NUMBERS

Chapter 4 of the book-"NON-CONTRADICTORY CONTRADICTIONS"

IV. Numbers

1 Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite. 2 “Has the LORD spoken only through Moses?” they asked. “Hasn’t he also spoken through us?” And the LORD heard this.

3 (Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.)

 4 At once the LORD said to Moses, Aaron and Miriam, “Come out to the Tent of Meeting, all three of you.” So the three of them came out. 5 Then the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud; he stood at the entrance to the Tent and summoned Aaron and Miriam. When both of them stepped forward, 6 he said, “Listen to my words: When a prophet of the LORD is among you, I reveal myself to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams. 7 But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. 8 With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?”

9 The anger of the LORD burned against them, and he left them. 10 When the cloud lifted from above the Tent, there stood Miriam-leprous, like snow. Aaron turned toward her and saw that she had leprosy; 11 and he said to Moses, “Please, my lord, do not hold against us the sin we have so foolishly committed. 12 Do not let her be like a stillborn infant coming from its mother’s womb with its flesh half eaten away.” 13 So Moses cried out to the LORD, “O God, please heal her!” 14 The LORD replied to Moses, “If her father had spit in her face, would she not have been in disgrace for seven days? Confine her outside the camp for seven days; after that she can be brought back.” 15 So Miriam was confined outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on till she was brought back. Numbers: Chapter 12:1-15 (The Holy Bible, New International Version)

1

It was the biggest farm in Swaziland. It employed more than three hundred people. Robert Lara was proud to be associated with this farm. Robert was the farm manager, a job he enjoyed immensely. On this particular day, he was admiring his apple crop. The apples were not quite ripe but it would not be long before farm workers would start picking up the apples and preparing the fruit for export.

He was standing beside his motor-bike at the far end of the farm. In order to make a good and proper inspection of the large farm, one needed a mechanised vehicle to move around it. A motor-bike was ideal as you could access most of the farming area through the numerous paths that ran across the fields. Who was it who had said, ‘Choose the job you love and you will never work one day in your life’ or something like that? Robert could not remember who had said those words but he was in total agreement with the quote. To him, his farm manager’s job was not “work.” He had always loved nature, being outdoors and he felt a “little guilty” being paid for what he loved doing and did not seem to be “work.”

Robert had been born in a small village about 150 miles from Kingston, the capital city of Jamaica. It was a farming area, largely involved with sugar-cane although some other crops were grown. He had ended up working and living in Swaziland “by accident really.” After graduating from the University of the West Indies, he was persuaded by his uncle to go to South Africa to pursue a post-graduate course at the University of Cape Town. His uncle was a cricket coach, working for one of the cricket clubs in the Western Cape province of South Africa.

On graduating from the University of Cape Town, rather than go back home to Jamaica, he had joined a large agro-industrial conglomerate in the Western Cape. The company had extensive agricultural investments around Southern Africa. This is the same company that owned the vast apple farm in Swaziland. Robert was asked to go and run the Swazi farm after he had been with the company for only eighteen months.

He had fallen in love with Swaziland the moment he sat foot in the country. No wonder that within two years of his stay in the country, he had found himself marrying a lovely Swazi girl. He thought of his beautiful wife and the fact that the three of them were going to fly to Jamaica the following week. “The three of them”, because he and his wife had been blessed with the arrival of a baby son ten months ago. His wife had been to Jamaica but the baby boy would be going to Robert’s home country for the first time.

Robert would have liked to closely supervise, the harvesting, packaging and export of this ripening apple crop but his superiors insisted he should take leave now as he had barely gone on leave in the past two years. He was not worried too much though, because he knew the farm would be in good hands. He had three very capable supervisors working under him and he was going to leave one of them in charge as Acting Farm Manager. He knew this job was going to fall on Themba Khumalo as he had proved to be the most capable of the three subordinates. The other two supervisors were Peter Dlamini and Sipho Dlamini. The two Dlaminis, although sharing the same surname, were not related, a common occurrence in Swaziland. Themba was the youngest of the three but the most capable. Robert resolved that it should be Themba’s responsibility to run the farm in his absence.

