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[zimboxl]

Jargon Tourettes

Top 10 Overused Jargon 2018*

Overused Jargon (OJ) tells us what the media savvy think is relevant, useful, and popular. In some ways jargon is a gatekeeper, a cliquish code to separate those who get it from those who don’t. My selection is indicative of general trends with a bias towards the African arts and development worlds. These words are not sacred, and they need to be satirized and tested so that they don't become enshrined, unconsidered, shallow symbols of in-group identification. Perhaps this can help to prevent the alienating and misleading effects jargon can have. Consider this a satirical vaccination against sophistry and let’s hope for a better tomorrow where cryptic condescension gives way to shared comprehension.

Innovation

The elder states-person, the OG of OJ. 'Innovation' has somehow managed to remain atop the charts in spite of becoming a caricature of itself over the years. It also feels like we've been innovating for decades now, we might be due for some consolidation and refinement. Innovation's longevity is a product of its flexibility (it can mean many things), its vapidity (it can mean nothing), and the novelty-chasing tech-centric culture du jour.

Eg. “The Innovation Initiative was initially based on the premise that all change is good. It later became The Department of Unexpected Consequences.”

Engagement

Whether it's measured in links clicked, or viewing time, engagement is usually a euphemism for 'keeping an audience's attention more deeply for longer periods of time'. There's nothing necessarily wrong with this in itself, any creator wants their work to be engaging. Unfortunately, truly valuable engagement is about quality of experience, not just stats. It also turns out that trolling, click-bait, bot-baes, and other tricks work just as well, if not better than creating compelling, meaningful content - assuming that pure statistical engagement is the goal here. Even eliciting hate and outrage in the audience is preferred to eliciting the dreaded indifference.

Eg. “Once middle-aged super-users started gouging their own eyes out the e-ghetto slum lords sought to maintain high levels of user engagement by injecting digital crack directly into user’s blood streams via a fleet of nano-drones.”

Unpack

It's not mansplaining if you preface your long-winded speech with, “let me just unpack that before we move on...”  Poetic allusions to heavy baggage give this bit of OJ an ironic edge. Have you ever felt burdened by verbose unpacking? I have.

Eg. “As the morning's first speaker, I unpacked the topic of discussion at such length the moderator had to stop me so we could break for lunch.”

Girl Child

A steady climber over the years. Indicative of gendered global SJW trends, the Girl Child™ is now the holy grail of target demographics and beneficiaries. The term is particularly popular in development circles where its feminist paternalistic slant strangely fits the industry-wide vestigial-colonial vibe. Besides, 'Starving African' just feels so 1900s.

Eg. “Emergency! The ship is sinking! All women, girl children, and gender-non-binary-human-meat-sacks may board the life rafts first! The rest of you can fuck off.”

Decolonization

An up and coming term with the potential to rise even further in the charts. Its ceiling depends mostly on whether or not it remains a trophy word spoken in seminars and galleries. If it matures into active programs that directly enact de-colonial agendas the word may have to share the stage with other relevant but unsexy terms like 'supply chains', 'resource redistribution', 'local staff', etc. It also has immense potential as a linguistic camouflage for bad art. Those who criticize 'de-colonial art' may easily be shamed and dismissed as colonists, apologists, or sympathizers. The thoughtful critical landscape is pretty thin so similar strategies may be applied with other identity-centric words to shield questionable work from honest criticism.

Eg. “The former farm invader liberator had diversified his portfolio to include decolonizing luxury resorts, one free vacation at a time.”

Afro-Futurism

This once exciting term is at risk of becoming nostalgic dross due to how much it's been bandied about in African arts circles. It's a victim of its own success. A tell-tale marker of when a term becomes OJ is that it inspires satire of a higher quality and awareness than sincere works.

Eg. “Afro-futurism enables us to imagine a future where our collective conscious, aka Wakanda, has morphed into a touch screen cell phone that purifies drinking water, and cures HIV.”

Beneficiary

If a heroine feeds a starving village and no one sees it, did they all just starve instead? There can be no benefactors without beneficiaries and they must be documented, preferably smiling in situ despite the squalor that surrounds them. As a citizen of a country where most adults are unemployed I'd argue that employed development professionals should also be counted among the so-called beneficiaries. There's no shame in getting paid if you do a good job.

Eg. “As I saw the tears of unrestrained joy flow from the beneficiaries' eyes I knew my genocidal ancestors' crimes had been forgiven in full. If anything, I'd earned some extra credit for future generations.”

Toxic Masculinity

The shortest way to describe a Tarantino movie. Some people seem to believe that all masculinity is toxic, but we unfortunately don't have a popular catch phrase for them yet. Many men try to camouflage themselves by borrowing the props, costumes, and behaviors of their perceived superiors, essentially flaunting their overseer's whip. You know it when you see it.

Eg. “The game show host gave Chloe a choice between experiencing an unspecified act of toxic masculinity and ingesting mercury; Chloe chose mercury.”

Curate

Curating used to happen in museums and galleries, ideal environments for  showing others you have better taste and ideas than the unwashed masses. Now it's everywhere. Seemingly overnight the jargoneers stopped simply 'choosing things to sell in their shops' and started 'curating bespoke collections for their boutiques'. It’s the same thing, but with bougie overtones.

Eg. “The fuel station manager curated a collection of limited edition off-white sequined jerrycans for his most discerning customers.”

Interactive

I know what this word means to me, but after being assaulted by many misuses, and making many concessions for the sake of conversation and civility, I no longer have a clue what it means to the general public. I do know that in digital art circles it signifies 'cool', 'cutting edge', and 'dynamic'. At worst I've seen it used to describe a fixed work that people looked at without influencing in any way.

Eg. “The curator  of 'The Bricks are Present' was puzzled when the audience didn't transform into pro-bono builders despite the presence of the interactive bricks in the space.”

Conversation

Habitually misused by talking heads who would have you believe their one-sided monologues somehow constitute a conversation.

Eg. “Popular Instagrammer @Philosothot69 had an ongoing conversation with her thirsty horde of male fans wherein she mused about being more than just her looks while they sent her flaming eggplant emojis and tagged their friends.”

