Dollars Over Daughters: The Corruption of Lobola

    What happens when culture begins to feel like a societal curse? Do we still embrace it despite its negative implication or we flee away from it, so as to safeguard one's sanity. In recent years, African culture has been becoming more toxic as it lost the respect for a girl child. This has been in the case of lobola where the bride's family has been seeing the girl child as a get out of poverty free card. Leading to notion of culture becoming more toxic than it used to be. As when the groom's family comes to negotiate on the lobola issue, the bride's family begins to see dollars.

    Strangely this has become the norm of people asking for bridal prices that defile the lobola tradition of joining families into a modern day slavery trade. As is if that is not sufficient the level at which the girl child is educated is now part of the bargaining chip. This ordeal has reduced a girl child to a family transaction that archor the family out of poverty into prosperity. Leaving amillion dollar question behind, "What will you daughter eat/ where will they start life from when you the parents have taken everything. 

    Some of the reason why you will find the grooms family abusing the bride will be because of the bridal price, where they endup feeling entitled. This is a scary phenominal as it reduce the girl child into a slave of atradition that they have no power over it. In some instance the girl will lose the one they love because the family will peg their bridal price so high that the groom family simply walk away from the negotiating table. In turn the girl is the one who is left to pay the price of the family conduct, which sometimes leads to the girl eloping to her lover. 

    To wind the nuts to this article, we aught to reflect back on culture and really retrace the purpose for lobola. By doing so we will be able to unite families together with that token and not making it a scheme to get out of poverty, For at the end of the day it is your daughter who gets affected by that act and also the society might also be rob of the talent they were to see. This will be because when the lady is once married, the man will tell her not to work because he will be seeing her as his property and not life partner. If only we could redress this culture to become meaning full and not shameful as it stands currently

Canva AI Generated Image

"There is a story best forgotten but not entirely

A story birthed in greedy yet deemed noble

A story that has an origination in family ties

Now abused in one's enrichment.

There is a story that was once for culture

Now a game for vultures

As it's pen got dipped in counterculture

Birthing anew the story perfect tale in subculture.

Tarnished to applauding hands

That once stood as a sign of mutual respect

Now a ghost town of envy at day dawn

Masked in fake smiles plotted revenge.

As this story was for family esteeming

Given a tradition by those of the old

One's craftsmanship as the exchange of token

Now buried in greedy tendency of enrichment lost to culture."

Torn in Black

    We barely see clearly the cost we have to pay due to global warming, though in recent times the impact has been getting stronger and stronger. Yet we keep justifying our lose as gain to the economy while our grounds become arid lands and our crops wilt. Thrown in a climate conundrum birthed in legacy of other nations, Africa has been paying the price of their actions with rapidly shifting weather patterns making it difficult to plan for farming. Africa is increasingly becoming a basket case as long dry spell a becoming normal occurrence.

    Given this regard and having the knowledge of how most African economies a subsidies by agriculture produce to boost their Gross Domestic Product (GDP). There is need for us to be vocal on the need for the world to change their ways of production and encourage practice that reduce ozone layer depliction. These practices might be to change how we view nature and the importance of it in the balancing of the ecology. Because in recent times where I leave people are chopping down trees replacing them with slubs.

    With our desire to belong we have helped to accelerate the problem further as some of us chop trees in the name of them littering their yards. While others do so to find source of fuel to power their stoves, to which in some case is justified. However by doing so, we have destroyed rainforests that used to help maintain moisture and the ground.

"At harsh reality kiss

We swing in tears of motherland

Drafted into a war far from our deeds

& yet close to our hearts and foot

Axing our tree with scars.

Bidding our silence in shame

We shed tears without the desire to stand up

Out of voice due to our fear

We pledge to play a part in the war

Though ignorant to the role.

Rolled under with greed

We join the train to declare war

Motherland as the price to pay

We endorse the vultures to our tears

Straight into chiming black."

Beyond the Scent on the Sheets

    Once upon a time love used to be a true storyteller of emotions and feelings. For the phrase "I love you!" would not simply slip-out of someone's mouth without carrying any weight.  This was before we decided to cosmetically redress the phrase into meaning something totally different.  In those days,  love meant the honest people's heart which they used to express pure intention with actions.  Nowadays, those actions mean sliding under someone's skin for the purpose of pleasure while taking part of them for fun.

