Kunzima Boss

life lessons from the eyes of a young, full of life idiot who had to learn to deal with his actions

Prelude to my swan song
i am a man born of dust, i stand before you not in sorrow but in acceptance that from whence I came from I shall return. Over the years I have grown to realize that life has a funny way of teaching us that out there Kunzima, izinto zinzima, tshomi, you will be thinking it’s a piece of cake but oh no the man upstairs is like “my child you have a lot to learn” as I say this I am wondering if God sometimes speaks like Master Yoda just for amusement with the Angels up ( don’t worry that a little star wars joke) any way I digress, you see life has a way of just changing up on us when we either least expect it or when we expect in the sense that everything happens whether we want it to or we don’t. In my entire life I have learnt that the greatest gift I have received from the guy above is being either a fucken idiot or I am just some weird guy with one of those unique sense of humor. Seriously sit down with me for five minutes I will either leave you in stitches or you will be thinking wow what an idiot ( self deprecation I know) but that is the most honest truth I have told myself the day I realized everything can be s****y and how you react to that scenario that’s how you get modeled into someone or rather something that is if you are a Zanuist in modern day Zimbabwe ( side note its 2019 that I am releasing this biography and eish my country Zimbabwe is being ran by Zanu and things are hard right now imagine buying bread for $3.50 and originally it was 90cents like seriously how does make a country a s**t hole in mere months of assuming the role of president ( side note in a side note I am not saying anything I am being an idiot about Zimbabwe) like inflation is high we don’t have a working economy or currency for that matter) the reason I referred to Zanuist as something is because of the torture we are going through right now its in-human hence the something. But anyway back to my earlier ramblings about things happening whether we want them to or not, you see 20 years ago I lived in a neighborhood were it was kinda like survive today to fight for tomorrow, I grew up in Shurugwi the small mining town 32 km east of Gweru I think or maybe its south in don’t much about coordinates but to Shurugwi was kinda like my small little weird town where as I said you had to survive today in order to fight tomorrow. This small town was an oasis for the young kids growing up in the sense that we had so many places to go and play at the violence around us we knew about it but as long as you were a kid it didn’t affect you it affected you parents and eldest siblings if they didn’t Get out of the place ( picture the movie Get out as a certain life of the adults , you see instead of the white society brain washing the black society it was the black society brain washing its own common residents via the violence), back to us the kids we were not brain washed we would go this posh neighborhood for just one thing, “ the Roads”. Basically this place had the streets ideal for bike races and stunts and growing up these streets made us think we were the famous Hard Castles and MacComic you know the Knight-Rider, for a squad we where the A-team we kicked a*s as we rode our bicycles and let our imagination run wild.

WELCOME TO MY JOURNEY
• You reap what you sow: actions have consequences
• I am black and I work hard: working hard
• Down goes Foreman: finish what you start
• I did not cry: dealing with grief
• 1 in every 4: learning to move on
• Call me Papa: of leadership amongst your peers






You reap what you sow: actions have consequences
(The castor oil and guava nuclear weapon)

So in Shurugwi we lived in this area called Sebanga Park 2 ( I know you just tried to reason with yourself as to what that word is and believe you me when I say 14 years I lived there I never got to actually pronounce the word correctly because in shona its Se-banga translated to english it would literally be Like a Knife, while on the other hand it was a community full of people of Malawian descent so their pronunciation was somewhat not so shona like) , so anyway this small community of ours had a mix of people and classes. One marvelous thing about it was the fact that it didn’t matter who your family was or how much your parents made or where you went to school you see as kids we didn’t judge each other about that we just hung together and played together. I liked it that way because amongst some of my friends I was well off , not the we are rich well off but the we can afford a tv console for epic Nintendo show downs ( yes I was the corner house kid all though our house was two yards away from the corner and the first extended house in the neighborhood). At that time I was the last born in the family of three boys and being the youngest I got preferential treatment which sought of hide the fact that I was king of the hand me downs ( basically in most African families the youngest sibling often gets new clothes once a year on Christmas day through out the year hand me downs were my daily bread and the clothes came in bunches). It wasn’t always about clothes it was about everything, even toys and the then supposed gadgets that is the gaming console we had that stuff I got it all by default of being the last born in the family and that in a way made everything seem so well up for our household I had 3 different types of bicycles a blue Perry bike , a red Cornelia bike and a green BMX. I was like Ginimbi rich in-terms of owning bicycles because I had a bike for any bike session we would have with my friends and to top it off I had my own bike mechanics who in their quest to get rid of me from the Nintendo would keep them well serviced, so practically 8 year old me was the boy of the street (hmm or maybe man of the street).
On weekends me and my two best friends we would hop onto our station wagons as we called them and we would speed of to find TROUBLE, ( I wont sugar coat anything we were trouble like real trouble , not the we will fight or bully other kids no sir , we were the lets go and get into some dumb s**t trouble). One time me and my mates we went to this farm house and we stole guavas now mind you these were the back in the day s**t that would have you crying as you would try to poop the s**t out of you because the fruit seeds would be ripping up your anus, so here we are we busy stealing these delicious fruits and little did I know that I am stealing at a relatives farm and my parents were actually at the place visiting. Now my mum saw me and she decided not say much but wait for the confrontation at home, mind you I am a kid and knowing when enough is enough that is something kids are not familiar with so we ate a lot of the fruit and after having our belly full we went back to the neighborhood, just as we got there everything was all ok parents not yet back from their visit and elder siblings went around at the time so home was quite and for me that meant more playing time and that was the greatest moment one could wish for, but already as someone who is stupid I took it as an opportunity to make my self some form of mischief lunch that consisted of powdered milk mixed with peanut butter and sugar (do not try making it I repeat this biography does not support or condone such behavior). So here I am making a stomach bomb while already filled with my reckoning, I had my Spora as we called the mixture and in so doing one is required to take in lots of water (mistake number 3), soon afterwards I left and went into the streets to play and that’s when s**t began to happen, first parents came back home mum wasn’t so much pleased with my little adventure and there is a certain mess one creates when being mischievous while home alone and I left a trail that led to me to top it off I got the opportunity to confess but I didn’t take it (mistake number 4 ladies and gentleman). African parents hate being taken for fools I learnt it the hard way, my mum being a devious and intelligent person played her cards right and she got me, how she did it was so shrewd, like literally she asked what I had been up to and I didn’t snitch on myself (rule number one in a family of boys you do not snitch otherwise you will be ghosted by your own siblings), so here I am making some concocted lie about what I have been up to ( mistake number 5) and like any parent she actually showed signs of believing my story and for a minute I thought I was in the clear and then (cue up the surprise twist music you know the dznadznadzna dzna {if it were an audio book you would know the music I mean}). My stomach groveled a bit and like any attentive mother she was quick to ask if everything was ok ( and so the trap was starting rolled into action,) Yes I am ok I responded and a second low peached grovel went off again and she got up, “umm nyon’o yako yatanga” she said nyon’o is acid reflex in shona by the way. My mom knows her medicines by the way so for such issues she would go to he cabinet and get her stuff and pamper you with love and in this case she came back with a table spoon with some liquid unbeknown to me ( CASTOR OIL) I took up the s**t and like we all know the awful medicine is the best ( wrong!!!!!) within seconds my tummy was a volcano about to explode and at the same time my concoction of milk , sugar, peanut butter and guavas was about to be released now I have to take a s**t and at the same time if I try to s**t the guava seeds will rip my anus. The worst night of my life I tell you imagine an 8 year old that wants to s**t and doesn’t want to s**t at the same time ( insert I am peeing my pants as I laugh emoji). Here I am stuck on the toilet muffling my pain while shitting, at that moment I realized why most people on a curry and chili diet don’t have a steady stool. I left the toilet un-inhabitable and also to top it off mum was waiting by the kitchen to ask if I had something to share and well I broke down but what made it worse she had told everyone my story.
That incident changed me though, at that moment I was on the toilet seat I asked my self as to why I stole those guavas and it dawned on me that it was harmless fun at the moment but for every action we take there is a consequence and we have to reap what we sow…. (that what I realized when I began writing this journey , at the time honestly I wasn’t thinking I was just worried I was going to rip my anus off, besides I was already planning on the next day’s mischief mayhem). Hey I was a kid back them and trouble was all we knew back then so this minor misadventure sought of drove me to finding out about Kwa Randsberg…….



