Of Coffee With Dirty Jeans

If you were having coffee with me I would welcome you to my corner of the internet all Social Distance Protocol observed..

There’s an annoying stain on my jeans from my last foray into town, had I known I would have worn a pair with darker colour that doesn’t show up stains… Why am I making a spectacle of the stain, well, there’s a bit of a story to it..

First you probably know public transport is a bit of a challenge these days with the police on a blitz to stop pirate taxis and only vehicles registered under the ZUPCO franchise are allowed… and well obviously, those aren’t enough of those… and to just to poison the well, the ZUPCO staff have been on an industrial action citing that hadn’t been paid for two months…

Long story short I had to get into town and ended up in an interesting van with no seats, so had to just perch on the floor, and for that dubious honour ended up paying 2 Mbuya Nehanda Notes and a 20 Bond note (120) which is the going rate for 1 USD on the street although it can get higher if its electronic money. I questioned my life choices which led me to wear off-white jeans on such a quest, which explains the stain in question.

Oh yeah and as we passed the police roadblock the driver asked us to bow our heads so we wouldn’t be visible otherwise he would have to leave kaSomething with police, fortunately, we weren’t stopped… So that may or may not have worked.

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that while lockdown has been extended by another two weeks, it low key feels like its just vibes and life has kinda drifted to normal by itself. Recently the government reviewed its position on gatherings and announced that churches would soon open doors to congregants provided they were fully vaccinated…

Is there still lockdown and curfew or just vibes

— ~B 🇿🇼 (@Beatonm5) August 14, 2021

Some people were arguing how some churches and their leaders were at some point outspoken about how the vaccine was the mark of the beast and other conspiracies and now they are the ones getting the first official vaccination exemptions.. Anyhoo, so it begins, the vaccination card is fast becoming a currency, I overhead someone telling someone else they know a person who sells cards without requiring the jab….

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that I still haven’t gotten my vaccine yet but not for lack of trying the Vaccine center nearest to me is always packed and I heard someone mention how for a fee, you can get your position in the queue bumped up so you wont have to wait hours and hours in a queue only to be told they are only giving the vaccine to those on their second dose…

Speaking of standing hours and hours in queue, I saw the voter turnout in our neighbouring country Zambia which had presidential elections and results announced over the weekend, I saw a casual comment on social media about how generally Zambians are late for things but on election morning there were queues by as early as 5am at polling stations….

Zimbabwe and Zambia have a share jeans having once been part of the Rhodesian Federation I still cant get over how Cecil John Rhodes had not one but two countries named after him Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). Watching how the elections rolled out was a barometer of how things could play out in Zimbabwe as we have a highly similar circumstance. I was asking a friend in Zambia the lay of the land and well you don’t need to be political analyst to know how people felt..

It must have been a tense couple of days waiting for the results… it seems its not only our results command centre with the monopoly on making people wait for the results for hours and hours and hours only to announce a handful of numbers…

Not unexpectedly the internet in Zambia was switched off. Shutting down the internet has become a default solution in Africa, especially the throttling of social media platforms and instant messaging services. The internet service was eventually restored after a High Court ruling

I imagined the incumbent president shouting stop the count as he tried to declare they weren’t free and fair as there had been violence, while the numbers trickling in weren’t in his favour…

The final results are up and the people of Zambia have decided, Hakainde Hichilema had a landslide victory and he has already done his first address to his people laying some solid foundation to his term of office. I miss having a president whose words I can believe, but they say you cant miss what you never had…

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that I pictured how when you delete an app on your phone and the other apps in the gallery shake as they are re-arranged wondering who will be deleted next… well, I wonder if incumbent presidents across the continent are thinking if Zambia did it…

Oh fun fact did you know you could fade your jeans by rubbing coffee beans on them and then washing… its because the beans are acidic and this isn’t a chemistry class…

Whats going on in your neck of the woods?

~B