Problematic

Increasingly just a trendy way to add an air of faux-academic objectivity to ones' personal opinions and preferences. A newb might say, 'I didn't like District 9', but a true OJ guzzler will declare that it was problematic. Like many such words its rise began sincerely within relevant contexts, but it has since been taken up cynically in other contexts. In a few years it may just be something glib people say about petty things in the ceaseless quest to sound woke.

Eg. “When eventually Phil voiced his critical opinions about the concept sketches for the mural, Kuda quickly shushed him, reminding him that, generous funding aside, his uppity whiteness was problematic. Thus Kuda attained her black belt in the dark arts of juggling feminism and racial politics.”

Triggered

Triggered once referred to panic attacks that traumatized war veterans suffered after hearing loud noises or other shocking stimuli. Originally rooted in early studies of Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or shell-shock as it was known then, triggered can now be trotted out to describe how you feel when someone is wearing the same outfit as you at the grocery shop.

Eg. Overzealous auto-correct and my aversion for proof-reading ruined my broadcasted Annual Christmas Party invitation message. I got so triggered I like literally died.

* by 10 I meant 13.

[zimboxl]

Pals Gone Wild

The internet is littered with small-minded and basic personas. Understand that some of these very people claim to share your interests and ideologies. You hear them crying wolf, impulsively shrieking instead of analyzing the facts and the context. It’s no longer enough to resist your perceived opponents, you also have to reign in the excesses of your would-be allies when they go overboard. Failure to do so erodes your credibility and inevitably comes back to bite you in the face. It comes back by alienating even keeled spectacle-averse people. It comes back by eroding the integrity of your beliefs and ideas. It comes back by driving the discourse towards the lowest common denominator. It comes back when you find yourself surrounded by frothing idiots and you’re not sure how it happened.

[zimboxl]

The Difference between Propaganda & Art

Art is a process rather than an end product. The creative process is embedded in the end-product. The truly engaged artist doesn’t know precisely where they’re going, they’re exploring. The propagandist knows precisely what they want you the viewer to think, the art is just a pretty disguise or a medium for their ideological coercions.

[zimboxl]

The more supposedly visual art relies on words (artist statements) to communicate with me the more suspicious I get.

[zimboxl]

The Tearful Run Home

Highlands Junior School taught children between the ages of five and thirteen, grades one through seven. It became a government-run institution some time in the late 90s or early 2000s. “It used to be so good,” is the refrain often muttered by nostalgic alumni of all races, although some of the older Rhodies do seem to take a special pleasure in seeing their world views affirmed. “Ay, it was good man!”

Kudzai attended the school in the mid-nineties, his parents lived nearby, and its standards plus the convenience made it an obvious choice. All the students wore anonymizing grey uniforms with red trimming, knee high socks with shorts and short sleeved shirts for the boys; and knee-length dresses and socks for the girls. All topped off with a fashion crime of a floppy hat that was essential for children frolicking for hours daily in Zimbabwe's sun. Perhaps if more of our melanin-deficient comrades heeded the verbal warnings of earnest teachers about sun damage, more of them would have avoided morphing into red-browed reptiles in their mid-to-late thirties.

The Highlands School grounds seemed intentionally designed to instill nostalgia years later. The property was large for a school catering to a few, if not just a couple of, hundred students. There were open sports fields, tennis courts, and a consistent style to all the architecture with regularly retouched paint to match the students' uniforms. On any given day the air would be alive with the smell of freshly mowed grass and children playing outside during class hours. There was a tiny peep hole between the girls' and boys' change rooms by the swimming pool. An open secret that enabled an improv game of voyeur and exhibitionist between the naughtier kids at an age when nobody cared to ask what comes next. The 'Upside Down Tree' was a convoluted dwarf  tree which that was simultaneously grotesquely malformed, and cutely endearing. This tree is well engrained in the mythology of the place, taking on Tolkienesque proportions if you bring it up in conversation, just don't sully the memory by actually going to see it again. It still stands there, decades later, looking dejectedly over a set of unkempt tennis courts and the large grassy playground-cum-cricket pitch.

As is the norm, the students were split into streams. The dumdums and later bloomers were abandoned to the lower streams to contemplate their inadequacies, while the more cognitively gifted were placed in the upper streams to cultivate arrogance and a sense of entitlement. This was largely done fairly via standardized tests, but politics did play its part. Especially as one particular teacher, Mrs. Stenben, had two children, one year apart, enrolled in the school. A viral rumor once spread among the students that this she had conspired with her athletically challenged, overweight, and lazy older son to help him cheat during the compulsory cross-country run. She did this in typically crude Zimbabwean fashion by picking him up in the parking lot and dropping him off further down the course.

Break time, at about 10am, was a highlight of each day. Most children would split off into their groups and sit in circles, chatting hot air. They'd bring out their pack lunches, share jokes, mockery, play games.  The livelier ones would run around playing more active games while dodging the  seated groups. The main playground was vast, comprised of two adjacent cricket fields bissected by a straight walkway between the main classroom block and the boarding house. The flatness made it possible to  see and hear hundreds of kids all at once. The sounds blurred into a cacophony of chatter, laughter, and the occasional scream.

The Gang was a group of five generally unremarkable black boys who Kudzai often hung out with during break time. Farai, the ring-leader, was arguably the least intelligent. He had a somewhat misshapen, but functional, head and a jarring laugh that demanded a victim. At break time The Gang (TG) would slither about the large playground looking for naive cheerfulness to sully with their rebellious anti-social experiments. In hindsight, this was just a gentle introduction. The full extent of the casual cruelty of children would be revealed later in high school, long after The Gang had disbanded.

When kicking a tennis ball back and forth became boring, the Gang sometimes looked for someone to laugh at mercilessly until they cried. They almost always succeeded, in large part due to Farai's maniacal cackle and talent for accusatory pointing. They would just walk up and start laughing. No verbalized reason was needed, the mere sight and sound of the laughter was enough to prompt tears from the more sensitive children.

