Online Reporter
Fadzayi Maposah
Correspondent
This week I had moments where from the terraces that I stood, I could not help but smile. The big smile was accompanied by a warmed heart.
There are so many things that can make us smile against our will. On all the occasions that I smiled, I was on my way to work and by the time I got to there, it had changed the way that I viewed the day.
Let me share what made me smile and then maybe you can smile too.
I was walking behind a man who I assumed is my peer. The amount of grey hair on his head and the maturity lines on his face are what I used to deduce that he is from my generation.
I do not walk too fast, neither do I walk too slowly. I try to maintain a decent walk for someone who will be formally dressed, and also since I give myself ample time to avoid rushing. I am also trying my best to protect myself from falling, given my age. Back to my male peer.
He then took out his cellphone and called someone. The conversation was very short. Started with a greeting and then a short message to say that he could not wait, so he was requesting the person he was calling to start making their way to the entrance as he could not wait as he had to be at work a bit early to attend a meeting.
I looked at my watch there was a bit of time before 7am. I then told myself that it was not my business to still think that there was still time before 8am. Who was I to assume that he started work at eight?
Also starting work at 8am did not mean that he had to be at the workplace at that time. We crossed one street together.
I noticed that he slowed down just after we crossed the street, then a young man started walking towards him, and then the smiled while greeting him. The older man went to the side with him and I continued walking with the others.
Then I heard the young man say that he would walk just a bit so that they could get a few minutes of conversation. When he said Baba, I smiled. Father and son relationship. He was thanking him for the package that he had been given. Baba was to thank Mama too for making time to pack the goodies.
The father laughed as we came to another street and waited for the traffic to pass so that we could cross. The mother was gifted in that regard, the father said to his son, she loved sharing and now that all the children were all grown up and in different places, whenever an opportunity presented itself, she would ensure that she got a courier to deliver the packages.
The father laughed and his son joined him. When we had crossed the street, the two stopped as the father said the son could go back to his work station.
They would talk more on the telephone. I turned a bit to look, and then I saw the goodbye hug. Then there were soon lost in the sea of pedestrians. I smiled as I recalled the moments that my adult daughters meet up with me no matter how short the time, it leaves me with a warm heart. Time runs out and there is always the follow up call, I could relate.
Next smile encounter, while in a commuter omnibus, one passenger at the front asked the driver if he could give someone at a certain bus stop something. It was the conductor who responded that if the person was not at the bus stop, they would not wait.
Fortunately another person said they were dropping of at the same bus stop. The bus top was in the middle of the industrial area, and a woman walked towards the commuter omnibus.
She headed to the front of the kombi and received something from the young man by the window, while many passengers went out to make way for the one who was disembarking. As the passengers disembarked, the two had an opportunity for a short conversation. The woman thanked the young man using his totem, Chihwa. The driver thanked the woman for letting everyone know that he was from the Chihwa clan.
The young man protested; “Maona zvamaita Mama, kombi yese yakuziva mutupo wangu.” The Mother laughed and said maybe he would find his relatives. I smiled.
Third smile encounter was in the car park at Sally Mugabe Central Hospital. Two women, one baby. The younger woman assisted the older one to tie the baby on her bag. The older woman’s phone rang and after saying hello, she was explaining that she was at the hospital accompanying Chipo, whose baby had to see a doctor, adding that she was simply playing her role as a mother. I smiled.
I shared my smile encounters with someone and she asked me if just by looking at the people I had encountered I could tell how and where they had been born.
I told her that I could not, and that I had simply assumed something from the pieces of information that I had gathered, but I did not have the full story.
I had no idea why they had done the things they did and in that manner, maybe except for the mother who was accompanying her daughter and grandchild to see the doctor.
Could I even explain why it was the mother, and not the daughter, who was carrying the baby? She said that she was amazed that even the educated fuelled stereotypes and misconceptions around health issues where they had limited information.
She talked about the myths that surround delivering a baby through a Caesarean section. She said it was time that people were taught to respect boundaries, and that when they have not been asked for their opinion, it was not be appropriate to do give it.
The way she spoke, she showed that she is advocating for C-section mothers to be accorded some respect, and not to be labelled as failures just because they are few.
She confessed that at some point she had been afraid that it was obvious to the whole word that she had a C-section just by the way people spoke about it, as a result of someone who had failed.
The women with C-sections are less and some families may have one and not have adequate information to support them.
At times, it is the adults who must take the package to the young ones, while at times the younger must be willing to ask for a commuter omnibus to stop so as to drop off something.
In some instances, the learning must happen together as in my smile encounters. Just how much has been done to disseminate information on the C-section?
#C-section awareness month.
