Mzoo Spot

This past weekend (22 Aug) we buried our patriarch. He lived until the ripe age of 103! “Utata” as we all called him lived most of his life on a farm owned by an English family - the Ford. He raised not only his kids, but those of the Ford’s too. He was the towering father figure, revered by all. Sad though the period was, one got the opportunity to meet once again with almost all family members, some I have not seen in many many years! The meeting of the family showed how much time time has passed; children who were crawling not so long ago are now grown ups, some of them with kids of their own! This meeting gave one an opportunity to catch up on family gossip. One of the tragedies of the remaining (enlightened) generation, is their failure to document the wealth of knowledge and heritage contained in the 103 years lived by Utata. We need to sit with our old people, learn about how they grew up. We need to write these stories down for posterity. Utata for example was a carpenter, but ...

There was a time when Tribute Magazine occupied a valuable space in many people's hearts. It was seen as a serious magazine with serious journalism. During his time as its editor, Sbu Mngadi unmasked the real person beneath the veneer of Eugene Nyathi. His name was in fact Albert Nana, a university drop out. Quite remarkably Eugene Nyathi as we came to know him, occupied our lives as this know it all political/economic analyst. In fact he was even called Dr Nyathi. Even our own Mathews Phosa, while premier of Mpumalanga, contracted Eugene Nyathi to do some weighty business, as a consultant, in that province. But this magazine has since died. In recent years there was an attempt to get it back to life, but it died - again. An equally exciting magazine called BL!NK was born about 3 years ago. It was meaty,exciting, fresh, targeted at Black men, but it died. After BL!NK came Blaque. Not quite as serious as its predecessor, but targeted at Black men all the same. It is now on a start a...