ShabzSL

It’s another regular afternoon as Chocobo goes to check up if Woobie is up yet, it is after all 16:00 on a sunny Tuesday noon, many students finishing up class at this time. Woobie probably hasn’t woken up yet, to be fair, he did go to bed at 07:00 this morning buzzing from concerta or possibly smoked himself into a coma. Probably both.

‘Knock, knock, knock’ comes Chocobo’s deep voice. No answer. Chocobo picks Woobie’s lock with his metal comb to find Woobie crawled up in his bed sporting the tiniest, brightest of jocks and half scratching his beard. Loafie, Woobie’s bong, packed on his side-table and clearly the first thing he’ll do once capable of crawling out his bed. Which can be quite strenuous work for Woobie.

Woobie’s room which has absolute no light coming in and a stench that’ll have a sewerage rat running out in panic, has Chocobo stuggling to find the light switch.

After switching on the lights, Chocobo takes one look at the situation of the room, ‘You want a gwaai’, he eventually asks.

 

Hangul, the half blind Asian, is in his room rolling.

He gets a call from Baxter to come join him in the containers. Hangul finishes up rolling and lights one up for his 70m journey to Baxter’s container.

Red-faced and out of breath, Hangul is greeted by a delighted Baxter. ‘Cuzzie!’ Baxter says with a grin ‘Awee!’ Hangul replies as he resumes his rolling on Baxter’s desk.

Baxter babbles on about what a perfect gentleman he is and how all the girls just adore him. ‘I have a girl friend and am loyal’, he concludes and also almost a form of reminder to himself at the end. Hangul, without taking his eyes of his rolling, nods his head and asks for more tobacco.

 

 

 

I’m back to join the rest of the world. I hope you all watched the financial speech today, no surprises please when you realize your favourite beer has gone up in price.

South Africa shouldn’t have bottled up its emotions. Look what is happening now. No point in marrying someone you don’t love so you can go on honeymoon. Honeymoon doesn’t last forever.

Her little fool

They laughed all day

Both were happy.

His little tool

They picked up leaves through out autumn May

Both were happy.

Their love had sheltered them from the world.

I hoped the same for the world as I watched the couple skip away.

 

Don’t be a poes, be lekker.

Goodnight you good people.

 

The year is almost done. Two weeks left to be exact.

By far the worst year of my life but grateful to have had it, as it has also been the most enlightening year as well.

I’d just like to thank friends, family and all the local alcohol distributors for always being there throughout the year.

 

2015 has shown me that us as South Africans are so far away from a so called rainbow nation and that the government is an insult to our democracy.

 

Terms/Words like ‘White Privilege’, ‘Must Fall’, Racism, ‘Move On’, ‘Feminism’ and ‘It’s Been Over 21 years’ have been dominant on social media.

 

2015 has left us more segregated than any other time post – apartheid.

South Africans have come to enjoy and are quick to point out the flaws of situations that should instead unite and bring a sense of togetherness in our country.

 

South Africans are selfish people who only show support when directly affected. Shaming and banishing have become common to those who don’t agree with a cause or another perspective on the take.

South Africans lack any understanding beyond their own needs and opinions.

Basically what I am saying is that we are quite simply stubborn.

 

Government has continually shown and even said that South Africa is not a priority but instead prioritises its own needs before the country’s. We shouldn’t be shocked any more when it comes to government.

“All We do is win” by DJ Khaled is on repeat in iNkandla.

 

The world doesn’t care about Africa. Africans don’t care about Africa. Yes now I’m talking to everyone with the French flag filters on Facebook.

Fuck sakes people, whilst your very own people are dying everyday.

Crimes taking place everyday in Kenya, Burundi, Nigeria, Uganda and Tanzania to name a few and we just turn a blind eye and pretend nothing is happening but know more about Donald Trump’s Election Campaign.

The western world has got an iron grip so tight on this world that we don’t even know our own people or hear their cries any more.

Shame, I also should put blame on the media as well.

