Mother- care, warmth, love and security
Land- greatest possession one can have: riches; success.
In my eyes the word “motherland” is something that is meant to nurture and give you opportunities to become the best version of yourself. Now I am Zimbabwean so automatically Zimbabwe is my motherland or at least it is meant to be. Just like my mother carried me for nine months in her womb, Zimbabwe has carried me for almost 20 years on its blessed soil. Unlike my mother who shows me love and care on a daily basis, all I feel is pain, sorrow and hatred at the core of the country’s heartbeat. What is the country’s heartbeat? For me its people are what keep a country going. Now in my motherland these are the same people that are suffering on a daily basis. You see faces strained, eyes swollen, and veins popping out like the buttress roots of a tree everywhere you go. When you can identify that this man or woman is stressed just by one glance, then it’s not just one problem but a lot of problems that have accumulated. If the core of the country is defined by problems, stress, anguish, sadness or depression then it is an infected country and infections bring one thing when there is no cure: death.
Our parents are struggling to find money for bread, to find money for school fees and what hurts the most, they are struggling to find money for bus fare in order to go and work for their families. Now I know I don’t have any of this responsibility yet but what is unfolding in front of me is forcing me into a hole I do not want to come out from because I am afraid. The thing about life is time doesn’t pause to give you a moment to figure out your life. Time keeps moving and that is what it is doing for me. I will be graduating in about 2 years. It seems far from a layman’s perspective but when I sit down and think about its closer than it seems and what scares me the most is I feel lost.
In life sometimes your fuel for a journey evaporates into thin air leaving you stuck in place so dark that the only light you experience is that of a star that barely seems visible. Or one constantly has blurred eyes that clarity only comes when a tear drop is freely released. Now I don’t want to use the term “lost” loosely. For me being lost is feeling stuck with no clear picture of the future. Feeling lost is asking myself where my life is going and if is there hope. Sometimes I fear my life will project the picture of a tadpole in a circular fishpond- swimming in a place I don’t belong with no way out.
A week ago I witnessed a fight between two men over $1.50. Now a $1.50 cannot even buy you bread but two grown men threw fists at each other like they were playing Ping-Pong. This sight not only pained me but it caused fear to rise within me like bile. Now this is fear of the unknown. Fear for my life. Fear for my security and most importantly fear for my future. Sometimes strength and hope are not enough. Without a gateway these two can easily turn into simple words that describe and define you rather than words that give you the fuel to drive you to success. The past defines your present and the present determines your future. And when I think of my present I feel overwhelmed by a huge mass of sadness, I feel anxious and I feel hopeless. The only thing that keeps me sane is the fact that I am still at school and I am simply going to learn and getting the grades. But what happens after school becomes the question. Where am I going? And most importantly will I be able to find myself in this place that has me disorientated? For now all I can say is I don’t know but I am child that wants its motherland to have pity upon her soul.
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