“You are the storyteller of your life, and you can create your own legend or not” – Isabel Allende. 

My earliest memories and experiences of relationships are founded on playfulness. Relationships with my toys, caretakers, neighborhood, school, food, etc. Running through the rain, role-playing ‘mummy and daddy’ with ‘kakebe’ or metalic tins, digging holes in the compound for a game of ‘dool’, creating and crafting dolls among many others. When a child is born, the first thing we usually do is to make funny baby sounds and noises to try and communicate, try and get a connection of some sort. We make faces and make a fool of ourselves to the ordinary eye in an attempt to connect with this new being. So what happens to us as we grow older and find better and bigger things to occupy our minds? We lose our playfulness and in the end lose a bit of ourselves.

I am so excited to have found that playful Penny and to announce the rebirth of that QWESHUNGA space with the qualities of being light-hearted and/or full of fun aka playfulness peradventure you may get inspired and find your own mweshungo. Ever wonder why you do things the way you do? Random waving and smiling at strangers, jokes amid tense situations, desperate cries for attention amid tight schedules, sudden adrenaline rushes, uncontrollable creative ideas, and artistic expressions among others – that’s you seeking to play throughout whatever activity or environment you are faced with.

QWESHUNGA is a survival skill that every one of us has albeit some of us a bit more than others. It enhances the ability to adapt and change in the face of changing life environments and must be encouraged! Qweshungaring happens in the confines of relationship: it’s a two-person/ place phenomenon. Our relationship with others, spaces, higher beings, work, or the gifts we have and finances are all founded on playfulness or not. Our blueprint for each of these is coined around relationship and how that was introduced to us. We can QWESHUNGA alone but only if we have first had the experience of Qweshungaring with others. QWESHUNGA is one of the core characteristics of creativity. How do you create without playing with the mind?

I have chosen to take some time to build or rebuild this playful space by sharing my stories and those of others through QWESHUNGA. This is a vlog series focussing on “playfulness”.  The main theme of the vlog is relationships and the underlying constant is how playful as humans we must get with our God, our work, our finances, our people ( those we relate with), and our spaces or the places we occupy from time to time and the impact of that kind of lifestyle whether positive or negative. 

This vlog is inspired by my life and my relationship with five sub-themes: God, people, places/spaces, work, and finances. These relationships have been both funky and painful and I desire to share learnings from both sides of the coin. With this vlog, we shall playfully explore my life through the lens of my relationship with those sub-themes as well as invite other people to journey along by sharing their own experiences or stories and learnings. 

The purpose of this vlog series is to highlight the need to lead full lives and to have fun while at it. To live with purpose, to cheer up, let our hair down sometimes, and live life to its fullest without holding back and killing the dreams and gifts hidden in us. It is to inspire, motivate, and teach a thing or two about living playfully yet purposefully and wholesomely.

The series will air once a week and will be supplemented with audio and written blogs. This will be a worthwhile journey, I invite you to plug in and let’s QWESHUNGA. Subscribe, follow, like and add us to your life on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Soundcloud and on Anchor. Links will be sent to a platform near you.

I look forward to Qweshungaring with you.

Don’t forget to inspire, play, and live every day!