Turning 40 (25 January 2014)!

“The years have gone by quite fast and today I’m 40! Forty is associated with a cycle or era. Forty also represents the time period God often used to make major transitions or changes

Today I am the witness to the unfolding of a new chapter in my life and I’m very grateful for this. For many years I have looked forward to the day I will turn 40 and now I am happy it has finally come. Just like I am looking forward to the many more years God will allow me to see in the land of the living. My age is not a problem; on the contrary, it is a great opportunity, and trust from God to me.” Bose Dere-Adelaja

I thank God for His grace and the trust to live so “long.” So long, because some did not have the opportunity to live till 40, and some have not reached it yet. If God calls me home today, may His name be blessed. The Lord has been good, kind, loving, and merciful to me all these years. He has given me enough time to make things right and live for Him.

I see life as being an opportunity to work on oneself and one’s character. It is the ability to see the distinction in people, to accept them and forgive them when necessary. Life is developing in hard work. Real life starts when we get on the path of conforming to the image of Christ. That is when we begin to understand the meaning and the essence of life; we can become selfless, overcome the fear of death and become true disciples of Jesus Christ.

I give all glory to God, Who is the source of all. Despite all threats, trials, and dangers, He guides and leads me. He is my strength, glory and beauty. He is everything to me!

I thank God and my parents for my childhood youth in Soweto/Ennerdale. It was demanding for my Mother to try and make ends meet, but God has helped me overcome and come this far. Knowing this makes me sing; how great thou art, how great thou art.”

I thank God from my whole heart, for I don’t know where I would be if He had not been by my side. I thank God for entrusting me to my mother (I didn’t value her enough when I was growing but since becoming a parent, I have seen my ignorance, now I know  better). I appreciate all she did for me in my helpless years (when I wouldn’t have survived without her care, wisdom and guidance). Today, I publicly ask her to forgive me for all kinds of trouble I caused her and for every display of dishonour. I thank God for the opportunity to repent and my plea for forgiveness and blessings while she is still alive.

I thank God for my siblings. We are four [Ferdinand (Musa), Peace (Oompie) Jakavula & Jane (Oompie) Smith], and we grew up together in South Africa (Soweto, Dube Village, 1616 Sobhuza Street as well as in Namibia). I thank God for all my relatives (both paternal and maternal), and family friends. I especially thank Him for my close family and friends (the list is endless but to name a few, Sihle Thema, Palesa Scharff, Michelle Clark, Becky Matee, Lana van Niekerk, Ingrid Hugo, Cher, Gerry Rothquel, Hannah Hillery, Tumi Morekhure, Heidi Aitken, Bryoni Dawson, Natali Duhki, Nausher Rahman, Lillian Serobatse, Patty Seitshiro, Refilwe Seitshiro, Eric Seitshiro, Nadia Myburgh, Beryl Myburgh, Feroza, Vivian, it goes one and on). Thank you for your influence on my life, for the good and bad times we had. Thank you for the value, heritage and responsibility we share. The older I get, the more I value you. Thanks for your understanding, your support and prayers. Thank you for the honour of building a healthy relationship with you. Thank you for our stories and history, and please forgive me for each of your expectations I couldn’t meet. You have a hand in who I have become today. Thank you.

I thank God for my children Enrique (Kabelo) & Brendan (Mmuso). They keep me sane. Thank you for such love and favour. Thanks for allowing me to be their mother. Thanks for family happiness. I love you dearly my children! Thank you Father God for Eghosa Obasohan, he has been my pillar of strength these past 17 months. I love him!

I thank God for all the teachers, mentors (previous and present) from kindergarten till today. I appreciate your input in me. It has gone, and will still go a long way.

I thank God for all my friends, colleagues and well-wishers. Life would not have been the same without you. Thank you for your continuous support and prayers. It has gone a long way and will still keep going. Together, we are making our world a better place.

The number 40 is significant. Celebrating my 40th birthday marks the end of my 40th year and the beginning of my 41st year on earth. The rest of my life will be dedicated to living a legacy; passing on my experience, skills, understanding, faith to as many disciples as possible. It will be dedicated to raising successors and equipping the next generation.

A fool at 40 is a fool forever, they say. So, I have decided to be wise, to count my days and my blessings that I may gain a heart of wisdom. I trust God for gracious days ahead. I trust Him to meet the mornings of my days with faith and hope; I trust God’s grace to enable me to honour Him even in the darkest of days, through life’s sorrow and pain. I trust that His grace will be more than enough for me. I trust His thoughts and plans for me for His Word is true.

