Average Joe's Blog

And another year grows tired and nears death. it has fought its good fight for some, while many of us might simply cannot wait to see the the arse of 2013 as she stumbles along her last days. I know most of us have been screwed; screwed by life. Screwed by people we thought were different. Screwed by the people we suspected or knew were only there to screw us. Screwed by government. But then government has always been screwing people since the idea of government was created. That is why there is The Arsenal, and Brandy, and and beer and sex. That is because a person needs somewhere to bury his anger after being screwed. Some people want to bury their rage in a lot of liquids that scald their lips as they cascade down their throats. Others bury their anger in a lot of pussy. It happens. Shit happens. But it is easy for people to remember the bad days from the 365 days of bliss that we have been granted yet again by the Creator. It is easy because it does not take much for a

They called me a rovha, a vernacular bastardisation for loafer. They did not mean it literally, of course, but they were not particularly affectionate when using it either. It was a term labelled on anybody who was neither going to school nor formally enslaved (I mean employed, but what is the fucking difference) those days – even one who, like me, had just finished writing his O Levels and would be waiting for the results so he could decide what to do with his life after. I guess it was one of those colonial relics we could not shake off our body politic.  Loafer. I was a bloody loafer.   So, during those blissful three months between November and January when I was waiting for those results 15 years ago, I might as well have been a useless village hobo who was good for naught except being a nuisance at beer parties. Except I didn't drink. I didn‟t mind either; it was a perfect time for me to catch up with Shimmer and Tsodzo and Mungoshi and a whole lot of my Wordsworthian fri

Average Joe had been here before; two years ago in March to be exact. Then the situation in the areas surrounding Chisumbanje Police Station in Chipinge District, Manicaland Province was something approaching pitiful. Dried stalks of maize, sorghum and rapoko stood feeble, withered and beaten under the scorching sun of the Lowveld. By the roadside, thorn bushes – the mark of a parched landscape – struggled to create a safe distance from the  blazing sandy soils and their stunted tentacles all over the area looked like the controlled forest of beard on the chin of an off-duty cop. Even some buildings at Checheche Business Centre looked like they had been torn out of a page from the historical Ottoman ruins that failed to survive the plunder of Greek conquerors. Just a stone throw away from the shopping precinct is a mighty channel of sand that looks like the very frontier of desertification; this would be the Save River. Yes, really – it is the legendary Save River whose mystical

It read like a horror movie script – the tale of a villain who actually wins in the end. The faceless character would strike at night and leave crimson scenes that were littered with clues that the police could not use. One of his accomplices would get nabbed here or there, but the main actor himself would not reveal himself. The police were getting desperate, as they watched helpless while the areas and people they protected were attacked with impunity by the unknown gang that hit the people hard where it mattered most for village folk – in the kraal. It got to a point when the rustlers turned so bold that they ransacked kraals like they were their own. One day they raided the homesteads of Kajawo Chingodza and Collen Tope and shepherded two beasts from each of the two men’s pens. “As per their now trusted method of operation, the seven-member gang targeted mostly oxen, which they knew were docile as they were used to being yoked,” said Asst Stanley Mairi, the Marondera Distr

The last time Deputy Commissioner General (Crime) Josephine Shambare made efforts to engage the public – in Murehwa District, Mashonaland East Province – her spirits were somewhat deflated by the lukewarm reception she got; there was virtually nobody at the meeting, and the few opinion leaders who were there were not exactly the kind of public Dep Commr Gen Shambare had in mind. She wanted the hoi polloi, the ordinary people in the villages who bore the brunt of their children being mugged, raped or murdered. So the senior cop might have been forgiven for stepping on a Zaka turf with a stifled sense of optimism for a large reception – after all, they say once beaten, twice shy.  But what she saw at the old Zaka Growth Point in Masvingo East Ditrict, Masvingo Province, was nothing short of a pleasant surprise. There were hundreds of people from all walks of life – school children, church organisations, chiefs, headmen, village heads, police officers and many other ordinary