This year has exposed our vulnerability as humans more than all the years we have lived on Mother Earth. Some have even called for the reverse button on 2020 so that we can restart this year with its funny-looking digits that took us by surprise and shook us out of our sokkies so much so that even those with the most sophisticated technology and education are clueless in the face of mass deaths all over the globe. Can we not just take out the cassette that got stuck in the tape and rewind it with a pen like we used to do back in the day when there was no digital technology? Can we just bow down and ask God for forgiveness for all our sins so we go back to the way things were? Og, haibo man!
In this time of fear and anxiety where you are even afraid of your own shadow, even the prophets who have kama been making people walk, see or hear again have vanished into thin air. Some are posting videos from the comforts of their living rooms, pleading with their followers not to stop sending their tithes to personal bank accounts provided. I am telling you these prophets have no skande. While other philanthropic and faith-based organisations are doing whatever in their power to provide financial, emotional and spiritual support to patients and countries ravaged by Covid-19, these so-called messengers are like fake chommies who hide behind bushes to watch you getting moered and robbed by a gang of blood-thirsty skanaes only to reappear later and tell you how they wish they were there to beat up those gang bangers. If this is not the time to open your eyes and realise that these earthly gods are nothing else but wolves in sheep clothes, then your !xondo is just kaput. Maybe all you need is a brick to the head that can hopefully restore your dead brain. And I am serious; if we survive this Covid-19, we have to close all these fake money-worshipping churches preying on our most vulnerable.
In this time of desperation, I also want to know where the tokolosies are because we have heard since time immemorial that they can perform miracles and people run to them with all their goats and cows to be ‘healed’ from all types of sickness. We are confronted with the worst pandemic; we also want you to sit at the table of brotherhood and sisterhood and tell us what to do since science seems to be losing the battle against this curse. Haven’t we heard that you ride on sweet potatoes at night and vanish through brick walls? This is your time to shine now.
People are now resorting to whatever means possible to make ends meet and our jittery ncinas are not leaving any stones unturned either. Just the other day, they stole N$12 from a cashbox. I believe that they bargained for more, but maybe one of them didn’t have taxi money to get home.
Since our watering holes are on lock and key – thanks to our government for closing down all bars and the selling of alcohol so that people can keep the social distance, it will nonetheless stop people from finding other desperate means to get their drink on such as breaking laws by persuading Shebeen queens and kings to sell them those bolomakiesie-making goodies. I hear that all the gemer, brown sugar and yeast has vanished from supermarket shelves, but I am minding my own business.
Beyond the Shebeens, our records stand on how innovative our people have been able to ‘discover’ things that make them feel like they are drifting under ‘cool clouds’. Please look on the shelves of supermarkets if the Pattex glue is not selling faster than hot cakes and a goat ‘smiley’ at Otjikaendu’s Den. Also, check if we still have enough flu medicine in stock since I heard that Borstol and other ‘Sipping on some sizzurp’ (syrup) are vanishing from pharmacies fast.
But all in all, it is a time for serious reflection on our strengths since we have so much time on our hands and instead of drowning in our sorrows, we can use the energy to discover new methods – doing the right things that can move us forward as a nation after the lockdown.
Sorry Ngo!
– mnunuhe@gmail.com