Coffee With Mudododo
If you were having coffee with me, I would welcome you to my tangle of words… feel at home, put your feet up… don’t mind the weird smell. After days without electricity, the things in the fridge have developed a culture that’s evolving into a civilisation.
Ironically, the power utility recently announced a milestone of over 300 consecutive days without scheduled power cuts, thanks to improved generation at Hwange Thermal Power Station and Kariba South Power Station. This could be the first time in more than two decades that Zimbabwe has gone through an entire winter without a single day of load-shedding.
If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that the electricity supply has definitely been better than before. I can’t prove it, but I suspect some of the load-shedding has been disguised as “scheduled routine maintenance” or “faults” to protect the statistics.
Of course, our recent outages were definitely due to a fault, hailstorm damage, and possible theft and vandalism of electrical installations. After a while, you get used to living life in emergency mode and finding laughs where you can…
That’s probably how the hit song Mudododo became a viral sensation… The song’s title, which translates roughly to “feasting on nuts”, is a metaphor for enjoying the fruits of your labour.
Mudododo are the nuts (shomwe) you get after cracking open the hard shells of indigenous fruitstones such as mapfura (marula). The word is an onomatopoeia for the action of tapping the shell open, do-do-do-do, to reveal the nut…
The song’s creator, Taruvinga Manjokota, aka Sugar Sugar, explained it primarily as a nod to our country’s rich mineral wealth and the rewards people get from an honest day’s work, to buy magunanzi while they fadaya…
As with most colloquial phrases that come and go, “mudododo” took on a life of its own, with a meaning nobody quite knows except that it’s provocative…
Sugar Sugar received a Toyota Fortuner GD-6 and cash from the late businessman Sir Wicknell Chivayo, in appreciation for music that continues to connect with Zimbabweans across generations.
Recently, Sugar Sugar was in the media over uncertainty about the gifted vehicle, after he was reportedly asked to return it on the grounds of outstanding payments. Reports suggest that at least 15 vehicles donated by the late businessman to various beneficiaries remain unpaid, though none has been repossessed as yet… they are awaiting finalisation of his estate to settle outstanding balances.
If you were having coffee with me, I would offer you some of our mudodo… you could use it in your soup like a purée, or add ice cubes and vodka to make a Bloody Mary… it’s all good.
What’s been happening in your neck of the woods?
~B
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