Extracts from my journal

Being far away from your loved ones and the people you care about is a terrible thing, even for a short period. There is absolutely no way I can explain how much it hurts to be some eleven thousand kilometres away from mom, anyway I am that far from my mother and I miss her terribly every day. This is a story of one conversation I had with her over a video call on the 29th of October 2021, the marvels of technology right, at least I can talk to her and see her on a small screen from time to time.

There is an eight hour time difference between Harare Zimbabwe which is home where mom is and Melbourne Australia where I left home for some seven years ago, this means we only have certain windows to communicate. Mom video calls regularly to talk to her grandchild mostly and then I steal the space and catch up because her grandchild gets distracted, he's a baby not even a year old yet at this point. Anyway we engage in conversation which is pretty much general until mom tells me the saddest thing I have ever heard, a family from her church, fellow Jehovah's Witnesses received news of their son's death on the 23rd of October who was in Belgium, and the news informed them that their son had died on the 6th meaning that they were only receiving this tragic news 18 days after his death, I was shook hearing this to say the least.

Mom often passes me sad news this was not the first time, deaths of distant relatives I might have met as a child and barely remember, even the death of my former primary school teacher who was also a very close friend to her, it is always sombre to hear these things when it happens, however I have to say non of the sad news she had shared with me in the past shook me as much as what she had just told me at this point and yet I do not even know neither the victim nor his parents. It was the simple fact of hearing that there is a family who received news of their son's death from some eight thousand kilometres a whole fortnight and four days after he passed away. Things only got worse as the conversation went on, not only did it take that long for them to hear of their son's death but the news was not at all clear as to the circumstances of this boy's death. My mother is a very compassionate person and she sympathizes deeply with other's grievances and the general bad shape of of the world as whole, like her fellow churchmates she found solace in the acceptance of the teachings and doctrines of Jehovah's Witnesses that we are living in the end of days and prophecies are being fulfilled. Honestly this is not at all far fetched and I personally believe it to be true, it is the stance of being subjective and submissive and take everything as it is, all indicators of the end of days that did not sit quite well with me hence I decide to stop going to church as a teenager among other reasons.

The emotions I went through when I was having this conversation with mom were absolute chaos. It was a concoction of sadness, fear, worry, confusion, rage, anger and frustration topped off with a deep sense of powerlessness along with a deep sense of realisation. The confusion I felt cannot even by the slightest margin have matched that which the parents must have experienced when they received the terrible news which was all partial and unclear. Apparently this 18 day delayed news just left them with absolutely no idea as to what happened to their son, they were not informed as to how he died or where it happened, poor kid was all alone in a foreign land with no relatives or anyone to look out for him. This is when the fear kicked in, my thoughts rushed to my sister who is all by her self in Germany with only a couple of friends and one distant relative in her corner.

Rage kicked in when mom casually says, "they (the parents) had him cremated they received the ashes yesterday." The reason this made made me go ballistic is as I mentioned before, Jehovah's Witnesses are generally indoctrinated to be humble and meek. It is not the fact that these parents posses these qualities as part of their beliefs that made me angry, it is the thought that this idea was most probably pushed by Belgian authorities who most likely just wanted a dead foreigner off their hands and were more than happy to burn the corpes and ship the ashes, dealing with this boy's parents who would have just submitted to the idea due to their religious background and not be too inquisitive most likely made the authorities' day much easier. Most of my anger however was directed towards the zanu pf government back home who have created these conditions that makes it seem a much better option for young people to immigrate to foreign countries at any found opportunity, through utter incompetence and thieving they have made life so difficult for the masses that any Zimbabwean just wants to leave the country if given the chance. I was also just as angry at our history as a human race and they way we are in general.

I experienced all these emotions in a moment, something I had never experienced before, like I said it was absolute chaos. In the midst of this barrage of emotions I realised something seemingly obvious but we generally lack true appreciation of, that is how fragile life is. This is a fear that has often haunted me especially so recently with Covid-19 pandemic, scary thoughts often creep into my mind. One can only imagine the thoughts that flooded my mind in this moment concerning my sister in Germany not too far from where the young boy apparently the same age as her died under mysterious circumstances and who's death death shall most likely forever remain a mystery, the thoughts concerning myself and my nuclear family that I started in a foreign country. The plan has always been to move back home after accumulating a fair amount of wealth, however I started questioning whether it was worth it at all thinking of the words of a wise man who said "money ain't life". The most worthy realisation I had was how something seriously needs to be done that will inflict real change, that is the realisation that prompted me to put ink on paper and wright this in my journal, it is the same realisation that prompted me share this story with you and let you know that there is an entire continent of people that needs your help. Please just start by sharing this story with others, that might be the first step to the changes that may make this world a better place, maybe the pen is indeed stronger than the knife.

It might be just me but unlike a face to face conversation, video calls tend to end with an awkward goodbye. This is when the frustration kicked in, the frustration that I was having this conversation with my mother who probably at that point needed a hug way more than I did, she's got two of her babies and a grandbaby in foreign lands I couldn't even start to imagine what she must have been going through and how she felt, yet I could not do such a simple thing as embrace her, I'm sitting there some eleven thousand plus kilometres from her across the Indian Ocean feeling utterly useless. It is overwhelming as parts of the conversation involves her describing how more and more unbearable the economic rot in our country is becoming and I know at the back of my head that she depends on the remittance I send her from this far away land just to survive. This of course just makes me angrier at our failed government at home until a deep sense of powerlessness takes over, there is only one me and they are a gang with an army and guns.