Average Joe's Blog

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 ordi...

"Mapurisa. Mapurisa. Mapurisa." This was the opening salvo by the Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, President Robert Mugabe at the just-ended ZANU-PF People's Conference in Gweru, as he decried the plague that now seems so cancerous, so endemic, so entrenched in the Zimbabwean policing veins that getting rid of it is just akin to killing the foundations of the police force itself. And the president gave a practical example of the alleged misdeeds of police officers, especially on the road. “ Kumisa vanhu mumigwagwa. Mota yako haina mabreaks haungaende mberi. Kana uchida, bhadhara US$200 woenda ,” he said.  The president is also not happy with the moral decadence that has afflicted other government departments, and he mentioned the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority as another body that is failing the nation when it comes to corruption. Such is the nature of our society today that virtually every office one appr...

The first thought one has as one approaches the place where a languid thin stream of water drops from the ground from about three metres in the air is, my God; that is one borehole set mighty high. The borehole is curiously set almost too close to the road about 60km from Gokwe Centre along the only other road that can boast of the rare glory of having been laid with not just sand or gravel, but a proper tarmac – the road leads to Chitekete, 120km away from the district headquarters. Perhaps the chief reason why the water source had to be set so high up is to discourage cattle minding children from wasting the water and also discouraging them from playing near the road as a result. The only incongruous thing is that there are children playing under the water – it is almost as if the borehole was actually set so high up so the children could soak themselves away as a pastime. Which is weird, since it is dusk and in the middle of winter to; and winter in Gokwe, as it is wi...

These flaws I got They are part of who I am Take me; or not 'Cause I finally understand I'm so gone tryna be everything you want That had to stop (or something like it) 'Cause baby you ain't worth it If I gotta camouflage For love, for love God, I love Brandy. Say what you will, but I really believe she sings for me, me and me only. It is like she takes apart every thread of my soul before she sits down to craft her next master piece. Sometimes I think I am the only man in the world who has bought a few of the 30 million albums that Ms Norwood has managed to sell to the world throughout her whole career. I'm not even starting on pirated copies that I hear blaring in kombies all day long. You betcha ass if she lives long enough, Ms. BeRocka will surely overtake The Material Girl as the best-selling female art girl of all time. Meh; who am I kidding? Brandy? With her deep, eviscerating, thought-provoking, self-scrutinising, self-critica...