When the going gets tough in town

of affection) on her “catch” despite his clothes and mouth which were reeking booze. On arrival at his lodgings, the inexperienced Isaac lay flat on the bed with his shoes and designer suit on.
To his surprise on waking up the next morning, his guest had vanished, but his wallet was intact.
No cash had been taken.
Even his electricals had not been tampered with.
All the CDs and cassettes were in the order and at places he had left them.
It was only when he wanted to prepare food that he found his 10kg bag of maize-meal and meat missing.
Straight away he realised why his guest had disappeared. Politics of the stomach had triumphed over the adults’ arrangement they had made resulting in the other party bolting to ensure her victory was not reversed.
And such is life. You win some battles and lose some!
Nhamo usandidherere, haiwaiwa usandidherere,
Hurombo usandidaro, haiwaiwa usandidaro,
Esap yanditswinya, inga ndapfidza,
Zvamagetsi zvandiramba, ndafunga kumusha, sang the late Prince Tendai in this collaborative effort with Mitchell Jambo.
The song aptly captures the rigours of urban life and a quest to resign to the rural areas until such a time when the tide changes.
Most people are getting life in town rough and are now taking desperate measures which always come at a cost to their dignity should they be caught.
So many people have turned into thieves and prostitutes because of the quest to survive the rising cost of living.
The weird combine stealing and prostitution.
And how embarrassing it can be to be pointed fingers that you stole a pack of maize-meal?
Maize-meal prices have risen sharply in response to rising demand against the backdrop of limited supply.
And the weather too has not been favourable.
Yellowing crops showing signs of stunted growth greet many a visitor to most parts of the country owing to the prolonged dry spell.
Some farmers contributed to the current state of affairs by applying too much fertiliser in the hope that the heavy rains that punctuated part of the season would persist.
But that was not to be.
As I commit pen to paper gentle reader, troops of monkeys can be seen feeding hungrily on grain scattered on the verges of the road and grudgingly disappear into nearby trees on hearing the sound of approaching vehicles.
Women and children cannot scare away the vervets let alone pass through without losing fruits and vegetables to members of the troop. Drivers of pick-up trucks are not spared. The monkeys reportedly rip open their lugagge in search of food.
Villagers were now thinking of trapping one monkey and painting it so that it helps them scare away members of its kind.
Countless people have fallen prey to food thieves.
In the ghetto, residents with guava and mango trees in fruit often suffer the challenge of having to replace windowpanes that would have been shattered by people stealing fruits.
It may appear as child’s play, but there are some families who are dispatching their children of stealing missions so that they at least get food on the table.
Those with maize fields in the communities in which we live sometimes have to harvest their crop early for fear of bands of ill-mannered characters that harvest in the dead of the night.
Pumpkin leaves near footpaths usually do not survive. Vanhu vanongodhonza muboora wacho votyorera musaga.
People have just become wild.
“Matsola,” “Manjonjist,” “Vabi,” “Vatori”, or “vakakati” are names that have been coined in reference to people who reap where they did not sow.
Supermarkets are not spared. They take things from the shelves and walk past the till point as if they were just checking prices.
Gentle reader, it is not prostitutes alone who are disappearing with food supplies as their clients take a nap.
Relatives are also doing the same.
Some people will pay you a visit and never bid farewell until you are off to work, affording themselves the perfect opportunity to stash meat and packets of rice in their handbags.
Others will wait until you start bathing and funnel your cooking oil into hidden containers before proceeding with their journey as if nothing has happened.
Such people usually do not want young children near them and usually send them on errands so that they have enough time to land their hands on everything they require.
“Enda unonditengera mapiritsi musoro wangu uri kutema zvisingaite,” they will tell an unsuspecting child.
There are other people who however, tell you straight in the face that the economy has not been favourable to them and ask for assistance in a way that makes you feel obliged to throw cash at them.
Friends too can be a pain in as far as turning your house into a supermarket is concerned.
In most cases you trust your neighbour with keys to your apartment for the benefit of a child who will be away at school. But even before the child arrives, a neighbour may open the house and help herself to the groceries and you find yourself struggling to finish the month with enough food for the family.
There are some people who when they are left in a car on the way from shopping, take whatever they can lay their hands on and hide it in their handbags, in armpits and even between the legs so that they enjoy that food at the expense of the purchaser.
The same happens in the public transport sector where people claim luggage that does not belong to them. But such people run the risk of taking goblins home or being assaulted by the rightful owners of the consignments they steal.
Mbare Musika has had a fair share of such tales and even up to now there are groups of crooks operating from the bus station where they take away people’s goods for resale to unsuspecting consumers.
At workplaces too there are some people who will make it their business to sift through people’s belongings looking for valuables like cash and cellphones.
Others will take a lunch pack belonging to the guy next door and care less to find how the workmate will survive without the food. Clothes too are targeted by these consumers of other people’s sweat.
These characters make it a point that they claim all jackets and jerseys belonging to other people for resale at fleamarkets scattered across the city.
It is this writer’s fervent hope that people can learn to work hard and stop trying to reap where they did not sow.
Inotambika mughetto.