TIE THE KID

Pelo potsane e a golegwa

Pelo= the heart

Potsane= a kid (baby goat)

E a golegwa= is tied

Direct: the heart, a kid, is tied. 

Simply laid, this proverb means that, just as a young goat is domesticated or tamed, so can the heart. A baby goat is tied away from its mother to hold it back from leaving safety to danger. This is done to restrain it, keep it calm or control it. The same can go for our hearts! To successfully accomplish this, the disposition of the mind which binds passions is necessary.

Growing up in a rural village called Mmadinare, I’d often hear the elderly remark, “pelo potsane e a golegwa” time and again. As a child, I just took it that adult talk was too weird and complicated, I thought they were mentally incapacitated too, (oops). How could they refer the heart as to a baby goat (really?). So I wondered, Ignorant that there was something called a metaphor. I honestly could not find the relationship between the heart and the tying of a baby goat.

Speaking of baby goat tying, when I was a kid, my dad would take us to the cattle post during school vacations. There, we reared different kinds of livestock,  including a flock of goats. Each time the flock left for grazing, the baby goats or kids had to remain behind. Keeping them calm as they watched their does (a word for mother goats) leave wasn’t easy. Goats are naturally stubborn, and young ones being highly energetic, are a whole lot of trouble and hard to control. Determined to leave with the older goats, the kids would run about the kraal looking for gaps on the structure to escape. Under my father’s instruction, we had to get a hold of them and tie them to the sides of the wooden poles of the kraal. The baby goats would struggle, jump and kick to try to break off the rope. Although this might have seemed to be a little cruel, it is the African way of taming goats. Little does the young goat realize that setting it free, would only lead it to the great danger of landing between the long, sharp canines of predators, the talons of great eagles or the coils of a python. The baby goat will never understand the reason behind separating it from its mother, but the experienced keeper knows the danger lying ahead if he were to let it loose.

Similarly, the heart is full of many desires, some just too wild (lol). Imagine if your heart would go unrestrained! By all means, it would try to satisfy all of its natural desires, regardless of their nature, good or bad. Consequently, one is required to exercise the will power, logic, experience, common sense and some level of maturity in order to keep themselves from falling prey to dire penalties of going after those desires. In other words, we should not be impulsive, but decisive in action. With that being said, I urge you to tie up your baby goat in the best ways possible! Pelo potsane, e a golelgwa.

Exercise restraint after good judgement!

#THEEAURORASAYS