I am black and I work hard: working hard
(KwaRandsburg netara)
So this was after my nuclear weapon incident, (the simple pecks of being a kid is you get to do stupid things soon after you have suffered through the consequences of your previous ordeal), after my rear explosion i decided maybe it was in my best interest to stop hanging out near the farms because shitting again like i am about to tear something in me was not ideal for an 8 year old, so i decided maybe i was better off doing mischief somewhere else were i wouldn't practically hurt myself and thus the journey to the posh neighborhood of "Kwa Randsberg", now don't let the name distract you ndokwacho kuma yard , big yards, big houses tarmac was in place and for the ghetto youths going there for us was just to see how the other quarter of our small town lived and from where we were coming from this was the it life living here (again i swear God was like" ahh grasshopper you still have a lot to learn wait till you get older"). So as usual the station wagons got us to the suburbs and in no time we were making a racket while on our bicycles speeding up the streets stopping here and there just to take a peek into one or two yards and steal the fruit hanging on the trees from the outside (as i write this i would like to point out that we didn't consider it stealing, hey we were kids and sometimes taking things without permission is kinda like our forte' , now i know we were stealing because i am all grown up) but don't judge me hey we have all done things we are definitely not proud of (yes i know you because we have been at that age were we thought a little wouldn't be bad) anyway as i was saying we were illegal fruit pickers in the suburbs (sounds poshy i know instead of calling us thieves that's vile and far fetching), we would relieve tress of their stresses from the hanging fruit, now the problem was we would have our fill right in front of the house we just invaded now that is both gutsy and stupid, our mischief it would irritate the owners of the houses and they would set their dogs on us given the whole bicycle issue we would scuttle of in all directions hoping the dogs would be confused and let us be. On a rector scale our plan worked maybe once in every five attempts, to us this was actually a game that we thought we had invented through our mischief, but in honest truth we never considered it as some form of racism ( hear me out before your brains hyper-activate you see this neighborhood was mainly white folks and colored's and our marry band of miscreant pillagers only picked fruit on white owned and colored owned house's, black owned house's we never touched anything) i think subconsciously we were already programed to believe that they the other people of not black like us pretty much had more than enough so it was right for us to take their stuff (wow i think i have struck the woke moment button , because as i write this i am seeing how racist as kids we were at that point) ....
SIDE NOTE i am not a racist i love people of all colors, with their different ethnic diversities, vibes and beliefs ( as you continue reading this you will see my point)
In our stupidity we actually took from people we considered not African in the sense that why would a white man or a colored put juju or hex a black-man ( i know doesn't make sense right) but being a ghetto youth we were of the notion that the blacks in the posh suburb had made it there through juju and hexing people and thus my RACISM ; i know right now you are saying its not possible for some one to be a racist to someone of their own color and believe me when I say ; as a kid i never knew what racism was but there and then i am pointing out that the fact we picked fruits from the house of people not black and believed that the blacks in the neighborhood were full of juju and hex' s means i was racially profiling a hard working black family as witches and warlocks (pretty much sounds like black on black racism and yeah i am not proud about it, i was a dick please no-more condescending judgment {insert puppy eyes emoji}). So yeah as I am think about our pillaging adventures to the suburb i am realizing how as a kid some of these small incidents never meant anything at that time but now are actually revelations to how we see things in life. Every-time when i hear kids pointing out something towards the next black-man i always try to make it a point for them to consider the fact that hard work can actually pay (i am saying it can actually pay because well there are cases of it not paying though like seriously you know someone who has been bursting their asses off but still things ain't looking up well for them I am that unlucky b*****d but i still face everyday as it is without a doubt that some day it will pay off, but then there again there are those other guys who don't have to put in any hard work and their lives pretty much work themselves out like that guy in 2007 from America who won the Lotto not once but thrice). Anyway back to what I was saying we only made sure we subconsciously ethnically degraded our selves.
So yes there it was we would always take from the houses belonging to other ethnicities on the pretext that you would not attract karma upon our dusty, cracked bottoms. Sometimes we would pillage the house and the moment a random black African would appear we would drop our plunder and scurry off giggling and shouting, this pure innocence blinded us to the fact that in our black communities we have been raised on the ideology that a successful black family or person within it or outside the community is a family or person who used black magic to attain such a status of success and therefore we should never ever trust them. Its like once we witness that success a person might accumulate in their life time we inherently make up our minds that they got they success and wealth through underhand dealings like stealing, black magic corruption and so forth (technically probably in a certain country X which is Zimbabwe corruption is like part of our culture: side note you reading this might have pretty much been part of a corruption ring to acquire the book , please by the book support my hard work). So if I may say so we are all raised with that belief that success is not attainable through hard work. To be honest its some people whether they are black, white, asians or any skin tone or race, work hard like literally and figuratively they work hard.
I remember one house in this posh neighborhood of Iron kopjie (this was like the other side of were I grew like Sebanga Park was smack dab in the middle of these two neighborhoods), so anyway back to that house, I am fortunate to say I saw the birth of that house no like seriously believe when I say the birth of a house ( you see the owner of the house I know him, he was in his late teens when I first met him and he used to sit by our school gate selling candies and chips he would also do odd jobs along the way and he developed that school business to a market stall then graduating to push and pull cart store, graduating into small indoor renting space and then into renting a full shop; stop me if you have heard this before but the guy actually bought a stand and built an impressive house and the last time I checked he has expanded his business venture. That right there is hard work paying off ladies and gentleman, obviously along the way as he was on his come up someone out there saw him and just assumed that he had done some black magic hullabaloo (I can not tell you his name because surely I don’t know if this book will be a hit or not because with the way things are hard I can not allow myself to be sued for slander I can not afford it, like seriously people if there was a term beyond being broke that is me; hence me trying to sell you my life lessons which actually have made more meaning to me now more than before)
……but seriously God I was too young to get the lesson at that time why try and teach me about working hard when I still considered the solid mucus mound in my nose was a delicacy, baffling I know but honestly that my take away from this God teaching me lessons I am too young to understand. Please don’t be alarmed I am not in anyway slandering the man above but I am actually in awe that from a very young age we get lessons worth learning and all it takes is what we choose to follow, but the mantra of working hard is a virtue we should automatically teach ourselves and our children because hard work does pay off its only up-to us to either believe in our efforts to better ourselves or not to but it does pay and some people have worked their asses off, slandering them and claiming that its all black magic, stealing or corruption shouldn’t be for us…….










