dyton mupawaenda
Fadzayi Maposah-Correspondent
Thursday morning was a hive of activity. Schools closed for the first term of 2025. There were school buses full of children. There was a large display of the school uniforms that are within the various schools.
The uniforms show a lot of creativity. Looking at some of the uniforms, one may actually think that these are children visiting from other countries as some of them are similar that we have seen on television. There are some uniforms that seem to burden the ones that wear them. Little boys and little girls are seen dressed in uniforms that just by looking at them, there is need for team effort for the child to get dressed. Taking them off too requires a lot of work.
Besides the large display of the uniforms, there was a lot of traffic of adolescents and young people and their parents or guardians. At some points there were emotional reunions as parents and guardians picked up their children so that they would go home and begin the school holiday.
As the children disembarked from the school and hired buses, some would come out of with minimal luggage while others would rush to the bus boot to take out their suitcases. Then looking at the issue of the suitcases, different colours and sizes.
Children can be the same age or from the same school, but they carry different luggage.
Even the means of getting home from the bus that were used were different.
Some would take short walks to a parked vehicle, a family one or even a hired taxi. Some would have to walk away from the bus and then have to take public transport. So on Thursday, on the pavements there were occasions to give way to people pulling heavy suitcases.
The state in which the suitcases were in varied from one bag to the next. Some suitcases could not be easily be pulled or moved with the wheels not fully functional. As the parents or the guardians received the children, some had no one to receive them and they had to find their own way home.
I had an opportunity of interacting with an adolescent male who had been on a very early bus from a school in Manicaland Province and was going home to Domboshava. He was looking forward to being at home and getting some home cooked food, prepared in a small pot according to him! He was looking forward to just being at home after being in school in January and taking a look at “his stuff”.
While the two of us sat in the front with the driver, his suitcase was behind the seat. Being in an examination class, his holiday is short as he will join others for vacation school so that they are fully equipped for the end of year ride.
Looking on the end of the school term got me thinking.
The school term though having the same days happened either too quickly or too fast depending on how the individual was affected. If the things were going on well, the term was probably short and if there were too many hassles, one just could not wait for the term to come to an end. The idea is not to lose hope because of the experiences that one went through during the First Term. The best is to focus and strategise for the second term and seek to improve.
Depending on the student, the way they look forward to the end of the school term depends on the experiences that the individual has had. Some students look forward to their parents picking them up at the bus station. Some have come to learn and accept that in as much as they would like their parents or guardians to be there to meet them at the station that is not the case, not because these parents and guardians do not care about them ,they are not just able.
So in the case the parent is there to meet them at the bus station, the one returning home must appreciate those making time to pick them up. Life teaches us from a very young that comparisons are not only draining but they also tend to stress as well.
I was with a group of people and somehow the issues of pregnancy and child birth came up. A man complained that his wife had a smooth pregnancy that he was convinced that his sisters had acted out during their pregnancies.
He said he felt sorry for his brothers in law who stayed with those women. He said that he had only been sure that they were expecting after a scan because as far as he was concerned, his wife was not behaving pregnant at all.
One man bemoaned how he had been forced to look for all kinds of food when they were expecting as his wife just could not eat certain things. The men in the group were convinced that women were acting out and using pregnancy as a way of `fixing ` men.
The support was forced they said. When asked if they had ever seen two pregnancies that were exactly the same size, they said that they had never really looked. At times they lack information.
The support that men give and women receive is not be the same. Others like the student I was with have to find their own way while working within the circumstances.
I used to be very critical of men who allowed “their pregnancies” to go for medical attention alone all the time until one man told me how heartbroken he had always been to miss some of the visits because he had to work and earn a living for the family.
Like the child pulling their suitcase to get into a commuter omnibus, the one without “visible” support for health services may seem alone yet there are supported in other ways than presence.
Online Reporter