Once, again for no reason, Farai turned his talents against his fellow gang member Kudzai. Kudzai was caught off guard and felt a horrible nauseating churn in his belly, but he managed to avoid the final humiliation of tears. For revenge he later hid a soft-core porn magazine (tits only) in Farai's desk, which an appalled teacher later found. Farai was punished and Kudzai never confessed his role in the debacle. It was easy for all to accept that Farai had naughty magazines, just as it was easy for Farai to accept that one of his many victims over the years had finally struck back.

The Gang was over after the boys passed their Grade 7 examinations and returned to the bottom of the social cesspool as Form 1 students at their respective high schools. Years later Tapiwa, one of the quieter Gang members, would win an athletic scholarship to an Ivy League University in the US, rumored to have been Harvard. A scholarship which he never used because he tragically got a girl pregnant a few months before he was due to depart to what would probably have been a better life. The rest blurred into obscurity over the years, either leaving Zimbabwe quietly or settling into well-adjusted, socially acceptable Zimbo routines.

Classes ended at 1pm and the students either went home, ate lunch, or starved before afternoon sports. Since his family lived closeby, Kudzai usually walked home to for lunch, even if he had to come back for sports. He alternated routes between Kew Drive and Dromore Road. Both were about the same distance, conventionally pretty streets with a variety of flowering trees and domestic workers passing time and braiding hair outside their gates. Kew Drive had more traffic, while Dromore Road was a quieter and shadier street. Most of the children who took that route walked alone as opposed to the groups on Kew Drive.

On his walks home down Dromore Road Kudzai had observed a mysterious man in a Mazda 323 who regularly came and parked there for about half an hour before leaving. He always parked in the same tree shaded spot furthest from any house gates and the Seventh Day Adventist church towards the other end of the street. The man clearly had a littering problem and was creating a growing mess of discarded fast food packaging and other plastic garbage in his go-to spot. Usually the man wasn't alone, but his companions seemed to have a dark talent for evading Kudzai's curious side eye as he ambled by, slowing down just enough to not make it too obvious that he was watching them. One day the mystery died and it became obvious what was going on. The Mazda 323 wasn't there, but it was clear that amongst the dirt-stained and broken Chicken Inn packs were a lot of used condoms. One of which was still glistening and relatively fresh. Suddenly Kudzai got an idea.

He ran loosely and seemingly tirelessly down Dromore Road. Like most eleven year old boys who ran a lot. Beth, wrong place wrong time, ran breathlessly like a novice, reaping the rewards of having managed to dodge most physical training and compulsory cross country runs with her various parents' and doctor's notes. Kudzai had used a stick to pick up the gnarly condom. He ran with it on front of him, a little to the side just in case it fell off so he wouldn't run into it. He cried ecstatically from laughter as he chased after Beth, leaving a misty trail of tears in the wake of her annoyed screams. This was just the sort of asinine prank that perfectly tickled his adolescent sense of  humor. He could laugh so much at times he had to force himself to stop before his jaw cramped or he tweaked an intercostal muscle in his rib cage.

Beth was horrified, and she was tiring. Kudzai, thinking devilishly on the fly, consciously slowed to just the right speed to sustainably keep her running, backpack and all, for the road's roughly three hundred meter length. His intention was not to catch her, only to make her run all the way to the intersection at which point they could turn their separate ways towards their respective homes. Catching her prematurely would only ruin his fun. And if he actually touched her (or god forbid, himself) with the gooey contents of the used condom that would be too gross and probably lead to peeved parents getting involved. Kudzai didn't fully understand the mysterious goo or condom at that point in his life, but he knew it wasn't something he could put on someone forcibly without getting into real trouble.

As they reached the intersection Bertha turned right and looked over her shoulder to see if Kudzai was going to follow her. He did not. He waved goodbye to his classmate grinning, his growing appetite for mischief satiated for one more day.

[zimboxl]

Stranger

The sub speaker was blaring a toxic mix of overblown static and off-key vocals. The live show people had come to see was over and the crowd was slowly filtering out. Leaving only the most die-hard (or desperate, depending on how you look at it) revelers to loiter around for some last gasp booty calls. A few months later Pen Bar would be out of business. Kudzai was outside, mass-texting friends in search of his next move. He noticed Dillon and a couple of other guys leaning over an open and ominously silent car engine.

"You need some help?"

"Yeah, my battery's dead," replied Dillon.

Kudzai lined up his car up within inches of Dillon's. The loose jumper cable connectors sparked as his friend held one end and Dillon held the other. The whole operation took less than three minutes. They all exchanged high fives and Dillon headed home. His buddy asked Kudzai for a ride into town and he obliged. There's nothing like shared victory, however trivial, to build camaraderie.

Nowadays, Kudzai can't remember the guy's fake name. I'll just call him Leroy. All Kudzai remembers is that Leroy looked about twenty years old, was slightly smaller than average, and was very talkative. They had a good five minute conversation as Kudzai drove to Prince Edward Road where Leroy's flat was. Or rather, where Leroy claimed his flat was. They talked about the streets, film, and animation, topics that Kudzai could ramble on about for hours.

Once Kudzai turned onto Prince Edward Road, Leroy pointed out the rusty black gate to his dimly-lit apartment complex. Kudzai slowed down and pulled in.

"Thanks a lot for the ride man."

"Sure no, problem. Good to meet you."

Leroy opened his door and was stepping out when he remembered.

"Oh, can I get your business card?"

"Sure thing."

Kudzai pulled out his wallet and held out a business card. An instant later, instead of taking the card, Leroy snatched the wallet and bolted towards Josiah Tongogara Ave. #Shame #ButWhy #TheseStreets...

This is when time slowed down. Kudzai liked to think of himself as good in a crisis and the details from here on are crystal clear in his memory. He blinked reflexively and clenched his fist as Leroy snatched the wallet out of it. Kudzai almost held on, but it tore somewhere and slipped out. He had his seat belt on, the car was in second gear, and the passenger side door was open. In what felt like one second, but was probably fours, Kudzai put the car in neutral, pulled up the hand brake, jumped out, closed his door, closed the passenger side door, and pressed the central lock button on his keychain as he ran in chase.

Leroy was already around the corner. The driveway he'd chosen for his little heist was the last one before the Prince Edward and Josiah Tongogara Ave intersection. There were no working street lights. Kudzai sprinted in the dark following the noise of Leroy's footsteps.

