Prof Mas would Have Laughed at Me.

 So my father passed on in 1991. He was an amazing father. We would play football. And then watch British Wrestling on a lazy Saturday evening. On  his prized black and white television with awkward legs. 

He would also laugh at us about me getting almost bitten by the dog we had.

 He did not laugh when my little sister got bitten and we had to go to the Waterfalls clinic to save her eye. Or when my " buda ndibudewo" sister saved me from an over-enthusiastic moment with electricity.  

I got the biggest hiding of my life after that. 

And my father still sent us to Mission school. He passed away when my brother was in his teenage years and my sisters were just about to grow up into young female cdes. 

My mother had to raise us on her own. And she did a sterling job of it. As a widow. We all somehow made it to college and university with my elder brother as an anchor for the family. 

The key issue, with hindsight was always who we thought we were. We were family! Something we would never be able to wish away. 

From my own side and I cannot speak for my brother and sisters, we suffered but we continued. In Harare and in Bikita. 

Almost as though we were living our father's legacy. 

But reality always hits you in the face. Hard. As we have grown older there are things that we now know. For example it is apparent that things have changed. For many cdes money matters. In its immediacy and importance. 

Or that lifestyle expectations matter. In the long term.  Even in false consciousness.

I have also argued with cdes that age is not an ideology.  It also turns out that it can be a reality. A reality that is both existential as well as falsely ideological.  

Wherein we live life as preferred by what we find popular or we suffer pain in order to get to a happy place. And then repeat the cycle. 

In my current intellectual space I had to re-read the much maligned Dambudzo Marechera. Including rethinking what he meant in an acerbic tones "My name is not Money but Mind"

 I half laughed at this comment when I was at the national archives in Harare and assiduosly listened to his interviews. (I was doing an undergraduate research dissertation at the University of Zimbabwe at that time under Prof Masipula Sithole)

And until we had that moment when Prof Masipula asked me to come to town for a beer from Dzivaresekwa where he bought only one of the same at the now closed Pointe restaurant. (Hanzi mwanangu ndati huya ndikuitere hwani)

So ProfMas in his jocular fashion said let us us drink at home. We went to Borrowdale and almost drank the night away. We argued a bit about  who was better Thomas Mapfumo or Oliver Mutukudzi. We could not agree. Because the two musical icons had the "Bvuma" and "Marimanzara" hit songs.

Prof Mas as we called him loved Tuku more than Mukanya's music. It was our perennial bone of contention. Tuku or Mukanya? I am a Mukanya afficionado. 

Unfortunately Prof Mas  passed on later soon after.

 And if you are curious crosscheck the years the albums/music was released. 

What I have realised though is that we have to be more organic about our political and economic thoughts. Our intrinsic  national values and principles.

We can longer afford to be abstract. We have to think through our being. Especially if you consider yourself a Zimbabwean.  

Zimbabwe needs a newer belief and principles, in order to continue the struggle for a progressive future. 

To that extent we should work on learning  not to  panic. 

We fought a liberation struggle. But we must look for a better future. 

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity