If you were having coffee with me, I would welcome you over and offer you some herbal tea called Zumbani Tea or Fever Tea Tree, Lippia javanica if you want to be fancy. Its been the all-new rage, as some swear it cures COVID or at least alleviates symptoms. Imagine the bush used to grow wild and free, but well capitalism happened…
Maybe you are not partial to herbal persuasion in which case you are welcome to bring your preferred bougie tea leaves or coffee beans. If you haven’t read it, do check out one of my last posts which explains consent in something as simple as a cup of tea or coffee: Coffee With Consent. It’s a conversation we should normalise.
If you were having coffee with me I would tell you that Afrobloggers has publicized the shortlist of nominees for bloggers in the running for the inaugural Afrobloggers Awards who are through to the voting phase. You can click on the image below to see the polls and to vote for some familiar faces or maybe just to discover new African bloggers.
You won’t find my blog among the nominees as that would be a conflict of interest, seeing as I am part of the people working tirelessly behind the scenes, the uncle of bloggers, making sure that African Content Creators get recognition and celebrated for the work they put in. Seeing all the excitement from the shortlisted people as I scroll through the interwebs makes me proud to say, look, look, we did that…
If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that I can’t tell you who to vote for because it would probably be against the rules, but even if it wasnt, honestly I don’t know how I would be able to pick one as there are so many impressive bloggers out there. A moment of silence, for the judges who will have the unenviable honour of picking winners, had I my own way, I would just say congratulations to all the nominees; you are getting an award, you getting an award, everybody is getting an award.
A couple of bloggers have shared about the awards.. and note: for transparency, I am not saying vote for these ones, I am just saying check out how much this thing means to some people, besides some are in the same category, so there ha! ^_^
An Afrobloggers Bloggers Nomination Bagged: How To Vote – Louisa
Gelax Chatroom’s First Award – Afrobloggers Awards 2020 – Bolaji
A letter to a reluctant blogger – Mable
Afrobloggers Awards 2020 – Racheal
Race Class and Ethnicity in Africa – Leo
Take Bake your pen – Patricia
If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you my seeming inability to pick a winner might mean I would make a terrible political candidate. I imagine that during my campaign, I would probably point out my opponent’s manifesto and say they make some really good points, maybe you should vote for them instead….
Uganda had presidential elections recently, internet was shutdown, opposition party candidates were arrested and predictably the election results are unerringly similar to how ours have played out. Its easy to understand why some people find futility in an electoral process where counting the vote counts more than the vote… At least after winning, if they could at least deliver a fraction of the promises they made, but no, they lookout for only themselves and holding them accountable makes you an enemy of the state.
In Zimbabwe in the past week several high ranking government officials including four ministers have succumbed to COVID, and there’s been rumours that… never mind the rumours but some people have been jubilant even, at the death of government officials, saying that COVID has been doing what elections failed to do. How badly will you have run a country that instead of sending condolence messages people thank karma for serving?
Meanwhile the secretary of information accused doctors of being medical assassins due to the number deaths of government officials. One cant go around making such accusations to the frontline workers lest they decide to start carrying out medical assassinations or worse they decide to stop risking their lives to saving people’s lives.
The secretary of information has since deleted the offending communications and worn an apolojersey in contrition, on his Twitter profile and that makes everything ok lets not be distracted or question how if anyone else had made such remarks they would be in jail for spreading alarm and despondency during a pandemic
.
If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that the COVID vaccine hasn’t even made its way to these parts of the world yet and the parliament has already released a priority of who will get it first.
•Frontline workers
•MPs
•Members of the security sector
•Ministers
I guess they are trying to make sure COVID does not do what the elections cant do, destabilize a constitutionally elected government.
If you were having coffee with me I would tell you that to further halt the spread of COVID government has ordered government departments and offices to only run with a skeleton staff of 10% and police have ramped up their vigilance at arresting lockdown and curfew regulators.
Would you think people would defy lockdown regulations, just for the fun of it? For some it’s choice between starvation or COVID and if I had to make such a choice, I would take my chances with COVID..
If you were having coffee with I would tell you to go vote in the Afrobloggers Awards at least there your vote could make someone’s day.