Once around the corner Leroy immediately ducked into a dark alley, one of the many that criss-cross that part of town like a maze for homeless beggars, prostitutes, and pick pockets in a pinch. Kudzai kept blindly chasing footsteps for another thirty seconds or so as it slowly dawned on him that he was running in near pitch darkness and anything could be waiting ahead. In dark alleys a robbery could easily turn into a stabbing, or worse. Kudzai gave up the ghost and walked back to his car, frustrated, shouting angrily between deep breaths at anyone who would listen. In his clenched fist he gripped the biggest car key poking out between his index and middle finger, just in case...

But nobody appeared, his car was exactly as he'd left it. Kudzai put on the brights and drove around the block twice with his radio off, desperately hoping the mugger would reappear. It was a waste of time. Leroy was gone, and so were Kudzai's US driver's license, Zim ID, bank debit and credit card, seventy two dollars in cash, and his dignity.

Back home, he immediately blocked his bank cards. He researched online and found out that replacing his US drivers' license as a foreign citizen required being physically in the US. That was logistically devastating news. Getting a local license would mean lining up for hours and probably paying a bribe - I mean - an efficiency fee.

The next morning Kudzai returned sober to the scene of the crime. He brought a few dozen business cards. He walked around a three block radius talking to every street vendor, airtime seller, and fuel station worker. He told them what had happened, and gave them a couple of cards each. He left vague promises of anonymity and an unspecified reward for any returned property.

Four days later he got a phone call from a raspy-voiced lady who had found his torn wallet in her garden. She lived across from Avenues' Clinic, just a few blocks from where Kudzai had been robbed. All his cards and IDs were intact, but the cash was gone, including the coins, and his precious wallet was torn beyond usability.

Leroy, the robber, wasn't Dillon's friend after all, he was just some random passerby crook who saw a car break down situation and the opportunity it presented for him to get involved and pull a con. After much counselling and gnashing of teeth, Kudzai's embarrassment at being conned has slowly worn off. One day he may, hopefully, learn to trust again. Until then he won't be doing any favors for strangers. When a beggar passes within his two meter perimeter, Kudzai is prepared. What for, he’s not quite sure, but he's prepared. If he ever sees Leroy again I doubt Kudzai will recognize him, unless he talks too much…

[zimboxl]

Chuck Norris

The electric gate was already open as Kura and Farai drove down the long tweener driveway. These tweeners are common in the Dale-Dales, long driveways that bisect two properties and lead to another property, often larger than the properties with their gates on the public road. Sometimes these tweeners are blocked by boom gates and unarmed guards.

Hugh had invited a few friends for a small house-warming gathering. Some cars were already parked and when Kura recognized Hugh's car he knew he'd come to the right place. The cars lined up in front of a crisply trimmed hedge with an ornate metal gate in the middle. The hum of generators filled the night air as the two friends walked towards the house. Three very large adult Great Danes came bounding towards them, licking Kura and Farai's hands as they walked. Their raw size was intimidating, but they seemed friendly and in a good mood.

Some light flooded out of a living room window where Jimmy, a middle-aged man, sat watching rugby. There were a few empty bottles and a fresh six-pack on the table. Kura knocked on the window. It took the man inside a few seconds to notice. He seemed either very drunk or startled out of a deep sleep.

"Who's that?"

"It's Kura. I'm here to see Hugh."

"Who?"

"Hugh!"

Jimmy was now standing and looking out of the large window towards Kura and Farai. But it was as if he couldn't see them, his eyes darted around never quite settling.

"Who?"

"We’re here to see Hugh!" Farai yelled.

A few tense seconds passed before he continued.

"Okay, wait right there. I'll let you in."

He walked off into the house. Kura and Farai petted the dogs as the seconds passed. A few seconds turned into a couple of minutes.

"I don't think he's going to let us in," said Farai, "where's your phone?"

"I left it in the car -

BANG!

The gunshot came from about fifty meters away where the drunk man now crouched grasping a six-shooter pistol. He stood in the halo of a security light, more to be seen than to see. Kura and Farai walked back towards the car as fast as they could without breaking into a run. Getting shot was one thing, getting mauled to death by the now agitated Great Danes could be worse.

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" They yelled as they speed-walked back to the car. Once inside, Kura quickly called Hugh. He sounded several drinks into his night.

"Was that you guys!?" he asked laughing.

"You need to come out right now and stop this maniac from trying to shoot us!" yelled Kura.

"Oh my god, you guys are crazy! Stay right there!"

Kura and Farai sat tensely in the car. The dogs outside stared at them, warm smelly dog breath steaming the window. They heard yelling approaching, "Jimmy! Don't shoot! Jimmy! It's all good!"

Jimmy hadn't followed them, he'd gone around the opposite side of the house and now reappeared with Hugh. Fortunately, the gun was gone. Hugh was beside himself laughing, which really pissed off Kura and Farai, but the situation seemed resolved.

Safe once more, they exited the car. Jimmy was embarrassed and apologised profusely. Apparently a neighbour had been fatally shot in an armed robbery three months earlier. That sort of thing doesn’t happen often. They were on the right property, but had gone to the wrong building. Hugh was in the cottage and they had strayed to the main house. Drunk, sitting in the house with no light coming from outside, Jimmy only saw his own reflection and mistook, "I'm here to see Hugh," for "I'm here to see you!"

All this made sense now. It was totally reasonable... but that did little to calm the nerves of Farai and Kura. For a few frantic minutes death by gunfire seemed imminent. Jimmy gave them a conciliatory bottle of whiskey and eventually they joined the rest of the house-warmers in the cottage where retellings of their near-death incident added an extra spark to the gathering.

After the housewarming, Hugh didn’t stay there long. Things got complicated with one of his female house mates and he was out in less than two months.

[zimboxl]

A Day at the Races

It began like many other Saturdays in the city formerly known as Salisbury. I slept in until about noon. Only getting out of bed when my body ached for food, water, and sunlight. After I showered and ate I checked my phone. Social Engineer Drew was breathlessly campaigning on the Usual Suspects (US) Whatsapp group chat. He wanted people to meet at the Borrowdale Race Course for the Castle Tankard. I would later learn that this was the oldest sponsored horse race in Africa, and shortly thereafter I repeated this piece of trivia to a stranger who seemed unimpressed by it all.