Down goes Foreman: finish what you start
(rohwa tiende)
Lets take a rewind to one lesson I had the opportunity of mastering when I was little, and trust me this rewind is actually worth it. Word of advice though you might want to skip this part if you are not fond of finishing anything you start, like the rest of them be a quitter(please don’t quit on me i’m just being an idiot)

The year was 1995-96 there and I was in kindergarten at the newly opened GTC Big Minds little feet pre-school run by the sister of the former first lady of Zimbabwe lady Gucci Gaga (you see I have had the opportunity to mingle with emphasis on “SEMI INFLUENTIAL” people, yes I know you are wondering who this sister is and yep that is the one you know off , the one who was someone’s wife and then was given off to that other guy the son who took over as President when his father passed on in that other country, and yes I cant use names I don’t have any assured protection, they might come for me…) To think of it I actually don’t recall seeing her at the kindergarten but believe you me when I say we were beneficiaries of a lot (wait so if I die to day is it safe to say” ndakadya nemusangano” {loosely translated I benefited from the not so popular party} which initially means I am a sell out but problem is a sell out to who though), anyway sorry for being side tracked there its just now a-days having ties with the not so popular party feels like a betrayal to the moral ethics and fibers of being a decent human being but on the other hand being involved with the party, is highly beneficial in the sense that you get to get rich quick at the expense of your soul and the next human( hmmm that is some moral dilemma, but hey a brother man has to eat right). So back to our rewind you see I was at this seven to four thirty institution literally playing whole fay and having meal breaks and naps, as a kid those were the best parts and ohh the Thursday movie afternoons, we would watch movies like heck hence the elements of unbridle baby violence(not my diagnosis but its from a couple of study materials I have had the opportunity to read). So I was enrolled at this great place due to a couple of factors, too naughty for the maid and mum was employed at this school in Shurugwi and at this point we stayed in Gweru Senga area 2 (as I think the number 2 was a constant in my formative years) anyway so in-order for her heart to be okay I had to have somewhere were I would spend most of my free ample time doing something not so dangerous, and yeah I am the result of a hard working single mother (that’s why I admire single mothers, those people are strong, like being a father and a mother to the kids worse off if they were three boys its hard. I know because I was one of the boys, and trust me raising us was a nightmare because we were just boys), so during the week when mum was away at work I was at the pre-school doing anything possible to enjoy life.
Like I said we watched movies on Thursday’s at the kindergarten and boy did we watch them all from the classic 101 Dalmatians, to Cat-dog and in some cases we watched the Eraser that Arnold (don’t wait for the surname I don’t know how to spell it) yeah and even Mission impossible with Tom Cruise not that eighties series (yeah its there starring Sir Roger Moore), like I said before we were small kids and well we are easily impressionable at that age (fun-fact a kids path is chosen for them by what they are exposed to). Lets just say most of the movies we watched were a little bit violent though that did not deter us from watching those movies here and there, anyway these movies sought of had well boys my age wilding out well for the girls we thought being macho would get there attention , well I was more of the mischief kind not the I love girls and I am macho kind, but rather the less some of my compatriots were macho-ish and rather doing their macho stuff in front of the girls and woo their girls they didn’t, they would props for their rubbish stunts (as I think about it I have some sentiments of maybe going back in time and teaching younger me a couple of dirty moves for fighting, yes I said it and I am not taking it back), because of my mischief I kinda had it in with the girls and well that didn’t sit well with my worst nightmare at pre-school. Enter Dummy (I hope you get it , I referenced Enter the Dragon the Bruce Lee movie from 1982, and yes we saw it half way through at our pre-school), this guy was a badass no like literally he was a badass, coming from a not so functional home(details later). Yes people I had my own personal bully , slightly bigger than me and yes a month older than me, and physically my nightmare though I was faster than him and a little good with my word, (mind you when you are short and small as I was back in the day you kinda have to be very legible with your insults and words and being the youngest in a family of boys you kinda develop the ability to use words and insults to fight cause lets face it, how can stand up to someone not in your weight class and someone with long arms). For me words and insults were my go to defense mechanisms and that was my way out I would fast talk someone into initially giving up on whooping my a*s, 96% of the time it worked 3% someone would intervene and there remaining 1% well lets just say African mothers don’t care if you are in the middle of a seizure or not they will still whoop your a*s afterwards get you your medication and give it to you like nothing happened. So for me being a victim of bullying well it started with this one little girl her name is now lost to me but her face not so much, she had one of those face you could literally tell that in her growth she would one day be beautiful, (as I write this I know my partner will probably kill me,
“dear honey its all in the past, don’t read anything into it “ ).
