Magreth Nunuhe
Tah! Being a journo is hanakam no child’s play after a fellow scribe was knocked down by
the Mike Tyson wanna-be who is accused of gruesome gender-based murder. I know Nestor Tobias Academy has been training our boxers to top-notch standard in the boxing arena but I never knew there were some low-laying Hitmans who might have missed their profession.
It’s not every day that something like this happens. There was a bar brawl
between a journalist and some businessmen that went to court with accusations and
counter-accusations, but I have never seen a messenger of the people being attacked
like that in broad daylight and that nogals in front of the cops, court and all.
After the whole fiasco you should have heard some people running their mouths, “Ja, it’s
good; these story lorries don’t wanna learn. They are in everyone’s bleddie business.”
Etoo, when have we been lowered to the level of storie-bekke? I thought we were doing
an honourable job, sacrificing our time with the odd hours we work, dodging botsotsos
after dusk for carrying expensive camera equipment and ducking stones at taxi strikes.
As a matter of fact, we should have had chauffeurs, translators and bodyguards because
the chances of being attacked by mobs speaking a vernacular you don’t understand is very
possible and the traffic cops don’t mind to give you a fine for speeding to an incident
or running away from one.
Do you know that the moment we became journos we made a pact to the public to become
their eyes and ears and now that we are just that, we are being attacked and
called disrespectful names. It’s not nice, kao. We are lucky that many of us haven’t been caught in crossfire or been posted to
war-torn countries, where we might have to be shielded by sex-hungry soldiers and stuff.
In some countries journos are so ‘respected’ that they get the ‘brown-envelope’ for
doing little favours for those in power, but I hardly hear things like that here. We could have been driving Range Rovers and living in Kleine Kuppe, but no, we are just
your everyday neighbour that you laugh at for choosing a career that has no moola. We struggle to get our little skoroskoros out of the yard in the bitter
cold winter.
We don’t complain for crawling out of our aunties’ backyard where we have
set up our small kambashus while amplifying the needs of our communities. We have even
lost the war against cockroaches as Zim sprays are not helping either.
So, have a little compassion and respect for us and stop kicking us around just because we might
have brushed you the wrong way. If it weren’t for us, you wouldn’t know how to plan your
lives, tji. Sorry Ngo!
magreth@newera.com.na