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The pain and joy of belonging to a stokvel

As we clear the cobwebs of 2016 from our eyes and face the new year with a brave face that is more worthy than our bank accounts, there are many friends and families who still have to heal the rift caused by stokvel wars.

As sure as the sun rises from the East, two things religiously happen with stokies at the end of the year.

There is always a tale of the hapless stokvel ladies who this past festive season endured Black Christmas when some con artist made a beeline for them and either cleverly fleeced them of their money or used some trick to run off with their hard earned cash.

We all know of the tales where stokvel groups have been made to invest in outlandish schemes only to discover when proceeds had to be paid that indeed what is too good to be true is just that. In other cases, it is said men using mystical powers would smear confused stokvel treasurers with animal fat that would make their stokvels cash disappear faster than Houdini would say abracadabra.

In these cases, the poor stokvel groups are not to blame as they have simply been outsmarted. In time, that poor treasurer will eventually be forgotten by the members for the painful misfortune.

But there are other types of stokvel wars, fuelled more by personality clashes that are harder to survive than ordinary scams.

The fights all start at the end of the year when the social clubs have to meet and for members to decide on how best to share the earnings from their yearly savings.

I know of a clan whose members are still not talking to each other five years later because they split into two for disagreeing on where to go for their annual stokvel holiday. This is where they would normally go and unwind with members of their families. The more sophisticated group voted for a game farm as they all insisted they wanted to try something different and new.

Not keen for bundu bashing and watching animals scratch themselves if it is not in a zoo, the other group insisted on the usual beach holiday and a whole war the scale of the North and South civil war, in the US, ensued. Today the clan members are still not seeing eye to eye and such a small disagreement has broken up a beautiful tradition of the family getting together over the festive season that had been practised for decades.

There are many other cases where members literally get into a fight over what they need to buy for their grocery list for example, many a wars have been caused by a disagreement over why it is more important to buy a jar of jam over a packet of tissues.

For other stokvels, the splintering of the group came about over more valid reasons when they realised that the clever treasurer and secretary colluded to steal money from them.

Then there are other members who "borrowed" money from the coffers with the apparent intention to take it back, until they were found out, that is.

The trick with being in a stokvel is to let all members participate meaningfully and equally and not for some bullies to undermine others. It is important to know when to make suggestions, when to volunteer for the dirty administration job of running stokvel books and accounts, and when to keep quiet just to keep the peace as for many of us the tradition of stokvels and saving as a group is not only a life saver, but is also a great opportunity to socialise and network with like-minded peers.

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