The ink has dried. The cameras have flashed. The champagne popped. The king has spoken. The dry humour has done just that: dried. Everybody is happy. Oh! Happy day, when Thabo walked and washed our woes away!  Elsewhere, a poor woman lies in a filthy hospital ward groaning in pain. For days a bulging belly refuses to let out that life that has been growing inside her. Day two, the eve of the signing, doctors decide a C-section is the only option to free this poor woman from the pain, to give the baby a chance to enter that brave new world. Day three. The baby is having difficulty breathing. Hours later, that little bundle of joy has stopped breathing. Elsewhere, big men in neat suits promise a new beginning. The poor young woman has no clue what that means. She closes her eyes and tears – like water from the giant Zambezi dam – keep falling. The young man who planted the seed decided to do a Harry Houdini on her – he is nowhere to be seen. Men, men, men! She bears a permanent C-section scar and will carry it for the rest of her life as a reminder of not the “historic power sharing deal” but that life lost on the very day Zimbabweans were being promised better things ahead.

This entry was posted on September 16th, 2008 at 9:10 am by Marko Phiri and is filed under Elections 2008, Uncategorized, Women's issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.