Opinion / Columnist
Mugabe's health the missing message
28 Jun 2016 at 06:36hrs | Views
My encounter with President Mugabe
President Robert Mugabe was born on the 21st February 1924 and has outlived all his siblings and first wife. I first shook President Mugabe's hand in 1986 when he visited Nyava show grounds in Musana area.
He was 62 years then and his hand shake was so strong that I can still remember it. The next encounter was when he visited Kutama College in 1991 with Australian officials.
My last encounter was in February 1992 when I shook his hand again as I was paying my last condolences for the death of his first wife Sally Mugabe. The body of Sally Mugabe was brought to Kutama rural area for the traditional send off and that year I was finishing my advanced level studies at Kutama college . In all these encounters I saw a fit elderly person whose health was defying his age.
How should we prepare for old age?
It would have been better if I had managed to personally interview President Mugabe about his health as young person. I would have liked to look at what he did or did not do and how it is impacting on his health as an elderly person. A great number of diseases can be prevented, forestalled, or minimized with a healthy lifestyle and regular health screenings.
We all know that Mugabe was once in prison and also in the bush fighting but despite these experiences he is still going reasonable strong. Sadly though is that if the conditions in our prisons today were the same when Mugabe was detained , he would not be alive today. Sending anyone to our prisons is becoming like death sentence as the chances of dying are high.
This subject may seem irrelevant now to those in their teens but believe you me I was also a teenager and never thought that I will reach 40. Life expectancy in Zimbabwe was estimated to be 33 and then I just lived a day at a time . There are things that I wished I had done better but I am glad that I am working on those areas.
I urge each one of you reading this article to reflect on your lifestyle and see if it can lead you to a good old age. We must know that old age is what lies ahead of us so we have to prepare for it . Failure to prepare for it means two things for us , it's either we die young from preventable diseases or we die old but severely suffering that we wish we had died long ago.
President Robert Mugabe was born on the 21st February 1924 and has outlived all his siblings and first wife. I first shook President Mugabe's hand in 1986 when he visited Nyava show grounds in Musana area.
He was 62 years then and his hand shake was so strong that I can still remember it. The next encounter was when he visited Kutama College in 1991 with Australian officials.
My last encounter was in February 1992 when I shook his hand again as I was paying my last condolences for the death of his first wife Sally Mugabe. The body of Sally Mugabe was brought to Kutama rural area for the traditional send off and that year I was finishing my advanced level studies at Kutama college . In all these encounters I saw a fit elderly person whose health was defying his age.
How should we prepare for old age?
It would have been better if I had managed to personally interview President Mugabe about his health as young person. I would have liked to look at what he did or did not do and how it is impacting on his health as an elderly person. A great number of diseases can be prevented, forestalled, or minimized with a healthy lifestyle and regular health screenings.
We all know that Mugabe was once in prison and also in the bush fighting but despite these experiences he is still going reasonable strong. Sadly though is that if the conditions in our prisons today were the same when Mugabe was detained , he would not be alive today. Sending anyone to our prisons is becoming like death sentence as the chances of dying are high.
This subject may seem irrelevant now to those in their teens but believe you me I was also a teenager and never thought that I will reach 40. Life expectancy in Zimbabwe was estimated to be 33 and then I just lived a day at a time . There are things that I wished I had done better but I am glad that I am working on those areas.
I urge each one of you reading this article to reflect on your lifestyle and see if it can lead you to a good old age. We must know that old age is what lies ahead of us so we have to prepare for it . Failure to prepare for it means two things for us , it's either we die young from preventable diseases or we die old but severely suffering that we wish we had died long ago.
Source - Byo24News
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