Zimbabwe

Ogogo bami ngiyabathanda labo bayngithanda. Bathanda ukusebenza emasimini. Bathanda njalo ukungiqabuza nxa ngifika ekhaya.
[My language is called IsiNdebele, or Ndebele.]

Yimi

Nqobile

I have lots of stories about my grandmothers, my mummy's mother and my daddy's mother. My grannies live in the rural areas. My mummy's mother is MaNcube and daddy's mother is MaDube.

MaNcube stays in the rural area called kezi 100km away from the city of kings which is Bulawayo, and my MaDube stays in Kafusi area which is almost about 300km away from Bulawayo. The good thing is that when we visit them we see them on the same day because we use one road which is Matopos Road which passes through Matopos National Park where there is Cecil John Rhodes's grave and the famous cave paintings. We always see maNcube first and she loves hugging and kissing the back of my hand. She is always busy working in her fields.

Then when we get to daddy's mother she will always run for me and also kiss the back of my hand. MaDube loves working in her fields too. She taught me how to ride a big bicyle. She cycles to church every sunday. She told me that she was born in 1936. She keeps a lot of chickens and each time she kills one for us. Before I went to school she use to say Nqobile come let me carry you on my back using her towel. I loved that but now I become shy when she says that. She lives with grandfather and my cousins.

Now let me explain why my grannies are called maNcube and MaDube. This is their maiden surnames. The other one is Ncube and the other one is Dube. Dube is Zebra and Ncube is baboon. Our surnames are animal names for example Ngulube my surname is pig. Ma is short for mama which is mother. Gogo is grandmother. I prefer to call them by their surnames. MaNcube and MaDube. They are my good friends, wen they vist us in town I always play them nice video cassettes. They love gospel music. They also love mupet show.