ABILITY MEETS OPPORTUNITY

 

Happy new month.

"March, when days are getting long, let thy growing hours be strong to set right some wintry wrongs." - Caroline May.

To give you an idea of my current frame of mind, I'm in bed and I can not dare get out these blankets, the floor is freezing. I'm watching light showers hit my neighbours roof as I write this. I hate winter, this year's autumn seems like it got chilly way too early, but hey March could be savage and serene in an hour so keep the fire burning, the hope alight and the dreams alive.

Today I will tell you stories of people I had a chance to meet during my childhood years. just to make this fair, and to keep my promise of sharing some parts of me me with you all, I'll start with my very own story.

 I hated the first term of school, I think I still do (that means March was never my favourite month). It usually meant new teachers, new stuff, trying to get what the teacher was saying above the rumbling thunder, but you know what I hated the most, the athletics season! I was never an athletic person even though I was quite active at skipping games. But I did play Handball and scored some goals for my team in a big tournament, but that was during second term. 

So here is what happened during the first term, we would all be selected into teams, I was always in Cheetah They would make everyone run and do those long jumps and high jumps. That was the worst time of my life because I was so pathetic at all that, I could not even run to save my life but they would make me run and everytime I would be tailing behind everyone except this one other girl whom I could only beat at the race because she was obese. The teachers always had a good laugh when I finished last, most often walking up to the finishing line, nothing like the bright kid in class. Listen this is the worst part, I always brought novels with me to the grounds but then my teachers would hide them just so I could concentrate on the activities which I loathed so much.

But then I got lucky. I got old enough to make it on the quiz team. I loved that shit, it made me feel all grown up and wise and learned. You should have seen me holding my ten colourful pens which Daddy bought me for my 10th birthday, my bright notepads with all these big words, scientific names, amazing history, jaw-dropping inventions which most children my age did not even know. In my young  mind, this was exactly the place I was supposed to be, not the hot, rough playgrounds with sweat, noise and dizzying speed. I belonged here. I also loved what was called Academics which were for only Grade seven pupils. I did the Math and General Paper tests, shined, visited some new places because of it, like Zvishavane and Gokwe, made some friends with amazing kids from other schools, who up to date have been among my best friends, got to read Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys in some fancy libraries and got to spend some Education Ministry money and also got to really know what I wanted to do with my life from a very young age. All I'm saying is my abilities were not in any way a baby of the playgrounds. My abilities were in books and libraries and I was lucky to be given that opportunity to explore my ability unrestricted by anything else. I had parents who supported my passion. The little I  was good at was given an opportunity to flourish and as a result I can not complain of not having been given an opportunity to reap the most out of my abilities. 

 Realistically speaking, not everyone is really like me. In as much as we are all similar in that we all possess abilities which need to be explored, not everyone has the place to groom that ability, not everyone has the chance to groom a friendship between their abilities and opportunities granted them because no opportunity has ever been thrown their way. You know such people, I know them too and I'm going to tell you of my own people who never got to make the most out of their abilities because they never got that single opportunity to let it flourish.

Mtho is everything that screams star. From the way he walks, the way he talks, the way he dresses, his sloppy smile, he is not just your ordinary guy whom you can see and walk straight without trying to catch his eye. But forget it if you think that his charm lies in his physical being only, Mtho is a wizard of the soccer pitch. He is to a soccer ball what Victor Krum is to the snitch. I'm not a football fan, but I do know Mtho does it better than anyone I have ever seen. But who knows of Mtho? No one except us his hood peers! Has he been exposed? Yes, our star went on numerous trials as a high school kid but how can they ever choose a kid playing ball without shooters who is competing against footed opponents? So yes, in Mtho's case, exposure wasn't enough. He needed an opportunity to stem out of that exposure so he could draw his name in lights, but that will always be what it is, unexplored dreams. Do we blame him?

Sipho deserves to be in Hollywood. Not as an actress though she got the looks, not as a producer or a director but as the hit name behind all fashion shows. When Sipho does her thing behind the sewing machine, she definitely isn't waiting for you all to compare her against Beyoncé or J-Lo. Her hands got a Midas touch to it but hers specifically turns cloth and thread into a voluminous open book of whatever theme she chooses to pick. But Sipho definitely is not a designer, or a personal stylist to some big name in the entertainment industry. She is a teenage mom, who is studying nursing, her passion forgotten between taking care of her baby and caring after patients. Now we would never know if she would have graced papers because nothing was ever laid down for her as a stepping stone to reach her true potential. Who is to blame?

I would like to tell you of JJ's story. JJ is exactly my age and my high school classmate. I can write poetry all I want, but it never compares to JJ's literary genius. JJ is a lyricist in his own class. He knows how to highlight contemporary issues faced by the youth in a way I can only describe as painfully beautiful. He also is a very good musician. I don't know much about rap or hip-hop or do I even listen to much of it, but I know I can listen to JJ's tracks because not only are they accompanied by a great voice, they in no doubt carry so much depth and highlight the woes of a depressed youth, but that's not enough to make him a star. Currently speaking JJ is a musician wanna-be studying a degree he doesn't feel anything towards. No zeal, no passion, no determination, nothing! Just a young person drowning his depression in drugs, finding comfort in tattoos and piercings. Again, who is to blame?

So this is the case of my childhood friends. Depressing. I may not know who to blame. It could be the society which raised us, it could be parents who groomed us, it could even be ourselves. But that would take a long time trying to trace it back to the root cause. But I do know what to blame, zero opportunity.

See the thing is ability without opportunity is nothing. Nothing. This is because talent is not talent enough till you can take it out to  the world, till you can make it work wonders for you. So ability is not enough, it is like taking a man to a river full of fish, that doesn't work because no matter how close to the shore the fish are, the man got no fishing rod. If you ain't gonna give them that rod, then surely you can teach them to make one of their own. A river full of fish is nothing if you do not have nets or a fishing rod.

So we can blame whatever we want to, failed education system, privileges not afforded public schools, talk of what the Ministry of Sports, Art and Culture has not done or what parents haven't invested in towards their children's best abilities. Truth is as long as ability is not invested in, it would always, always be nothing.

Think of JJ, Sipho, Mtho and a million others whom we do not know, whom we might never know. Think of what they could have done, what they could be. Think of the great content we are missing out on because our stars were never afforded the opportunity to shine. Think of your own dreams, your own passions, your own abilities. Measure them against your opportunities and see if they ever have a chance to flourish, a chance to make it to the spring fountains so they can bloom brighter than imagined.

Have we made a society that will groom our abilities into shooting stars, or we will forever die dreaming of blossoming when we have got no stem or branches to hold on to?

Think about it. All of it.

Till next time.

Mitchel.