Back to my story this little girl, was not much of a talker but she really enjoyed my company and mischief and unknown to me my tormentor was head over heels in love or maybe it was some puppy love kinda thingy all I know is our dear bully had a mushy spot in his carcass for this girl and every time near her he would be some type idiot and given the fact this guy was all brawn and no brains he became Igor ( yes from the Hunchback of Norte Dame). Now people understand me when I say this I have no ill-fate or hatred for the guy, I actually have a soft spot for the guy and yes I am not showing any classic sign of sympathizing with my oppressor/ offender, just that this guy had it not so good like some of us well for starters , his parents were in the middle of a separation and his dead was this ill tempered karate enthusiast who was a drunk and his mother having been a victim of some of the father’s out-burst decided to pack her bags and leave ( but technically its not leaving if you go away and come back again lets say maybe you haven’t given up {as I say this I know you are already judging me but hear me out if you are in an abusive relationship stay or going back wont stop the abuse so ship-out while you can because one day we will wear black and try to exploit your death shouting slogans and chants celebrating you in your death and not while you were alive and to top it off we will lie in your name making up stories and memories, you know what just wait for the day you will die and witness how people can be fake at times}). One thing please don’t expect me to lie on your wake I will not lie, in-fact don’t expect me to be nice to people and pretend that everything is okay like seriously I prefer celebrating you now while you are alive so lets meet up and drink today, f**k what people might say, lets do it while you can and not while you six feet under. I digress back to my tormentor the guy had it pretty tough, so he pretty much hated us his recipients of his kicks and fists, and to make matters worse unknown to me I was the guy who stole his first love (like seriously picture 4 year old me emphasis on ME in love triangle, worst part about anything is I didn’t know I had a full relationship), and I was a small skinny dwarf with a typing mouth but no hands. I will not go for your pity on this one but I was literally a recipient of any kind of beating and torment he could imagine of, one time he had me in this chock hold and because of his statue I couldn’t shake free just because I kinda technically, sort of implied that he had my sandwich which in all terms of fairness was mine but I had opted to give him since he was hungry and I wasn’t feeling the urge to eat since I had been kindly asked to give it to him because he simply wanted my sandwich, cut to certain specifications with the right amount of bread and condiments concentrate to the last bite. Don’t worry about me my point is he was that type of guy who simply enjoyed torturing us and by us I mean the other skinny kids not named Tanatswa Michele (yes I remember her name but felt lazy to go back and change the part of forgetting her like people do you know how hard it is writing a book I wonder how authors like Dan Brown , Sydney Sheldon and those other ones do it book after book, its hard and tiresome, don’t get me started about countless nights of writers block tjo Kunzima BoSs). You see Dummy (like seriously that was his actual nickname his name was Tapiwa), so as I was stating Dummy saw me as a rival to Tanatswa’s small hugs and heart which I am pretty sure were not Xoxoxo face it we were kids. My daily schedule would be temporary silence and papers and crayons followed by a toy square-off and an afternoon nap torture, people I am serious obviously it wasn’t day and day out but yes I remember the months I had this type of schedule until one day I thought it wise to finally stand my ground.
“Let try and paint a picture of my real story here”
Like any normal day at kindergarten it would start off with us in class me being a jack a*s but a very tentative one, we are in the middle of coloring and I thought it wise to give my haphazard painting to Tanatswa (cute right, well jokes on you we were supposed to paint one picture as a group you had to pass on to the next person and it so happened that our female protagonist in an OFF off off off small kids broadway show Helpless and Hapless romantics Tanatswa was the one next to me and in the eyes of lead male character 2 Sir Dummy of Bully-vile that was a scene of besmirching the name of his house (damn Game of thrones is officially over I wonder which next fantasy world am I going to loose myself into next?). At break time he came up to me and as usual he started the usual round of shenanigans first was a war of words boom he didn’t know what hit him (you know that voice that usually tells you to stop yeah I kinda don’t have that so sometimes when the crowd is riding you up you kinda forget that you might get soaked dead in the face) (PLEASE PUT A DENT INTO THAT) I rode the momentum and in the immortal words of Riley Freeman from Boondocks season 1 episode name “Granddad’s fight” I was soaked straight stupid (I can neither deny nor confirm that prior to endorsing Boondocks I had been offered a substantiative amount of money as an advertising gimmick), anyway long story short I got knocked the f**k out all the left for the scenery was just Smokey from Friday telling T-Bo he just got knocked the f**k out (seriously though I am again not endorsing Friday the movie by Ice Cube)(remember I am trying to paint you a picture of my real story), so as I was saying I got knocked out and fee seconds later came around in the prep sick bed. Fast forward home time I have a bandaged nose I met my tormentor whilst in my brother’s care and well got my a*s whooped and the d-bag had the nerve to tell me “ Rohwa Tiende” , like really dude you just going to let me get my a*s handed to me, wow brother of the year award to you my guy……….
Remember that dent I talked about earlier, now Let me explain something here you see what happened is I loudmouthed a bully and as the momentum from the crowd I walked straight into a swing in motion straight into the bridge of the nose and if your are wondering I have the scar to prove it check the back of the book, anyway I got knocked out and went to the pre-school’s sick bed woke up late slept the whole day and work up on home time went home (forgot I had loudmouthed a bully) and as I got out of the school bus my fate was waiting) got knocked out in front my elder brother and he said “ROHWA TIENDE” and yah pretty much realized that when they say “If you start something just be prepared to finish it” and in my case I did not by all means manage to finish it I was given or rather I was handed my a*s to me wrapped in a bow-tie. Ladies and gentleman please not this is not a figment of my imagination “Ndakarohwa shem”, and yah basically that is it, moral of the story is in life kids do know how to fight and most of all just make sure you finish what you start”….. ohh by the way Dummy wasn’t from a bad home i told you that because justifying violence as the cause of how some kids behave is so out dated basically some kids are just in need of help they just enjoy making other people suffer look at Lamilton from Boondocks season 2 episode named “Smoking with Cigarets”…, he was some big useless twerp who bullied me but because I couldn’t tell anyone he managed to beat me, and well figure if I ever was to be a brother I would look out for my little one , this lead me to another journey that I believe molded me…..











