Ishmael M. Soqaga reviews THE QUACK OF QWAQWA

As one reads local books written by local people you will find that local books look very interesting and super-duper. These are books that are written for the benefit of society and their existence can play a significant role in promoting literacy among local people. Therefore it is quite imperative for local people to familiarize themselves with local literature written by local writers. In Free State alone there are prolific writers who earnestly contribute a large amount of literary work. Their breathtaking commitments and efforts for the advancement of literature are not in vain; but albeit are importantly recognize worldwide. They know their intention very well; that the quality amount of literature they create will benefit their society. Literature is life for any people young and old and if writers are scarce among the people it means the whole society will suffer. Literature builds the unique dignity of the people. When written materials are specially recognized by people and they delightfully possess them in the same fashion, certainly there is a lot of jubilation and ecstasy. Reading and writing promote vigorous society. Definitely, it is profoundly needful for people to become conscious about literature. Subsequently, their cerebral nous and perception will be nourished and be fertile, which ultimately they (people) will certainly understand the central meaning of literature. Quack of Qwaqwa is a book that was produced about a decade ago by energetic local writers. The book is perfectly superlative and after you read it you will simply love it. Briefly it is splendiferous. It contains the quality of short stories which are very fascinating. The contributors in this book provide a very exciting piece of short stories that when someone completed to read, will be utmost cheerful. To start with the contributors are Omoseyi Bolaji (who edited all the stories), Molebogeng A Mokhuoa, Flaxman Qoopane and Julia Mooi. Quite important it is exhilarating to see female writers combine together with male writers; this is what we must expect from this book. Poor Paul Bolaji contributes two extraordinary short stories. Both of the stories are powerful and meaningful. The first one is “Poor Paul”. The story tells us about Paul, known as the business man and he owns the office in town in Bloemfontein. Paul is known as stud muffin to women and he is so genial to them-to the point that they could easily believe him. But they always say “what comes around goes around.” One day when he was in his office. He was normally cool and imperturbable. Suddenly is like he was seeing a ghost. It’s Mary! He thought. Hastily, he found himself hiding in the wardrobe, in his office. For what reason is hiding? One will wonder. Perhaps he saw a ghost or because he is known as affable men to women, therefore Mary was one of the women he used to allure, but maybe it was not the right time… But the truth is he has committed himself in business and apparently his deals were mischievous. Nevertheless, on that day it was a day of trouble for him, like O. Bolaji put it: “Talk of double trouble”. The saying 'wathint' abafazi, wathint' imbokodo' (You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock) was actually reall. Firstly, it was Agnes who entered his office looking for him. Secondly, problems escalated when Mary furiously seeking him in the same office. Hiding in the wardrobe was not a better solution and it was spontaneous at the very same time. He decided to come out of the wardrobe clandestine and escape through the window. Unfortunately, his action resulted in the harmful way. He injured himself and he was hurt that even to call for the ambulance was considered. Penny wise Pound Foolish The boy say to Job “Our teacher at school is always telling us English proverbs” “Now he keeps on talking about penny wise, pound foolish. What does it mean?” Job tried to interpret the proverb and he said to Lucky “The first thing you must remember,” he said, “Is that all over the world there are different currencies-money, tjhelete-used. In Britain for example they have pound, while in South Africa we are using rand. Penny wise pound foolish. When you think of a pound, imagine our rand. For the ‘penny or pennies’ think about cent!” But the good thing is that the proverb was conspicuously explaining itself when Job avoided buying a beer in his nearby neighbours. The reason being only to save twenty cent, then he went to buy to the shop some seven minutes away. While he was in the shop; he met with pretty Joyce, a lovely lady. She romantically requested Job to buy a beer for her and Job agreed to buy a beer for her. She had thrown her lovely arms around him and said: “Please I need a beer. We can drink together and talk.” But she was with her friend too and in the moment Job has to buy two beers for these lovely ladies. He gravely regretted to ignore the nearby neighbours who were selling beer, and ultimately he was in penury. He sadly says to Lucky: “Anyway I lost everything. Before I came back home from the vicinity of that store I had nothing left in my pocket. So you understand that proverb now.” “Yes, cent wise, rand foolish!” young Lucky said. Molebogeng A Mokhuoa “Eunice” is another fine literary contribution written by Mokhuoa in the book the quack of Qwaqwa. The story shows another feature that the women have. The short story was written by a woman, is completely obvious as Makhuoa display how women can be jealous to one another. Eunice was not happy with how Mamiki behave towards Raphael. She didn’t like the way Mamiki was getting closer and closer to Raphael. In her mind came other thoughts. Eunice stared at the couples, “Raphael” she said. Raphael came toward Eunice; she looked at him softly and said: “Are you ready to show me your house for the first time now?” Raphael looked surprised. Quite a number of times he had invited her to his place but she had said “Later…later” Now she was telling him she wanted to go to his house. Eunice whole intention was to separate Mamiki with Raphael. The two women despised each other. But Eunice was successful to overwhelm Raphael. Honestly, she didn’t plan to visit Raphael at all, but because of Mamiki being close to Raphael was seriously daunting for her. In her mind, she was really concern about how Raphael felt about Mamiki. While Eunice was in Raphael place she played her romantic tricks and Raphael was utterly intoxicated with love. However, she notices that he was becoming too passionate, she smile and announced that she was going. She just promises him to visit him soon. It was a mission accomplished as she confessed: Thank God I’ve sorted him out. I almost lost him. A woman must fight for her men sometimes. Julia Mooi Brilliantly and impressive is the story of Julia Mooi. She presents her short story in a way that is enthralling. By reading the story you may agree with her. Does really men knows what their women want from them? The story patently is appropriate for the romantic partners who struggle to understand what precisely their women want from them. Never mind how rich a man can be and how often a man can satisfy his women with all pleasant sorts of things of this world. If he is unable to know how to make his women happy and satisfied, even the abundance that he has will be meaningless and useless to his women. In the story we found the two couples at loggerheads over the issue of love. Augustina the girlfriend of Temulo was busy accusing Tumelo about another woman whom she thought Tumelo was having an affair with. The accusation was very irritating and muddled to Tumelo because he even does not know who is Chloe the women who live in the next door. Usually Tumelo used to buy soft drinks in her house. But Augustina keep on forcing him to admit that he know her (Chloe). In the “Stumped” Julia Mooi write in the beginning of her story: “Many men complain that they do not understand women. Maybe a women’s way of doing things is a bit too complex for many men. Clearly, Tumelo was very lost with what Augustina was telling him. But nevertheless, he was soothed by his cousin, who laughed greatly when Tumelo told her about Augustina. He told her what had happened. “It’s crazy”, he said. “She was behaving like a deranged person for nothing. Since Tumelo from the beginning believe that Augustina was crazy! But his cousin makes things easier for him. She told him that Augustina complained many times to her that you never say you “love” her. In his disbelieve to all this. His cousin further told him that he must tell Augustina that he love her, eventually she won’t fight like that again. Flaxman Qoopane The “Quack of Qwa-Qwa” the main title of the book written by Flaxman Qoopane, is very wonderful and fantastic. The story commence in the sheeben in Monontsha township of Qwaqwa. Pule; probably drunk could not believe what he was seeing. Xolile back in Qwaqwa after ages. The two men started to converse about the situation in Qwaqwa, after Xolile asked Pule “How’s our Qwaqwa?” Pule who seems permanently residing in Qwaqwa told Xolile that “So many of our people still lack jobs and depend on subsistence farming. At the Setsing main centre not many of us can afford to buy fine things from the fine places there! He suggests with his comparative thoughts that Qwaqwa was not better off than Bloemfontein and Welkom. And he continues to add in his saying that “at least people are still nice and friendly and accommodation prices are not as high as your Welkom and Bloemfontein”. The confabulation between the two men become gripping as Pule was telling Xolile about the exciting news of the new project at Phutaditjhaba… construction and all that. He told him that was also involved in the project. Apparently, Qwaqwa was very fortunate to be chosen for the Carnegie project sponsored from New York, USA. Pule was actually happy about the project; no doubt it will benefit the community of Qwaqwa transcendent. Perhaps, stone faced Xolile display a negative attitude when Pule told him that he can get details from the library at Phuthaditjhaba library. “So they stock the libraries with all those white books he?” Pule completely dismissed such idea and told him that the Carnegie Project has brought scores of books written by black writers based in the Free State. “I don’t know any of such writers,” “You should be ashamed to say that Xolile, go to the libraries and ask… Notwithstanding, the actual presence of Xolile in