HoneyCrisp Glossary

KEY

Amai mother

Amanzimtoti sweet waters

Amarula wild fruit who fruit is used to make alcoholic beverages

Bagamoyo lay down your heart

baie danke thank you

chakalaka Spicy vegetable relish...it can have canned beans, tomatoes, onions, garlic, pepper, paprika etc.

chomi friend

Doek (Afrikaans) women's head covering

Fufu dough made from plantain/cassava powder – staple diet of West & Central Africa

Gogo grandmother

gwara-gwara word immortalized by Leon Schuster in the film Mr. Bones, means golf

Hahahahahaha means hahahahaha

Hatisitose we are no longer together [Bhundu Boys hit song]

Hau Ndebele/Zulu expression like Oh?

Hodi Swahili (excuse, can I pass/enter)

i preposition

igoli name for Johannesburg (city of gold)

Imba Matombo house of rocks

juju magic

kapenta a finger like type of central African fish

Kulu old man

Kwenyu uko ku- there in your area in-

madala old man

makoro (Tswana) canoe

Makoti [for women] a brother/son’s wife

Mfecane movement of tribes running away from King Ngizokuthengela isingwa lo banana 1970s hit song by Mahotela Queens translated, I will buy for you, bread and bananas

Tshaka

Mukoma used here means brother, typically means elder brother

Monya bouncer

Musodzi tears

Ndakuvara I have been injured/hurt

Pap thick maize pulp

Sekuru grandfather

Shamwari friend

Tongozemberawo we will lean there

tsotsi thief

Zanele girls named used by African mothers when they want a boy child like to say enough girls

HONEYCRISP

A family of four beautiful girls. A taboo in society. What? No male child? Who will carry the family name forwards? Are you crazy?

Another family growing up in the rural hang outs among the peasant hamlets. Going against the grain to grab the international lime lights.

To add salt to injury, in maturity, in comes the dating games. A catalogue of dates, roving business person bachelors, disc jockey cum comedian, the young and hot blooded Arabian horse males that fight for their breeding rights, the married cheats, jail time for some, a cricket player on his swing set, his game is up today down tomorrow, and a host of others. Will the leader of the girls brigade find a date now in her thirties in a society were spinsterhood at that age is, correct, you guessed, a taboo? How does it feel to be unmarried in a society where, you are asked, are you a weird one? Everybody seems to be singing the blues of the Diaspora, how does it affect the girl and rural pack? It all comes down to a crushing surprise party!

IF WOMEN CAN WEEP

Patricia Daniel meets Michael Du Plessis when he nearly ran her over with a vehicle because he had been careless. She blows hot over him but his attitude was to accept and absorb all the harsh words she threw at him. He returns her cheeky words with great senses of humour and Christian morality. Michael is an n electronics engineer, who did his trade in West Germany. He grew up in both Cape Town and Mutare. Being of Boer stock he is a charming, handsome and intelligent person full of charisma. He does not have the ire that drives people of his stock like the Boers firmly in control of both The Nationalist Party since 1947 in South Africa and the government therein. He has his own heartbeat that beats slowly and is saturated by church love and prayer. He is now based in the city of Gweru, which has a strategic base, Thornhill Air Force base. Michael was serving with the Rhodesian Air Force during the civil war from 1974-1979. Patricia does what her mind did not think was possible when she marries Michael Du Plessis shortly after the bereavement of his pastor father. Differences arise. Michael is a carefree person whose parents are of Boer origin. His father had cast aside his inheritance in wine estates to be a church pastor for the city of Mutare while his mother had stood head over shoulders alongside her husband. His brother was doing well as a civil engineer in Australia married to a woman who refused to live her native Australia for the then Rhodesia. Will Luke and Mavis Du Plessis‘s marriage survive in the face of the Christian virtues of the church the senior Du Plessis and wife ministered in? Patricia is the type of girl who really throws her heart to one person at a time. What will the future hold for her? But instead, she faces the heartbreak of having her husband die in a tragic road accident. Who will stand by a widow in her time of trial and morning? Who will befriend her years later when the pain has receded to the back of the mind and only memories remain?

CHILD OF PROMISE

They all belong to the same group of praise singers. They are running with the crowd that makes holy noise. This is a group of young and unmarried people with a few exceptions who all congregate without belonging to any particular church. The story shows how these young people react to the economic and social conditions surrounding them as the economy is a mainstay to one and bad for another. There is Regina getting into her late twenties one dating issue after another without marital consequences. Then there is her friend and confidant, June who is her pillar of strength also aging without a firm date or marital arrangement. Regina has a nemesis, a youth called Thomas with whom she is always at loggerheads, they can’t seem to see eye to eye. Both Regina and Thomas are gifted with their voices in music. What of Zephaniah, a youth in the music ministry doing his chores for the Lord who befriends a single mother Mildred and brings her towards the supper table of King David. There is Thomas and Theresa the young people of the crowd also in the music ministry. Forbes has issues with his wife when he falls from employment. He ends up as a vendor before rising against the odds. Then there is Wendy a single mother who has given up on marriage now that she is in her late thirties. What will happen to them all as they go through their paces of music and praising the highest of the higher beings? Then there is Brenda who at thirty-five has never married and never faltered in her devotion to the church. Will all of them stand the pressures of time and space and not fall from grace?