 

I really did have hope for 2015 but instead I wait for 2016 in fear.

 

Anyway let me not get into these things too much and spoil, or not, your December break.

 

Have a Merry Christmas (another Western ideal, but hey) and a Happy New.

 

 

 

Learning is finding out what you already know. Doing is demonstrating that you know it. Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you. We are all learners, doers and teachers.

You see I have thought about the world we live in as an illusion, we see and believe what we are told to see and believe in. What if everything about this world we already know but don’t have the correct stimuli to bring forth these thoughts and ideas. Prisoners in our minds.

The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think about these once in a while and watch your answers change.

Sometimes the answers are not concrete. We grow and the ideas we once had change with this growth, our beliefs evolve and we see things in different dynamics and angles. It is almost like age brings in a new set of eyes.

The world is your note book, the pages on which you do your sums. It is not reality, although you can express reality there if you wish. You are also free to write nonsense, lies or to tear a page out.

It is choice that defines a person. Choice is the greatest gift one could have. A gift everyone has, some more desirable than others but choice nevertheless.

 

What am I saying?

 

Listening to a conversion, this came up to me: The mind and the heart are in constant battle with the eye being the mediator.

The song has nothing to do with the topic.

The mind and heart remind me of a couple, struggling to find consensus yet trapped by the fascination and excitement the other brings to the relationship.

Happy Holidays.

So I shaved my head clean yesterday. Time for a change I thought.

Tyler Coates brought it to my attention this morning that it could have been procrastination that brought this sudden action. I thought about it. What was I doing when I decided to shave my head? I was studying for a test coming up this Friday, so obviously it was the perfect time for me to shave my head.

The results of my procrastination? My head now looks like your moms favourite Sunday lunch roast potato. Sexy? Yes depending on how you like your potatoes. Thank goodness I didn’t shave my eyebrows. I promise I almost did.

Anyway

I have been trying my best to catch up on all that has been happening around the country. So I apologize if I don’t get something totally correct.

South Africans are the biggest procrastinators. Xenophobia, Statue Removals, Khayelitsha Evictions, Nkandla and so on. All are important I guess but is it really these things that are holding us back. If Emmanuel Sithole had decided to leave the country just before getting murdered because he is doing better than some of us in a foreign country that he thought was his home would that have made you anymore educated or if Zuma does decide to payback the money will that make us all rich, happy and forget about the family you still have to feed back home? No.

As I said I do believe these are all important matters but they are not our biggest issues.

South Africans need to stop finding other things to do in hope of trying to avoid the root of our issues and problems.

This was a post I made on Facebook the other day:

Khayelitsha Evictions, Statue Removals, Xenophobia Attacks and who knows what else. South Africa is slowly becoming like a sick man in need of some form of therapeutic help/counselling to relieve/treat what was a hard childhood.

Just what I think.

The home of Monday Night Wine, a former Prim (two consecutive years) and occasionally Lungelo when Sharl needs a black friend.

Stellenbosch University, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Meerhoff Residence, Block A, Floor 1.

Team Sheet:

1.Drikus Badenhorst: Gone missing. Allegedly Kidnapped. Main Suspect – Danielle Foot. She’s been since brought in for questioning.

2.Nicholas Boliter: He’s from East London the biggest township in South Africa, yes bigger than Soweto. Why sometimes people think he’s the black guy on the floor and not Shabz. He has a mixtape.

3.Gabriel Steyn Botha: I noticed that he’s got knees like a giraffe. His skinny jeans are tighter than your sisters. Apparently he shops at the female section and calls it hipster.

4.Louis Cordier: He runs more than an Ethopian hence the long recoveries in his room.

5.Douglas Heale: Seems like he has a roommate these days. My boy!!!! *as he does the pelvic thrust dance*.

6.Sifiso Shabangu: The most humble person.

7.Matthew Swart: Most gangster person I know. He attends 21sts without an invite. He got stabbed on the leg and cycled the Argus the next day. Apparently he’s the most wanted criminal. “Ja bra” is his slogan.

