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Everyone seems worried about where they will get the next meal, the next coin for transport to work and whether or not they will be able to raise school fees for their children.
It’s an even worse scenario for those with a big brood.
“Aya ndiwo anonzi mahwani manje aya,” “Chandakadya chamuka,” “Ndarumwa nechekuchera,” “It’s January Disease,” “Hard times mwana wamudhara,” are the lines that are now popular in the communities in which we live.
The sight of a visitor during this time of the year is worse than a horror film.
And paying someone a visit is as if you have committed a crime.
“How dare he visits us during this time of the year? Why can’t he evaporate and condense somewhere? Chingomubvongera iripo kana kumusasa kuti arove marata,” you hear men saying to their wives behind closed bedroom doors.
“Who told your sister that we have no problems of our own to contend with? Find the politest way to make her buzz off tiwirirane. Hatingafiri moyo chena,” yours truly heard a certain woman telling her husband whose pregnant young sister had just paid them a visit.
Some people have, like worms, gone into hibernation and have vowed to only come into public glare when the situation improves.
“Ah . . . ndisekwe zvangu. This is the time to go to the rural areas where you drink water freely and eat all sorts of relish from pumpkin leaves to flying ants and termites without worrying about what the guy next door thinks,” Derrick Muchoyo of Glen Norah confided in this writer.
He said life away from the people gives him enough time to swoon from his state of being broke and recover his lost pride before getting to party again when time permits.
People are doing everything in their might to survive the harrowing effects of being broke that usually come with the month of January.
The moment children in most high-density areas see a meter-reader riding close to their home on his motorbike, they pelt him with stones to scare him off perchance he might disconnect supplies and leave them without water and electricity.
Those with more than one vehicle have placed the excess units propelled by an internal combustion engine on the market to raise cash.
Called January Disease, this period we have to wade through until the next pay day, is not without its fare share of drama.
Girls in the ghetto easily fall in love during this month of January.
But the intention will not be genuine.
They will be after ensuring that they have someone to feed them and their offspring until such a time when they manage to raise cash and stand on their own feet.
If your are not clever enough, ghetto lasses will shower you with praises and brand you the best lover in town just to glean the little they can from your meagre resources.
Allowing some ghetto boys into your house during this time of the year can be a disaster.
Some of these not-so-trustworthy characters will snatch whatever they can lay their hands on for sale at an unbelievably low price just to assure themselves of the next meal. An expensive cellphone worth over a thousand greenbacks can be snatched from the charger for resale at less than US$100.
Not to be trusted in this month of the year are self-styled radio and television repairmen and motor mechanics.
The blokes will collect deposit payments from anyone unlucky to seek their services and use the money to solve their own personal problems at the expense of the job at hand.
“Mudhara ingobhadhara kadeposit katwati kekutenga maspare parts tozoona yekutamba pamberi. Don’t worry about paying for my services yet,” they will tell you before proceeding to squander your cash.
That we have started a New Year makes it imperative that rent be paid, food be bought and children be sent to school.
But with what after all the earnings of last year were splashed on beer and merrymaking?
As I commit pen to paper gentle reader, employers are facing a torrid time with their workers desperate to have cash to meet various costs.
“My son is sick,” “My mother is gravely ill,” “My wife requires and urgent operation,” are the kind of reasons that are being advanced by people desperate to wring cash from the employer.
Schemy characters will even fake death in the family to have their loan application forms treated with urgency.
“Mudhara afa pano apa ndivo baba vasara mumhuri uye ndini ndakatotarisirwa zvekuti ndikatadza kutamba yakanunira apa ndingashoresa mhuri,” you hear people saying to their managers.
Some will even request company transport for the non-existence funeral.
January is a month that exposes people for who they really are.
People who were always thought to be gentlemen will expose their ugly side by lying through the skin of their teeth to unlock certain favours from the community and whoever they work for.
It is not unsual during this month of the year to find people stealing sugar from the office canteen.
Some will disappear with that sole bottle of tomato sauce to ensure their children at least have something salty during these prevailing hard times.
This is the time when drivers are arrested for carrying unauthorised passengers in company vehicles and just the right time when people soil their dignity just to gain an extra dollar.
In some settings where things are really tight, January is the time when some known God-fearing women agree to sleep with someone is secrecy to augment their spouses’ meagre earnings.
January Disease however, might never end if you go on a borrowing spree because you will always be hopping from one problem to the other and borrow and borrow before it degenerates into a vicious cycle.
We are wading through a rough patch but let’s ensure we uphold our dignity until the situation normalises.
Ukasafunga zvakanaka,
Uchaguma usina hama,
Ukasafunga zvakanaka,
Hama dzinotiza, sang the left-handed lead guitarist Nicholas Zakaria and his star-studded Khiama Boys.
And true to the song, let’s aways think properly before acting.
Inotambika mughetto.
Online Reporter