dyton mupawaenda
Fadzayi Maposah-Correspondent
Just where do I begin?
It has been some hectic week with a lot of adventure. Schools opened this week.
The schools opening is some busy process.
There are a lot of emotions that run high. School lists are drawn by children who seem to think that the sky is the limit and that their parents or guardians have shares in major stores. Chido my youngest daughter wrote her school list and stuck it on the fridge.
She did this to constantly remind me of the things that need to be bought.
It is a trying time for the parents and the guardians too. The parents and guardians look at the list and wonder why the children need so much tuck.
I remember one term Chido told me that the list she had written was for the whole term.
I was thrilled that my baby had grown up. I was rather shocked when a few weeks just before that term’s visiting day to get a call from one of her teachers.
The teacher told me that Chido had given her a list of things that I should get for her when I come for the visit.
I asked Madam to remain on the line as I got a pen so I could write the list.
I was so sure that the list would just have a few items. I was so sure too it was probably a list to replenish depleting stationery stocks.
The first item that the teacher called out was cool drink. Cool drink? Did she not say that her supplies would last the whole term? I did not verbalise my thoughts but as Madam called out items, all I could say in my mind was “asi Chido ka? ( but Chido seriously?)
At the end of the call, I had a list that was closer to what she had shared at the beginning of that school term!
As I usually do, I did adjust the list as I saw fit, something that I learnt from my own experience as a child! And there is actually a Shona proverb for this experience, “Chakachenjedza ndechakatanga” (it is what happened at the beginning that made one wise), I always say that our proverbs are loaded, relevant and still applicable even today.
Even “Kukurukura hunge wapotswa”(one can only explain what happened, if they have survived the ordeal) Anyway enough of the proverbs.
When I did see Chido at school and asked her why she had submitted a supplementary list, all she could say was she must have underestimated the quantities!
Really? Since I do not want to spend valuable time arguing about lists when we should be bonding, I quote a proverb and we have quality bonding time. So now we work with quantities that we will get us to half term, when there will be visiting day.
Once burnt twice shy! Lists are negotiated, there are compromises, some tension, raised emotions but thankfully at the end of it all there are warm goodbye hugs and kisses as we part, she staying at school and her mother going back home.
So I got home having left Chido at school. Since I was to travel early week, I began to look for old phone so that I would have a backup phone.
So I started looking for it. Could I find it? No I started looking for it in the expected places but I just could not find it.
When I did find it, I was a bit upset. The phone was not with its charger! Aww, I had to start to look for the charger again. Each time I thought I was about to find it, and did not, I got a bit upset. After searching in three places and not finding it I was upset and tired.
Remember I had looked for my phone and I did not just find it, I had to really search to find, so I decided that I would make myself a cup of tea and have it with a lot of chocolate biscuits just to console myself!
The biscuits and tea made me calm. I became relaxed and started reading a book. I got lost in the book and forgot that I had been looking for the phone charger. I got up in a huff when I remembered that I had been looking for the charger.
Truly life is lived forwards but understood backwards. I remembered how upset my grandmother VaMaMoyo would get upset when as children we would rearrange the kitchen cupboard.
At times she would thank us and then less than an hour later start looking for cups and assembling us to ask where we had put things.
We used to think that Gogo was not grateful. How could she not appreciate the good that we did for her?
Now I truly understand what Gogo was going through. She would be used to where her things were. In our childhood innocence, we wanted to please Gogo and yet she was only pleased briefly. She would grumble as she looked for her utensils.
As I looked for the charger, I realised that I was having a Gogo experience.
Forgetfulness is a challenge now. I do not like my things moved, I do not like my set up upset. At times we do not understand why older women sulk. Now that I am an older woman, I can relate. Mood swings.
As I looked for the charger and did not find it I was upset. I confess, I was close to tears. I was telling myself that I may need to buy a charger rather than continue to waste my time looking for a needle in the haystack!
Now I talk about these issues because I realised that there are some things that I did not understand that are clearer now.
That when one gets to menopause they are very close to tears when they are under some stress and even when they have forgotten what it is that they were looking for when they turned the cupboard upside down.
Online Reporter