I don’t know if it was the worst kiss so much as my expectations had been raised to dizzying heights by Sunday soap operas. Dallas, Dynasty, Falcon Crest. Go on; say you didn’t watch . . . we all know that there was nothing else to watch at the time!

Having powered through “The Nation”, after an afternoon of football and the “Baker Show” (religious fraudsters), we deserved a treat. I have an excuse though, for watching so much Sunday TV. We lived in Kamativi (Matabeleland North) and while it was a bustling metropolis of sporting and drinking activity for much of the week, on Sundays everyone collapsed on their own sofas to snore and fart and hopefully wake refreshed on Monday for the next round of work and play.

Anyway I digress, back to kissing.

The first kiss was the worst for a few reasons. The hard chin thrust into my tender, spotty cheek. The grinding motion, like a pressed-on, Stevie Wonder mime, which was actually quite a good impression of Dynasty’s steamier moments. The sodden sucking mess he left as he pulled away to grab some air. The smell – his mouth closed not only over mine, but also over my nose!

At school the following Monday, long socks slipping and mascara tracks under my eyes, having brushed all memories of the weekend out of my life (and mouth with “Close-up” toothpaste), I was left with the ravaged landscape of my lower face. A severe ac-attack, redness, puffiness, prickle spots of deeper red – he had the beginnings of a beard, bless his socks. All the exciting details hashed and re-hashed for friends as I joined the queue at the school call box, twenty cent coins clutched in my sweaty palms, to put a call through to Plumtree …

THE worst kiss ever, maybe, but still the first kiss, and I can remember his name even now.

They go through harassment, torture and some of them are subjected to domestic violence. They forgive, motivate and inspire so that there is always unity, love and peace. In order to be recognized in the society they put in twice the effort than men do.

Everyday we read stories of women who are doing a lot for their families, community and for the country but very few are getting the recognition they deserve. Every man needs a woman for support. Its either she is your wife, girlfriend, sister and the most important of all “mother”. With Mother’s Day just around the corner, I have been thinking what I can do for my mother. She deserves the best especially for everything I have put her through. It’s a terrible experience for a mother to see her son in prison with leg irons. With high blood pressure and sugar diabetes she managed to endure the long court sessions and the visits each day to prison. Instead of crying she always had this smile of hope on her face and it gave me courage and strength.

So to every man out there . . . if you have a wife do something for the mother of your kids and if you have a mother spoil her on Mothers Day because these women deserve to be happy. Show some love on Mothers Day by doing something simple, like the laundry, or take care of those naughty kids at home just for a day. Even a cup of coffee will do wonders.

I smell. I’m tired and itchy and fed up. So I know, I’m not in the most friendly and approachable of moods.

I’m smelly and itchy and fed up because there hasn’t been any power at home since Friday night. A wind storm crossed some lines, the power went, and that was that.

I went to the ZESA offices on Saturday morning to report the problem, and the friendly and efficient customer service person there assured me that they were already fixing another problem in my suburb, and they’d get onto my problem straight away. “Your power will be restored today,” he told me with a confident smile.

On my way home late Saturday afternoon, I saw the ZESA truck driving out of my suburb – and I was sure they’d been to the house and sorted out the problem.

So you can imagine my devastation when I got home to find the power still out. I heaved a sigh, and figured no matter, I’m sure they’ll come tomorrow.

When they still hadn’t come by Sunday night, I was less equanimous in my attitude.

I phoned them on Monday morning, and was again assured that they had my report on file, and that someone would be coming to fix things that day. I held my breath and resisted the temptation to phone the house every hour, to find out whether they had come to fix things yet.

I came home on Monday to find the fridge door still swinging proudly open, a sure sign that ZESA hadn’t come yet. When there’s no power, I’ve found the refrigerator is better conceptuatlised as a cupboard. Pity about the spoilt perishable goods which were inside it.

It hasn’t helped my mood any that winter is here, and I’ve been running a lot, so a hot bath or a boiled kettle would really be most welcome. It hasn’t helped that the power’s been out so long that my freezer is also starting to defrost, soaking through the newspapers I’ve put out on the kitchen floor, and leaving me with a second new cupboard – this one filled with rotting pets food. And it doesn’t help that there also isn’t any municipal water either, so the taps are dry. I’ve been through every jug of stored water in the house just to try and wash my face, brush my teeth, and flush the toilet (once in four days).  I guess the good news is that even if there was electricity, I still couldn’t have a hot bath.