The general admission crowd was typical of Zim: skewed towards male; mostly under-employed and teetering on the verge of alcoholism. I walked to the far left gates and climbed the stairs towards the reserved area where I assumed the US would be hanging out. I had only been to the races once in the previous three years, but it doesn't take many go arounds to know where people will hang out in Harare's self-segregating social scenes. I immediately found them frolicking cheerfully around a cocktail-covered high table in a roped off section with a very badly hand written 'reserved' sign. It was just them and a neighbouring group of neo-Rhodie bros.

"Excuse me!"

WTF?

"Excuse me!" yelled Tarisai, a young neatly dressed waitress, as she tried to bar me from entering. She stood in my way, hands on her hips, trying to look stern.

"Just coz I'm black doesn't mean I can't go in,"I said, intentionally a bit louder than necessary.

She stuttered a bit, "it's not because…" She nervously looked to Sam, who was frantically waving me over to the group like a man drowning. The expression on his face was a mix of embarrassment and grim determination to end the awkwardness as smoothly as possible. Having received white approval the waitress forced a smile and lowered the rope so I could enter the so-not-fancy 'reserved' area. I've seen fancier toddler play pens, this was just some shaded tables and bar stools on a balcony. 

"I'll try not to steal too much," I said. She didn't respond.

The Usual Suspects were almost crying laughing at what they had just witnessed. When they were done laughing they told me farfetched stories about how much fun they had binge drinking the previous night. The thing with FOMO is that even the most banal nights out drinking seem like mind-blowing experiences when you're not there to suffer through them in person. It’s all in the eagerness of the retelling, the embellishments, and subtle insinuations.

When we’d had enough of laughing about the black-on-black racist incident, we decided to place small bets on a horse. We made our pick based on which horse had the coolest name. 'Warcraft' stood out. “Warcraft” had something going for him/her, how could it be otherwise with a name like that. The starter’s gun fired and the featured race began. The horses ran and ran and ran and ran some more. All glistening muscle and flared nostrils, with costumed dwarfs on their backs whipping them towards defeat. Like any race, only one got to win. As they turned onto the final straight the PA announcer frantically informed us that 'Warcraft' was in the lead. We shouted ourselves hoarse cheering that horse to victory. Watching was fun, but winning was profitable. Sarah won $150 in three fifty dollar notes and threw them in the air to 'make it rain' like she’d seen in rap videos. Her stunt was made even funnier when one note almost flew over the balcony and she had to lunge over the edge to save it.

Later, she led us past some stoic guards and up a spiral stairway to the roof of the race course grandstand where we took in the wide panaramic view and took a few photos for the grand kids.Then we went to the Horse Breeder's bar and it happened again.

"Excuse me!"

WTF?

"Excuse me!" yelled a malnourished uniformed guard as he tried to bar me from entering. He was tiny. It was a bit comical how small and angry he was. Sam quickly intervened and the guard relaxed having, once again, received white approval. "Have you ever considered being a jockey?" I said as he waved me in. Once we were inside I wanted to leave immediately, the bar was full of older rhodies with sun-damaged skin, beer-bellied men and trophy wives past their primes with overdone makeup and wishful outfits. I said my goodbyes to the Usual Suspects and was soon out of there.

These two bad incidences with venue staff stood out in an otherwise good afternoon. They were particularly bad as it was my fellow black people who had discriminated against me. The larger tragedy is that these weren't isolated anomalies, but part of a larger pattern. It's the farm laborer calling you murungu simply because you're his boss and every boss he's ever had was white. It's the parking attendants in front of the Sam Levys movie theaters who only greet older white people. The race based class structure is still a very real thing in certain settings and it's most evident in the internalized racism of the lower class for whom protecting white privilege is a job. Sam was embarrassed to silence by the staff's blatant racism and the implication that it was somehow being expressed on his behalf as a white person to be protected from the strange black guy who wasn't staff.

FTS

[zimboxl]

We Laugh Too Much

Some say laughter is the best medicine. I love to laugh. A lot, probably more than most people. But recently I have a creeping feeling that we Zimbos laugh too much considering the seemingly incorrigible situation we find ourselves in.

At what point are you just deluding yourself with laughter? When does it morph from a healthy way to release tension to a compulsive fleeing of the very unfunny reality? Where's the wholly appropriate anger and calling for heads to roll? Where are the mobs of rabid unemployed  youths demanding that their concerns be addressed? Are we so easily pacified by Wiztech/DSTV, some hashtag outrage, ritualistic alcoholism, followed by an impotent acceptance of the unacceptable?

From numerous personal experiences I've found anger much more conducive to action than laughter. The latter is usually an end in itself, but being hellishly pissed off often leads us to correct whatever got us into that state to begin with, often destructively.

From what I'm seeing the most followed voices on social media seem to be doing a, wholly understandable, but ultimately saddening, dance between prudent tongue-biting self-preservation and maintaining a veneer of relevance. At best it's a sort of, 'Hey, I get it, but... at least the weather's good and I don't want too much trouble.' At worst they are aligning themselves with people who would oppress them simply for being born after 1980 and only help young adults insofar as it entrenches their interests within the next generation.

Those who express strong opinions against the status quo are too often those who can leave Zim without consequence. They have little skin in the game, some even make money from being seen as disruptors. The rest of us who can't bounce at the slightest bit of trouble tend to be too prudent for our own good. Prudence is fast becoming the identical twin of cowardice. Fear seems to be winning, and that's nothing to laugh about.

[zimboxl]

About Trying to Maybe Quit Smoking Perhaps

I remember how it all started. Thanks to compulsory sports and a well developed gag reflex I had missed the high school smokers bus, but I belatedly went along at the start of freshman year in college. I lived in the Harris Hall dorms, the largest on campus, most of the students would finish their last class mid-afternoon and a decent sized group would gather for a post-educational smoke outside the dorm entrances. This was early days, before the green freshmen found their demographically appropriate cliques and migrated to hanging out in their rooms and special secret places. Everyone was still, theoretically, open to meeting people and nobody had condemned themselves to social purgatory, yet. In essence it was like Eden, before the sex, and cigarettes were what bound this little utopia together.

