A few years ago, I worked for a private company in Johannesburg, and part of my remit was corporate social responsibility. The company’s flagship CSI project was a STEM physics and chemistry laboratory in Diep Kloof, Soweto. The laboratory was in a building owned and maintained by the City of Johannesburg. We had a lease agreement in place and paid rent for the space we utilised.
When the lease agreement was coming up for expiry, I attempted to remind the City of Johannesburg’s property agency via email and calls. It was all to no avail. I was sent from pillar to post. No single official wanted to do the simple thing of renewing the lease. I could only surmise that it was too much work. The charade would go on for another two years, at which time our company’s legal adviser just told me to let go of pursuing the inept and challenged fellows. Apparently, in law, the expired lease was still valid in the absence of formal notification of termination.
A thousand kilometres away in Dangamvura, in 2023, my brother and I tried to do something about the state of sporting facilities for the children and youth. At first, we engaged the community officer stationed at the Dangamvura Community Centre. She was energetic, engaging and keen for us to be involved. But there were processes to be followed, starting with an engagement with the director of community services based in the city’s Civic Centre. Whilst my brother was keen on the repair to the tennis court net and the donation of racquets and tennis balls, I wanted to see the library re-open so that children could have a place to read and dream.
Kate “Ms Libraries” Chambers had warned me that book donations could not be made directly to the Dangamvura Community Centre. I got the email address of the responsible people at the Mutare City Council and began on a journey where my motives were questioned. Who was I? Where did I live? Why did I want to donate books to Dangamvura Library? After all the grilling, an email (using Gmail) came through a senior official:
Your issues and concerns are noble and developmental, may l however request you to present yourself to [sic] through the office of the Director of Housing at housingmutarecity@gmail.com
The tennis racquets that my brother donated to Dangamvura Community Centre were taken to that same Mutare Civic Centre, never to return. You must admire that MDC/CCC local government administration follows the template of their Zanuoid cousins.
Expensive watches, no sense of time
Once upon a time in primary school, the Jarzin Man’s radio show at 06:45am indicated to you that you better dash off or you would be late. The teacher-on-duty and a prefect would be waiting for you at the closed gate if you were late. You could be sent back home, or your name would be taken down for “punishment”. One term, my punishment was to arrive at school at 06:30am every morning, dash to the headmaster’s office where Mr Makande would toss a 10c coin for me to run to the shops and get him The Herald.
You would think that such a kind of training would have made my people time-conscious. Nope, there is no single meeting or event in Africa that takes place on the dot. It is worse if you have some government minister or president coming to conduct the opening ceremony. If the minister pitches up at all, you are lucky.
Cancelling and postponing meetings is routine for us. We also do not reply to emails – we are now a WhatsApp people who cannot send a calendar invitation for a virtual conference. It’s generally a mess dealing with our people.
The love affair with Delta Beverages
The other day, I tried hard to think of any project that had come to fruition as a result of discussions over Babylon waters. I could not recall any, but I could remember vividly the countless times I would meet with friends over a tipple to plot a breakthrough that we all agreed was the thing that would break generational lack. Resolutions at Route 66. The Monomotapa Declaration. The Pensao Treaty. The Beer Engine Agenda.
The story of Africans being socialised into regulated alcohol drinking started in earnest with the opening of municipal beerhalls in Bulawayo (1913) and Salisbury (1915). Although they would become key sources of revenue for the city councils, the initial objective was to control the “native” in terms of “his” movements – he could drink at regulated hours and in a designated place. Our emerging African elite (teachers, nurses, clerks, journalists, lawyers and doctors) were not too happy that these places sold only “kaffir” beer (maize or sorghum-based alcohol). To show how serious our grandfathers were with their alcohol aspirations, they fought from 1924 to 1961 via the Southern Rhodesia Native Association and Bantu Voters Association to be given the right to drink “European” liquor (lagers, brandy, whisky, gin).
These ancestors would have been proud of me and my friends when, in Form 3, we opened our first bottle of Cola Cane. It would be the beginning of a decades-long affair that would derail many a plan. But as Zimbabweans, we are not ready for the conversation on alcohol and how it has destroyed our families and our aspirations.
Maybe – just maybe – one day we shall look ourselves in the mirror and become more serious. Who knows, we might begin to be punctual? We might turn up for meetings and not give traffic as an excuse. We might deliver on our promises to clients. When that happens, then maybe, this continent could become serious.
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