This and that with Mal'phosa: Complications of the Season

Happy birthday Jesus; and Complications of the season, everybody. What is there to compliment in such a dreary and depressing year! Southern Africa is experiencing a drought that has made weather reporters typical bearers of bad tidings, and we are staring famine straight in the eye. Soon we will be scrambling for the scarce resources, and politicians will have a field day promising that no one will go hungry, forcing us to vote with our stomachs instead of our brains.

Zimbabweans are practically penniless, especially imjibha or indazu. Their incomes are increasingly and continuously being corroded by the random appreciation of the US dollar, translating their hundreds of thousands of Rand power into just tens of dollars. For most, there is nothing to cheer about the festive season. As long as the country does not have its own currency but continues to rate its goods and services in terms of foreign currencies, we will never know our worth in real terms.

Many Zimbabweans are scattered all over the world. It is nigh impossible to have the whole family, or most of it, gathered together at times like Christmas and New Year like used to happen traditionally. And some Pastors, ever so creative and so original, have found a way to take advantage of the situation. Their flocks gather at stadia or show grounds or Halls to commemorate New Year's Eve in prayer. Suddenly, the New Years Eve has been married into the Christian calendar and made a purely Christian event. While you are made to temporarily feel you are not alone over the festive season, the Pastor is smiling all the way to the bank. Kuyanikelwa la, the whole night, and at some stadia kule Entrance Fee..

My friend wants to start his own church organized like a Limited Company - with the Reception, Manager, the Prayers' Department, the Miracles Department, Marriages Department, Counseling Department; the Research and Development Department, and the Client Support Services Department, among others – all manned by qualified staff. When you phone their 'toll free number', your call will be forwarded to the relevant department, depending on your needs. And his church will be charging a certain fee, depending on the complexity of the miracle to be performed or the difficulty of your problem.

Yes, we are penniless; many cannot afford the return fare after visiting home. They are forced to sell some of their valuables, like watches, mobile phones, clothes and even cars. Omalayitsha accept pay-forwards but the journey with them is an almost impossible mission! Visiting home for just a week will keep one below the poverty datum line for another decade.

Many families have lost their loved ones during this otherwise misplaced excitement. Ubhudi angafika ekhaya everyone wants to squeeze into that small GP car batshaye iround. You find close to a dozen family members squeezed into a car that should just carry six. When a mishap strikes, kuphela umndeni wonke.

The statistics on road carnage will soon be out and one does not expect any improvement from the past years. With the hardships caused by the dim and uncompromising economic prospects and growing poverty, many drive under a lot of stress and risk being involved in fatal road traffic accidents. No amount of legislative juggling can help halt this mishap. And no amount of horrific adverts flighted over the TV can also put a stop to this regretful situation.

The bleak economic outlook has also meant that the gap between the haves and the have-nots has grown much wider and deeper every day. The poorest are so pitiable they make the goal of eradicating poverty in the world a mere wish.

Civil servants did not get their bonuses (and some, their regular pay), and so they have to stretch their meager incomes to meet the immense demands of the festive season. Most of them are constantly at the mercy of loan sharks. When I was a teacher at one secondary school in an area teeming with prosperous but reckless otsheketsha, we used to borrow money from students because they went to pan for gold over weekends. Kwakusehlisa isithunzi lokhu. Students don't keep secrets even for a second. The whole school would know that Mal'phosa owed this or that student. And when you tried to discipline your creditors, they just laughed – because they saw no difference between you and the Biblical Lazaro. What is you education when your pockets are empty, they'd jibe. Gone are the days when children would write '- - when I grow up I would like to be a teacher, or policeman'. With all due respect, why would a child want to sentence themselves to eternal poverty in this world of 'touch touch'? One arrogant pantaloon once told teachers he had joined politics because he had seen that teaching was unprofitable. And it was somebody who should have been addressing the plight of the teachers. Any wonder why most qualified teachers have left for greener pastures?

Of course, there are those that will disturb others' peace, mostly under the guise of drunkenness. They walk the streets like they own the world and everyone else must stand aside when they bulldoze their way. Phela umuntu angadakwa sebona angathi they can beat up anyone and everyone around. Some lie in hospital, others are at home licking septic wounds; yet others are behind bars. Some are an arm or eye or ear short, or their faces have undergone some structural adjustment or panel beating. The unlucky ones have already met their maker. I saw one teenager waddle drunkenly right in the middle of Wolmarans Street. He had no shirt on and his pair of chinos had been dropped so low it only covered a small fraction of his scanty bums. His group of equally drunken and rebellious friends cheered boisterously from the pavement. He did not even heed the hooting cars and insults from disgusted motorists. Bantu, abantwana balapha abakhuzwa futhi abakhuzeki. Wazama nje, say your last prayers!

Boom! A taxi knocked him down from behind, lobbing him face first onto the tarmac. He lay there lifeless for a while before his whole body twitched and convulsed uncontrollably as it kicked its last. One could tell the boy was fractured in many places. Blood oozed from many cracks and lacerations in the deformed head. His friends melted into the crowd of shocked onlookers and disappeared from the scene. Yes, there are many who succumbed to peer-pressure – Oh, you are so boring! Icoca cola nge Christmas ka 2015? C'mon! This is not 1964. And they were pressured to up-grade to something stronger – just because it's Christmas. Now they are paying the price. Bayagula, babotshiwe, bachithekelwe yimizi, bajombile, bathole imikhuhlane, bamithisene, balebhabhalazi. Yeyi, utshwala budala – obunye bubhalwe since 1804.

One stranger I accompanied to Number Four Police Station had been pepper-sprayed by the police right inside the eyes, blinding him straight away. They had found him and his other perverts of buddies causing havoc - celebrating right in the middle of some busy intersection in Hilbrow. There was a heated argument between the small uncouth mob and the police, resulting in these losers losing their sight for a while. Instead of going home to wash his eyes in peace, this one decided to go and report the police for brutality. The police welcomed him with wide-open cell doors, and locked him up for public indecency or disorder or some kind of miscellaneous this and that. His friends had scattered in different directions and into their respective flats.

Finally, I have always found it so enthralling that izigangi or izoni, or atheists, are the ones who celebrate the birth of Christ more zealously and riotously than the average Christian. Yindaba? I wish all of you ten-fold of the best of all that your hearts desire in the coming year, under the circumstances. Ngiyabonga mina!