I didn’t cry :Dealing with grief
(Varikungomuka vachichema)
People can never be the same, how A responds to B’s story will never be C’s same reaction. No like seriously our genetic coding is not the same, how we handle news, pains and so forth is not how our next door neighbor is going to handle their reaction. For some different like me I process guilt, happiness, joy, anger and some feelings quite differently but honestly pain I am sure I pretty much handle it just like the rest of you

So in 2000 my mum gave birth to a baby girl Princess Choice, ( by the way mum remarried when I was in grade 3 guy was okay with me, you know the whole step-relationship dynamics the step parent even hella cool ain’t no friend to the kid so sometimes even when one is not so flawed and accepts their partners baggage he should be cool and alright, but well poor chap was ok with us but not alright) so well mum gave birth to a baby sis and all seemed pretty cool, you see we was a small neat family two working adults 3 boys of at school non much was a big deal or a big fuss. My mum at least now had a girl and she had someone, you see having an all male household is kinda frustrating for a woman, basically in her case she was taking care of 3 children and one oversized goof ball who at the same time was cool with us. We never crossed path that much with the fellow, us being is we stuck to our own vices and he to his so maybe that is why we didn’t link up that much. Anyway so mum gave birth to a girl in the April of 2000 ( which should be the autumn season this is cause as far as I can remember Africa we are not much into seasons , like basically its either you are in summer or in winter and the other two they are just some random phases between summer and winter. My baby sister was the fourth child and that made us six or rather made them three (I know I should say much about it but they were three now we were those other lucky b******s) my point is there was a new member in the family and I wasn’t the last born but I was still the king of hand me downs because of the whole gender dynamics, this meant that I now had a responsibility (when I say responsibility I mean I now had an excuse not to do chores, go to the mini garden outside the yard no like literally a small 10 by 10 meters, so instead of doing much I would stay in the house watching over little Princess.
You see Princess Choice was in my life for a short period of time but during that she was around in my life she pretty much stole made me see the world in a different light. You see the little one was so small and delicate but she pretty much had me caught in her little web of suckers, just her noise and her giggles could get an adult smiling and laughing,(you know how adults can be around kids well Choice had that effect on essentially everyone and that sought of made her everyone’s munchkin but to me she was my excuse(trust me when I say our bond would have been dipper).
Side-note there is no such thing as saying to early or too late when it comes to sharing a humorous incident that may involve something that is bad or grief induced, so basically I am saying in my defense I am dealing with pain my own way……
I remember one early weekend morning I was up for those Saturday morning cartoons, likes Conan the Barbarian, G.I Joe extreme and my personal favorite Nudnik, so I was up watching my weekend shot of entertainment when she was placed under my care and that meant bottled milk and some cerelac that infant cereal (as I say this I am tempted to go out and purchase a box for memory’s sake but eish, its way expensive right now) so as to what I was sharing I was feeding her the food when I felt an urge to taste her cerelac. THIS IS A DISCLAIMER: I was not forced nor coerced to talk about cerelac but dear reader any one who was around bak in the day would tell you that all it needed then was some luke warm water and you would have a foodgarsim (it’s a made up word), believe your imaginative pallets as I try and describe the goodness of this baby’s cereal, as it enters your mouth there would be that sensation of the Everyday milk brand and then the sweetness of brown sugar from the old Red-star brand and finally a crushed wheat flavored starch mix that would fill you up gradually and not instant. For a baby’s meal having it as a grown little person was the ultimate conquest victory. Every time when the little one was in my care I knew it was worth it because I would have some of her Nestle’ celerac. In a way this sought of made me cherish her more (no wonder why I felt a pang in my heart, no like put a needle in this thought you will understand why I felt a pang when she left us). You see the time we spent together I got so fond of her to the extent of not knowing that the actual poop machine had displaced me on the thrown of owning the whole house’ empathy.
In the fall of the year of her birth she reacted to one of those vaccine injections and developed a small rash, medical attention was sought but unfortunately she would pass on into her next life ( as I tell you this my heart aches not because a life was lost but because she never got to have a life after all, she died not even knowing that she had an idiot brother who has one problem of caring for everyone even those who stab him day after day) I digress but in her passing on I thought I was going to feel pain for the first time but in all honesty I didn’t feel any pain, bluntly putting it I lost my biological father when I was just but an infant and pretty much I didn’t feel or know anything at that time but I have a faint recollection of the day he died and as took his last breath I saw something “I saw the glow of his skin fade away”, I still remember my mother whisking me away into the arms of her sister and everything going black ( I still have dreams of my fathers last minutes and for some who did not fall sick to just complain of a headache and pass away I should have felt something but then again I was two people and I didn’t know it then) . In comparison to my sisters death i was not present at the hospital and I remember some aunties coming back home grief in their eyes and I remember them trying to be strong for us and trying not to tell us that Princess Choice had lost her battle, the hard part for them was us the boys, well to be exact my eldest brother is very blunt, literally the guy has no filters about reality he simple told me and my other brother that she had died and because I was somewhat inquisitive I blubber mouthed it and there and then an aunt howled ( there is something about ugly crying though, I don’t know why but in all honest when someone ugly cries why do they have to so loud like seriously people crying is not a competition).
So yes a funeral wake was held for my little sister relatives from both families came, it was a first seeing some and also a last seeing some other relatives. Church members also came, now please remember this is an africana funeral and not to be culturally insensitive or racial profiling anyone but most black people can defend me when I say some people are just toxic entities at a funeral. I remember the faces but not their names and amongst them was a relative and some church mates were hauled up in the kitchen gossiping about my mother, what appalled me the most was that they had the audacity to mock a grieving woman who had lost her only and first daughter (give the woman a break she will never get the joy of having to be asked how many cattle she would want as a token of appreciation when her daughter was to be married off). I accidentally bumped into the gossiping quartette and heard their conversation, now because I could comprehend what they were saying I felt the disgust and had a rush of emotions that flooded me, I cried but not because I had lost someone but because I felt my mother’s pain, and here stands someone mocking her without and pinch of guilt in them.
My pain was more on the notion that I was young and I could not engage into a fight with them and neither could I reprimand them, out of their guilt they pretended to comfort me as they noticed me but because I had heard them consoling me was actually a waste of time for I that moment I bluntly told them that it would be better they left our house and not pretend to grieve with my family, ( actually this got me thinking, I would rather when I died only my immediate family should be present in sending me away, because I am pretty sure my spirit will be present monitoring how my wake is being handled so If I am to encounter the gossipers I will haunt them…. Ps I am an African and voodoo is our past time so its possible , but then again I don’t think people will mourn me, for I do not want to be mourned I actually want to be celebrated). So for the gossiping quartette in their shame they vanished into the gathered crowd never to be a sore for my unbridled and tearless eyes.
This is only the second time telling this to the outside world and what pains me the most is that in both occasions I never got to grieve because I never fully understood what was happening in both incidents. As I got older I started to question whether if I was normal at all and frankly speaking I have to say yes I am normal and I can actually grieve. Hear me out, not a single day passes on without me thinking what would have been my life like if my father was alive or if she was also alive (slight probability I would be an accountant though and not this hopeful dreamer who wishes to tell you their story comically and definitely I am sure I should have at least been so over protective on my sister ), I am only grieving now because I am older and also because I have had time to process that I don’t know where they are or if they even know each other or if they still remember me. Yes it goes both ways also when people pass on wherever they are I am pretty sure they also wonder if we the living remember them just in as much as we want them to intercede for us to the ancestors and yes even to God, ( I am not an atheist I believe in the powers that be and yes I believe that everyone has a right to believe in anything they want to)…….
I hope they are resting In peace and power wherever they are.