On my 40th Birthday, I choose to honour God. His mercy and grace to me and in me, is who I am now. May the name of the Lord be blessed forever more and thank you all for sharing your life with me.

Wishing you all good days!

Yours faithfully,

Linda Oompie (40yrs on this earth)

One Day – by Enrique Oompie

It started with one day

24 Hours

1440 minutes

86400 seconds

That’s how long it took for somebody to change the world.

 

One day is all it took for Abraham Lincoln, the 16^th president of the United States

To put pen to paper and ultimately end slavery.

 

One day is all it took for the Wright Brothers to soar the skies with mechanical birds.

No one ever believed that would come true!

 

One day is all it took for Thomas Edison to put electricity in a circuit and successfully make his 1000^th light bulb spring to life.

 

All it took was one day to change the way the Earth rotates.

 

But still everyday that goes by is time lost,

While I lay in my bed in  the morning

All I can think about is making my one day, today.

 

Making sure I change history today.

Then my mind reverts back to …

The amount of scrutiny

Abraham Lincoln had to go through,

The paper that he signed lead to his blood being spilled

While he was listening to the ohh’s and ahh’s of the opera house.

 

And the amount of mechanical errors and injuries the Wright brothers had to endure.

That 999 light bulbs just would not work for Thomas Edison .

 

All their motivation was focused for that one day

All their dreams and aspirations for one day

All their dedication for 24 hours

All of their sweat for 1440 minutes

All of their time for 86400 seconds.

 

That’s all it takes

So think about it ….

Whats your one day?

Mind your language

My love of books and writing started in my teenage years and all thanks to my mother who took out a subscription for me with Disney Book club, to receive books on a quarterly basis and that’s how my love for reading was confirmed.

But have to step back a couple of years before that to say, overall, the love for reading and more so of the English language, to write it well (which I try, I’m not there yet) was started by my teacher in primary school, standard 1 which is Grade 3 in todays’ terms. Mistress Gasa was her name, she got some of us who were extra keen on learning the language, gather in her classroom before class and we would each take turns in reading the newspaper of the day to her.

You see when you’re township girl like me, back in the days speaking English with conviction was a dream for most of us and we didn’t’ have the privilege to be in “white” schools (Model C or private) so learning the language would require some effort from self.

Let’s face it our teachers were not good commanders of the language either so you couldn’t really learn from them with the exception of Mrs Gasa, she definitely made me love the language even more. So I was moderately good in primary school and could speak a bit at the least, so when the time came for us to relocate to Namibia, at the time known as South West Africa, and I was 10yrs old at that time, I could hold my own in a conversation and I wasn’t completely hopeless when we got there, bearing in mind Namibia was Afrikaans so because we couldn’t speak it, at the least I could speak English, so that helped in me getting around. I eventually became fluent in Afrikaans too and so my love for languages in general started and on our return to SA, I added more vernacular languages to the mix. So I am truly South African and can hold my own in languages till today except for TshiVenda.

I guess I’m a curious being and the thought of finding myself in a situation where I do not understand what people around me are saying would be torture, but having said that, I actually have been in that kind of situation.  I was afforded an amazing opportunity to travel to Europe in 2004 and found myself lost in translation in Italy, yes Italy. I was fine in the Netherlands, Germany and Paris but I was completely lost in Italy. I couldn’t understand the language at all and it was the strangest and most awkward I’ve ever felt in my life. I’m not claiming that I can speak Dutch, German and French but I was able to make out what was said and could read these but Italian was a completely different dialect  to me and found myself frustrated and the shopping experience was disastrous.

The trip was an amazing experience and I hope to share more in my next post.

Over and out.

IT IS ABOUT COLOUR —–STOP THE FUSS!

No matter how you look at it, it’s always about colour. What race you belong to; black, white, other. What sporting team you support; yellow, red, blue. What political party; they too have different colours. The list is endless. The colour you are determines how you get accepted to a group/society/community or not.

Yes this is all societal but societal-ness is what shapes communities. The only downside to this is that in some instances colour, especially in terms of race is used in a discriminatory manner and thus racism. It is in my humblest opinion that we will never be rid of this entirely. Unfortunately it stems even from bible days the blatant acknowledgement of people based on their race, religion etc. The only consoling factor is that we’re getting closer, I believe, to some form of tolerance. I find that it’s when we’re not in each other’s space that we tend to not focus on race. So shoot me now yes, perhaps apartheid’s mandate was to do just that but failed because equal opportunities were not favourable to non-whites, which then clearly violated basic human rights of other racial groupings.