"What harm could one after-class cigarette do," I thought at the time. "It's not like I'm smoking crack. Besides I'll be there anyway inhaling it second hand as I get to know my new classmates." Little did I know that I had taken the first step towards abject addiction.

A decade later and I smoke regularly. I'm a moderate social smoker, I haven't had one cigarette these last two days, not because I'm trying (yet), but because I've been knee deep in work and not socializing. On Saturday, the last day I went out and drank, I nearly smoked a whole pack. One pack is the most I've ever smoked in one day, I'll typically smoke about five a day from Thursday to Saturday, and none or one a day the rest of the week.

I've always known that smoking was a dirty and unhealthy habit. I need only wash my hands thoroughly after a night out to see the dark tarry grime of that night's cigarette smoke. I've seen the gory pictures of ashen smokers' lungs and heard the horror stories about lung cancer and chemotherapy. While all these are good reasons to quit the habit, one often neglected reason is this: smoking makes you look bad. Take a good look at a smoker's skin, it's shit. I know coz I smoke. I once stopped smoking for about a month and my skin looked like it had been stolen from a toddler. A friend who quit told me she saw a difference two weeks after quitting. It only becomes more obvious with age, around the mid 30s what was formerly some minor roughness can turn into reptilian ruts and blotches comparable to a potholed Zimbawean road. Don't believe me, just take a good look at middle-aged smokers, they look, smell, and often sound like smokers… and that's not good.

And so I'm thinking about maybe trying to quit smoking perhaps.

[zimboxl]

Damp

Damp adjective the state of being functionally drunk almost always. noun one who is functionally drunk at all times. E.g. His colleagues knew he was damp once they found the portable mini-fridge hidden in his office.

When deprived of physical, spiritual, and social stimulation we often turn to substances. According to scientists, this has been true since we were hairy cave dwellers licking toads for a buzz. Some people go full retard and can wax poetic about their many acid trips, coke binges, and mushroom mischiefs. But most take the easy road, choosing instead the more socially acceptable, and legal, escape of the bottle. In Harare we've chosen en masse to fill a psychic void with the mind-numbing blur that is semi-functional alcoholism. People love to drink in Harare, some even drink to love. There's little more depressing than seeing your lover naked and thinking, "dammit, I need a drink."

Who can blame us, what else is there to do but drink? Most of the bands suck, the few that are decent get so played out that they start to suck too. Most of the places we frequent are so predictable it feels like Groundhog Day without Bill Murray for comedic relief. If you are gossip-intolerant you may drink just to forget or to slur your words so you're not a reliable source. The last island of hope appears to be house parties, but I'm too jaded to expect even this to last. The moment you invite so-and-so it will be late. And so we drink. Some call it pôding, some call it booting, we have several demographically specific ways of referring to getting hammered. I suggest we get serious and just start calling it 'zimming.' As in: 'I woke up and started zimming at the crack of dawn, I got so zimmed I passed out at the red light.'

There's an ever-expanding universe of alcoholism here so I'll stick to a specific breed of bottle gobbler that always makes me pause, stare, and soak in the spectacle that I may, by their bad example, prevent myself from going down a similar well-worn path. If you've had the misfortune of going out to one of the handful of clubs here you've probably seen them swaying in a non-existent breeze, teetering, knuckles strained around a beverage, on the verge of falling over, but never quite getting there. It's as if they not only lack the will power to stay sober, but they also lack the will to go all-in and pass out drunk like the kamikaze Zed drinkers. Women aren't exempt. Just last week I saw a girl slouched like a wet rag on a bar stool with a cascade of her own vomit down the front of her shirt which clung to her tits in a satire of sexiness. But they're almost always men, of a certain age, past their physical primes, but not yet old enough to have succumbed to the sloth that inevitably sets in after middle-age, even when wisdom does not. 

They often seem lost, like they stumbled into the party drunk and forgot where they put their car keys.  The last ones of the old high school gang who still go out drunk trying to get laid years after their friends have found companions and more mature social circuits. I saw a middle-aged man standing in a packed and lively dance floor, breathing heavily, sweating profusely, almost motionless - but for the tell-tale sway. Mr. Lush stared lustily at ladies in their twenties as they danced suggestively with their age-appropriate companions and tried their best to avoid making eye contact with him. He blinked a lot in a vain attempt to calibrate his beer goggles and double vision. When he saw two particularly cute and curvy twins dancing together he shuffled over, stood within their personal space, and waited for his irresistible pheromones to do the talking.

That's how they roll. They get sloshed, stare at girls, shuffle over, blatantly violate the girls' personal space, and wait for the girls to either move away or for their male companions to threaten them, either implicitly or explicitly, with violence. It's worth repeating because they repeat this stunt several times in a night until they're on the verge of being assaulted or the objects of their lust simply leave. I can't imagine this approach ever works unless the ladies are thirsters with very low standards. Something must be fundamentally broken, perhaps these blokes have truly given up on getting some and they get off on being drunk and swaying next to uncomfortable fidgeting girls. It's possible, after the revelations of auto-erotic asphyxiation, anything's possible. Ladies and gentlemen: don't be guilty of misplaced civility with these guys. Go gorilla early and save your manners for people who care for it.

[zimboxl]

Small Town Syndrome

Harare is small and shrinking.  If you really squint your eyes and look closely you'll notice how, with every phone call, every byte of data on social media, every instance of communication - in person or otherwise - this town is shrinking.  I have no empirical evidence to back up this theory, but sometimes it feels palpable.  Social circles quickly get small and inbred here if you don't make a conscious effort to go to the 'other side' (more on this later) and 'diversify your bonds' every now and then. This social refreshing isn't a luxury, it's a necessity for your survival, continued sanity, and basic hygiene.

