Reblogged: #ZimShutDown: Desperate government attacks citizens

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My Vows My Responsibility

Here is my lawyer….Tarie, you make way too much sense but then again common sense is not common, even among our esteemed judiciary folk. 😉

tarytells

The issue of adultery damages usually opens up unruly debates which are never conclusive. Married women in most instances pull out daggers protecting their marriages while men are not amused by such stances when their wives sue the ‘other woman’. What always baffles me is that when a man who has been adamant that a woman should not sue a girlfriend of their husband is asked if he should sue for adultery damages from a man who has an affair with his wife they are incensed.
Adultery is when two people have an intimate relationship and one or both of them are married to someone else at that time. Adultery damages are awarded to compensate the injured party. At law they are compensated for two things: Contumelia and lack of consortium. Contumelia is about hurt, pain and indignity that is as a result of the adultery whilst consortium refers to…

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Battles between grammar and creation

I’m seated on my bed (do I say that I’m seated IN my bed?) a day after my 14th 20th birthday 😉 and I’m thinking… Why did God create full grown adults? I mean,  He could have created babies and seen them grow and all that but (or do I say ‘hey’?) The Almighty One chose Adam and Eve to be full grown adults.  At least that’s the impression most of us have. He could also have just created old people.

Emma

#RatedLoose How many wives are having sex for their husbands? How many men don’t even know that their wives are off sex/ not feeling it/ doing it for the marriage’s sake?
This is one heck of a thought-provoking blog. Please read it and share it and discuss it. Tag me @shhhtendo (T) R Tendo Tapiwa (Fb), let’s discuss.

The sex is still as frequent although I dont ever feel like it or enjoy it.

Watched a movie called “The Colour Purple” the other day. The scene that still haunts me is the one in which Netty speaks to Shug, who is her husbands mistress really, about how sex is a non-event for her. Shug is shocked because when she sleeps with the same man its heaven but Netty speaks of it like dude is “going to the toilet on her”. Its haunting me so much because I know I am Netty too only I learnt how to pretend because mama said thats what good wives do. They put their man first and they never let their true feelings show”

Help! I talk to myself….On second thoughts, I AM normal!

Damn it! I talk to myself. Yes, ndinotaura ndega. I talk to myself so many times a day and it helps me function “normally”. I hate it when I don’t talk to me because I forget my thoughts. Imagine, I have just scrolled thru my phone yet I forgot why I wanted the phone in the first place.

i also tend to go back to the task or room I was doing/ at so that I recall what I want in the room I have just entered. Yes, I do that a lot. And I do that a lot when I forget to talk to myself. When I talk to myself, I remember much more easily what I want or why I am where I am and the like.

I also tend to hold conversations with myself. There is a difference between talking to myself and holding conversations with myself. In talking to myself, I tell myself stuff that I do not want to forget…stuff such as, “go back and edit that Facebook post you want to post because they will surely pick you up this time” LOL. In holding entire conversations I tend to just talk to myself and respond to myself. Yes, I do. It is like there are two or more MEs who are having an exchange of sorts. Not necessarily heated but words are shared. Not gossip, although I tend to do that, too. Well, it is safer than doing it with someone else- kinda like a masturbation of gossip. LOL

Anyway, when I have entire conversations with myself, I tend to experience a whole host of emotions. kinda like:

Duh, you can be quite a mouthful, at times, R.

Of course, I am. What did you think I would be? A boot-lick like those Zanu apologists? (LOL, a part of me even laughs right now. It is just not the part that is recalling a recent conversation, so go figure.)

You can be more subtle, you know?

Subtle?? Ha!!! Does she even know the word? (Yes, another part of me interrupts rudely, uninvited and like that random stranger on the kombi ride who butts into your conversation forcing you into an awkward silence. You know the one I am talking about… I have been her. 😉 )

Shut up and mind your business! (I will rarely be silenced, even by that rude and random part of me. RMEs- rolling my eyes)

So what did you say this time around? (Another part of me, this one is the really curious one and she almost always gets me into trouble when she pitches up. She always wants to know the WHAT or else the WHY. I suspect that she is the one who pushes me into discovering they HOW of it. Ayaas)

I did not say anything I did not mean. (The sheepish side responds. I even see her looking down. I don’t know how she is even a part of me. Shy?? ha!! she needs a bit of spine! I will teach her!)

Yet you said what you meant, right? (That rude stranger again. #sigh this time she is spotting a huge smile. The one that has lit up her semi cat-eyes and they are sparkling with that insatiable need to be confirmed right. I am kinda reminded of how a piece of sh@&t you have walked past is somehow lingering in the air making you think that you probably have stepped on it but are afraid to look beneath your shoe. Why does that image come to mind?)

