Ghetto Blast: Joys, sorrows of St Valentine’s Day

register displeasure, those that landed on his shoes could have complained about the misfortune of being wiped away at the earliest convenience. Each time a woman passed, his heart would skip a beat as he sent his large probing eyes to assess whether or not it was his heartthrob Eunice.
Gentle reader, the bloke was dressed to kill.
He was resplendent in a white designer suit, a crimson red shirt and a matching tie. An imposing gold watch was shining on his wrist while his feet were enveloped in an elephant skin pair of shoes.
To complete the equation, Joseph was wearing sweet perfume, which spoke volumes about his financial muscle. Seconds passed into minutes and these into hours, but the curvaceous beauty with milky white teeth did not show up.
Lovebirds who were holding public displays of affection in the park did not make the situation any better for Joseph. When they hugged and kissed a stone’s throw from where the light-skinned and baldheaded bloke was seated, the more he felt lonely.
His dejection became more pronounced when he phoned the girl, only to be told she had better people to spend such an important day as St Valentine’s Day with.
The truth hurts. So sharp were the girl’s worlds that Joseph did not bother to call her again.
He simply folded his card, placed it in a bin and walked away sucking his teeth.
It hurts to find out that what you wanted doesn’t match what you dreamed it would be.
Gentle reader, after receiving the call, Joseph grimaced and almost crawled out of his skin with anger.
He was plunged into a state of severe mental anguish that, like the boy Jesus on his last mile of the journey, he could have let out a sweat of blood.
Joseph cursed the day he was born.
He felt used. How could Eunice do what she had done to him? The guy wished he had slept all night long than spend the better part of the previous night mustering love poems he would have no one to recite to on the morrow.
Chakadya chakaoneka mutanda wakasiya mbare. He was left in the cold with just a heartbreak to nurse.
“Why me? Ko ini ndini ndakaita sei kunge ndakageza negoka munyama kushaya anditevera,” he said before herding straight home where he reportedly burrowed into his blankets with the suit and shoes on.
He did not even have his supper and even a glass of water he forced down his throat seemed to have choked him. When nursing a heartbreak, you sometimes do the unexpected. You just won’t be in control.
Ukatungamidza rudo, kana mugomba unowira,
Rudo ibenzi, ngwarira mitsoto yevamwe,
Chenjera kudya zvaraswa, sang the self-proclaimed messenger of God Hosiah Chipanga advising people never to follow passion without being reasonable.
And it’s true. Matters of the heart should not be approached with a shut mind.
What happened to Joseph constitutes some of the scenes that punctuated St Valentine’s Day on February 14. On the day that was set aside to celebrate love, some people ended up nursing heartbreaks.
Those not so lucky in love were sold bottled smoke and never got to meet their lovers. Some were infected with HIV that day as they celebrated the lover’s day stupidly. But for those whose love batteries are fully charged, things went on smoothly. A good number of lovers took days off work to get ample time to treat their spouses. The city was painted red with florists enjoying brisk business.
“Takailuma paValentine’s Day. Graft ranga riri tii,” Robbie Chabvurira, a florist, told this writer.
“Panga paine basa. We learn new things almost every year and this year we learnt the importance of preparing adequately,” quipped another florist called Fortunate. Taxi drivers were not to be outdone. They carried lovers to gigs, cinemas and restaurants around the city.
The cabmen also got business from florists and other couples eager to spend quality time together.
Shops that sell cards are still counting the profits.
Their cards laden with special love messages were selling fast.
“Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction,” read a love message in one card.
The other screamed: “The greatest healing therapy is friendship and love.”
Another card which was selling fast was inscribed: “The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.”
Gentle reader lovers were walking arm-in-arm and doing all they could to spend quality time together.
Dinners were awash with hotels and lodges fully booked. Some houses in the ghettos were converted into lodges as people grappled to make a dollar or two from lovers. In Mbare, people running an illegal lodge along Mbirimi Street had slashed their asking price to cash in on lovers. It was the same in Glen Norah, Mufakose, Kambuzuma and Highfield, which have such houses.
The lovers’ day had its fair share of problems!
Lodgers were sent packing for sharing a bath with their spouses in the presence of the landlord and his family. “Mukoma zvenyu zvekudanana ndezvenyu asi kukisana nekugeza pamberi pevana vangu kwete. Tsvakai zvenyu kwazvinodiwa izvozvo. Pano kwete,” a heard a gap-toothed landlord telling his tenant straight in the face.
If you are a lodger and have the temerity to buy gifts for your wife, the rent either goes up or you hire the available truck to pack and go. Yours truly heard some women were clobbered after being seen by their husbands buying cards and flowers, which unfortunately did not get home. Some married women also hired people to assess their husbands’ movements to ensure hapana arikuba baba.
Inongotambika mughetto!