OFF THE EAGLES CLAWS

The story of one white man’s fight against the odds from the days of Rhodesia to independence in an African ruled dimension. He fought and survived the Rhodesian bush war from the losing end as a Caucasian soldier. His friend and confidante is an aircraft pilot dodging the anti-aircraft bullets and rockets launched by the nationalist guerrillas fighting a war against the might of Rhodesia. They are forced to fight a rear guard action as the nationalist gain a foothold and ground against the dwindling ranks of the Rhodesian professional soldier. Besides the war, after peace, Mark Rainger takes to the bush for solace retreating from the media spotlight ferrying truckloads of tourists and walking them into lion territory. That is until he meets a woman by the name of Rosemary, unfortunately she is married. His attempt at love fails as he ends up being blackmailed for his affairs in the war and with Rosemary. How does a bachelor in his late 30’s survive in the new black ruled country where every upstart politician takes a swipe at the ex-Rhodesians?

BOOMERANG

A skilled African wood carver in rural racist Rhodesia. A chieftainship coup. He spends a lot of time in the woods. He is against custom, lonely senior bachelor boy. Disappointed, he moves homes to hundred kilometres away. Years later, he has reached the pinnacle of his career. He is ailing. A lot of things don't add up. Who fathered Richmond, a young man who is at home in carpentry? But why does a man dump a young and lovely wife hundreds of kilometres away in a rural enclave where the facilities are just basic for two years? Who is responsible when a woman falls pregnant in the absence of her husband? There is a girl called Ndanatsiwa with a shadowy past. Ndanatsiwa meets Richmond. She worries about Richmond’s past. Who is spilling out the beans each time Ndanatsiwa has a serious date? Ndanatsiwa finds comfort in her friend Lydia. There is a party, someone has had too much to drink. The cats fly out of the bag and the skeletons out of the closets. What a firework?

BUTTERSCOTCH [MEET ME IN ALBERTA]

Their target is Gary, near Calgary in Alberta. The man is going to work in the lucrative tar sands projects. For years he had subsisted on contract employment. He had borne the brunt of failing as a bread winner, watching his wife going through her ladder. Frustration had built up like a pressurized boiler. Now the big guns had opened that he fly out for a permanent post. Within a year he should have his marital partner with him. The problem is that he is married to Dorothy while making plans to recruit Virginia, his ex-girlfriend from those days when they were young, happy, spoilt, excited, experimenting and free. The problem is, she is now married with a family too. She is the one that dumped him leaving a huge crater he has failed to fill in his heart. That was then, picture now! How do you break two marriages to create one happy one without shattering the lives of others? Will her husband take it sitting down? Will his parents overprotective of their daughter in law switch sides? After all, all humans have fault lines. Will Dorothy act like a devout cult follower without spitting fire and brine stone? What of the five kids she has produced in their union, will they grow outside his influence? What of the ones of his ex-girlfriend. Will they blend their family?

LAKE OF MY HEART

Reminiscences on those days when they dated! They were young and carefree. Trevor was on his way up the ladder in the challenging real estate portfolio. He had been fresh from high school when he had stumbled upon a clerical post with a real estate portfolio. He decided to date a collage of lectures. That meant he faced a battery of examinations, lessons, practical on the job training and hard work. These came between him and his favourite pursuits. The number of times the board allows rewrites is limited. Qualification opens avenues to better remuneration, commission, status and possible partnership. He likes his beer, sports and fraternizing with the gentry who watch live EPL/ESPN soccer, play boozers soccer, tee off at the greens and try their hand when silver at dicing with the basket or volleyball. Then he met Naomi by a freak accident. A day when everything was going wrong is the day he met her. A day he should have been bitterly embarrassed is the day she rescued him. She appeared so cute and innocent, like a moth approaching a flame. She has the temper of a wounded she-leopard and the looks of Jezebel. His spiritual knees buckle. His mouth stays agape. His eyes lose focus when he sees her. To him she is an open sesame password to marital bliss. He has never bothered chasing after the ladies. He could easily have married the girl next door or his parents' friends' daughters. Is it all that fast and easy? They both share being children of immigrants. He wants to break the yoke of working in the mines. He has watched retired mine workers survive on stipends. Society looks down upon immigrant labour from whose pool he was born. They both want to beat the status quo and sink prejudice. It is an uphill battle. Will they grab the limelight?

