Becoming The Muse

Coffee With Watermelon

If you were having coffee with me, I’d welcome you to my tangle of words and ask how you’ve been. Not just the polite “how are you” that’s often met with a reflexive “I’m fine,” but the genuine kind—the one that invites a pause, a sip, and maybe even a bit of reflection, as we ponder on watermelons.

I don’t know about you, but I find watermelons to be overrated—not to mention overpriced, depending on where you get them. Growing up, when we visited the grandparents in the countryside, the routine included spending time in the fields, especially during the rainy season, planting and weeding. Watermelons, were the on-the-go snack and refreshment.

I never did like the watermelon seeds, which I felt ruined the whole experience. Do you chew the seeds or spit them out? I find a certain appeal in seedless watermelons, but then I worry about genetically modified foods and all the mutations they could be doing to us. Sometimes, I think about a movie premise equating global warming to the Earth having a fever and humans being the virus—so the planet is trying to purge us. *Cue dramatic music.*

Anyway, watermelons. I find it ironic how the healthiest part of the watermelon is the least tasty bit, which tastes like the best part of a cucumber. Did you know the rinds contain citrulline, an amino acid that may help with blood flow, muscle building, and exercise performance? Those who can read between the lines might see how watermelons are hyped up as nature’s little blue pill.

If you were having coffee with me, I’d tell you that, at the risk of having my bro-code card revoked, it’s frightfully easy to get a man to do something if you tell him it’s good for his… prowess, from eating cow feet to chugging herbal tonics, eating snails and finishing their greens.

Is it just me, or does nature have a weird sense of humour, where the foods that are healthy, usually have… an acquired taste? The things that are no good for us, are what we crave for, Forbidden Fruit—it’s almost like nature is testing our resolve.

So, it’s January, and if you’re on a hand-to-mouth budget like some of us, you might relate to how unplanned expenditures during the festive season make this month feel like a never ending Monday. We’re suddenly pretending to love and embrace more affordable foods, because of the price tags rather than the actual health benefits.

If you were having coffee with me, I’d also tell you that this January, it’s not just consumers feeling the pinch. Formal businesses are posting notices about scaling down operations or downsizing.

Meanwhile, over the weekend, the president hosted parliamentarians and other people of interest at his Precabe Farm. Ostensibly, the gathering was to showcase the farm’s agricultural innovations while promoting unity across political divides and fostering collaboration for national development. The president called on legislators to demonstrate political maturity and focus on initiatives benefiting all Zimbabweans.

People on the street view opposition party members who attended the gathering as having betrayed the people’s trust. The controversial leader of the opposition party has made remarks about agreeing to postpone the next harmonised elections from 2028 to 2030 to allow developmental projects initiated by the president to flourish. The day following the Precabe Farm gathering, state media headlines proclaimed that lawmakers were also endorsing the term extension.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that while the president is on record saying he will not seek a third term, as a listening president, if his people wish for him to extend his term, who is he to deny the will of the people, right? An interviewer once asked our late former president when he was going to bid farewell the people of Zimbabwe. To which he replied, “Where are they going?”

Where were we going again? Ah yes, watermelons. An interesting elemelon, that, also where are the other elemelons, you know the earthmelons, firemelons and airmelons which when they all combine bring forth Captain Elemelon who fixes everything wrong with the world.

Another slice of watermelon? Whats been happening in your neck of the woods?

~B