    This has become the gospel deemed normal and when one preserve themselves for marriage is now regarded as a shameful act. Growing up a woman was celebrate for keeping her self for marriage and this used to bring pride to the brides family. However, due to globalization we have discarded that celebration as old fashioned. As we now embrace a push that does not encourage families but celebrate individualism. Which is strange as individualism does not yield any progress in whatever sense we may want to take it.

    There is a shona proverb that say "Rume rimwe harikombe churu." which means that a single man cannot dig up an anthill alone. With this brings me to the next point, we need to restore love to what it was and what it meant. This is because if we do so, we will not define making love as love and would not allow our eyes to teach us the wrong definition of love. That is, our current definition of love has been defined by the media which now celebrate something wrong as right. To add to the fire social media has also added some seasoning to this pandemic, as love is now defined in seconds with really intention masked.

    With the seconds rule in play, we now have a lot divorces due to the actions of things we have experienced prior. Because we have given our body as an act of love too many people, when we get married we cannot remain there because we will not be satisfied with what we got. Hence many issues may emerge to break families of which does not just affect the couple but trickle down to the offsprings of that couple. Birthing a generation that is growing in broken homes due to our own foolishness and desire for short pleasure.

    In short, we need to restore the meaning of love and abandon the new notion about love. Thereby we can help build strong relationships and family bonds that are true.

Rhythm Scripts

    Hey there! Welcome to my Friday discourse of reality pages snapping, kicking off some shoes in search of a perfect groove to wind the week. If anyone would have told me the week will just vanish before my eyes, I would have told them that they kidding. But here I am, in celebration of the little I have managed to win and looking forward for the weekend chilled vibes. Drawn to the beat that define my existence in this cradle of creation continent dawn-dusk relationship. Scripting the perfect vibe for Saturday celebration.

    Sober to the art of words, pulled asunder into reflection zone of grooving beats, to the global celebration of the beuatiful art sculpted form the motherland. A term we have oftenly heard from those who have grown outside the continent, as for some of us it is just home. Our pride is found in the songs we sing  to allow others to understand who we are. That said, the music we find ourselves singing shape who we are and the weekends are a perfect construct to our character. Not down playing other factors, we are a construct of all those but music swiftly does the most right before our eyes but without a clue.

    Drawn to justifying ourselves we usually deny the influence of the rythm in our ears because we claim its harmless effect to our soul. Yet we act out those lyrics everyday playing the dump card to trump the reality we give birth to. Scoring on culture, we blame everything else before we even point out the major danger of our ears engulfing toxix vibes and depression on beat. Beatup to the soul, we keep singing hoping those who listen to us won't pick it up and point it out. While the pureness of the groove the ancients used drum the earth to have been morphed to parade a society over sexualized.

    Women values eroded at the behest of men eyes and what we perceive to be our right. Mostly done through our ears, we have become societal monsters in the making. Celebrating ills as gains to freedom, yet wearing more shackles in dark alleys.

    Winding down the tempo, lets stand guard of what we choose our ears to entertain for the price is greater than we imagine. Let us embrace edifying sounds to reasonate in the hallways of our mind brought through the ear.

Keyboard Smelting

    It's crazy how the keyboard of our imagination has been grafted into a prompt that end up trying to generate our feelings. Lost of words that feel strange yet easy to put on paper, we have become lazy to express our history in the ink that stains our finger tips. The golden era of authentic discourse has disappeared as we let a defined logic do our part in writing what we are experiencing. In that regard, we have embraced a distant truth that helped understand the past in the stories that were written by legends of the past.

    Take a look at Charles Dickens work in "Hard Times" we got to learn of the Victorian Era without being forced to study history. Even the works of Shakespeares we got to understand the discourse of the past  hidden openly between the lines of entertainment, with a promise of learning from the past. This problem have transcended into business practise, where the computer now decide for us on what works on us. Thereby making us slaves to clicks and logarithm, which has become our flute blower to sounding strange. Even the culture of hard work has been replaced with play with the computer and it will come up with perfect slogan.

    Don't get me wrong here, AI is a beauty piece of hardware we can integrate to our daily routines. However, the over realiant on it is killing us slowly as we become less and less innovative. We have become addicts to soft life which in reality is a ghost that we keep seeing upon the mirror reflection. though we chose not to believe in its existence we trod the ground in the hope that with work becoming soft we have ample time to learn new things. But the real question is are we learning anything new or we lazying around the keys to dish us answers we need.