So yes. My temper is frayed.

I went back to ZESA this morning to follow up on my report. I didn’t get a reference number the first time, because the attendant was so confident I’d have my power back on Saturday, I didn’t bother. Now they’ve lost my report – never mind that I phoned again yesterday. It’s so old, it’s in a different book.

My stinking underarms were further aggravated by the customer service person there today, who appeared just as  frustrated as I am. I outlined my case in plaintive detail. I explained how I pay my bills each month and do my part to help them, but I expect better service for my monthly payments. He pointed to the person seated next to me, who works at a clinic in a high density Harare suburb. They also haven’t had any power since Friday. You can imagine what this means for their work as a clinic. He’s also been coming to find out what the story is. But, the attendant told me, the problem is transport.

“I have a book of over 50 faults that need to be fixed. I have ten artisans sitting waiting to attend to these faults. But I have no trucks. Look around my yard. There is one truck to attend to all these problems,” he told me, slapping the report book on his desk.

Basically, if I had an open truck, I could load a ladder and technicians into it, take them to my house, they’d fix the fault, and I could drive them back to the depot. But without a truck? All I can do is wait.

Had I known that Saturday drive by was the last I woud see of the ZESA truck in my suburb, I would have hijacked it and driven it back to my house.

As tetchy as I’m feeling for the lack of power, he is clearly even more embittered by his powerlessness. He’s been working for years, and likes doing his job. He wants to resolve things for people. He hates seeing ZESA employees just sitting at the depot unable to do their jobs either. But without transport to carry the ladders, equipment and technicians to the job sites, what can he do?

His irritation was palpable, and I tried to diffuse things. “How can we help you get more trucks,” I asked him.

“It’s a national problem,” he responded. “Go to any other depot in the city and you’ll find the same situation. It’s not even a secret. I don’t even mind telling you about it. Everyone knows transport is our biggest problem.”

I am stunned by the injustice of it. If you have a truck, or access to one, you can get your fault fixed within a day. If you don’t? You have to wait until the “round robin rotation,” as he put it, makes its way to your place. There is no sense of triage or prioritisation based on need or severity or duration of the fault. The high-density clinic doesn’t get any special treatment. Instead, if you already have resources (like an open truck) you’re rewarded with more resources (access to a ZESA repair team).

The employee I spoke with blames the ZESA leadership, and he mentioned the recent detention of energy minister Mangoma. As a coordinator faced with a striking lack of vehicles, he isn’t surprised by the corruption charges. If the minister weren’t corrupt, he intimated, surely ZESA would have more vehicles? He’s frustrated by what he sees as the politicisation of what should remain strictly professional – the provision of an essential service to ZESA customers.

I don’t know enough about the Mangoma case to know whether the allegations have any merit. Before his arrest, he issued a press statement outlining challenges in the energy sector, including ZESA. He described himself as “particularly allergic to corruption, greed and patronage.” He appealed for transparency and accountability for the sector, and pledged that he would fight corruption across his ministry.

Certainly, it’s difficult from the outside not to view the issue as one more based on political grievances than any substantive charges. But if this is the view of the Minister’s own employees in companies like ZESA, Mangoma’s problems will extend far beyond the courtroom.

And whilst of course I can sympathise with the frustrated ZESA employee who just wants to do his job, I also just want a bath. I’m thinking about taking my smelly clothes and rotten pets meat to Chaminuka Building, headquarters of the Ministry of Energy. But if depots across the country lack the basic resources they need to work efficiently, I have a feeling even my stinky running vest might not do the trick.

I came back to the office after a run on Tuesday afternoon, to find a bakkie loaded full with oranges waiting for me.

We’d gotten an email last week from a farming couple who, among other things, grow novas (naartjie / orange cross fruits). They were selling them to raise funds for Just Friends, which runs a feeding scheme for the elderly in need. Each month Just Friends puts together food packs and distributes them to 110 pensioners in need. The farmers were offering to donate $1 off of every $6 pocket of oranges. We signed up for 20 pockets, thinking we’d deliver them to other organisations in need across the city, to further extend the donation.

We offloaded the 20 pockets into the back of my Nissan March – and I watched as my little car sank lower and lower to the ground.

“Don’t worry, the farmer delivering them told me – the pockets only weigh 12kgs each. That’s only 240kgs we’re loading into your car – that’s like three or four adults.”

Hmmm. It’s not often I cram four adults into the boot of my supermini sized vehicle.

