Kaleidoscope: Being young in Zimbabwe.

(This post is in relation to my experiences as a young Zimbabwean youth).

Honestly, I don't remember most of my dreams. Most times it's a complete black out ( I do not believe it's spiritual at all). Sometimes I only remember a few excerpts, like the main characters, or the setting but just never the whole storyline. It sucks, trust me, but I kinda find it funny and a good sport trying to fill the missing pieces and complete the picture just out of my imagination. It comes with a price though, my siblings call me Nebuchadnezzar!!(as if I'm male). 

Anyway, let's forget the dreams, the ones which you have when sleeping. Let us talk of dreams we have when we are wide awake. Real dreams!

I dream in colour. And I believe everyone does that. No one makes plans for the future knowing they are nothing but just bleak. We all dream of having nice cars, beautiful apartments, spoiling our parents, fancy holidays, you name it. And trust me, we all work so hard trying to make these dreams our goals with feet on the ground, trying to make them a reality. Truth is, for suckling young people, working hard is not enough or it's just not it at all. Most often, as young people we find out that though our dreams have been written in bubbles of vibrant colours, despite our efforts, against our wishes, our dreams are just black and white. Why? 

Our country has failed us, me and most youths, despite the fact that young people in Zimbabwe make up more than 60% of the population. We had and still have beautiful dreams of being entrepreneurs at 21, travelling around the world at 25. We have dreams of making it on the Forbes list before 40, running for public office before 30, some dream of carving out their names in sporting, in music, in academia, in modelling. But have we really done it? Most importantly, how close to possibility are these dreams? And do we blame the youth out there for spending their days basking in the sun, chainsmoking or whistling, trying to put their woes into some hip hop lyrics and jam along to their sufferings in a rap song which will bring them fame without money? Is the youth to be blamed for girls going after rich men just so they could pay their fees, buy their sanitary wear? Do we label it laziness, insanity, moral decadence or cultural decay? Or do we call it, A NATION'S FAILURE TO INVEST IN ITS YOUTH? 

Being a Zimbabwean youth is being in hell for most youths. Not only do you fight and hustle everyday on the economic front, you also fight political wars, whose genesis you cannot even fathom. It's knowing that if you want to make your dreams of colour true, your only opportunity is getting out of the country. Being young in Zimbabwe, is never knowing what freedom is for whatever step you take, you have everything to lose. 

Being youth in Zimbabwe is always a painful reminder of what you could have done with your life, what you could be doing with your life, the potential you have which never bears any fruit even when attempted, the ability you have to make headlines, to change the world, but you absolutely cannot do anything about it. Why? Because we are a youth that is talented, we are a youth that is gifted but never in our life has opportunity been granted us. We are a youth who have been forced to make mere survival on a daily basis a priority, a need, a must-do, but never have we been given the tools to survive.

Being a youth in Zimbabwe is being called a cry baby when you whine that you cannot make it. It is being called an enemy of government, for being brave enough to demand accountability from higher authorities. Being youth in Zimbabwe, is braving cold cells for asking what is due to us, for asking what they owe us, for wanting to be part of processes that secure our future. 

So excuse my anger, forgive us for demanding answers as to why we celebrate National Youth Day Friday, when we have absolutely nothing to celebrate? Why do we have to remain silent, when our sanity is threatened by a million and more questions? 

Why do we have to keep believing in dreams of colour when their fulfillment is threatened by these black and white dreams? 

Our question shall be why.

Till we get answers,

Mitchel.

Of Roses and Thorns!!

Cupid is one hell of a god! And I know you all agree with me on this one. He does his archery very well, shooting his arrows anywhere and everywhere without even missing. Fun thing is around this time of the year, people be like "I want that Cupid arrow to stab me now, right through my heart".  Well, that is Valentine's Day for you.

But Cupid really isn't the only thing that deserves recognition here.  I always think that if the year were to end in February, then it's automatic that every consecutive year, the word Rose(s) would always be word of the year. Every year, no word would even come up as runner up to that word. You all know February is a crazy month and truthfully speaking it is beautiful, what with couples and singletons trying to paint the town red. People manifesting their love, celebrating their special ones. 