Don’t answer that! (I have no idea as to where or who or which part of me said it but one part of me decides to listen and that is where this particular conversation ends)
I want sadza. (Is that even a thought or it is a new conversation?)

Sadza and what? You have hate meat so why bother? (yes, it is a new conversation.)

Yes, I had sadza yesterday and eating it again is like…. aaargh! and I am talking to myself again! (Who is talking now? Me. But which me is it?)

Can I ju….Hello? Hi. (I interrupt myself to start a proper conversation on the phone. At least this one is with people who answer back. Wait a minute…I answer myselves back. #sulk)

They are boring. He is boring!! Just hang up. (must be the trouble maker, the one who is ill-disciplined. Needs a thorough bottom-whipping to instill the fear of mother in her. I wonder how my grandmother and father missed out on instilling discipline in this one. She must have surfaced later on in my life. Kinda like how a little worm/ maggot surfaces in sadza just as you are about to dish it into dad’s plate. Do you get relieved because it surfaced at just that moment rather than later? Or you get annoyed that now you can’t eat because you know what was in the sadza?)

No, that would be rude. Just excuse yourself and hangu up. (Evidently, this one is just a talker and did not see the worm/ maggot.)

Same difference! She will just have to hang up at the end of it. (This one is as stubborn as skin pigmentation…no matter how light skinned these cheap, under-the-handbags creams can get you, all your blackness aka brownness will insist on settling on your knuckles! To proudly help you knock on any doors of opportunity, loudly declaring to you that you are a dark skinned woman running away from yourself like police officers at the kirawa yamadzibaba. ROFLMAO. Ok, not really, I am walking around somewhere and laughing my tail off. Imagine how all that pigmentation is running away- it can be Usain Bolt-ing, or it can be Haile Gebrselassie-ing, but run to the knuckles, it does.

Yes. I am still here. I was just lowering the volume. What I would give to silence these really loud MEs inside of me! (I will not even bother to ask who has taken over but my phone conversation is now so different with all theMEs just jabbering on inside me.)

It is lots of fun to talk to myself (hey, we are quite a few of you in here) #giggle

Of today’s “fast” young girls: #BIAAGZIM

I come from a society that believes in punishment rather than rehabilitation, a society that believes in reactionary methods of dealing with challenges rather than trying to prevent them, a society that is more in denial than accepts reality, and in so doing, would learn how to deal with them. And that is just the shame of it. Child marriage is sadly a scourge and the fight to end it has got to be very deep and, like a boil, it must be painfully ‘squeezed out from the root’. In a society where women are commodities to be owned, girls tend to be the ‘highest prized” of these commodities meant to help “turn around” the economic woes of families. Families sell their girl children, be it to be (cheap) labour or into marriage- to men who violate these young innocents’ childhood.  The Customary Marriages Act which looks at all customary marriages in the country does not even have an age limit as to what age people can get married, so a lot of young girls are married off under “customary marriages” and the law cannot do anything to punish those who abuse young girls in such scenarios.

It is fair and fine to look at marriage within the customary settings but I want to particularly look at child marriages in the modern set up where school going girls are impregnated by one person or the other and are forced out of school and sent packing into marriages they did not want or even think about. Child marriage, also known as early marriage, can be defined as “Any marriage carried out below the age of 18 years, before the girl is physically, physiologically, and psychologically ready to shoulder the responsibilities of marriage and childbearing.” I have followed a lot of debates on how “fast” or kuda zvinhu our young girls have become. I get it that we are a prude and uptight society that frowns upon sexual intercourse by women. I get it BUT…how then do we help these young in-school girls, at the peak of raging hormones and are that age where experimenting and exploration is rivalled by that of babies? Young people are having sex and my society had better accept this fact and deal with it. I am one of those who applauds the minister who wants condoms in schools as well as applaud those teens at the recent nude party who were  found in possession of condoms. That means that these kids are better prepared to engage in safer sex than be at the risk of such dangers as teenage pregnancy, which I view to be one of the number one reasons for child marriage.

