Tomorrow

Ok. So it's tomorrow. Dad jut paid for everything and the doctor is expecting me tomorrow for the surgery. Tomorrow. Hmmn.

Mum and the lil sis are in Dubai and if this had been scheduled for later, i had hoped to go for a day and see them, but it's tomorrow.

It's been six years since i had surgery. Since i was put to sleep. It is so much easier when you ar a kid you know? Kid's are resilient creatures. Almost fearless at times compared to grown ups.

Me? No, I'm not worried. No. I'm not.

I'm not.

But my mind, body and soul seem to be. I am having mild heart palpitations which is silly because i know i'll be fine. I'll be fine. Just routine. No biggie. I've done this more than once before.

I'm not worried.

What is going on?

So life back home is three steps away from hell it seems. My Grandfather’s younger sister just died today. But the back story is what really gets me. Apparently she collapsed on Thursday. She was in the rural areas (village, what we call kumusha in my language). She went to the fence between her place and the neighbor’s and called the garden boy so she could borrow matches. He brought them to her and as she was turning around to leave, she collapsed.

They took her to some hospital in the capital and the nurses said there were no doctors available to see her right away so they put her on a stretcher in the hallway. It was around 7 p.m. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Still no doctor had seen her and she was lying in a coma on the stretcher in the hallway

5 a.m. Five in the bloody morning! That is when they saw her. She had been lying in the hall for the night without any attention. A woman in a coma. No doctors they said. Finally they got her a bed

Sunday my grandfather, who is an Anglican priest and her brother, went to see her around ten in the morning. The nurses stopped him at the door and said he could not go in. He was arguing with them, saying that he always goes in to pray with the patients and this was his sister for goodness sakes. The matron came and said no, you cannot come in. They said that there were so many priests these days, they didn’t know who was for real and who wasn’t.

She died today. Two hours ago. Kidney failure they said.

My point? There were no doctors at one of the big hospitals in the capital city of the country. NO DOCTORS. None available.

What has my country come to? This place I was born and raised. This place I think about everyday. That I want to go home to someday. What is there to go home to? Our inflation at the moment is 1140%. Do you even know what that MEANS? I sure as hell didn’t.

That is Z$350,000 to US$1. That means bread is Z$130,000-150,000 per loaf. A chicken is Z$1.7 million. It costs Z$18 million a month to go to the high school I graduated from. Our house is worth billions.

And the disparity between prices and salaries? Well, let us begin at the bottom of the barrel with the maids and garden boys (common in my country, practically everyone has one of each, or at least that is the way it was when I was at home) who make Z$2.7 million a month. That translates to about US$77 a month. School is not free at any level for anyone whatsoever and the government schools (what Americans refer to as public schools) are around Z$5 million per term. So tell me, if you are taking home Z$2.7 million a month and you have children or one child even who needs to go to school and you have to eat and live and wear clothing, what in hell do you do?

My dad and his colleagues have not been paid in months. MONTHS! Because the government “says” it has no funds.

And yet every minister of parliament demands a new car, a Mercedes no less, and they go on holiday out of the country, a luxury normal people cannot even fathom. They go to see the doctor in bloody South Africa! That is why when something like this happens, they don’t care. They do not try and fix the situation at all. They do not try and make sure their doctors are paid and not on strike. Or are just THERE!

How can there be no doctors? DOCTORS? My country was known as the “Breadbasket of Southern Africa” not so long ago. The Z$500 bill was the biggest denomination when I was home three years ago. Now we have a Z$100,000 bill. In three years. We were unsurpassed by everyone except South Africa.

My entire age group, the ones lucky enough to have money for a plane ticket out, is non existent in the country. All the professionals live in Australia, the UK, America, China, South Africa. Our doctors are treating Americans and Europeans. Our businessmen and women are making money for foreign countries. Our lawyers defending western criminals. Our educated elite, cleaning toilets in London for lack of an otion.

And the poor bastards left in the country are dealing with inflation, western sanctions, no doctors and no fuel, which when there, costs an arm, a leg and half your kidney. And let us not forget AIDS which has claimed three lives dangerously close to me.

My country has gone to the dogs, literally and no one is helping. We are drowning right there in front of the world’s eyes and no one is paying attention. They are focused on getting Mugabe (our president) out BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY and are blind to the pain and suffering of the lay people who did nothing to bring this damnation upon our heads.

I am one of the lucky ones. I live in America, going to university with money my parents do not really have. I pine for home every single day, but what would I be going home to? The country I was born and raised in, the country I love more than any other place on earth (and, mind you, I have been to many places) has gone to the dogs.

And I am disgusted.

I think he is wicked sexy! And a great player too. Go Adriano!

Go Brazil!

We're official. I am his girl. He's my baby. We're officially official.

For the most part. It worries me a bit that our officiality happened while we were on two different continents. That was my fault. I think if looked into, it is me wanting as much distance and being comfortable to make such a decision simply because i know i do not have to face it for real everyday. I am far away for a long time. Well, a month and a half now. So i am okay with making that decision. I can be his girl while i am poncing around the middle east and not going to see him for a couple of months right? My counsellor said i do this with every aspect of my life. I am terrified to death of failure and thus the procrastination and the waffling and the perfectionism that goes to the extreme where i want so badly for something to be perfect that i tell myself i can never make it perfect and so i don't even bother with it or i procrastinate about it.

I think my counsellor has been watching Dr. Phil.