But is that really all it is? A pure celebration of love, no ill intentions, nothing but just roses without thorns? Well, maybe not!

While other people are out there celebrating love in its purest form, I can't help but notice that some have really lost the plot of it all. The first thing people wanna know is what gift you got and most importantly, how much it cost. More like a celebration of a price tag and that doesn't really feel good when you know that you got a China shop gift when you were looking forward to some fancy Ferrrero Rocher or Godiva Chocolates.

Just a few weeks ago, Zim Twitter was ablaze with Kevin's roses which ranged between $300 -$700. There was some heated debate on how expensive and unneccesarry the roses were. But really, it should never be about the price. It's totally fine if your person can afford the expensive roses and it's perfectly ok if you can't afford the expensive gifts, after all it's not the price that matters but the true meaning behind the gift, right?

Roses are beautiful, but they got thorns too and this ought to be construed figuratively. Be careful how you handle Valentine, it might be the beautiful stepping stone over to a beautiful continuation of an amazing love story, or might be an end to a story that was once amazing. Be careful lest other traits boil to the surface only to taint your beautiful red. I'm talking about greed, dissatisfaction, ingratitude, jealous, show off, which might accompany the beautiful act of giving and receiving.  Let us not lose the whole point of Valentine and find ourselves drowning in tears of regret and heartbreak not really knowing how we got it wrong.

Be careful how you handle your roses. And their thorns too.

Happy Valentine's day.

Till next time

Mitchel.

Introductory remarks.

I have always been bad with introductions, especially when I have to introduce myself. I sometimes tend to to over exaggerate things, it's because like everyone else, I've always dreamt of seeing my name in sparkling lights. I rather hate it when I do some injustice, but well modest is one of the most important virtues, right? Fortunately, there are some things I'm rather good at, like talking to people and sitting like a lady(one thing they teach very well at mission schools). I'm also very good at voicing out my thoughts and feelings. Anyway, these are stories for another day.

I'm Mitchel( not Obama). I go by may other names, all with different emotions and stories attached to them. But I would rather tell you of that I also go by the name DesertFlower. More like a pen name, the Mitchel with the capability to put words down on paper and make something out of it without really having to awaken some well hidden dark corridors I rather not face. DesertFlower is the innocent, pure, untainted and unapologetic writer who you would meet rather often here.

Starting a blog has always been my dream. I have always been postponing it for quite a while because I thought I was still too amateur for this kind of thing. But hey, a writer is just an amateur who decided to show their work, so here I am tainting these pages with ink hoping that someone will read my posts, hoping that someone will like the stuff, hoping that somehow my ideas have an impact on someone's life. Hoping that somehow, by choosing not to be an in the closet writer, my voice would be heard and together we can make quite a difference.

This blog is going to be something else. It's not based upon a single particular theme. Rather I'm going to write on quite a number of issues, which might be prose or poetry. Some popular features here will be my thoughts on feminism, on Africa, on culture, on technology, on love, on sex and a whole lot of things. On good days, I would even tell you of childhood stories and teenage experiences which shaped my views on life.

So the first question I will address is why the title Tug-It? I grew up in Insukamini, Lower Gwelo.  It is a very beautiful place, with great history dating back to the days of Mzilikazi. It's something like 25-30 kilometres out of Gweru. Geographers would call it peri-urban. So life in Insukamini is basically a tug of war in almost everything. There are diverging forces between  conservatives and the liberals, between preserving culture and adopting to modern life. There is a tug of war between rural life and urban life, between A.T.R and Christianity, between dreams and reality, between abilities and opportunity. In every aspect of life, there is always that dissenting force and if not careful, you quite lose yourself in the rush of trying to pick a side you truly belong to. As a result, Tug It seeks to pull apart this conflicting dilemma, to wreck apart the unfair things I have seen and experienced, to unveil a lot of stuff I have been taught to be the correct thing when all it ever did was result in my dehumanisation. So this blog is gonna break down walls of silence, of fear and unveil what has always been said to be taboo or too radical.

I'm looking forward to amazing and enlightening posts. I'm also looking forward to insightful views and comments. I hope you all have a great reading corner here.

Till next time

Mitchel.