If you were having coffee with me, I would welcome you to my tangle of words, and ask you to feel right at home. Also, do watch out for a needle, see, I was doing a bit of sewing a little earlier and I put the needle down briefly and now I can’t find it. Fingers crossed that it won’t unilaterally decide someone’s bottom makes for a great pincushion.
I woke up today wanting to say bye to the by-elections we had over the past weekend but when I switched on my phone… the first notification I got was a news alert that Will Smith hits Chris Rock on Oscars stage… oh and a forecast for thunderstorms.
If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you I didn’t even know the Oscars were happening while I was sleeping, well, that’s because timezones and also they don’t show on our local TV. If one is lucky, one might run into the highlights… Thanks to the fiasco, I now know that the movie Dune bagged a whole lotta awards and nominations… Looking at the review I wrote for it I am like yep I called it: Dune Movie Review.
Now the only thing everyone is talking about is how Will Smith hit Chris Rock. I am still trying to figure out how much of that whole drama was scripted, and how much of that was an underlying conversation between the trio, with Will finally just thinking “OK enough!” Some people are angry at Will and understandably so with the whole violence isn’t the answer rhetoric. Some say Chris handled the situation very well, and I am here thinking that handling the situation well would have been refraining from making an insensitive joke over Jada’s hair loss.
If you were having coffee with me I would ask you if this is what they mean when they call us unfocused youth? That I sat down to bring you up to speed on my past week and the elections and instead I get side-tracked by theatrics at the Oscars. Anyway, we had By-Elections… To be honest I still don’t understand their full significance, I mean do, but do I really? Its complicated… Oh look!!! Free education next year… yay.
We do have presidential elections coming next year and the by-elections have served as a test run for how the actual elections would proceed and show where the electoral system has faults and what needs attention. The By-Elections were held in 28 National Assembly Constituencies and 122 National Wards to replace vacant elective posts which have occurred through death, retirement and recalls; with recalls making up the most number.
I never quite understood the recall business as it seemed like a pointless excess in political grandstanding which resulted in this 3,7 billlion dollar by-election which I feel was mostly unnecessary… but here we are.
If you were having coffee with me I would tell you how there is talk about the low voter turn-out for the By-Election, which is apparently the norm and it is not unique to Zimbabwe. It’s a reflection on how we need Voter Education to fight Voter Apathy. Explanations on the importance of participation in the electoral process and the significance of each step. The electoral cycle isn’t just about voting and counting the vote, it’s a continuous process.
Unfortunately for the majority, the right to vote means as much as putting your X on a piece of paper and flushing it down the toilet…. So why do it? Because if each one makes a stance, we can be the change we want to see in the world around us and in our leadership.
I had to walk quite a distance to exercise my constitutional right to vote, I don’t know why my name wasn’t at the polling station nearest to me maybe they assume we have cars?… But still I walked… On my way back, I got a lift in a lorry and as I hoisted myself into the back of the lorry, there was a ripping sound as my pants split in the middle. All the way home, I tried to maintain a measure of modesty but I might have flashed my boxers to one or two people.
Anyway, shout out to my Home Economics teacher in primary school who made the whole class learn to sew and knit… Which is how I can be here, sewing up my trousers. I wouldn’t have to jump into the back of a lorry if we had a working public transport system but at least I can sew what I rip.
It rained over the weekend, and I recalled something from our folklore, about how rain during important ceremonies and events is meant to be symbolic of blessings to come. Well as we bid bye to the by-election, I hope this all counts for something. In my area I observed them drill a borehole which is still incomplete and now that the campaigning candidate who was behind it lost the by-election, will they still be going ahead and finishing the project or…
What’s been going on in your neck of the woods… any needles we should be watching out for.
~B
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