2

As the man in charge, Themba made the decision to start harvesting the apple crop after John had been gone for two weeks. He held a meeting with Peter and Sipho, the other two supervisors, and informed them of his decision. The meeting was held on a Friday and Themba instructed Peter and Sipho to start the harvesting process on the following Monday. Themba had considered the possibility that Peter and Sipho might resent the fact that he had been left in charge during Robert’s absence but he had also convinced himself that they were professional men who would cooperate with him despite any adverse feelings that they might have. Themba’s suspicion had been more than confirmed by some of the developments of the preceding two weeks. They were small things but he had noticed that whenever he gave an instruction to Peter or Sipho, neither would respond quickly. They would engage in such childish manoeuvres as deliberately arriving late at meetings called by Themba. They would not be so late as to affect the occurrence of the meetings but they made an effort to show that they did not accord Themba the same respect that they showed to Robert. These “little childish” actions by the two Dlaminis did not bother Themba as long as the work was being carried out.

3

Monday morning, Themba woke up much earlier than usual. He intended to make a quick inspection of the crop to assure himself that he had taken the right decision about starting the harvest on that day.

What he saw, as he took a quick tour of the farm on his motor-bike, satisfied him and he was convinced that he had made the right decision. The crop was ready for harvest. He rode back to his farm house and prepared a leisurely breakfast, thinking of the long day ahead. Once the harvesting process starts, everybody would be very busy. The picked crop would invariably have different grades and would be packed in boxes according to the various grades. Almost everything harvested was for export. The farm did not sell any apples locally, that is, there were no sales in Swaziland apart from a few boxes that were sold to people who visited the farm during the harvesting period. Traditionally, the Swazi Royal Family would also be given a reasonable quantity of the best crop of any harvest.

Themba was certain that by mid-morning, Peter and Sipho would have set all the planned processes for that day in motion. He went to the main office block where he started working on the mail and other paper work. There was a lot of paper work to be done and lunch time came and passed without Themba realising what time it was. At about 14:15 hours he decided to take a break and also find Peter and Sipho to find out how the big day had progressed so far. As Themba walked towards the staff canteen, he saw Peter and Sipho leaving the place together, obviously having sat together at lunch.

“Afternoon Gentlemen! How is it going so far?” Themba asked.

“How is what going?” was the response from Sipho.

“Why, the picking of the fruit and preparation of the grading sheds, of course,” replied Themba, surprised that his initial inquiry could have been mistaken for anything else other than what it was.

Sipho approached Themba and said, “You see Themba, this is what Peter and I have been discussing over lunch. We do not think the harvesting process should be started at this stage. We were actually coming to talk to you about it.”

Themba was immediately alarmed, “Why? Have you noticed something wrong? What is it? What’s wrong? We discussed the start date in the Friday meeting and I also made a quick inspection of the crop this morning. The crop is ready, what is this about not wanting to start today?”

They walked back to Themba’s office to discuss the issue further.

“Gentlemen, would you like to tell me what has changed since last Friday. If anything the crop is riper than it was on Friday,” said Themba.

“Well it’s not ready and we think we should wait another week before starting the harvest,” Sipho said. Themba thought he realised what was going on. These guys were just doing this to show him that they can also make decisions. They were feeling that they were also in charge. No doubt Sipho, or Peter for that matter, would have preferred to have been Acting Manager. But Themba felt that not only was his decision correct, but he was also the man in charge and the one to take the blame if operations did not go smoothly. Regardless of this, Themba decided to yield to the “bloated” egos of the two Dlaminis and wait another week. Maybe they would feel better after this and life on the farm could get back to normal.

4

A week later, when Themba was almost regretting that he had agreed to delay the start of the harvest by seven days, he saw through his office window, Sipho and Peter standing about a hundred yards away, seemingly engaged in some animated discussion. If they were coming to see him with some more delaying tactics, he had better be fully prepared for them, Themba thought to himself. Indeed Peter and Sipho were coming over to see him. As soon as Themba heard their mumbled “good mornings” and saw the look on their faces, he realised that he was going to have a bad day. His colleagues were wearing what Themba called “their fighting faces.” As usual, it was Sipho who attacked first.

“Themba, Peter and I have gone around the farm and we think the harvest should be delayed by, at least, another week.”

Themba was speechless! What were these guys playing at? In his opinion, they should not have postponed the harvest by a week as they had already done in the first place. Themba felt himself becoming “hot.” There was no way he was going to continue taking such nonsense. If they did not start picking the crop immediately, they were going to put that year’s harvest at tremendous risk. The work had to begin immediately.

