the onlookers are there to judge. As the word reputation sounds, it is an image built and based on repeated behavior which can either be positive or negative. If someone already has a positive image it's practically difficult for anyone to change it secretly or publicly. This is because you are not the only ones with eyes to see. In fact, you only have two unreliable eyes compared to the millions of eyes who see good things in the same person you want to destroy.

In the life we live, we should always remember that God has interest in everyone and that is why he encourages people to love one another. They say each person must be a brother's keeper not a brother's destroyer. If you continue with that spirit one day you will find yourself as the only one in the ring because who ever you are trying to destroy will have already been updated with your foolishness. The end result therefore, is that by the time you realize, you will have already successfully destroyed yourself since the easiest name to destroy is your own.

At the market, at the place of work, at church, in the school, in politics, in the world of football, in the family and many other areas, people always want to destroy other peoples names. If it is at the place of work, people form pockets where they engage into gosping. Usually in these pockets you will find people who talk too much. They will start talking against their administrators. They will cook stories just to soil the name of the administrators. Fake rumors are spread around the work place but people are always good judges. They say whatever goes this way always comes round.

In every workplace, there is one whose mission is to destroy other people's names. This person will come to you and start a conversation concerning a colleague. You decide to contribute negatives little do you realize that this character is a trouble causing missionary. In some instances you will be recorded without knowing. Within a short time, whatever you said will be heard by other people, because not everyone is pleased with people who submit foolishness.

Imagine building is a slow and tedious thing to do. Character building takes a long time, but destroying it takes only a split of a second. For you to start destroying other peoples names for no reason is uncalled for.

THE EASIEST NAME TO DESTROY IS YOUR OWN

LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOU LOVE YOURSELF

As goes the statement from God himself to mankind, so that human beings may lead a life of being a brother's keeper. Quite true, a straight forward statement, no need for interpretation nor explaination. But man very arrogant as usual.

LAUGHING AT SOMEONE

Loughing is an expression of happiness. When people are happy because of something exciting or fun, they normally Lough. The act of loughter is said to be good for health.

There are many reasons which make people to Lough. Some of the reasons include jokes.
Some people are very good at comedy. Comedians are known to crack jokes which cause many people to Lough and life goes on. For example someone says ' All short people are now allowed to use their full photos as their passport size photo' people find this a cause for loughter Apart from comedy , people can still Lough because of anything else which is loughable.

In another context, the word loughing can be applied to making ill statements about someone in an unpleasant way. Such as condemning a vulnerable or less priveledged fellow. Those who are struggling with life should never be loughed at because they have not made it in life because none of us knows what the future holds.

The best opportunities are not with you and do not end with you, therefore loughing at anyone may cause embarrassment in the future. You can be loughing at those who are riding bicycles today, little do you realise that you also rode a bicycle before. As the future unfolds, we see many changes as others graduate from these loughable phases into real prosperity. The person you were once loughing at because of whatever you thought made that person to be below your level is now a respect figure in society. He may now be in possession of a big car which you can't afford because your income is not enough. You can not even compete with him now as he has gone past your level.

God's time is always the best. Therefore when you stop riding the bicycle , know that others have taken your level and it is because of the others that you should go to another level. In whatever, level we are ,we should continue to wish others success so as to receive more blessings. In the same way, the people who went to heaven, including Jesus are encouraging everyone to go to heaven while, you remain loughing at people who ride bicycles on earth. What a shame! What an embarrassment!

DEATH BEYOND OUR UNDERSTANDING.

In every second, every minute, every day, every week, every fortnight, every month, every year, every decade, every century and every millennium of our life time, we lose people due to what we call death. When people die it means they are no more. They stop being among the living because they no longer exist as human beings. They have crossed to the other world of which we have no knowledge because no living being has ever visited the dead.

When people die, our memory of how they lived, how they contributed to society, how they motivated others positively leaves much to be desired. This is why men and women must strive to lead a life which is more positive than negative in order to be remembered for having done better things in life. When the dead are praised for the meaningful life they led and the meaningful contributions they made to society we call it a legacy.

Beginning with the deaths of great men of times, such as Winston Churchill , David Livingstone, John Cecil Rhodes and many others left legacies which we can still talk about today. Above all, from the biblical point of view we also have examples such as Moses, Noah , Abraham, Lot and others. But the legacy left by Jesus the son of man is exemplary. His death will continue to be cerebrated as long as we live.

Today and as we are speaking right now. Great people are being lost, at a time we need them most because of their great and unreserved contribution towards the development of society. The dark cloud which has befallen the family of Mr. Willem Lublinkhof, a white farmer, owner of Mubuyu farm / Munali coffee and Nyati Milling co. Is indeed difficult to understand and handle because we have lost the wife of Mr Lublinkhof whose son passed on about three weeks ago. The development has really affected those of us who knew about the great passion for Jasper Lublinkhof to develop Chitete area, those of us who knew how kind madam meter was.