I want to pose a series of questions:

If a baby loves the flickering of flames, do we leave that baby to play with it or we remove it from harm’s way? Do we punish a baby for their being attracted to flames? How come we child-proof homes why can we not ‘adult-proof’ our teens? Sex and pregnancy is meant for adults yet we do not talk to our teens about it but somehow expect them to just not indulge. We have a society that believes that whole grown men, heads of homes and even leaders in various circles, are incapable of controlling their sexual urges, how then do we expect these young people to be able to do what adults fail and are expected to fail to do? And when these kids fail and fall pregnant we punish them by sending them into an institution that accounts for more abuses of women than any. We send them to start a rite of passage that only a mature, informed and consenting adult should be willingly entering. I am particularly looking at those child marriages which take place because a school going girl has come home late or she has fallen pregnant and must “go kwaakapihwa nhumbu yake” (she must go to whoever made her pregnant)

People can get emotional all they want but a child who, despite acting all grown up and doing grown up business, has no business being thrust into a space that she is most likely to be abused repeatedly. This young girl-woman needs to be in school where an education can help her secure a better future for her. She needs the support of her family during this bewildering period in her life and not left in the hands of a man who most probably does not want anything to do with her or the baby she is now carrying. Sending her into marriage at such an early age and given the likely scenario she will face, IS punishing her, and punishing her terribly, if I may be so candid. Marriage should be a joy and not something that is founded on “mistakes”, fear and constant reminders that one is being punished and is unwanted.

Given that sex has taken place between a child-woman and (usually) an adult, why does my society see it fit that a few dollars, cows and some clothes and groceries are given in exchange for the entire future of this child? How much is a woman’s future worth anyway? Seems it carries a small price tag whichever way we look at it. Let us all remember that before we condemn this “wayward” child, for she still is a child, she is at the mercy of her hormones and we need to guide her through this difficult time of her life. I would dare challenge parents to take up the parenting mantle and equip their young girls with all the information they would need to get through this period in a manner that will allow them to avoid the pitfalls of teenage pregnancy and teenage sex. Marrying her off is not a solution and should not even be contemplated. Let us talk WITH our children about sexual intercourse so that they are better informed and ready to face or avoid it.

#BIAAGZIM

Listening to Chimamanda and Zadie Smith

Please talk about it or else…

Please do not read this if you are unwell as I just did. I am in double pain..from the flu and headache I have and from the stitches from the laughter.

Ikhide is just hilarious! riotous, witty and so….Ikhide…so “talky” LOL

Pa Ikhide

Americans talk about everything at every opportunity. They talk during meals and sex. I once had an apartment below a young American couple who liked to make love and talk at the same time. Loudly. I was miserable whenever I had to leave the apartment to go to work, so entertaining. Nigerians are simple people; the British taught us to keep mum during sex. That is what the missionary position is for. I don’t know why the British call it the missionary position; they should simply call it the (only) position since well it is the (only) position they know about. Maybe the Americans invented the missionary position. They have names for everything because they talk a lot. The British are famously tight-lipped about everything. The story is told about the British couple enjoying their annual one round of sex in the missionary position when the woman began to squirm…

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The more I read the Esther and Queen Vashti story, the more I am appalled by what the church says with regards to submission as they quote Esther. My heart burns within me and I want to scream myself hoarse underwater or something!

So, the summary is this:
Queen Vashti is summoned by her drunk husband, the king, to parade her beauty before his drunken fellas. All leaders of his 127 provinces. These guys have been drinking for 7 days straight so u can imagine what state they are in. She refuses! Kudos to you QV! A drunken advisor tells king that this is nasty and advises him to get rid of her and the drunk king agrees so QV is disposed of. She disappears from the Biblical scene except for the time when the king remembers her with regret. Oh well. She was better off without him, says I. (if anyone has info on what happened to her apart from the Jewish versions that I am reading, I would love to get my hands on it. Thank you)

The beautiflu Vashti was a wonder to behold
image taken from (www.itisbygrace2.com)

So, at the advise of these same “wisemen” they hold a beauty contest to find a replacement! Wow! It surely was not the Miss Zimbabwe (Lord, forbid it wasn’t as confused) nor was it like the Miss World one (no questions paused about passions etc or parading of stuff to the world either) This contest took months to plan and I understand that this king would “sample” whoever he thought was beautiful enough. (I am still researching more on this bit of info and I stand guided)

Please note: king had a harem (er, that is

pic of a geisha from pinterest

women who were available for his sexual pleasure though they were not his wives…think of small houses, my Zimbabwean friends aka mistresses or concubines, or geishas something like that) So, he was looking for someone to be the queen.

Anyway, he is taken by Esther, as God intended, as the Bible and Jewish texts say. Now, here is where it gets interesting:
the church, some centuries beyond this era, take Esther to be this paragon of virtue and make out Vashti to be this witch and ungrateful, rude, headstrong woman. Oh well, it could have been worse for her, right? LOL

But, I want to submit some things:
1. Had Esther just walked in to the king’s chamber, she would have been KILLED!! yes, no one ever entered the king’s presence without being summoned in that time and place, not even his queen. Now, what kind of marriage is that? One where a wife has to try and grab her husband’s attention all the while fearing death. Why else did she have to call for God’s favour via the fast? This was no ordinary marriage and it would do well for the church to acknowledge this.