Whats been going on in your neck of the woods
~B
PS Its been rainy but Zimbabwe was largely spared by Cyclone Eloise with some flooding in the South Eastern parts of the country but in Mozambique it left a trail of destruction.
Becoming The Muse 
Thank you uncle B. I feel for the judges😂.
Also, I’ve always said that the worst thing these governments have done is turn good people into people that wish death on those in power. And that is unforgivable.
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You are welcome Mable.
Sometimes I can’t help wonder if they are aware how they turn into the very monsters they set of to fight, where their death or a revolution is the only way for someone else to get a turn..
Then tell you how unAfrican you are being and going against Ubuntu
Thanks for visiting
~B
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I laugh at the term medical assassins this guy is a good joker haha, this is what the saying think twice before you tweet should be representing but since he said he was sorry then okay hahaha I want to congratulate you and everyone maintaining the Afrobloggers Award, it is such an accomplishment to be able to pull off such an event despite these trying times. Congratulations! Cheers xx
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Medical assassins, I saw it and was thinking if government had spent more money developing the local health service instead of trips abroad maybe the hospitals wouldn’t be death traps… Now that they can’t do their medical tourism it’s doctors fault for being ill-equipped to handle the pandemic.
Anyway, I’m super proud at how the awards are progressing 🤩🤩 thank you
~B
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What would we do without you B and the entire team at Afrobloggers? The judges need a vacation after these awards because it’s a tight race😂😂
In Uganda, we are still using VPN and the government has threatened to arrest us all. As for Zim, May God turn things around for you guys.
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Haha I am sure someone would step up and fill in the shoes…
I 🤣 don’t envy the judges
Can a government even arrest everyone? 🤣 we laugh and share jokes and memes and hope that the sun will rise
Thank you and congrats
~B
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Obviously they will not be arresting anyone because they too will need to be arrested.😂😂
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B!!!! Thank you so much, and the team at Afrobloggers for creating such a platform and maintaining the community of African content creators. ♥️✨
Nick’s stupid tweet and “jam talk” 🙄 got me so riled up I almost forgot this was a celebratory post. Phew! Is there any African country where the citizens don’t wish their political leaders ills?
Again thank you so much for being the best uncle we could ever ask for. To the judges… Heheheee, I do not envy y’all AT ALL!!! 😅
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You are welcome and thank you 🤩🤩
It’s supposed to be a celebratory post but I guess also sets some context on the challenges we face and through the blogging community I have come to learn how our countries have more of the same problems too…
I used to think our leaders were particularly bad but it appears that’s the norm in Africa so obviously as a continent we need to rethink what democracy even means…
Anyway I digress
thank you and congrats
~B
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You are busy with awards and all that… I hope the vaccine can get to your part of the world soon my friend. That flooding… that’s terrible. Keep safe.
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Oh wow, didn’t know there was awards for just blogging – forgive my ignorance! And for that reason, I am off to pen down my content to appear in next year’s lot of nominees. Otherwise, congs to the nominees.
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Hahaha and that’s precisely why these ones were started 🤣🤣 this is the inaugural edition… So you haven’t missed much.
You have a year ahead of you hope this brings inspiration
~B
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I’m sorry to hear you’re not nominated in the contest, but I’m also happy because when I read it’s for Afrobloggers, I started wondering if you’re not the CEO of that “organization.” Thanks for yet another opportunity to find new authors. The excited Tweets are heart-warming.
Medical assassins. An interesting concept. Doctors are supposed to treat the patient and put any prejudice to the side. I’d like to think that most follow that and fulfill their duties and obligations as medical professionals. However, I’m not sure that everyone treats everyone 100% the same way. Whenever there’s a celebrity in the hospital, everyone is on high alert. People give their best, and then sprinkle some extra on top. It’s a reality. So, if there’s someone you HATE… I don’t say that you kill them with premeditation, but maybe you’re not as motivated as you would otherwise be to help them. Maybe just wait a bit longer before giving them pain medication so they can suffer. Again, I really hope that there is no major transgression, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some minor ones occurred.
I can’t speak for Zim, but I can for a couple of other countries where people defy the lockdown regulations because they feel confined. You raise a very important topic – if so many things are locked down, how terrible will the economy be? And I don’t just mean “the economy,” but also the people who aren’t earning any money. I’m blessed to not have been affected by that.