    Not spared to this problem, Africa has also been affected by the over reliant on the computer to generate our history in words using the data that is available online. Which leaves the biggest question of all times; "Who is responsible for the machine learning and what are the parameters guarding it in its arguement?" This make us to lose the plot of storytelling of our stories in a convinencing way as we have began to sound the same. If AI could used to give an outline to line of thoughts it will be better. Instead of allowing it to be our train of thoughts, driving our imagation with a few prompt words to become our words.

    In conclusion, we need to learn to use AI to help refine what we create sparingly while allowing our true intention to be kept within the words. And not to bury our true intention behind an assumed perferct storyteller that rob us of getting to know you on personal level. Also to point, AI isn't as perfect as we imagine too. It still require to be sharpened and have it trained on African logic too instead of the East and Weastearn logic only.  

The Vein of Inspiration

    Growing up being inspired by business personnels was a crime you would not dare to tell you kins, as ridicule would follow you in that instant. Though a few had folks who actually exposed them to the world of business without telling the price one had to pay to be part of it. I was one of the few drawn into the business at young age, though it was in the medical field. A field I detested due to the red tape I saw to exist. The reality of this world is never told in its totality as those we admire will photoshop their story of success, while giving you just a bite to reality.

    In this blog I am going to look into three different local heroes and heroine, who are found in the business world and the literature world. Being Zimbabwean one of my hero will regarded as an obvious case, as he has been celebrated accross the country and the continent. While other two might seem not likely but there way of doing things have made me to appreciate them more as look on their success cycle.

    My First local Hero is Nigel Chanakira. His story inspired me to see that the business world is not a clear cut success story road but a path that require consistancy and tenecity to move on not given regards to stones that you might stamble upon along the way. Having founded the one of the once most prolific banks in Zimbabwe coming from the ghetto, is something to arvel about. This because in most case we do not see that happening as it is difficult to sail above the fact that you come from ghetto and most business people not taking you seriously. The rise and fall of Kingdom Bank right in front of our eyes, exposed to the brutal side of business which most founders do not dare to talk about.

    Despite going through that difficult time, he did not give up on being a businessman but soldiered on. This lead to the reason why I see him as my local hero. The fact that he taught me that if you want to curve a mark on the world in business you have to fall once in a while. And embracing the lessons that comes from those faillures is how you grow in business. In recent years his desire to share his experience through coaching others makes me to hold him to a high standard.

    My second is Strive Masiwa. He is the founder of Econet Wireless telecommunication company, of which he did so at time where was strange for anyone to start a company as such. During that time if your family had someone who owned a cellphone was regarded as a rich family. Right now the situation have change as every family has more than one cellphone with them. His struggle to get the licence is well documented in the country and is one of the most celebrated story. These days Econet has become one of the most valuable company in Zimbabwe and being one regarded as the most innovative one. 

    For me, his business acumen fascinate me to a level I am afraid to acknowledge. I once hearda story of how he got to attract one of his executive by sarcificing a luxury car and peaks that was unheard off. For most of the business people I know of they do not do that even if they know that the person might be worth it. They value their own comfort over that of their employees, as they would want to be seen as a "Mbinga" a  trend that is now engraved in Zimbabwe business culture. With that in mind his wife heards a organization that focuse on empowering youths from marginalized community by awarding scholarships. This move makes me to admire him even further with a lesson that when you make it, make sure to uplift the community in his case the country he is from.

    My last and not the least is the most intriguing author to have come out of Zimbabwe that is Tsitsi Dangarembga. In high school I was never the one you would find reading novels. Most of the time I was told to do so I would feel like it was a punishment, which was not the case when I got to read her book (Nervous Conditions). This was the book that introduce me to the love of reading books. Her pen always amazed me on how she could capture a moment and engrave it onto paper. Making my introduction to protest literature which held history and highlighted the dangers that came with shifting culture without having something to balance it.

    Her book now seem to speak volume of how we needed to shape culture to give equal opportunities to both genders and not to focuse only on the male child. However, a balance is need to do so. As result I got drawn to the world of art unwillingly by her words that lead me to seek more literature from  the continent. Her activism beyond the pen, fighting for the rights of others even at expense of your own freedom. Made me to see a different light to her that our words should also be reflected by actions. Making me aware our actions speaks volume of our words.

