Coffee With Kufadaya
If you were having coffee with me, I would be happy to have you visit my tangle of words. Mind the subtext but do make yourself at home, tiri kufadaya..
Now you might ask, what exactly is kufadaya?
Kufadaya is a Shona slang term that gained significant popularity from late 2025, primarily within Zimbabwean social media and music circles. While its exact definition varies, based on context, it generally refers to enjoyment, partying, vibing or living freely in the moment, occasionally with reckless abandon.
If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that the word pops up in various situations.
Someone describing their weekend plans might say:
“Tiri kufadaya pa weekend.”
Translation: We are going to enjoy ourselves this weekend.
Someone asked how life is treating them might shrug and say:
“Kungofadaya hedu.”
Meaning: We’re just enjoying life… or at least pretending to.
While the word might be about the pursuit of happiness, kufara, which could be its parent verb root, it usually leans towards a certain cavalier attitude to decision making, which could be called kufarisa, meaning acting out, showing off or overdoing things, like blowing your entire salary on a night out before you pay rent, buy groceries and pay debts. Kufadaya is YOLO with a chance of hangover.
If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that I heard a group of youngsters discussing their weekend plans, justifying their planned extravagance with how we could wake up to missiles bombing us, besides cant lose sleep over a war that would not affect us… so they would fadaya.
Then we woke up not to missiles but an explosive notification that petroleum prices would be going up with immediate effect to $1.77 and $1.71 for diesel and petrol respectively. While its not spelt out in the notice, the increase is because of the rising price, due to the… lets call it geo-political tensions.
The ZERA Press Release also reveals something interesting on the nature of the government’s benevolence, see we must be grateful that they reduced their charges to cushion the consumers from the rising international prices otherwise, the price would have gone upto $1.90.
A document which is reported to show the price buildup shows some taxes and levies which can leave one marvelling at the government cushioning us from its own impositions and if it can’t cushion us better… Looking at regional and global pricing, how standardised are our petroleum prices.. how much are you paying per litre?
If you are having coffee with me, I would tell you that the government also claims that there’s 3 months of fuel reserves… and you’ll have to forgive me, history has taught me to be cautious when they try to assure us on the situation of things…
Meanwhile, the market is already responding to the fuel price increase, and then there’s those who also like to point out; how people without cars should not comment on the fuel price increases, yet it affects everyone. Fuel goes up, goods and services also go up…
Public transport operators have already hiked up their fees by 100%, a trip that used to be 50cents is now $1.
If you are having coffee with me, I would tell you how odd it is that fuel going up by a couple of cents results in a 100% increase in public transport.. I guess they learnt from the best… the government is now urging them not to make unjustified increases and seeing how they reduced levies on fuel, it’s their hope that the same spirit cascades down to our business people.
Hope, as they say, is free. As the international prices continue to rise, another price hike looks immenent hopefully not.
If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that while some spend all night vachifadaya, some hustle in the city that never sleeps. A night vendor went viral for cooking sadza in the streets. Some argued that this was now overdoing the night time vendor culture, making a mockery of city’s world class standards and the health concerns, while others called for an empathetic look at someone trying to make an honest living as best as they can, he saw an opportunity and he took it.
Some called for an equal scrutiny across all vendors, people cook and serve all sorts of street food, chips, burgers, hotdogs, but sadza is where they draw the line. Why start making a fuss over only that? Meanwhile, the mayor of Harare responded with the trademark solution to problems: a ban on night time trading…
The sadza cooker has since been apprehended on yet to be publicised charges with some well-wishers wanting to set him up in a proper business. Maybe I should also set up a small gas cooker in the middle of the CBD and blog while I cook sadza as I wait for my moment of viral fame so I too can fadaya.
What’s been happening in your neck of the woods?
~B
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