Anyway less analysing, more celebrating. I have my first official boyfriend. Yay. I'm sorry, i dunno why i am not more enthused about this. I know it is not a big deal, but to me it should. Or at least i always wanted it to be. Okay, stop stop stop.

I am having surgery on my right eye next week somtime. Again. For the umpteenth time. But hopefully this is the last time. Am i worried? No. Should i be? Perhap. I dunno. We'll have to see about that. Okay i don't feel like blogging today. I'll do this later.

The greatest game on the planet

It is World Cup season finally! There really is no other sport worth watching than football. No wonder it is the number one most popular sport worldwide.

I love watching the game. It is exciting, inspiring, emotional. And the men are drop-dead-shut-your-mouth sexy! Athletic men are so hot to me. Broad shoulders, sexy thick thighs, long hair and all. I love it!!

We are watching Iran v. Mexico right now, and though i am in Iran, i am rooting for Mexico. Sorry, but that is my team in this match. They just tied it 1-1 and it's now halftime. I can just imagine the craziness that will definately ensue IF Iran wins this match. They were already making noise in anticipation this afternoon, driving around blasting music, honking horns and screaming with their flag painted on thier faces.

I have to say I was disappointed that Zim didn't qualify, by a hair. Had we qualified....!!! I can't even begin to imagine the excitement. I would have been crazy, painting my face and all! I so wish i were there man!!

Oooh! They are coming back to the field! second half. Fingers crossed for Mexico!!

Venga Mexico! Viva Mexico!

Pissy the dozey cow

He went out with my ocusins last night (Saturday night). He said it was the last time for a long time because they are a little out of control at times. Whatever, his perogative. They went down to Austin to see my other cousin D. Ok. So what right?

I was talking to him before they got on the road. It was nice and i was missing him and wanting to be with him just then. He said he'd leave me a message, before he started drinking. I flinched a bit. Sure, i mean he can do thatif he likes. At least one sober one before i get crazy drunk messages from him right?

So i check my messages the next day. Nothing. Cool. Whatever. I check a few hours later. Three drunk messages. For some reason that pissed me the hell off. I mean, why is it necessary for him to get smashed off his face at all? What for? I never understand why people willingly get drunk. Now, i am not trying to be judgemental. Americans have a thing about 'don't judge me!" an all that crap! So, it isn't what i am doing. I am simply wondering why that was necessary.

Whatever, i think i am just in another pissy mood and needed something to blame it on.

Just Do It

Nike had it so right.

So i just sent him an email. Right after i got off the phone with him. I was in a bitchy mood and he got on my nerves. Then i felt bad and dropped him an email telling him i wanted to be his and that i was slightly off my head and don't mind my crazy moody moments and that i hated his habit. Apparently brooding does nothing. So i laid it out there for him. Granted it'll be days till he checks his email, but still. I told him. So now we wait.

My family is so freaking messed up. Ok, traditionally when a person dies, it is their children that handle the funeral stuff and the wake and the funeral is held at their oldest child's home (this is Zim we're talking about, not all funerals are at funeral homes) Ok. so my family then. My great grandfather had about eight kids. Miriam died. Betty (my grandmother) is in Germany where she's lived for over thirty years. Robert and Kingston live in America where they have lived over twenty years. Julia is sick. First breast cancer and now AIDS. Nora is mentally unstable. John is a crook but otherwise healthy. Kenneth is the oldest, married to a witch of a woman and useless with a long string of totally useless kids of his own, all of working and marrying ages. Right. According to our tradition, care of the parents falls on the resposibility of the oldest. Kenneth. Living in somewhat poverty with a bunch of unemployed, demented kids who are so freaking useless it makes me weak just thinking about it.

During my great grandparent's old age, not one of their kids stepped up to take care of them. Ok, i take that back. Betty, Miriam and Robert did. Financially. They were out of the country and could only send money and plead with the family to take care of them. Kenneth, the oldest, hardly visited. Due to his wife, the dozey cow! John is a crook. That sums it up really. Nora was mentally unstable, i am not sure what her deal was really. Julia was in the village with them when her life fell apart and her deadbeat husband left but then she started getting sick. Kingston was useless even before he moved to the States. So the old folks were in a bit of a fix.

Lucky for them, and everyone else, my mum loved the old folks because they were the only ones who ever really loved her from the time she was little. Everyone else was appallingly cruel to her, including her own dozey sister who was very cruel growing up. Her uncles were mean to her. Her dad abandoned her. The only man to every love her, and rather celestially at that, was her grandad. She was his favourite and she regarded him as her dad. So when she got married, she took care of him. For the last few years when the old folks have really been ill, she was the one there for them. That is, whenever we were in Zim. But even when we were not, those old folks would have perished had it not been for mum pushing those at home to care for them.

My mother is a remarkable woman. Caring to the brim, but she is the type of woman that commands nothing but the most reverential respect. Perhaps at times to the point of fear. I believe a lot of my family members are scared of her. Quite a number of people are, though she is really sweet, but she don't play.

So now he has died and it's crazy. They are having the funeral thing at my mum's sister's home because she was taking care of the old folks while mum was over in the middle east. No where near as good at it as mu, was. That isn't me saying that either, everyone felt really worried when dad got posted here and mum had to leave care of the old folks to the remaining family members who are about as useful as a chocolate teapot in the desert.

I dunno, it is all very ad. I started this post wanting to delve deep into this issue but all of a sudden i feel bored. This entry is rather useless actually. Hmmn. Well done me.