    In conclusion, these three heroes and heroine have taught me lessons I have and am trying to apply in my life. These lessons can be summed up one statement that is: "Fear is just a denominator waiting to be bartered with courage to see succuss."

Fine Wine

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“As I sip past my thoughts

Mingling with ideas,

That seems to come alive on the pillow

Lost to the will power of fear

I ink my tale masked

Pleading for no one to pull my tail

And unveil my truth.”

 

There is this Shona proverb that I used to hear elders say to me growing up, and I always used to find it funny until it wasn’t. Because I am now grown and the words, they used to say now make more sense than they did in the past. “Kura uone”, meaning grow up and you will see. This short phrase has unravelled my life goals realizing what I used to think is not easy too as I thought. Soon after graduating with Business Management degree with major in Entrepreneurship, thought I would present myself as business thought leader which gave birth to bloated pen the blog.

In the initial stages everything seemed to be on the right path, this was before the poetry bug took over me. With a few articles under the belt and dream organization to foster entrepreneur to rising generation was formed. However, the reality of this organization existing in real life was far from coming through as there were a lot, I need to learn in setting up an NGO like organization. The reason behind this was the fear of government laws that seemed to always been in loop of changes. Not any specific sponsors for the idea made things even worse as I was also starting in life.

However, this naïve outlook to life did not stop me because I was trying to set up a family business before tragic fell upon my family and the dream had to be placed on hold. During that time a lot change me and focus shifted towards needing something consistence. As result the dream was suspended and the thought leadership ambition was place on indefinite leave. One thing that remained was the entrepreneurship spirit as started exploring other ventures without any money.

The lesson I got to learn was that it was easier for me to complain about lacking something when I was growing up than it is to provide myself with things I craved. In the process of that realization, I got to find out that change is not leader or politician responsibility but any individual responsibility. Cause if you wait for leaders to enforce change you will be waiting for so long before anything happens. Politicians made me to see that clearly as often times I was frustrated by their policies, only to discover I am responsible for change that I yearn to see.

One thing I want leave here is that we are agents of change and our lives depend on it. For change is the only true currency that exist in this life than anything else and even biology taught us that cause before adolescent we are the same but during and after it the difference is clear as day. We change into something better but so should our mindset shift as well.

Words as Storytellers of US

 It's funny how we wait for others to tell our tale on our behalf. Of which most of the times that tale does not reflect who we really are but a commentary of someone trying to understand things that are complicated for them to do so.  Having said my peace first, the art of storytelling is ever evolving, though the sad part is that our stories have become more westernized than ever before. In a bid to be accepted globally, we have sought to embrace formulas that give us quick fame at the expense of being authentic. Thereby robbing ourselves the potential to sale our heritege from our own perspective.

Before we go forward we need to retrace our steps backwards on how stories used to influence our morale behaviour and how it is even today. Words were never written down but were shared by the fire by grandparents in the form of folklores. These folklores contained lesssons that were hidden at plain sight but however if one was to look deep into them they shaped our lives unaware. This is just to demostrate how powerful they were to convey a message effectively without even realising how "Sekuru Gudo and tsuro" tales panelbeated us to be who we are.

As times changed and we got a bit educated, the way we shared our tales changed but however we became lazy to share them ourselves and even research about them. Leading to era where most of our content does not reflect us and our words has become a morale deccay cause of concern. As we borrow culture we are not familar with and redress ourselves to fit in the western world. We have used words to tear down our own culture for the clicks and empty promises that seem inticing. Thereby adopting a culture that does not really give true.

In as much we do not see directly the influence of words, words have power to shape our tomorrow that is why some scholars pointed out that ink is more dangerous than a gun. For a society norms can be redifined by the words storytellers in that society share and create. Hence the notion of what is now perceived by the society where materails have become the standard of love...

"We have danced with the brush for so long

Unaware of the power we have

Yet bending to the will of lies

We choose to put on to cover our identity

As from the dust of Africa

We are made

But at the sight of cameras

We deny the rhythm that made us."

My dream is to see ourselves telling our stories to influence the world. Where our culture is celebrated for it upbring of well rounded individual rather than being discarded. Where we realize the power of the ink that stains our fingers rather than waitng for our mind to be corrupted. Where our art will finally come alive and speak volumes as the likes of Tsitsi Dangarembga, Chinua Achebe, Dambudzo Marechere and Zakas Mda etc did for the generation before us.

