CHILDREN have to take things sweetly and simply.
When you work with your hands you produce something, you get a product — simple.
That is the way of life. When you do not work, you produce nothing; you are not contributing anything to your upkeep.
Zvamunoona pasi pano hapana zvinonetsa, munhu nemunhu akabata kapadza kake, hapana anoshaiwa kake.
Pachava nomuriwo wakawanda, mabarwe akawanda, choga-choga chinodikanwiswa muupenu chichati chakata.
Panorimwa poga poga, panosakurwa poga poga panobudisa chinhu. Panotsvakisiswa chinhu, mushure mechinguva chinovapo.
Anochengeta huku achadya nyama, anochengeta mbudzi achadya nyama,
Unorima zviyo unodya sadza rinonaka zvikuru, warima mabura uchadya zvokudya zvinonaka, wachengeta mombe uchakama mukaka, vana vake vachadya mashoro vachikanya nesadza vachiguta matumbu kuti tanu.
Life is not complicated sometimes; what complicates life is that some want to live off the sweat of others.
It does not work for what you sow is what you reap.
If you sit in class repeating ABCs year-in-year-out and you do not learn to work, you are a parasite. What would be supporting your life all this time?
In what way are you responsible for your life?
Have you put some hours in the garden, in the fields, the laundry, do you even polish your own shoes?
Do you know where the milk, the cornflakes come from? Can you herd cattle?
Have you ever looked after chickens? Eggs are so nice at breakfast, bacon too, but have you ever seen a pig? Have you ever entered a piggery, fed the pigs or cleaned a sty? Can you milk a cow?
These are basic questions of life.
This is the political economy of life.
There is need to raise children who can take care of themselves; who when they enjoy a packet of fresh chips, can appreciate where it came from; children who appreciate the whole process of production from the potato field to the chip fryer.
Life can be very simple if you wish.
There is no need to panic when things change at the supermarket or store. You should not be worried about sugar or its availability. Do you have fruits in your garden; oranges, mangoes, paw-paws, bananas? How about making your own juices from these fruits? Would you still miss the supermarket then?
There is no need to worry so much about life; each thing that is needed is available.
Look after yourself, be self-reliant, then you can even look after others.
Each person can do something in life without waiting for someone to give something.
Peanut butter comes from groundnuts grown on the fields.
Anyone can produce peanut butter; from tending the crop in the fields, harvesting and shelling the peanuts, roasting and grinding them into peanut butter; there is no secret to the production of peanut butter which children love so much.
When people say there is nothing working in Zimbabwe, there is a problem.
Each person can work and produce something.
People need chairs — make them. People need reed mats — make them. They need clay pots — make them. They need children’s cot beds — make them. They need wooden spoons and basins — make them; let the children master the skills and make these goods.
If they sit in class for 12-14 years, vexing their minds over this and that, and year-after-year, the parents buy them books, pens, pencils, and no hoes, no garden forks, no shovels, what happens when things don’t work out as expected later in life?
Can they even make soap? Soap is not so difficult to make; they cannot even comb their hair and now they cannot even afford the ‘weave’, what then happens?
They think the solution kuva mucross-border.
Is that the solution?
Is it necessary?
You have 12-14 years of schooling, what have you learned, all those years, all those hours, all those books, piles of them, all those uniforms; dresses, shoes, blazers, sneakers, jerseys, track suits, all those, after all this you cannot even look after your mother who paid thousands in fees and uniforms, you cannot even look after your wife, your husband, your children, after all these years, all this expenditure!
If those 14 years are translated into hours of productive labour, then a lot that can sustain life is produced and yet you cannot even wash a cup properly, sweep a room properly, can you even raise a child decently, with what; with English, Mathematics, Social Studies, Biology, Chemistry and Literature?
Do you know where you will be tomorrow?
Do you know where you will sleep?
Not because you are a vagabond, but because you have no money and where does money come from? — from the work of your hands.
Back there, where no-one wants to be, they are still giving people pieces of land.
You can raise your own pole and dagga house until you make your own bricks and build the house you want.
You can grow vegetables; your children will have plenty of space to chase goats, chickens. You will install solar power, you will watch news on TV in the comfort of your home, you will visit town to get particular needs only, not as a destitute.
Uri ikoko unotenga mota, mubhedha; it all comes from the work of your hands, there is no other formula.
Mudyandingere comes after years of hard work, not because one has read piles of books and written piles of essays.
Kutown kwacho kunei, urombe hwoga-hwoga.
When you go home, when you have a home, you feel at peace. When you work in the fields, you feel at peace. When you eat the produce of your own hands, you feel at peace. When you sleep in your own home you feel at peace. When you wear what is decent, you feel at peace. When you wear your own African hair, you feel at peace. When you are yourself, you feel at peace.
It is the way it is; it is the way it works.