Fact: No matter how low-key you might be, some people you barely know will be interested in your business.  If your business is very boring, they'll look elsewhere for entertainment, but assuming you have a life of some sort, there's likely enough content there to keep your average gossip mill going. God forbid you start seeing someone! Maiwe! :0 They'll be on you like flies on shit, or white on rice, if they're polite about it. You see, the basic laws of privacy are inverted in Harare: the less entitled people are to know about your business, the greater sense of entitlement they seem to have about knowing!  We're the Bermuda Triangle of social propriety, look at how zidhara's try so hard to tout conservative 'family values' while it's widely known that they run around doing shenanigans to a degree which has to be seen to be believed.

Zidhara's deserve a post all their own, they are a breed apart. Girls, or rather - young women - are the most active Privacy Violators (PVs or just 'pervs' for short).  I watched in disbelief as a passing acquaintance semi-drunkenly grilled a friend of mine about her relationship status as they were seated with others at a large table.  The situation was so awkward I think the table coughed. This is the normal here.  This happens all the time, some girls are so insistent on knowing other people's business, being told directly, that they'll go as far as to start false rumors in a bid to force full disclosure.  I kid you not, I've seen it done here.  Of course there's normal teasing, but then there's prying, and it only takes a second to tell the difference.

It's no good to persistently ask people who they're dating in a bid to confirm your suspicions in the most awkward social settings.  Maybe you don't have a right to know.  If you're so close to the person you're grilling maybe they'll tell you in good time.  If your itch is too hard to ignore, then ask them in private, unless making a scene is your whole goal, in which case you're not much of a friend. Sometimes we gotta ask ourselves: What Would Obama Do?..

People love to talk, especially about other people.  The first form of entertainment probably involved insulting strangers by the cave fire. Since these humble beginnings we've been honing our gossip skills into the dark arts that they've now become. Fear not, but do protect yourselves!

- Covert Operative

[zimboxl]

Valentines Disdain

Valentines Day is just the worst. I have an unscientific theory that many nascent couples break up in the fortnight leading up to Valentines Day.  This extremely commercialized annual fiasco forces new couples to either affirm their relationship in cheesy Valentines Day fashion (dinner, flowers, gifts, relief sex) or risk their union dissolving in record speed.  

The most interesting thing about V Day is that it forces people to make an appraisal of their relationships.  Do you really want to date the girl you've been talking to for the last few weeks?  Do you really still love your guy of three years?  Is the passion gone, are you just doing your due diligence so you can return to beige mediocrity and the occasional decent lay?  What's the score, really?

Fair warning: Unless you have 'special powers' (more on these later) it can be near-impossible to talk your way back into your exes good graces if you ignore them on V Day.  Whichever way you choose to play it, do so with the full awareness of the possible ramifications.  V Day can be a crossroads: one path is romantic escalation chock-full of unicorns, toe-tingling trysts, and genuine companionship, the other is a return to cold pizza and soul-numbing singledom.

This dichotomy applies least to established couples (you accepted the humdrum long ago) and the willfully single (take V Day as an opportunity to seduce someone in their moment of neediness).  This applies most to nascent couples who are still finding their way and discovering how and if they work together.  My wisest advice to this demographic is to go for it.  One way to counterbalance the cheesiness of this commercialized event is to personalize it. Don't buy a factory made greeting card, make/write your own; don't buy some trite red roses, go out of town with your boo boo and pick some flowers of your own.  If you can't write worth shit, read some letters by Keats, if that doesn't inspire you, keep it short and simple, and pray he/she is illiterate too.

If things go pear-shaped take comfort in the knowledge that you won't be alone and there will be several newly-single people to meet in the wake of V Day.  You may recognize them by their self-inflicted bruises, heavy drinking habits, and seen-it-all cynical smirks.

[zimboxl]

January Disease

January Disease is the inevitable consequence of the the Festive Silly Season.  The depressing 'Ying' to the euphoric 'Yang.'  Now that my own fever has diminished I can lucidly document the known symptoms of this terrible affliction so that future generations may not suffer in ignorance.

Known Symptoms of Zimbo January Disease:

1) You're broke - nothing exceeds like excess and no fun comes without a price in our capitalist age.  Maybe you over-stretched your gift budget, maybe you lost or broke something expensive which you now have to replace, either way, you have to be frugal in the short term.  Fortunately, it's not the hardest time for this (see #2).

2) You're bored - In a country with so many of its most interesting people living in diaspora, the social scene has a seasonal rhythm which peaks around the just ended festive holidays.  Now what?  I recommend you read a good book, or learn a new skill, you won't regret it.  I'm usually better to talk to when I'm reading a good book, regardless of the subject matter.  Garbage in garbage out, folks.

3) You're fat - All those lard-encrusted meals and bottomless mugs of beer have taken permanent residence in your moobs, belly, and bottom (our 'African Trademark' as some like to call it).  While the beer belly is Zimbabwe's National Mascot, few would claim it as a personal one.  The gym can be a brutal spectacle, but take solace in knowing that everyone there is also at a nadir in their fitness and that most new year's fitness resolutions don't last a month.  If you can make it through February the gym will thin out and you'll be hot again by then.

4) You lack motivation - After the highs of the silly season we often ponder, with trepidation, the long slow grind that is the rest of the year.  December seems an awful long way away, hibernation is not an option (see #1), suicide's too messy, and Easter's little comfort. 

5) You're Single (with no plausible options) - OMG!? Your Christmas fling has gone back to his/her real life?  Perish the thought!  Don't whine about it. A normally wise man once said, "The Silly Season Giveth and the Silly Season Taketh Away."  Keep it moving.

6) All your (former) friends hate you now - Sometimes discretion is the best form of valor and too often our festive drinking leads to excessive honesty and subsequent disillusionment.  Maybe you should have thought things through clearly before belligerently ranting about all your pet peeves and dissatisfactions.  It's thoughtfulness (and self preservation) which directs the wise to put a warm tint on things with an eye on the longer term.

TBC

[zimboxl]

Sub-Zero Cold Dajes

daje | dāj |

noun

1 A young woman usually late teens to mid thirties. (Colloquial, neither derogatory nor complimentary) E.g. The daje was shamelessly wearing a tie as a skirt, but her father's cataracts rendered him blind to her shenanigans.

• Origins: Zimbabwe late 1990s high school slang.  Originally 'Jade', but inverted/reversed during the inversion fad of the 2000s.

