By Professor Raymond Mosha
Tel: (+255) 769 417 886 | Email: rmosha@depaul.edu
One of the precious sources for my reflections in this column is the timeless and timely wisdom that I have learned from our African ancestors. Today I want to reflect on a proverb that I often heard from my grandparents, which goes this way in English:
“When it thunders the lazy person goes to bed but the hard-working person takes a hoe and goes to the farm.”
This proverb emerges from the rainy and mountainous environment of the people of the Kilimanjaro area, where thunderstorms and lightnings are common phenomena. These thunderstorms can be quite frightening, but for the hard-working person, these storms signal the coming of rains, a blessing for farmers.
The lazy person finds an excuse to go to bed because thunderstorms are dangerous, so he thinks. The lazy person would go to bed at the drop of a hat anyway, but not so the harder worker, who will take the risk and go to the farm so that when the rains come, the shamba is ready for plants to sprout in abundance.
As a child I noted that farmers work hard, their day starting before sunrise and ending after sunset. Over the course of generations upon generations our ancestors have valued hard work and working diligently, efficiently and effectively. A hard worker is seen as a hero and a lazy person is dismissed as an enemy of family and community development.
This socio-economic milieu has been a fertile ground from which have emerged many stories, proverbs, songs, art and rituals that elevate the value of working hard, working well and effectively.
My ancestors believed that there are three main advantages of hard and diligent work. First, they believed, and rightfully so, that working hard earns a living for self, family and the larger community. Second, one works for the purpose of nurturing harmony and equilibrium with others and the universe, with the Divine, the ancestors and those still to be born. Third, working hard sharpens the mind, strengthens the body and inspires the spirit.
Thus, the hard-working person not only contributes to her or his economic growth, but also makes this world a better place, and moreover, she or he becomes a more fulfilled person, one who uses his or her God given talents to the fullest. No wonder therefore that our ancestors valued hard and diligent work. The English have this proverb: no gain without pain.