TIGERS HUNT AT NIGHT

A man will cross mountains to seek love. How much is he willing to risk in pursuit of this objective? There is the issue of higher learning. After all he plays sports with the boys who chase the women of the night. His parents are heavily against an inter-racial union. It's politically senseless.They would rather opt for one within their political establishment to cement ties with like a business deal. She demands if he is serious and mature, he follow her from southern Africa and makes his home in her native country, Germany. The economy in his home country makes worldwide news as the socialist principles tear the roof off the man in the street. His business dealings can land him in the stokes as men seek to make money at all costs. What will it be for him? Will he yield to her or will he seek a bride amongst his class, colour and creed? Or will he answer the call of the potent wine bottle, cold frosty beer or the dance tingles in him will send him on the floor to take off his heartbreak in drunkenness!

LET CLOSE ON ME

He is a naughty boy when he grows up. His family is liberal allowing him to fraternize with the African locals. This is Rhodesia at its height. Then the African class starts rebelling against the iron yoke of the Ian Smith led Rhodesia Front administration. Race is settled into three tiers. The African locals are at the bottom. The white supremacists are at the top of the parking/barking and food chain order. He learns the two major languages like his own mother tongue. He listens as his father returns from military service counting off dead comrades with his fingers. The brutal Rhodesia bush war is taking its toll. You win some and lose some. The Rhodesians are fighting a rear guard action. Communist trained guerilla bands are infiltrating right into the urban hooch podgy. Then an anti-personnel landmine takes off his father's legs leaving him in a wheelchair. When the war ends he becomes a freelance no holds batted investigative journalist in a black ruled domain. The black iron fist comes against its own hapless undefended African brother. As he reports on the military atrocities and corrupt deals, he becomes enemy of state #1. His international star rises, rises, then in a feat of drunken stupidity, he stumbles and falls.......

SPLASH IN THE LOCH

Why does an eye spotting woman travel 6, 600-kilometres to affirm her love for a single lovelorn man torn between choices? Why do beautiful head turning women gather themselves around a mechanical engineer like Hubert? He is not the pick of the handsome or elegant crew. Then there is Redfern and Moira true Scots who live off a highlands farm that make the plot. Hubert likes his intricate engineering job to the point of being a workaholic. He has a tiff with his longtime girlfriend Muriel, who walks out deciding to ride down to London from Glasgow. Hubert follows her. He gets hopelessly lost a hundred kilometres off course. To make matters worse his Brabus Mercedes sits in a lake after avoiding a near collusion. The daughter of the farmer whose tractor is the culprit, Roxanne scoops him out of the water. Her racing and BritTelecom engineering impress Hubert. Muriel doesn't like the attraction that follows. He encounters a series of bad luck that exposes those that love or disdain him. Whom will he choose between the two?

PATA-PATA [SOFT FOOTSTEPS] aka HEARTS AT STAKE

Martin is a roving senior illusive and eligible bachelor. He is dating the ravishingly beautiful, intelligent and career oriented banking sector Tina. His heart is still grieving the loss of his first date Samantha who took her nursing skills to the United Kingdom. Then in a mad turn of events, Martin allows his uncle to lure him into a French kissing, bear hugging and couples acting challenge with Sandra whom he knew not. When the news reaches Tina, she forgets about her corporate clients. She comes in fighting dirty, below the belt. Sandra is a single mother who has since recovered from an abusive marital union. As a government high school teacher, she is the bottom of the perking order and rank. What started as an innocent kiss matures into a complication. Just when Martin thinks he has Tina and Sandra keeping his head and hands full, in jets Samantha from the UK to join the Bull Run!

FOR ALL HAVE SINNED

Rhodesia is on the boil. Racial discrimination, nationalism and hatred for the harassment and treatment by the settler regime is at its height. Zambia and Mozambique have accommodated the masses fleeing repression. The guerilla armies have started infiltrating through the country's porous borders. Enter six sports affiliated siblings into the fray. One is a long distance icon. The other is a sprinter par excellence. Then there is the dancing Prince who hits with a low upper cut. Their sisters enter the ring too with looks that have men eating out of their hats. To wear the Rhodesian military fatigues is to be branded a sellout. To support the guerilla units earns a prison sentence when the bullets are in short supply. Either side, either way there is bush justice. The limelights, flash bulb explosions, television crews, sports citations, being hogged by the peripatetic siblings bring in the much needed financial resources as well as the eyes spotting queens in a world where HIV/AIDS, STIs and infertility are rampant. Who is to blame when things go horribly wrong?