Indebtedness: Modern-day slavery

borrow differ from person to person according to need, though poor economic circumstance is the common denominator. Kushaiwa ndiko kunotuma.
“Chipande”, “Kwembazi”, “Gwembi” “Ghost”, “Chikwereti”, or “Taitazi” are phrases that have been coined over the years to describe an individual saddled with debt. Some people have actually earned themselves tags for plunging themselves in debt to avoid the embarrassment of being broke.
Debts can conscript you into the BSAP — Broke Soon After Pay — and if you decide to stay in the rural areas evading creditors unoroverako kunge tsime.
Lowly-paid people and those with a penchant to spend often land themselves in trouble by borrowing more than they can pay. Ukada kushamisira mudhorobha unozoshama! Most parents borrow cash to meet school fees and examination fees requirements for their offspring. A few ask for money to pay rent. Some people borrow chickens, eggs, fish, beef and potatoes so they can put something on the table for their families. Others buy medicine and have their children attended to by doctors on credit. Hairdressers also have facilities for those eager to look pretty now and pay later. Garages and panel shops also offer these facilities.
Clothes, shoes, handbags, hair extensions and virility enhancing tablets are also bought in the same way.
Sweet talkers buy even sex on credit.
Weddings, experience tells, are financed through a combination of debt and savings. Houses are also built in the same fashion. Women, eager to look elegant, borrow dresses from colleagues. Men also buy beer on credit and titillate their tastebuds braaing borrowed pork to maintain an imaginary image of themselves even when reality dictates otherwise.
Cars are also borrowed temporarily from friends to achieve certain goals. At this time of the year when service providers like Zesa and council have intensified disconnection on defaulters, you get hordes of people borrowing to pay their electricity and water bills.
Almost everything can be done on credit terms. And quite convenient these facilities appear until chikwereti chakumonerera senyoka. People we borrow from are never short of surprises when payback time comes.
Some hard characters spoiling for a fight always lend their enemies large sums of money knowing fully well they will default and get a basis for attacking them.
The broad smile they wear on their faces the day you borrow from them disappears when it’s time to give unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar.
Vanopfeka fesi yembada. Dai yaive yeshinda wairudunura. They will leave you with physical and emotional bruises, plus a bruised image if ever you default.
“Nhai mukuwasha, dai ndaiziva kuti munonetsa kudai ndingadai ndisina kumbokupai huku dzangu. Tarirai ndapedza huswa hwesango ndichikufambirai,” some creditors will tell you in a kombi full of people.
“Please, can you beat him up. He is refusing to pay me back my cash. Is it a crime to assist him? Anofanirwa kubatwabatwa muchinda uyu,” you hear people saying while hiring thugs on recovery missions.
Others will send all sorts of emissaries and even fill your mailbox with reminders.
“Please don’t forget to pay for those sausages because I need the cash to send my children to school. Kumba kwangu mvura yakavharwa saka ndibhadhareiwo please ndimbosota zvinhu zvangu,” creditors will write on the phone. Hell hath no fury like a creditor scorned.
Some creditors will bribe policemen to arrest you for failure to service your debt while others will hire thugs to assault you for non payment. As I commit pen to paper gentle reader, countless people are nursing wounds inflicted upon them by people they owe money. When you owe someone money, it’s as if you have temporarily ceded your rights to the creditor.
They immediately become law unto themselves by confiscating your property even without court orders.
But some borrowers are completely hostile. They put their feet in their mouths declaring: “Zimbabwe chaiyo ine zvikwereti saka ini munhu wenyama ndinokona nei?”
Yours truly is reliably informed that some people use their fat pockets to snatch poor fellows’ wives in the ghetto. These characters reportedly lend women more money than they can afford to pay back and demand wifely favours when the debt reaches a level where one would need years of service and sacrifice to settle it.
“My brother, I will never borrow money from men again. Not anymore. There is a guy who would always lend me money even when I was in debt. He made sure my bill was too high before he started demanding sex from me,” a leggy cross border trader confided in this writer.
Being poor is not good at all. It compromises your health. It ruins your love life and whenever you meet people you always think they are talking about you and your failure to service debts.
But the case is not confined to creditors.
Some borrowers leave a lot to be desired.
Whenever it is time to pay back that which they owe, they start coming up with all sorts of lame excuses.
“I can’t locate my ATM card,” “I fell among robbers who stole all I had,” “My wife is sick in the rural areas,” “Tichazoona yekutamba pamberi apo,” they will tell you. Some borrowers will even change their telephone numbers just to save themselves the hassle of having to face the creditor. Their movements immediately change and they will be difficult to locate until you lose heart. A few cheeky borrowers will beat you up.
“Iwe mudhara rega kundinetsa mhani. Kana ndaiwana mari yacho ndichakupa. Futi usiyane nenyaya yako yekuudza mukadzi wangu tunyaya twako twechikwereti,” a borrower can tell you.
In Glen Norah, there was a borrower who would look for you ceaselessly whenever you are away and start accusing you of making it difficult for him to pay back.
“Ko mudhara hindava kudaro? I was looking for you all day long yesterday intending to pay the debt. Now my wife has gone to church, I will see you as soon as she comes back.”
Gentle reader, this life of borrowing is full of drama and we only hope you come out clean.
Inotambika mughetto.