“Gentlemen, I don’t know what this is all about but you are both up to no good. I am certain you know that the harvest should have started by now but for some reason you seem intent on sabotaging the work. I want you to start the harvest today without fail. Now if you will excuse me, I have a lot of other work to do.”

After Sipho and Peter had left, Themba started pacing around the small office, thinking. It was obvious that this was clear sabotage. These guys wanted him to fail. Well it was not going to happen. The fruit was going to be picked even if he had to carry out the work single-handedly!

Around mid-morning, Themba went out to the fields to see if something was going on. There was no activity resembling the harvesting that should have been going on. He sought out some of the farm workers to find out what sort of instructions they had been given. One old man told him that the workers had been told not to start picking the crop despite the fact that everyone could see that it was ready. When Themba asked who had given the “hold” instruction, he was told it was both Sipho and Peter. They would always be together when they talked to the workers.

Themba knew it was time to take some drastic steps. He could not appeal to Robert who was having his vacation in Jamaica. He also thought it would not be right to disturb Robert at that stage. But what was he going to do? There was no work going on at the farm at a very crucial time. He went back to his office and tried to look at his options. After failing to come up with something concrete, he finally settled on calling Robert in Jamaica. The call went through without any problems. It was just after 11.00 a.m. in Swaziland, which meant that it was about 4 a.m. in Jamaica.

Robert, of course, knew that something was wrong when he heard Themba’s voice. Robert agreed that there was no time to waste and there was need for some drastic action. He instructed Themba to call the regional Chief Operating Officer (COO) in Cape Town and apprise him of the developing situation. He, Robert, was also going to try to get hold of the Cape Town office and ensure that something was going to be done.

To Themba’s surprise, the COO from regional head office in Cape Town did not seem to be unduly alarmed. He seemed to understand what was going on and he assured Themba that he was going to fly to Swaziland on the company jet that afternoon. The COO’s private assistant would advise Themba later on during the day, the time that the plane would arrive at Matsapa airport where Themba should meet the jet when it arrives.

5

Some Dlaminis in Swaziland are genuinely members of the Royal Family in one form or the other. There are, however, a lot of Swazis with the name Dlamini but who do not have a connection with the Royal Family or cannot easily trace their link to the Royal Family. Peter and Sipho Dlamini belonged to the second group but they wanted people to consider them as being “of royal stock.” As indicated earlier, the two were not even related to each other.

This desire and belief, of somehow being part of the extended Royal Family, led Peter and Sipho to look down upon lesser beings like their supervisor colleague Themba Khumalo. It was one of the reasons why they thought that Themba should not have been left in charge at the farm.

When Peter and Sipho saw Themba driving out of the farm that Monday afternoon, they correctly assumed he was going to meet somebody from Head Office who was going to help him sort out his problem at the farm. The two Dlaminis had anticipated this when they planned their revolt against Themba. They had their story ready and were sure that they were going to crucify Themba at long last. Their plan was simple. They were going to tell whoever was coming from Head Office that Themba had refused to start the harvest “despite the fact that his colleagues, Peter and Sipho, being ‘well experienced and knowledgeable farm workers,’ had advised him that the crop was ready for harvest. They would say that they think he was only doing this to discredit his colleagues and “engineer” their expulsion from the farm. The boss from Head Office was sure to believe the Dlaminis’ story against whatever that “upstart” Themba was going to say to defend himself.

When Themba drove back to the farm after picking up the COO from Matsapa airport, a meeting of the three farm supervisors with the COO was quickly convened. The COO had, of course, been given a briefing by Themba on their drive from the airport. He was now ready to hear Peter and Sipho’s side of the story. As they had planned, Peter and Sipho placed the blame on the unfortunate developments at Themba’s feet.

Themba on the other hand, proved why he had been left in charge at the farm in the first place. He took out his cell phone and started playing back the discussions of his meeting with his colleagues, at which both Peter and Sipho had argued that the crop was not ready for harvest. As the recording played out, Themba actually felt sorry for his two colleagues, who for some inexplicable reason, had decided to “hang themselves.”

The faces of the two Dlaminis clearly showed that they fully understood that their days at the farm were over.

The next chapter-Deuteronomy- will be published not later than Thursday, 9 December 2010.

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