Business vs The masses

 Photo credit: mandie©2019

 "Where the crowd is.

Is where money at."

 This have been the misconception held by many. As the society have held close on the belief that the masses are the major sign of something that is working. However most of the time when you realise that the masses are rushing in a certain direction it is always good to go the opposite direction." Better yet chart your own route and destination."As usually where the mass congregate, they will copy each other thereby diluting the market share in turn might as well damage the profitability of the venture.

A very great example to Zimbabwe is the fowl project. Back in the days only hand few people were running the fowl project and it was really lucrative. And there was the issue of quality conformances which were at par with big organization. Due to this many people entered into this space and a lot started to be lost as it became a competition on the pricing. Which was good at first until the competition became toxic and the use of GMO became a reality. As a result unfair practice became rampant and chickens began to be sold at  six weeks.

The case study above highlight some of the two major impact of following the crowd. As from its inception it begins as a good thing and create much need competition that drives business growth however it becomes problematic when the masses join. For the emergence of ill practices will surge for everybody will be trying to get an edge of another leading to cutting corners. The moment cutting corner trend emerge the customer is most likely to suffer as they might end being sold a poor quality product or service.

As an individual pursuing entrepreneur activities, you should try to create trends that the mass will try follow. But when they do that you would have created your authority in the area. This will make the standard and you will have an edge from your competitors. This can be visible seen in the paint industry how people view Plascon and Dulux as the standards of quality.

"Escape competition through authenticity. In business, the masses are never right." (Micheal Makasi 2021) The Above quote highlights how one can be differentiated in business. This will give you an advantage over your competitors in the long run.

The Power Validation When Marketing Your Products Or Services.

 Of late I have been going through alot of documents trying to figure out why sometimes we buy things at the words of our peers. It might seem funny to most us that our friends can influence how we choose to spend money. This is the reason why most businesses us testimonials as part of their marketing campaigns.

 Do not underestimate the power that this marketing strategy carries. As it stand to appeal to our human nature of wanting to belong to socitial grouping. This need is what they seek to use to get us buying different products.

However when using this strategy they is a lot of things one have to consider. First and foremost, one need to define their target group or groups. Two need to figureout the norms that glue the group together. This enable the entrepreneur to know how best to craft his or her message not to offend the targeted clientele(in this instance group) effectively.

Once this two things are clearly defined, the entrepreneur will need to move on to finding out the people who are influential onto those groups settings. These are the people that they target first to use their products or service and ask for their feedback. Once they have them the entreprenuer can us this feedback as testimonies. which in turn (s)he use to appeal to the rest of targeted grouping. Thereby appealing to the egos of those groups and having a validation that stand as a stamp of approval for them to trust the brand.

What is the role of mission and vision statement in business

Entrepreneurs need to write down there mission and vision statement when establishing new entities or realigning existing business that have shifted there focus. The statement helps in creating a road map which the organization will seek to follow as it tries to address problems or opportunities that might have encouraged the establishment of that entity. Bain & Company (2017) defined a mission statement as "the company’s business, its objectives and its approach to reach those objectives." This outlines that in the mission statement the entrepreneur will reveal what the entity will be all about and also what they want to achieve or address in pursuing the idea together with the action that need to be in place for the success implementation of those ideas.  The desired future position of the company was regarded as the vision by Bain & Company(2017). Both vision and mission statement work hand in hand as the mission statement addresses the now factor while the  vision creates a clear picture of where you want to go.

The two statement will help in the establishment of the objectives and goals that the entity will seek to follow. Thus the strategies that will be used by the company will determined by the mission and vision statement. The entity will have an overall mission and vision statement which will be used to formulate mission and vision statement of functional departments within the organization with soul purpose of creating enabling environment to the success of the business. The mission statement is the one that addresses the creation of the corporate identity that will be used to  build the culture of the organization. This is because the objectives that a used on the day to day running of the organization are directly derived from the mission statement. Corporate culture is how the organization relate and operate within the internally  and the external environment. Thus there conduct of business and interactions with the internal and external environment.  According to Investopedia, "Corporate culture refers to the beliefs and behaviors that determine how a company's employees and management interact and handle outside business transactions.