What’s it with these fundis?

There are some people in society that I have never understood. These are carpenters, tailors and radio & TV repairers. You have these people in your neighbourhood, don’t you?

These carpenters in my neighbourhood make very beautiful furniture for their clients. But one day I visited the house of one of them and I received the shock of my life. The vast room had only two wobbly stools. And there was one creaking bed at the corner. What’s it with this carpenter? I asked myself.

He caught my eyes roving from one corner of the room to the other, disapprovingly. He chuckled, cleared his throat and said:

“I know you are asking yourself why there is no good furniture here yet I make very good furniture for people. It’s not that I don’t have the money but that I take things for granted. I tell myself that I’ll do it tomorrow, but, as usual, my tomorrow never comes.”

He then drew me closer told me that all fundis are the same.

I decided to find out whether this was true. What I found out proved that my carpenter friend was right.

The tailor I visited does not have very good clothes for himself. Some of his trousers have patches. His children do not have good clothes. In fact one of them did not have the right school uniform. The dress was torn and tattered. The tailor could make a new dress for her but he hadn’t done so for two months!

I met another fundi the other day. This one came to my house. He was a computer repairer. I had asked him to come and check what was wrong with my computer and also to install new software.

As he was installing the software, selecting cds from his well-endowed, cd-laden bag, I quipped:

“Your personal computer must be a very lucky machine.”

“Why do you say so?” he asked.

“It must have the best programs that you install in other people’s machines. I believe it does not have problems with viruses, too. I believe it has the highest speed ever.”

He looked at me as I talked, and, when I was through, he said:

“If that is what you think about my computer then you must the most deluded man on earth. First of all, my computer is very slow. It also has problems with viruses. The only programs that it has are Microsoft Office and PowerDVD. The most basic of programs.”

I said nothing. When he had left, I was left wondering from which rock our fundis were hewn. What’s it with these fundis?

Do you have such people where you are?

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