Call me Papa: Of leadership amongst your peers
A wise man once said to me Your status in society is determined by the number of likes you have

Lets fast forward a little bit to the year 2019 (well pretty much this chapter is based on one of the biggest lessons I have learnt so far and I swear to you that with this lesson it happens just as you are finding yourself in this world). So little spot check here, you see there are those fortune five hundred companies and at the helm of these companies is the face or rather the brand image figure if you might call them, what I am trying to say is you can get companies like Alibaba where Jack Ma is the founding figure but in the background are people also responsible, talk about Apple the first name to come out is Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerbag he is all about facebook, Richard Bronson with Virgin Airlines or even the late Stan Lee man who brought us Marvel comics and other DC comic characters (I know you must be wondering about the last one Stan Lee but he is the godfather of comics turned into movies and tv series right now for the past decade and counting, like this guy created from Ironman, Hulk, Thor and Spiderman those movies you have been enjoying have been from that man). Well before I got sidetracked I wanted to say that “the one thing common about all these people besides their wealth and popularity is that their managed to live their dreams with their friends, no like seriously these people have been the faces of their respective fields and companies and little or less is known about their counterparts. The reason being these man and women (yes there are iconic women out there and to the feminist I want you to know I didn’t jot their names down because I wanted you to just have a field day with this chapter, but please don’t attack me I am just trying to humor myself this has been one hell of a journey emotionally and literally tiresome). So as I was saying men and women like Oprah , Helen Mirren are brand faces of their trades and they stand tall of their peers because they managed to harness what it means to be LEADERS, just as much as the concept of children playing house in their formative years.

Rewind to 1997 there-ish I was pretty young and it so happened in the street we lived in of the children my age I was the cool idiot who was fortunate to be liked by the girls, (how do I know this well, at a young age, girls when they like a boy they tend to be bullish towards the unlucky b*****d and in my case I was the unfortunate one (wink wink). At first I didn’t get it somewhat in my defense I was slow (damn as I write this I feel pity for 7 year old me idiot was charming funny but dumb as f**k{ side note to a side note does profanity change the way you think about me if so sorry to disappoint you but I think in some cases my life needs Samuel L Jackson to tell it to you because the amount of profanity needed can only be summed up by him}). So as I was saying back in the day girls used to like me that much to the extent of them actually trying to have me indulge in their monkey games and towards the end of the day we would play one game that I actually enjoyed a lot. You see playing house for me was the finisher to a big day of being outdoors far from home for almost the whole of my daytime, the reason was because I would at all times be chosen to play the character of the man of the house(funny thing though as an adult I have not managed to crack the code, my views and opinions are somewhat not considered in any of the cases that happen in our entire family). No like seriously people as I write this I am sure someone in my family might actually be against me releasing this book, so if by any chance you have this on paperback, audio or even online cherish this because I will be killed for it ….