Qwaqwa was about seeing a sangoma. As talking was neither humdrum, the two have not seen each other for long time. So their conversation was magnetic. They notice the short men who just come to sit down near them. His name was Jacob. The short man requested Xolile to come back after he finished with the sangoma. About 45 minutes later Xolile returned, looking a bit agitated. He looked at the short men. Surprisingly Xolile was shocked at what he heard about the sangoma. The short men told him everything about that sangoma. Jacob revealed that the sangoma is not real and is imposter who tricks the people. Xolile was extremely appalled by the news. The sangoma is the rascal, not to be trusted at all. He said to Xolile “What I do know is that sangoma Albert, the quack, cannot solve any of your problems. He’ll just take your money. Necessarily, this is the one of the significant books that when one finished reading; you will be completely filled with great relish. However, on the other hand it also depicts how life is in our townships. In the case of Paul we see someone who is not honest in doing business and he will play mischievous tricks just to cheat women. This reminds me of the face-book bloody murderer (Bester) in South Africa who got life sentence for his bestial actions. He used social networking site Face - book to lure women into meeting him. Women in nature deserve admiration but the world has changed now, they need to understand that by being admired too much can put their lives in danger. They can be easily being tricked because they appreciate admirations and adoration. Paul failed dismally as the successful business men, imagine he has office in town where rent can be posh and he humiliated himself with this petty business deals; stealing money from the women. On Job we can see how poverty can make people think. Job because of poverty prefers to preserve only twenty cent and instead of supporting local business in his nearby neighbours who were selling the beer. This is the type of situation that we must ask our self about: “When poverty will be alleviated among black people?” Eunice although she wanted to prove the point that she can be bootylicious, it was absolutely incorrect for her to assume that Mamiki was infected with AIDS. This kind of uttering is not solving the HIV/AIDS problem in our society. Whether someone is HIV positive that does not mean that person must not be treated equally with other people. If such is the case we will found our self discriminating against people who are infected with HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS is not an individual problem but is wholly part of human race, because it affects all of us. Julia Mooi superbly has perfected one of the things that can be ruinous to romantic relationship. Her story is really given us an insight about how women think. This is the lovely story, very impressive indeed. How men can spend his entire love life with women without telling her the precious words that she so eager to hear? Women like to be treated special; with lot of appreciation, thus is quite essential to remind her time and again that you love her. This melodious word (I love you) is mellifluous to women ears. What women really want to hear from their men is the beautiful song; that they are “loved”. In the quack of Qwaqwa a disappointing thing is how people jest with African culture. Albert who is the rascal sangoma blatantly he embarrass African way of life. Sangoma is the most respected person in African communities. He/she is responsible for the wellbeing of the people; he/she has the special gift to heal the people and to assist them with their problems. But to just trick the people and make yourself unqualified sangoma can have a strong negative repercussion. When the people found that someone is the fake sangoma possibly they can beat him/her or report the issue to the police. On the other hand is very interesting to learn how other people view development when it comes to their area. It is pellucid Xolile don’t give a damn about reading books. Actually is not a regular reader of fine books and his devoid of knowledge about local black African writers in the Free State is ludicrous. This is another disappointing thing about our people in the townships. When black people see libraries they only think about only white property that only accommodates white books in library bookshelf. Therefore libraries are monotonous. This is not whimsical but is the common reality that we are experiencing and is quite misleading. There are lots of exhilarating local black African wordsmith, who produce fine literary quantity of literature. But knowledge in actual fact does not choose color. For instance Asians and Semitics can write with English, French, Portuguese, and Spaniard etc. Therefore are we saying their excellent work can be view as white because they write in English etc? Europe which predominately occupied by white people is multilingual continent. The materials that are produce today by both black and white writers are quite awesome. Although, whites have plethora of writers and books, that do not mean black African writers are not making impressive impact in literature. _ Review by Ishmael Mzwandile Soqaga (2014)