Racial

So yes I’ve had my moments albeit few but nonetheless, on occasion something steers you in the direction of a racist rant. My most memorable example: I was in a bit of a traffic “tiff” with another driver and upon realising the driver was of Indian descent I used that to appease my anger……..”Bloody Indian” I said. I drove off and completely left that behind me, and the point? Well once I uttered those words somehow I felt justified and that was the end of it. On second thought…………really?  What the &**&&& does his ethnicity have to do with our squabble?

 

Sport

On a lighter note, sporting examples are the best. I’m a Kaizer Chiefs fan through and through. It was not a choice but a family decision. I was born into it and never veered off except for my eldest brother who opted to favour Pirates in his later years much to my mother’s dismay. He’s lucky to be living in another province cause then we never really get to indulge him in his betrayal of a family tradition and heritage.

Gangs/Popular culture

The colour identifier is also very prevalent in the gangster community. I recall a song back in the days by ICE T……………It weren’t something like this “ICE T, let me kick my credentials. A young player bred in South Central, LA, home of the body bag. You wanna die wear the wrong colour rag” At the time I didn’t really take note of the meaning of the lyrics but in later years I got to understand that the colour of your shirt publicises the gang you belong to and if it so happens that you venture off to the wrong side of the line you’re in danger.

In conclusion

All in all, it is all about colour, green means go and red means stop……………….so let’s stop the fuss!

Death be not proud

Death of an ICON.

19 May –26 May 2013 – What a strange week it’s been. I feel my life and that of many other South Africans changed on that fateful Sunday morning, waking up to the news that our beloved TV and Radio personality Mr Vuyo Mbuli had passed on.

The passing of a loved one is never easy to deal with more so if the passing was sudden. Most of that Saturday I was reading with interest Mr Mbulis’ tweets about the rugby and I recall saying to my son “is he now a commentator or what?” Little did I know that, that would be his last activity on earth, tweeting whilst watching the game.

I was in shock and utter horror on the Sunday following, seeing a tweet about his sudden passing. I’m not entirely sure how I reacted but I do remember that my mouth remained ajar for what seemed like an eternity. It’s still hard to describe ones emotions and I’m sure I speak for most of Morning Live and Morning Talk viewers and listeners. We woke up to the duo that is Leanne and Vuyo for the past decade at the least. I just couldn’t fathom not seeing them together ever. This was too much to take, my whole Sunday was spent looking back and trying to make sense of it all. I started thinking back to my first encounter with Mr Mbuli it was about 3 years ago in the parking lot of the SABC. We were walking towards the entrance, he was on his cellphone but he gently looked over and gave me a very warm sort of smile, wink and hello. To which I kind of nodded to and walked away faster as not to seem like a groupie.

The next day it happened again and this time around he was not on his phone and he looked at me and said “Okay we should stop meeting like this” I smiled and apologised for stalking him to which he responded “Oh really now, maybe I’m stalking you” …………I giggled like a school girl and tried to get out of that situation as soon as I could. After watching the memorial service I now understand, yes he was very charming, and warm.

I guess my reason for writing about this is to highlight how important and integral a part our TV presenters play in our lives. They may not know this but we feel we know them because we see them daily and even at some point we start knowing what irritates them and what makes them LOL. Love him or hate him, he was entertaining and uniquely Vuyo Mbuli.  I pray his soul rests in everlasting peace.

Mintirho ya vula vula. Sharp-Sharp, Heita daar?

#RIPVuyoMbuli

My most memorable event/s in my life

The birth of my first born son is undoubtedly my most happiest and treasured memory. It was a sunny Saturday afternoon, 31st October 1992 and just minutes before his arrival lightning and thunder filled the afternoon skyline, there was absolutely no indication of rain prior, but of course my boy wanted the world to know that he was about to make a grand entrance. I was at a  tender age of 18 a teen mom by all accounts, but on that day I became a woman.

A lot changed since then, my path on this earth was shaped by this event for ever more. Some good some bad but nonetheless learnt a lot and messed up a lot too. It would be 4 years after this that I would have my second baby boy who’s arrival was joyous and notably unforgettable.

I have been blessed and love these 2 fine boys to the day I die.

Blessed, yes I am.