If you were having coffee with me, I would be glad to have you visit and invite you to feel at home and enquire how the long weekend has been or its been business as usual?
I have been losing track of days, last Thursday felt like a Friday, Friday felt like Saturday and Saturday like a Sunday and today feels… weird.
It was a very low key Easter weekend without the usual festivities that normally make this time of the year… feel festive. While lockdown restrictions have been eased, people were encouraged, very persuasively, by the government and police to neither travel nor gather. Boarding school students were to remain at school and were not allowed to travel home and parents barred from visiting, because COVID.
If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that I am so glad I am not in school right now; it seems such a weird time to be a learner. I worry about the state of our education system, especially as learners proceeded to the next level after missing out on two thirds of the school calender last year terms due to lockdown and COVID.
I was helping out my 8 year old niece with her homework and got a bit stuck looking at these awkwardly written assignments from their teacher, which had me thinking not only about the teachers but the kind of learners that this system would graduate… Just look:
Upon asking my niece if the teacher had explained any of this, I was shocked to realise that the teachers were outsourcing the actual teaching of pupils to the parents and guardians. Those who want their child to get “extra lessons” from the teacher would have to pay… Of course the government and Ministry of Education frowns upon such activities…
But will the department of education be in every classroom to ensure that a teacher does not pick only those students whose parents have paid for extra lessons to come sit in front of class and get one on one coaching and get homework assignments using Whatsapp, while the rest of the class is left to figure it out..
If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that I was reading an article in the Sunday Mail on how according to the latest Government report, 4 959 teenagers got pregnant in January and February this year, while an additional 1 774 got into early marriages. What is more worrying is how I haven’t read about at least 1000+ men being arrested on statutory rape and other charges as the teenagers are minors, obviously… so who is marrying them and who is allowing it?
While the government amended the Education Act in August 2020 so that no student is expelled from school on grounds of pregnancy, since the first lockdown begun a shocking number of girls have dropped out of school. A lot of following up, counselling, therapy and support is going to be needed… but who has time for that?
If you were having coffee with me I would ask if you ran into news about the Evergreen Ship which was stuck in the Suez Canal… I watched a video of kids suggesting various solutions on how the problem could have been tackled and was fascinated to see young minds at work and again I was reminded of how we stay stuck following old ways of doing things with no room for innovation and thinking out of the box..
The government has opened up more COVID vaccine centers across the country and the number of vaccinations has increased a lot in the past week.. I am going to find out if there is a place to get one of those jabs and I might just get one myself, have you gotten your shot yet?
Meanwhile a Seke South Clinic in Chitungwiza is under investigation as 457 Vaccination Certificates have gone missing Street rate for buying a Covid Vaccination Certificate is at about $25 while getting the vaccine Is FREE. Why would anyone buy a vaccine card…
…Well word on the street is that the Vaccination Card is set to become a valuable currency, a passport one requires to provide and access services… Already I have seen reports on how some clinics are running out of the Vaccination Cards for those vaccinated and people are being told that one will be available by the time they get their second vaccine… why are they running out of the cards but not the vaccines?… hmmm sips coffee
If you were having coffee with I would ask how your Easter holiday has been and what the connection between Easter, Easter Bunnies and Easter Eggs is…..
~B
PS what sort of chickens to Easter Eggs hatch into….
Becoming The Muse 
Your thoughts.. if you will?