8.Sharl Theron: Sleeps at 21:00 and complains of having a late night. He has used the microwave twice to warm up his food this month so I can say his cooking is getting better.

Substitute – Lungelo Mlambo: Still on Loan from Hippokrates.

I am currently busy with a trilogy. A set of books by Robin LaFevers, His Fair Assassin.

The book, in simple, is about a group of trained female assassins who get sent on trips. They are known as the daughters of Mortain. Mortain is the god of death. Mortain is a higher spiritual figure. These women/girls don’t praise the negatives people associate death with but the relief and balance death brings to the world. Death is not a great process but it is a necessary process for the better or the improvement of what was before.

Death is dark and to be honest very frightening. It’s a thought I try to avoid. Horrible.

Whilst reading ‘His Fair Assassin’ I have come to realize that Life and Death are individuals, obviously, yet depend on each other to sustain any form of life. Without death there is no life and without life there is no death.

I wrote two pieces, thoughts rather, over the Easter break. Thoughts that sort of some up my views on Life and Death and how they need each other.

1.

“Death travels far and wide looking for a lost love.

A love that would survive its darkness.

His dark realm.

Death and Life were once one.

It’s just unfortunate we get in the way of Death.

On Death’s path to find Life.”

2.

“Without Death, there could be no life.

Just as the roots of living trees must reach down past the loam and soil to find substance from the Underworld, so too are we sustained by Death.

We see punishment and starkness in Death, yet there is beauty as well.

The small black beetles that burrow deep in the earth to die every winter, only to be reborn in the spring.

The tree branches that turn to barren bone, yet unfurl with the new leaves.

Those are the promises that reside in Death.

Death paves the way for Life.”

Made it through my 40 days of no Powerade/Energade successfully. That first sip tasted so good yesterday. I have now challenged myself to something, I believe, most people don’t think I’ll get through successfully. Cut down on my social activities for a month. Social activities that don’t make me feel horrible on a Sunday morning. Why? To see if I can learn something new about myself. I just feel at the moment things in life have become too predictable and obvious when it comes to myself and even those I surround myself with.

Yesterday I was not impressed with myself.

“Purpose. What purpose?

The fire I once had is gone.

I’m as cold as winter,

darker than your nightmares.

I still had dreams.

My mind is bare and body is numb.

Take me back to before the disappointments.

To when I still cared”

-SL Shabangu

This morning exactly 04:29 I woke. An amazing dream, spoiled by the piss I had to go take. It actually made me sad how I couldn’t go back to that dream or to sleep for that matter.

So I scribbled in my notepad these simple words,

“Eyes open now.

Moments before,

I could see her before my eyes.

Caring for me, loving for me.

There she was looking at me.

Talking to me, needing for me.

There she was smiling at me.

The time is 04:29, I’ve just woken up and there is no one in front of me.

Staring at reality,

I want to go back to what I felt and saw behind closed eyelids”

A few have asked me who is this person I speak of or admire. I’ve always answered that I do not know her but can show you who she is. How can you know someone you haven’t had the chance to do and converse on random things. Am I not right? Random things eventually develop into things that actually matter in the end.

Anyway I must go now. My 3rd Energade of the day awaits me.

“Once admitted you are theirs.

They own you.

They strip you naked and put you in a lousy gown.

All privacy is lost.

You are just a subject covered in flesh.

For many it’s just waiting house for their appointment with Death.

Nurses and doctors give you answers to questions you didn’t ask nor want to know.

Your neighbours come and go and you’re left wondering why you haven’t been picked.

James, Nkosinathi, Maximo and I think Isaac.

All night I try stay awake to escape my nightmares but what I see in the ward could make the devil look the other way.

This bed is uncomfortable and all these tubes and pipes make me feel unnatural.

Hospitals suck and I hope I leave soon, even if my saviour is Death.”

– SL Shabangu ( Decemebr 2014)