How I wish Mr Peter Bbune, Mr. Dennis Mutinta, Mr. Dickson Hankuku, Mr. Kanyungwe, Mr. Kalabila , Mr. Dominic Bhune and others were alive to see all these happenings, because they contributed heavily towards the realisation of this family's vision.

This force , this death which we can not control, which we can not run away from, has has impacted negatively to the community sorrounding Nyati Milling. However, the love, the contribution made to the residents will not be forgotten easily. As we mourn, during this difficult time, we edge the people to mourn with respect. If invited to go there let us avoid doing certain things because it may be against their culture. The family has always extended a helping hand to the residents in terms of employment and general development. However, we feel that when invited to attend a ceremonial service people must attend it with courtesy. People must not be scrounging for food because this will give a wrong impression of who we are.

NEGATIVE ATTITUDE

Negative attitude is a desposition , feeling or manner which is not constructive, cooperative or optimistic. Negative attitude can affect anyone, just about anywhere. For some people, it's at home. Perhaps you know of someone who has a bad habit about doing chores. It is an expression of criticism of or pessimism about something. It is an act of negative thinking, hopelessness, despair, despondency, bleakness, lucky of enthusiasm, aparthy, indifference and negativeness.

Negative attitude can manifest itself in many ways. Some of its characteristics are negative self talk, blaming others, comparing oneself to others, having unrealistic expectations and expressions, holding to past experiences. A positive attitude is great but negativity can be problematic. Some of the negative attitude behavior on others include lower productivity, higher rates of absence, less team cohesion and low morale.

THIS CARDERISM.

A cadre is anyone engaged directly by a political party in an official capacity. The work of a cadre includes serving as apparatuses of the political party or securitate at any level of political hierarchy. Cadres are said to be from health or unhealthy origins. Those who are formerly engaged by the party are recognized in their capacity but there are others whose recognition is questionable. This includes the lot who choose to make a following without being formerly recognized by the organization. Imagine how powerful they become! They were untouchable to an extent that even the most mascular policeman needed to take stock of his defensive skills before attempting to resttle with such a one, otherwise, popaspank. Most likely, such are the ones whose activities are not in line with the party aims.

Cadres therefore, should be people with integrity and moral fortitude. In Zambia however, the concept of carderism has totally been misunderstood, misused and abused. This is where you find supporters of a political institution who look more of a thug , very rough and ready to beat up people. People whose language is that of a junk. Those who can easily abuse the panga. When you ask them who they are ,you hear ndise baci Pani. These can easily put on regalia for a party they do not belong to and misbehave in any manner.

In terms of it's effects, there was electoral violence which accounted for protracted incumbant legitimacy crisis, social economic turbulence and the risk of armed uprising. The presence of carderism had a dramatic financial and social impact on those who plied their trade at the markets and bus stops. As already alluded to, this carderism is a tool for certain regimes which intertain it because they depend on its existence.

The worry however, is the manner it spread to other noble proffessions. Carderism did not end with those men and women who have to dance and sing for the politicians but spread to the civil servants like the police officer, the health practitioners, the teachers and the rest too numerous to mention. We saw some officers becoming too arrogant to fellow civil servants. We saw some health workers becoming something else. We saw teachers turning into something never heard before.

Regimes come. Regimes go. But some tendencies remain in some people such that even if you were not there you can know to what extent some people had lost their proffessionalism. Today you will find a group of civil servants who seem to be lost. When you look at their performance, you wonder whether they have any qualifications at all. One person said a group of cadre Teachers. Very good at doing nothing but good at working against administration. One wonders which political party groomed them. In terms of work culture they are struggling to meet the minimum required performance. In terms of dressing, they don't even tack in.

Carderism, is slowly becoming a thing of the past because the current regime does not depend on its existence. Cadres may be there but they have others ways of making ends meet. Most of them have been empowered through some skills training, a very good move by the sitting government.
Therefore, when you see insulting language on social media, you know where it is coming from. It is coming from the ' lost warriors'.

Stranded they are because they lost a dear period of confusion, a time of mismanagement of national resources, a time of tribalism, a time of gassing, a time of instilling fear into citizens and a time of eating where you did not sow. Today you find them in every institution as a group of stranded cadres who found themselves in these places due to loyalty and not through qualifications. These are the ones who can not be transferred to another station, for fear of potential competition because their qualifications are questionable.

JELOUS CONTINUES

If buying a car is wasting money, growing your own crops is dirt and a waste of time and resources, going to church is nothing because the church is in the heart of a person, eating meat is not a good health practice, going to school is a waste of time and money, while marrying a beautiful woman is not good because other men will be targeting her.

How come you are standing in one place, waiting for transport which is a waste of money to buy? How come you are struggling to speak english just to beg for the same useless transport? How come you spend alot of time at funeral houses eating meat without sensetizing people on good eating habits? How come you walk to church every Sunday in your black suit when you have a church in the heart? How come you are struggling to look holy when you already have a church in your heart?

Jelous is not good for me. It is not good for you. It is not good for them because it does not help anyone to grow upright. It is just a spirit of the devil. If you intertain this spirit you become a jealous person. A person who can not appreciate other people's achievements.