-

I used to naively believe that women were generally nicer, less malicious, and more empathetic than guys.  I must have been making the common mistake of believing what I wanted to believe.  Cognitive dissonance is a biatch and nobody wants to believe that the object/s of their desire can be callous, manipulative, petty, and generally degraded on many occasions.  Recent lucid observations have shown me that some women can exceed even my darkest, most depraved imaginings.

Admittedly, us men can be crude, rude, vulgar, indiscreet and prone to infidelity, but I've been left owl-eyed and slack-jawed by some of the social stunts attempted by the fairer sex recently.  I'd be terrified if they weren't so funny, most of the time.

Let me describe a recent scene.  A few days ago a group of well-licquored twenty to thirty somethings were frolicking and cavorting at a house party in the Dale-dales. A somewhat single male friend of mine, let's call him Sebastian, was chatting up an attractive lady he'd just met, let's call her Phoebe.  Phoebe was a Zimbo, studying abroad, back in town for the festive season.  Sebastian was his usual charming self, but he was unsure whether a figure lurking ominously on the periphery of their conversation was her disgruntled boyfriend or just another thirster on the prowl.  Despite this distraction Sebastian managed to maintain his focus, come to grips with the situation, literally, and get Phoebe's number.  (Sebastian would later point out to me the exact spot near the bar area doorway where he 'came to grips with the situation'.  Satisfaction is good for memory apparently).

Once the revellers had depleted all the alcohol on the premises they moved the party elsewhere, to a nearby club with enough liquor to quench those who hadn't found what they truly thirsted for.  The party migration had the added bonus of new similarly plastered people for the brave but unsuccessful to keep trying their luck with.  Sebastian and Phoebe's fast forward courtship quickly escalated to heavy breathing and whispered nothings more nibbled on earlobes than spoken.  The shadow on the periphery remained, if anything the radius of his circling had shrunk as their flirting reached fever pitch.  

By this point Phoebe was pulsing with glee.  She could no longer contain herself and let Sebastian know that the shadow wasn't Golem, but rather, her boyfriend.  She'd been ignoring him all night, blatantly teasing him by flirting with other guys, and loving it.  She told Sebastian, in no uncertain terms, that if he wanted her he'd have to kiss her right then and there, with her traumatized boyfriend and everyone else watching.  

Sebastian, being a generally good person and not a stunt-man, didn't do it.  Basic karmic teachings instruct us not to dance on someone else's grave.   Phoebe was a train wreck waiting to happen.  Rather than sort out her situation with the boyfriend she clearly didn't care for, she was eager to ensnare an unwitting suitor to do the dirty work for her, and probably deal with the brunt of any tantrums that might ensue.

The moral of this true story: there are some sub-zero cold dajes out here.

[zimboxl]

Peterhouse Gardeners Take the Piss

Last night a teenage friend of mine (it's legal to have those too) had me convulsing with tearful laughter and barely able to stand upright, such was the hilarity of the true gwan she recounted in chilling detail.  My friend is a student at Peterhouse Girls, a top tier boarding school about an hours drive outside Harare.  After I informed her of my forays into e-journalism she recounted a shocking true story that could only occur in the social microcosm of a boonie boarding school:

Upper Six student and resident badass, Dorothy Kusafunga (not her real name) had been dating a guy, let's call him Bruce Kunyanya, whom she'd only interacted with on Facebook.  Bruce was slim, in his early 20s, loved the outdoors, and was currently studying in the UK.  They'd exchanged messages, written on each other's walls, and casually poked each other a few times.  Though this in itself is worthy of giggles, the plot thickened when one day, instead of studying for her 'A' Levels, Dorothy was browsing her beloved's Stalkbook profile and saw some recently uploaded pictures.  Her delight at new images to further enhance their deep intimacy quickly turned into confusion, then shock, then anger.

The scene in the photos looked eerily familiar and Bruce's outfit in all of them took 'outdoorsy' to professional extremes.  Anyway, Bruce had uploaded a bunch of pictures of himself in overalls by the Peterhouse Boys entrance sign.   Bruce wasn't studying abroad after all, he was a piss-taking gardener at the boys school a few minutes walk away.

Dorothy was shattered, and Bruce was probably laughing himself hoarse.

According to my source, who only divulged this information on condition of anonymity, there are five funny gardeners masquerading as students in the UK and flirting with gullible high school girls across the road.  After much deliberation I decided not to publish the three names we know.  On one hand I'd like to expose them for their ethically dodgy, all-be-it-hilarious, behavior, but it could very well cost them their jobs and who knows what sort of shenanigans they'd get up to without regular work to keep their devilish wits somewhat in check.

SMH

[zimboxl]

The Silly Season Cometh

Have you noticed something a little different in the breeze the last couple of weeks?  Perhaps you've noticed the appearance, as if out of thin air, of fresh faces at your favorite watering hole or dance club?  Strangely familiar faces which make you wonder, "did I know him/her in high school?"  

These not-so-new people are the Returning Diaspora (RD) who make the annual migration to grace us with their presence and dodgy accents during the festive season.  They have the allure of not being the same played out mugs you've grown to love and loathe over the course of the year.  They're Fresh! and New!, whereas that guy you thought was fly way back in January now seems wholly unacceptable, marginally overweight, and just plain dull.  

Nevermind that the RDs were most likely played out wherever they were over the course of the year, details, details...  No, these 20-somethings are relativelly fit, well-groomed, and often have a little flair to their way of dressing.  Suddenly that girl/guy you've been patiently (some might say - masochistically) wooing over the course of several months doesn't look so enchanting.  The RDs have shown you what is out there, and it is good.  You know this, and so does he/she.

The Silly Season is upon us and it is a time of partying and philandering.  You'll be spoilt for options, house parties will abound, braai invitations will overlap, you may not go home for days on end.  After months of complaining about inbred social circles in Harare you'll run out of RAM on your phone saving all the new numbers you get, assuming you have a decent personality... which is a big assumption [see Thirsters].

Enjoy the Silly Season.  Revel in it, but people, please, pace yourselves.  It's a marathon, you  don't want to spend all of December patrolling Facebook untagging photos of yourself plastered dry-humping a sculpture at cousin nhingi's place.