Meanwhile, we’d barely made a dent in the bakkie load – and it had been standing firmly on its four tyres the whole time. We joked that I’d be fine driving the pockets around town, as long as I didn’t come across any potholes. Like yeah right, where in Harare are you going to drive pothole free?

The next morning, I found my car windows fogged up and my steering wheel sticky with the sweat of 2,000 oranges. The car smelt sweet and ripe and full of promise.

I wiped the windows down and set out with a friend to deliver the fruit.

Our first stop was a home for orphaned children in Harare. When we got there, we learnt that they currently support 96 children, ranging from infants to teenagers. We opened the boot to reveal 20 pockets of oranges – but then had to tell them to offload six.

The matron was thrilled and grateful for the donation, but in the face of 96 children needing three meals a day, suddenly I felt less than generous. The caretaker who helped us offload the sacks of oranges said “just six?” and the matron seemed chagrined at his apparent ingratitude.

“How can you say ‘just six?’” she chastised him. “That is six more than we had before.”

But the exchange gave me pause for thought – what is the English expression that allows you to specify a quantity without running the risk of seeming grasping or operating from a position of scarcity? Just six. Only six. They are both accurate phrases which help to explain that out of a larger total quantity you are to take a portion of the whole. But when more is always better, how can taking fewer not seem inevitably less satisfying? And when you have 96 children to look after, surely wanting more oranges rather than fewer makes perfect sense? I comforted myself by thinking well, if there are 100 or so oranges in a pocket, at least these children each get an orange a day for the next week. We asked them what else they needed and they said “Everything.”- Laundry soap, bathing soap, dish soap, salt, mealie meal, meat, beans . . . the mind boggles at the logistics and coordination required to feed 96 children three meals each day.

Our next stop was the local church, which runs a weekly food support service for low-income residents in the area. The woman at reception was friendly and efficient – we drove round to the back and offloaded our pockets right into their storeroom, which was already filled with sacks of mealie meal, beans and kapenta. Each week, volunteers come and decant the larger bags into family sized-packs before distributing them to the people who come.

We donated the balance of the oranges to a group which supports prisoners in remand. I felt kicked in the guts to realise how insignificant even our 7 pockets of oranges was in the face of the enormous need in our prisons. There are currently 1400 prisoners in remand – if there are around a hundred oranges in each bag, that’s barely one orange each for half of them. I thought back to the bakkie that delivered the fruit – you’d need to fill that entire bakkie with supplies and you probably still wouldn’t have enough for one meal for 1400 people.

Prison conditions in Zimbabwe were particularly bad during the shortages through 2008, but they have reportedly improved in the past two years. However, even with the improvements, prisoners – even prisoners on remand who have yet to be convicted of any crime and may well be unjustly imprisoned – do not feature high on budget allocations, or on most Zimbabweans’ list of those deserving of support and attention.

On the weekend, the Sunday Mail featured an article headlined Inmates go for four years without eating meat. Reportedly, detainees “at Harare Remand and Chikurubi female prisons were beginning to show signs of malnutrition.” But not all of the comments on this article were sympathetic of the detainees’ plight.

If a children’s home looking after 96 orphans struggles to find everything they need, what more 1400 remand prisoners who do not garner the same instinctive public support?

The need out there is enormous. Delivering our 240 kgs of novas made my car lighter, but left my spirit conflicted by the size of the problem compared with our small efforts to address it. But I suppose it’s like that Robert F Kennedy quotation:

Each time a woman stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, she sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

The nova fundraiser generated over $500 for Just Friends. The farmers are now also selling navel oranges to raise funds for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (minimum order 10 x 10kg pockets for $60, delivered directly to your location in Harare). I recently heard Patricia Glyn estimate that only 3% of charitable donations in the world go to animal welfare. So buy some novas or navel oranges for yourself and others – and make a difference to your community.

To find out more, email gandboys [at] zol [dot] co [dot] zw

When there was this huge business moguls shindig east of the country [wise men eh?] a few weeks ago about constructing a billion-dollar economy in the next two decades, news copy was awash with glowing editorialising about these men and women pitching their blueprint for a fabulously rich Zimbabwe. If the country’s political gladiators set aside their differences surely the USD1 billion economy was not a psychedelic reverie. With the right political will and economic genius from the private sector, Zimbabwe would be the biggest economy south of the Sahara.