Ouch, Mozambique!
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Haha at being “CEO” I don’t think there’s that designation in the organisation 🤣
The excited tweets have been very inspiring sometimes we ask ourselves if we should carry on “organising”…
Of course you can imagine doctors councils are not impressed and issued a strongly worded document.
And it appears calling doctors medical assassins has somewhat projected to some ordinary people not privy to any of the drama and are now afraid of going to hospital fearing that’s where they finish your off and of course with the already circulating conspiracy theories on how the vaccine is a lethal injection meant to kill off excess population or inject a mind control microchip with a triple 6 barcode….. Well,…
In the case of Zim which already has a struggling economy and has an unofficial employment rate of 90% with people relying on back yard industries for sustenance the effect of lockdown is not pretty…. Then you look at the police statistics and look at the health stats and see that the police have cumulatively arrested more people than the people who have tested positive for the virus…. I had to rewrite and delete my final conclusion as to whom would appear to be the real pandemic .. Cant make it too easy for them but facts are facts.
Mozambique has been facing some serious flooding being a coastal landmass and Madagascar too I sometimes worry Madagascar is just going to disappear from the face of the map along with Mozambique but on the upside Zimbabwe would get a beach where the boarder with Mozambique used to be 🤣🤣
~B
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I’ve been wondering about Madagascar myself…
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FYI – I clicked on the image you said that would take me to the voting website, but it takes me to the image only.
I navigated to the polls through the link in your Tweet at the end of this post.
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Thanks for the heads up good thing you are twitter savvy 🤣🤣
I have fixed the link on image don’t know what happened 🤣
~B
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Well its my first nomination and now Im lookig for votes from my audience. #Lol Uncle B vote for me lol# The Creative nominees where I am its tough competition. I already have my favorite in that nominee category besides myself. Josephyn from GHANA. Please dont pay attention to Nick. I think him looking after mental health patients in the UK made him one. No offense to Mental Health patients though.
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Haha being inaugural awards it’s the first time being for everyone to be nominated 🤣🤣🤣 you are right the competition is tough!!!
In that case maybe Nick would best retire from his job
Good luck
~B
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Ahaaa the news for me…
Meanwhile we are using our social media sites illegally apparently they are going to look for all the ones using VPN to access we are still in circles with this our nation.
Zimbabwe your stories of the vaccine are not far from the ones we have….
As for people dying of covid in Uganda unless it’s in your household it doesn’t exist.
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Hahaha but I doubt it would be easy to find those who use VPNs considering it seems like many people do (If not practically everyone) and that by nature VPNs are meant to conceal your location…. But I suppose they will try and find a few influential individuals to make an example of and scare everyone else into submission… Well that’s how they do it here and as they are in the same WhatsApp group….
I think we recently reached the COVID is real phase.. Today there will be a triple burial at the national heroes acre first time in history And the covid is reaching into people’s households…. The numbers have become names
~B
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I am so glad I’m not one of the judges, they have a tough choice.
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yeah good luck to them hahaha
~B
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I am so glad I’m not one of the judges, they have a tough choice.
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They have their work cut out for them
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You and the rest of the Afrobloggers team are doing an amazing job. Thanks for everything!
Do you know how hard it has been to vote when you see blogs you really enjoy in the same category? 😂
As for medical assassins, I had to laugh even though maybe I shouldn’t have 😂
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Hahaha and you can only vote once in each category…. There can be only one😂🤣 but hey we still celebrate the nominations and keep it moving and good luck to those who make it
Hahaha it’s OK, I toolaughed about medical assassins… Like seriously?
~B
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Exactlyyyy!
It was a good joke just bad timing 😭
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How would it have been if I never met you on my blogging journey. Your really a great uncle that has inspired me through putting my thoughts together amf seeing my name among the Creative writing category was an exciting moment for me.
Reading all through how it’s been a journey for most of us and a deserved recognition is worth.
Blessings
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Thank you so much and I appreciate sometimes its easy to not see the impact you and your thoughts make on the world or that anyone recognises and appreciates the work you do. Hopefully these awards help kick start some spark in content creators having a seat at the table
thanks again and goodluck
~B
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