So back to me being the man at the game of house, all the time my character was the same one and it never changed however some characters were always for grabs and the competition was stiff, for instance the character of father has to have a wife and some children and now all of that meant sometimes people have to alternate,

(its funny how the gender dynamics in an African culture are defined at a young age because at that time we knew the father worked, mother stayed at home, and the eldest child was always a son and the youngest a daughter even if it meant the family had five kids. Thank God we are in the 21st century people and gender roles are changing though of late I have since realized that kids no longer play the game anymore, don’t get me wrong but I think its neither here nor there because well with the internet kids nowadays can tend to be way advanced for their ages and well at the same time them not playing the game and sticking to other vices means we are raising slouch potatoes. Think about it all that I have highlighted gender dynamics and of ruined childhoods)

So yes the other characters alternated and we would cap off our days of playing games in a world of make believe with us pretending to be adults and enjoying every moment of our unbridled innocence, not knowing that what we were actually doing was in some way imprinting in our subconsciousness that in every group of acquaintances there is always an ALPHA , then again we where young, dumb, broke and definitely stupid.
Over the period of us being innocent and enjoying ourselves our adventures some would get bolder and bolder and times quite frankly destructive in a way (I am saying this here and right now we were kids and trust me I can outright deny that some of the mischief we partook in is real, so do not bother trying to persecute me). Back in the day in the high density suburb of Senga Area 2 right next to the SDA church for those who know the area, the whole land across the street heading to Daylesford was a grass land with the lantana shrubs which grew into these big canopy house sized shrubs and like the San and Khoi Khoi in their dorm shaped house we felt the same. We actually had the brains of clearing these dorms underneath them and in our imaginative brains we would at the end claim them to be our houses. What then completed the whole setup was food and believe you me when I say we would actually buy roasted kernels, steal fruits from our parents backyards and most of all we would dig out sweet potatoes from the nearby small fields owned by the different house holds in the area. So basically this was our little Havana and we would actually have meals which if the Health Board were ever to visit us they would surely condemn us from entering kitchens even in our adulthood, it was unhealthy and unsanitary (funny thing we never got sick and up-to this day I wonder why). Non-the less we enjoyed ourselves in our past time vices.
Remember I told you that our mischief only got boulder and boulder (if you don’t remember then what have you been reading), our mischief would get crazy with each day and I know you know that most of the blame lies with me since I was the alpha of the crew. One fateful Sunday after the church service we went to indulge in our previous day raid of sweet potatoes from those fields I mentioned earlier and I swear on my father’s grave it was never my intention to be brazenly stupid like I am doing right now (to my lawyer friends what is the statutory limit of silly harmless event that might have or might not have occurred in a certain year before the Y2K era). Anyway back to me being stupid, so there we were me and my accomplices 2 scroungy looking boys and these 4 girls a year older than me, in-fact in my club house crew I was the youngest but as I said I was an alpha.
Apparently I had left home with a box of match sticks that day and well lets say I was now fed up from eating raw sweet potatoes so I thought it wise to roast them and yes people roasted sweet potatoes are a thing (wait can I patent this), and well as the father of the so called “house” I was at the fore front of starting the fire and roasting our spoils from people’s fields. Definitely to the bewilderment of God (I am sure the man upstairs was shocked with how my senior counterparts actually agreed to such buffoonery) my friends were in agreement and soon enough we had a fire going on. As we roasted our food we not only did not know the risk we were in because like I said we had our dorm shaped lantana houses and those things even in their green leaf state are highly flammable, and to make matters worse we played house in someone else’ house and lets say for quite some time that some always slithered out of our way as soon as our little feet started making a splatter sound towards the dorm. Yes people we were always in the presence of a snake and to this day I do not know what type it was, now animals and fires are not good friends and well who would blame them, because fires destroy and the always make the meat way more tasty. With the fire going and raging our friend got agitated and finally revealed him or her-self to us and in panic mode we all scattered our separate ways. Since playing house was always our last game of the day no-one thought about the fire and me as the leader of the pack I dropped the ball on that one and resumed my life like nothing ever happened.
Skipping the boring details we never looked back and in the morning we all woke up to a burnt down forest that might have or might not have made some family in Daylesford lose its whole maize field (again I reiterate that I am at this point vehemently denying that this incident happened because I do not want to be persecuted). After having seen the extent of the destruction my mother did not say anything but she my first confrontation with her hinted that she knew who the culprit was and to my amazement the whooping I got later on at night really sealed the assumption…..

You see all this time I have had the opportunity to think it over why my mother never asked for an explanation or any details as to why the forest was burnt down but in the wake of the fire she just blamed me, I spent weeks on days grounded and whenever visitors came to her house she would casually let it slip that I was the mastermind of the pyro-crime. My biggest finding was that in our quest to be free spirits in the whole neighborhood I had managed to convince everyone that I was a leader and I could influence other kids to partake in anything I felt like was an ideal spot of fun. In as both as I admire my child tenacity and at the same time feel like I was forced to assume a vacant leadership role amongst my peers it might have stunted my own personal growth (reason being it took me this long to realize that I was the man at that age and right now I am not). Dear friends I say to you sometimes we might crave or we might want the power to be leaders of our peers but

HEAVY IS THE HEAD THAT WEARS A CroWn

But then again I was burning forest with my pack what where you doing with yours……
1 in every 4: learning to move on
(its our secret game)


