Broke Community Returns

Thulaganyo Jankey | Tuesday January 16, 2024 06:00

It is more difficult than asking the deputy speaker of the National Assembly Honourable Pono Moatlhodi to stop saying ‘Honourable resume your seat’.

It is more difficult than explaining to a cat that the world is round. Around this time, most of us are broke even though the levels are different. There’s the First Grade broke where the person does not have enough fuel to get back to their station. But this cohort has paid the landlord and their house is stocked to the rafter with food from the Motshelo Club because their treasurer was honest and did not live in a rat-infested house.

The next level is ‘It’s Not So Bad’ broke. This grouping has only managed to pay the landlord and has refused to join the Motshelo Club mainly because they are very short-term in thinking. So they will safely return to their station and almost starve to extinction. Around this time, their diet consists exclusively of bread, pap and cabbage and on better days, chicken feet.

Then there’s Super Duper broke. This is the blue ribbon level, the father of all broke citizens. No fare back to town, unpaid rent and the fridge is empty (well not quite, because there would be a Coke – not cocaine - bottle filled with water and a miserable wilted tomato). Forget the pantry, which is now as empty as the mind of an idiot. I think this is nature’s way of balancing off the weight. December we binge on roasted meet and alcoholic beverages of all sorts. When we come back our midriffs are all swollen up that we are only a ‘ho ho ho’ short of being Santa Claus.

So when we return to our work stations, nature bundles us into diet bootcamp of sorts with limited budgets and even more limited grocery ranges. If you live in a compound that has the landlord’s menacing abode, that means you have to craft a sneaky routine to avoid their radar.

That involves waking up very early and arriving after midnight. The poor levels of productivity in January are a direct result of this coupled with the absence of meat in the diet. Most of us pretend that December rent is not due when we get our monthly dues. This is the dumbest thing ever but it is repeated every year. December just has that thing of anaesthetising one’s sharpest brain cells and activating the more reckless ones. So the broke cohort returns to the landlords that now have permanent scowls and look like they have just downed a glassful of stameta – a truly frightening sight. Around this time the most Googled sites include

• How to survive January • How to evade the landlord • School fees evasion for dummies

• Budgeting on a shoestring

• Cabbage recipes

• Meat alternatives The truth, though, is most of us shouldn’t even be Googling this because over the years we have developed a whole manual of tricks to survive the January creditors, courtesy of years of experience. But we somehow survive January and one day we wake up and it is February and we are all alive and intact, the landlord has not killed anyone, we have papered the creditor cracks (though for some it would have been fissures) and we give thanks to God for his love. We thank God for delivering us through January.

Of course, some went to church mainly for the Holy Communion and went for seconds to chase away the pangs of hunger but ours is a forgiving God. And we praise Him! (For comments, feedback and insults email inkspills1969@gmail.com) Thulaganyo Jankey is a Rapporteur and training consultant who runs his own training consultancy that provides training in BQA- accredited courses. His other services include registering consultancies with BQA and developing training courses. Contact him on 74447920 or email ultimaxtraining@gmail.com