The Vee Pee Mujuru was hailed for speaking with the level headedness that appeared to have surprised many: this is the commitment the country needs from its political leaders, the business heavies heaved. All the contradictions that have emerged in this country about promoting investment on one had and threatening – and indeed going ahead with – company takeovers were set aside or conveniently forgotten, after all what was to be gained by raising those concerns when there was an economy to be [re]built, money to be made, jobs created, detractors shamed, etc. Yet the very issues that were identified as inimical to the creation of a billion-dollar economy have been revisited on the country with doubled resolve. Which investor wants to put his money where cops gas mourners, throws teargas into churches, deny political parties and law abiding citizens right to assemble, bans free thought rallies etc.

We already know that some major potential investors are from countries where liberal democracy rules the day and companies are only too aware that choosing countries that do not respect human rights risk a boycott of their business. So how do we have it both ways such that we liberally and violently suppress prayers for peace and at the same time lobby international investors who come from backgrounds that respect human rights to pour in their multi-millions to create jobs and build that billion-dollar economy? Obviously these are questions that are not of concern to the authorities who unleash such brute force on “peace-loving Zimbabweans,” but you sure feel sorry for those heavy weights who pitched this billion-dollar economic utopia that while they obviously mean well, the very folks to whom they pitch these grand plans throw spanners and gonyets into the works. But for what exactly? Such a pity, living in the city is like living in the time of Frank Nitty.

Never mind the MDC rallies which were blocked last month.

On Wednesday mourners were beaten at a memorial service organised by the Heal Zimbabwe Trust.

And now today, riot police stormed a prayer for peace. According to the statement below from Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, they assaulted congregants who were inside and outside the church, and they used tear gas to disperse congregants.

Ironically, according to ZLHR, one objective of the service was to “commemorate the events of the 11 March 2007 Save Zimbabwe Prayer Meeting, where one activist Gift Tandare was shot dead while over 100 political and human rights activists were arrested, tortured and detained through similar heavy-handed police action.”

Read the full ZLHR statement below:

ZLHR condemns police abuses in suppressing prayer for peace

Anti-riot police on Saturday 9 April 2011 violently stormed and suppressed a church service organised to pray for peace in Glen Norah suburb of Harare.

The church service had originally been scheduled for St Peters Kubatana Centre in Highfields, but the venue was changed after police camped in Highfields overnight and sealed off the venue to block people from accessing the grounds.

A truck load of riot police carrying tear gas rifles and truncheons descended on the Nazarene Church in Glen Norah while the service was underway, stormed the church hall during prayer, and dispersed the congregation, which included many church, civic and community leaders.

The police, numbering about 20, assaulted congregants who were inside and outside the church and used tear gas to drive congregants out of the church and eventually out of the volatile suburb.

The police went on to indiscriminately fire tear gas canisters at residences and churches surrounding the venue of the church service. Even children who were within and outside the parameters of the church were affected by the tear smoke and the police clampdown.

The police arrested Pastor Mukome, the Resident Priest at the Nazarene Church, Pastor Isaya and some other congregants.

A team of lawyers from Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) observed police indiscriminately arresting people walking near the environs of the Church of Nazarene even after they had suppressed the service and hounded congregants out of the suburb.

ZLHR lawyers have been deployed to attend to those who have been arrested.

The service was organised by a coalition of churches under the theme “Saving Zimbabwe . . . the unfinished journey”. The church service was aimed at presenting an opportunity to pray for peace in Zimbabwe as part of the process of finishing the journey to save the country. It was also meant to commemorate the events of the 11 March 2007 Save Zimbabwe Prayer Meeting, where one activist Gift Tandare was shot dead while over 100 political and human rights activists were arrested, tortured and detained through similar heavy-handed police action.

ZLHR unreservedly condemns the events of Saturday 9 April 2011 and the indiscriminate violence meted out by police whose responsibility is to see that fundamental freedoms such as freedom of assembly, expression and worship, are enjoyed by all Zimbabwe citizens. Such criminal behaviour makes a mockery of the SADC Troika Communique, issued in Livingstone on 31 March 2011 in which the Zimbabwe government was warned to immediately end the harassment, arbitrary arrests, intimidation and violence which is currently prevailing in the country. It also calls into question the sincerity of pleas from political players such as Oppah Muchinguri who, only the previous day, urged people to turn to prayer as a contribution to efforts towards national healing and reconciliation.

ZLHR urges restraint by the police, an immediate investigation into the unlawful conduct of the police involved in Saturday’s disruptions, and calls for an opening up of space for people to freely assemble, associate and worship rather than the criminalisation of such lawful activities.