January disease: Are you safe?

Donning trendy apparel, Razor sent his large probing eyes sideways and once sure the coast was clear, he ventured into their family maize plot on the outskirts of Mabvuku and stashed pumpkin leaves into his satchel. To avoid detection by acquaintances, he used the same modus operandi to leave the peri-urban plot and made his way home as if nothing had happened.

On the other hand, his young brother Simba had spent the better part of the morning trapping termites for relish.

Majuru mwana wamudhara! (Amagenga mntaka mdala!)
Seeing how smartly dressed he was, those not in the know passed him off for someone on his way from town. Razor - wearing a plastic smile - even stopped and chatted with friends on the way, of course, making sure the contents of his bag remained a secret.

It's a truth, universally acknowledged, that people eat to live. But there are certain kinds of food people do not want the public to know they take.

People are doing the unthinkable.
Those bent on making the outside world believe that all is well when the opposite is true, weed their gardens in the dead of the night. They even harvest when the eyes of the world are closed.

What the aforementioned bloke did is what most people are doing to survive the harrowing effects of the January Disease which now appears to be as universal as death. Some men are footing to work daily and if you meet them along footpaths they lie about looking for herbs or going after a missing dog.

As I commit pen to paper gentle reader, people in the communities in which we live are taking various forms of wild vegetables to see it through the month.

Others are hiding behind tradition saying: "This is quality food. That is what our forefathers ate in the olden days. It's even healthy. Ndiko kudya kwemandorokwati kwechinyakare." (Yikho ukudla okulohlonzi okwemandulo)

If you visit any marketplace in the ghetto today, vendors can tell you that such vegetables as nyevhe, mukadzi usaende, muboora, mowa, munyemba and chiribwiribwi are selling very fast (traditional veggies).

Muriwo wechembere dzagumhana is in vogue.

Some characters that do not want to be seen buying such stuff are also doing it under the cover of darkness while others prefer home deliveries.

Ladies who sell wild mushrooms (howa), flying ants (ishwa), termites (majuru), birds (shiri/Inyoni) and dried grasshoppers (hwiza) are making people survive this January Disease which is occasioned by low spending power against the backdrop of such huge payment demands as school fees, electricity and water bills.

Usambonyara kusekwa, (UNgabi lenhloni ukuhlekwa)
Iwe uchishandira mhuri yako, (Wena usebenzela imhuli yakho)
Ichidya ichiguta, (Isidla isutha) sang Patrick Mukwamba long back, but people are shy to show who really they are and lead their normal lives without caring about what the next man thinks about it.

Kana wada imbwa, better kungodya iri hono. (Ma ufuna inja, ngcono udle yona enduna)

Some enterprising people are cashing in on people's poverty.

They are waking up at ungodly hours to skin goats which they cut into very tiny pieces to ensure those craving for a salty chew can get something for as little as a dollar.

Yours truly laughed his lungs out last week to find his friend being shouted at by a vendor he was failing to pay for pumpkin leaves he bought on credit.

"Mukuwasha sei muchinyadzisa kudaro. Ndipei mari yangu. Sei muchiti mukaguta mobaya dura nepfumo," (Mkhwenyana yinindaba uyangisa kanje. Ngipha imali yami. Yindaba lisithi lingasutha linyele emthonjeni?) the old lady said while throwing her hands in disgust.

January, this month we are wading through, is one time of the year most people wish could pass quickly and forget about.

If it were a dog, I am sure it would have been one so vicious to deserve being put down or persistently be kept on leash.

Not that it has more days than any other month, but it is pregnant with challenges.

To hide their poor financial position, some people are preferring to stay at home watching TV or sleeping owing to relentless power cuts.

Those who venture out will be busy playing slug or pool in the hope that a friend with cash will send a cold one down their throats.

So painful is this January Disease that paying someone a visit is worse than condemning them to death.

"Hapana kuroya kunokunda zvinoitwa nevanhu vasinganyare kushanya pakadai. (Akula buthakathi obedlula ngokwenzwa ngabantu abangela nhloni ukuvakatshela indawo enje) They can come in dozens not taking into account that times are hard," I heard a friend saying at Chitubu Shopping Centre in Glen Norah last weekend.

He said he had since switched off his phone for fear of being plunged into a bottomless pit by friends and relatives.

"For now my phone is unreachable and I hope to keep it so for a very long time. Almost every call you get is from someone asking for cash.

"Some even lie about this and that illness as if I am the only relative they have under he sun," he purred in a tone which suggested he had had enough of people asking for cash.

Companies too have not been spared.
When hunger bites, people cook up stories to wring cash from their unsuspecting employers just to see it through the month.

"I come from Chipinge and these floods have washed away our family home. I just need at least US$200 for my parents to come to Harare. The situation is so hopeless. Munhu wese akatarisa ini chete hapana zvandingaite," (Umuntu wonke ukhangelele mina akulanto engingayenza) I heard a certain man telling his boss within earshot.

Those unlucky to have divorced the mothers of their children are not being spared.

Some women are waking up early in the morning demanding that if such and such a thing is not paid for before midday the child will be expelled from school.

Mothers-in-law can also be stressful.
They can pick the phone and tell the unsuspecting mukuwasha on the other end of the telephone that they are near the point of death and need pills to heal a headache that is dragging them towards the grave.

"Mwanangu ndinoziva upenyu hwakaoma, but ndatove kuda kufa nemusoro. Ndipeiwo US$100 chete ndimboparapatika ndichitsvaka chingandiponese." (Mntanami, ngiyazi impilo inzima, kodwa sengifuna ukufa ngekhanda. Ngicela i$100 kuphela ngigijigijime ngidina okungangisiza)

Ladies who date married men are also feigning pregnancy to survive the harrowing effects of the January Disease.

"Darling, I have just missed my period. Can you please arrange US$200 for me before 4pm so that a doctor who has offered to assist me can do something before it's just too late."

There are countless cocktails of lies that are being made by people to survive the hard times.

Pastors can lie that the pulpit needs new hinges for the Bible locker before proceeding to inflate prices of the non-existent repair job, just to wring cash from their parishioners.