Esther lived a life away from her husband. She would wait to be summoned into his presence. What manner of life/ marriage is that?
image from (www.stories-for-children.ca)

2. Are we vilifying Queen Vashti for wanting her dignity more than anything else? How many women does the church crucify for merely dressing “scantily”? and somehow, it should have been “agreeable” for a WHOLE QUEEN to prance about a jury of drunken “lords” displaying her beauty NAKED except a crown on her head??? We have a huge moral tangle when men go to strip clubs. We label women who “display” themselves loose and wanton and immoral yet, in the same breath, we vilify a queen for not wanting to do the same thing?

And e get angry when we see semi-nude women yet somehow we expected it out of Queen Vashti? Is she not worthy of the same “dignity” we want for everyone else?
(image from fineartamerica.com)

3. I am not too sure about this queen position that we all scream bloody murder about. Looking at this king Ahasuerus aka xerxes aka Achashveirosh, I do not see what there is in him to admire about being married to such a man! Really, I don’t.

The church has gone to celebrate Esther’s rise as if she was married to some great guy. What only made this guy “great” was his wealth, his empire and his title, in my view. Looking at him, he was a man of great temper. He was rash in making decisions. He made decisions under the influence of alcohol. He took advise from drunken men and implemented it! he seems to me like the good for nothing that we all hear the pastors preaching against at the pulpit. If we take away his title, his wealth (maybe we could leave him some) and his power and influence, no woman in her right mind would ever want to bring home such a man! Oops, I forget, she probably would, as she would be one up on a sister who is single, divorced or a single parent. “Better she is married than she be single” is what we have taught our girls. Shame!

after 180 days of a huge party and then 7 days of more partying, this king as a drunkard!
(www.quotehd.com)

4. The church uses Esther as an example of submission (the real reason that had me start this article, in the first place) as if Esther had a choice in the matter. She was married to a man as a REPLACEMENT to a woman who had probably been killed. So who would want to cross paths with such a man? I doubt she could even cough without first seeking permission from him! The church forgets that to see her own husband, she had to get the whole Jewish nation in Susa to fast with her! Surely, what kind of marriage is that? That was just something else BUT a marriage!! Who wants that??

5. Esther did not want to be married to this guy. She did not choose him but HE orchestrated events that would see her, a virgin among other virgins in the land, end up as his wife. at this point, I am sure that there would have been some virgins who ran off, anything but to be married to this horrible man. I do not see how they could have been happily taking part in this beauty contest that would result in them being married to such a man. Those who did not make it to be his wives, what became of them?

6. Esther had to HIDE her true identity from her husband!! What nonsense is this? This man was a piece of work, I tell you and I pity Esther more and applaud Vashti all the more for standing up to this man! Whilst we talk of respect and submission, if these are not earned, they are as worthless as the man who demands them from his wife.

Can the church stop perpetuating the idea that men are gods who must be worshiped and feared and start teaching the men and boys to love women? Looking at the story of Queen Vashti and Queen Esther, I see two women who had to do what must be done “in order to fulfill the prophecies” and none must be vilified or exalted because, on closer inspection, they lived terrible lives with this man. But such is many a woman’s story! It remains untold, unexplored and only the “suitable” bits are sifted through to give the “right/ suitable/ correct” picture.

Zimbabwe, 33 years of independence

Two years down the line and my prayers are still the same. This entry seems to have been written for 35 year old Zimbabwe. I still pray for true Independence of our nation. Independence from economic imprisonment and lack, freedom to express what we think and feel, freedom to associate with whom we want, when we want and why we want. I pray that this self rule is realised in every meaning of the word “self”.

May Zimbabwe move peacefully and successfully from these trenches of despair, heartache and poverty the majority of us are living in. May God arise in Zimbabwe this 35th year of our independence from colonial rule. May He usher us into true independence especially independende from god-like leadership.

feminineallegiance:

Today I take a special note of the true heroes of the liberation struggle…the povo. Had the masses not opened their homes, had they resisted the ‘liberators’ from taking their cattle n goats and chickens, even their wives and daughters…the war would have had a different outcome. Had they all worked like clock work and sold out every ‘soldier’…I could go on listing what the masses could have done differently, what they could have resisted yet they did not.

I know that at least every family in present day Zimbabwe lost someone…be it to death or to trauma, displacement, prison, to the other side or whatever else took people during the war…it is a loss all the same and must not be trivialized.

My prayer this Independence day, is that the masses are once again really free. Free, most importantly from political tyranny and corruption , free from Zesaless and…

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