When you are raised in a family that has both of the parents constantly away and the elder siblings often at boarding schools or if its during holidays and they are there but not present at home the youngest child is often left in the care of a maid or a relative slash maid of some sought. Now in most families well having a complete stranger raise their child might be scary but sometimes it might just not be at all and over my formative years I had a slew of nannies come into my life and leave but I was never attached to any of them except for a few who even to this day I would not mind having them raise my own kids because those ladies were good, kind and full of life. Through their ways of raising me they actually gave me some insight on what it meant to be a young girl struggling to make ends meet or a woman struggling to find a footing in this world after the loss of a loved one (not to be callous or anything but let me explain my mother I can not compare her to any other woman {sorry to every girl I dated and I almost compared to her and most importantly sorry to my partner and my love you are strong and everything admirable but my mum is a whole different breed}). My point is most of the help my mother got were women who need help in getting up or back up and they somewhat all had this look and lease at life that always intrigued me, for instance we had one certain lady for quite a long period of time and her name was ….ehhh forgive me I can only recall calling her Sisi Mambau (for the heck of it I don’t know the back story to the name so don’t expect anything as to the uniqueness of her name). Sisi Mambau was very full of life and having her around the house had everyone in check and believe me when I say the whole household was lively when she was around.

In her own simple way she lived her life honestly and her stories of her youth always had everyone chuckling, in my case I would stare at her in wonder my imagination running wild with her stories trying to visualize the whole scene of her ordeal (frankly speaking I am the worst story listener because when some tells me a story or an adventure I tend to get stuck on one amazing scene and fail to get the rest of the story). I would marvel at her stories from her village in Bikita and how she and her brothers would get into scraps, we bonded because every time I got into trouble she would defend me by saying “mwana ari kukura mhamha” loosely it means “ he is a child and he is only growing up mum” soon after saying that she would tell us of her one time incident that supported her notion. Sometimes this worked and I would walk off without a hiding from my mother and well lets just say I quickly learnt the meaning of that statement on probabilities( do not even think about I cant remember how it goes).

After her Masibanda from Lower Gweru and she like any other 40 something year old woman was more of a gogo type of maid and she had this moral compass within her that at times she wouldn’t wait for mother to come and whoop me she would do it her self, at times after the whooping my mother would scold her for it but 9 out of 10 times she wouldn’t because everyone who knew me at that time would tell you yeah I kinda deserved it cause I was the black version of Denice the menace. However what I liked about her was the fact that she had treats for us every time and most of all they way she ate rice was way to amusing for me, you see she would chew each grain, her mastication skills were unmatched (I see you and your dirty mind its mastication not masturbation, look it up it’s a word people), at time when we would take 10-20 minutes eating rice she would take 45- an hour and I kid you not.

Because of her age she left us but the other maids that came I have little or non to-say about them because well they were not much fun like those two, in the eve of May 2002 came a relative slash maid to stay with us, her name was lets say S (I am protecting her identity because trust me what I am about to tell you it takes time to accept that you have healed from it and also the fact that the last I heard she was now the late and well no need to soil a late person’s name). Into our life this relative called S came and well everything moved on pretty well, we talked because we were distant relatives that shared a history and well because what else could we do. ……

See it started of as harmless body checks and jabs were by sometimes she would just say I am a doctor and you are a patient (it sounds cheesy because it was cheesy) but she would have me lie on the bed , sofa , dinning room table or even the floor and then she would fondle me (I was a kid then I didn’t know then but hey I am an adult now and yes I have had opportunities to role play with my partner and I now know that at that time I was being fondled). She would touch me in many places all the time but most of all there were areas that she would mostly focus on and every time she did it I would…….( please tear this chapter before you give your kids to read this book) I WOULD suddenly feel the urge to urinate and my boyhood would be stiff so much that I would spend quite some time in an odd position trying to make the swelling go away. With time the games got a little bit more intense and every time we played them she would always make me promise not to say anything and I would get treats.

At first I never minded anything (hey don’t judge me I was a kid I didn’t know better) but then one particular weekend we was home alone and on that fateful day something happened to me, she called me into lounge area and she was watching those late night E.tv special movies and well for a kid seeing X-rated stuff for the first time in the presence of an adult back in the day that was the hardest thing. Lets just say she had me watching something that stimulated me and well something else in me. Afterwards she did something to me and in my innocence I didn’t say anything or do anything but on that day she had her first of many ways with me. As a 10 year old much of the stuff that happens to you, you tend to just ignore them if you are bribed with treats and money and exactly that was me in Charlottes web( thinking of which I once had a crush on the girl from the tv series called by that name or was it a movie I cant remember)

As I was saying S had me in her trap for some time and yes people I am a male rape statistics lets just get over with it, I can say this now but back then I couldn’t say it growing up in the day such matters were not something that society really could speak off. At that time I was more of an innocent and unwilling victim of how things like this could affect one in the future and sitting in front of you telling you a dark secret of this nature well I am pretty sure I can safely say I am now more comfortable with actually owning the fact that it happened and I am still here aren’t I.

Statistically speaking 1 in every 4 males is a victim of some sexual abuse but in honest truth it might be more than that, you see not everyone has the courage to accept that it has happened to them. Now the problem is most of our male counterparts who are victims of such actions can not and will not come out and say it out loud : “YES I AM RAPE VICTIM” and I have dealt with many fears key chief being the inferiority complex syndrome, fear of victimization, fear of being unworthy and also the need to try and please everyone even if they are toxic to me. Over the years I have lived my life with countless moments of regrets but in this case I never regretted telling people because I was afraid. I was afraid that people would see me differently, I was afraid of the stigma but most of all I was afraid that I let it happen.

As I say this to you I know you must be asking yourself if truly I have healed and I say unto you yes I have healed, the reason I am saying so, its because I have managed to accept that I am the master of what I can control and if I were to let this keep me down this book would not have been possible. Basically I might not have all the answers but over the years I have managed to conquer a lot of my fears and hence me coming to saying this self pity is the worst toxic emotion you can have and at times just accepting that fate plays its own hand and you play the deck handed to you, you can never be prepared for anything but the best you can do for yourself is moving on because a great life can actually await you if you face yourself in the mirror and say you want to move on-from the fall you have just had.

Author's Note

still work in progress but criticism and reviews are highly welcome