Online Reporter
Fadzayi Maposah
Correspondent
I am proud to be African.
I am still in the mood of celebrating being African, a week after the actual holiday.
In Africa we are blessed to have sunsets that some people elsewhere in the world put on their bucket list as one thing that one has to experience in their lifetime.
Sadly most of us born and bred in Africa do not seem to value the African sunset because it is all that we have ever known and as we take it for granted.
Amazingly there are people from other parts of the world who travel to Africa, Zimbabwe included, and wait patiently with well-positioned cameras or mobile phones to capture the sunset.
When one appreciates the African sunset and wants to capture the moments, one can run the risk of being called behaving foreign.
Taking for granted what others pay and travel from afar to experience. Have you not seen award winning pictures of the African scenarios that may be taken for granted here in Africa?
People flood galleries and stand in awe of African sunsets yet the true owners of the beauty ignore it as they go about their business.
The African sunset has no honour in its home continent. We should be proud of the African sunset and many other things that come naturally with our home continent. Last week we discussed the many cereal dishes that are cooked across Africa and how so many of them are closely related, making the dishes, kinsmen or kinswomen.
During the Covid-19 epidemic there were so many lessons learnt in Africa. One issue we realised that some of the things that we had and had at times shunned could actually relieve the symptoms of Covid-19 and also boost our immune system. Remember how chifumuro (no clue what it is called in English!) and zumbani became our best friends? At some point in this country those who relied or promoted herbs were said to be from the past but when the survival mode kicked in, we went to our roots and became buddies with products that our grandmothers had literary forced us to take and how we longed that they would go somewhere so that we would spit it out!
Some people made a killing during the Covid 19 period, some even sold fake herbs and how were the clients to know that they had been duped when they did not know what the real product was like. Foreigners and Zimbabweans sought to carry out research on the effectiveness of these herbs. I heard of families and people who used snuff when a family member had Covid. In short, a lot was done and tried in this country. Looking back at that difficult time, one can only say, we went through a lot.
Health wise there have been lessons and discussions that taking care of one’s health should be a lifestyle. It should not be reactionary. As soon as the epidemic passed, others threw all caution to the wind and resorted to how they had lived prior the epidemic. Taking care of one’s health is a lifestyle. Others have maintained the healthy options which is good.
There is a Shona proverb that says, kurangarira bako wanaiwa. Loosely translated it means remembering a cave as a hiding place after being drenched by the rain.
Not taking care of one’s health and then wanting to go back on track has its hurdles. Still on the herbs, there really is no proper dosage. Others call for using a pinch of a herb, how big is a pinch. Food for thought.
Blessed with so many herbs in our African forests, how about converting these herbs into medicines that people can take with proper dosage?
Do we not take our forests for granted? Yet these forests are on some bucket lists….Is it not time that we added value to what we have in abundance and actually put our country on the map. Health tourism.
It is winter again and people are obsessed with taking their health so that they do not get the flu. People are so worried about what they should not get, yet their behaviour and the actions are not in line with their expectations. People are so keen of getting good results yet at times they are not willing to put in the hard work that will yield the sought after results. So all throughout the year some people live as they please and when winter comes they want to accelerate the uptake of remedies that prevent colds and flus.
Quick fixes do not work my dear kinsmen. While we have the sunset that many put on their bucket lists, we cannot force it to set before its time because we have set our cameras in place. In its own time, the sunset will set and give us an awesome view, but before that we have no power to bring it down faster.
Now regarding the remedies that we have, taking them all at once will affect our health. It is also important too to be consistent in the way that we live. I was at a meeting this week and was always surprised by the number of concoctions that fellow colleagues made at breakfast and tea break.
One could mix ginger, lemon, honey and black coffee! I have no idea what this tastes like but just looking at the cup, I can tell that the stomach and related organs will have an increased work load. The bad thing is the people are inconsistent and do not combine these concoctions with diet and exercise. Concoctions alone will not work.
It is cold but not icy cold as in some parts of the world where they long for the African sun and its accompanying weather. Dress appropriately. Stay hydrated. Eat well. Take the walk and enjoy the sunrise or sunset. Value your health. Commit to good health this winter. #ProudlyAfrican
