"Be Wise Sanitize" (Covid On The Street 2.0) Poem by Deluke Muwanigwa

Covid On The Street 2.0

A parking cashier sauntered to my car carrying a swipe machine, a face mask and a pleasant smile i could only imagine was behind the mask-of- fear-of-contagion. A pretty young lass i imagined must have got her job due to her stunning African beauty, which i noted nonchalantly. My mind wondered how young girls were wooed these days when they are forced to cover their most marketable asset; the face. Then my daft think box realised technology has overtaken the good old system of stolen moments at parties, discos and the movies. Now its whatsapp, facebook etc. I thought, thank God human beings always find a way even in the dark days of Covid 19!

I had USD on me, no local currency notes. Our schizophrenic government pretend all was well. There are not enough USD notes and worse still local notes, but people have migrated to using bitcoin called ecocash. Due to the shortage of cash, a thriving market of electronic cash has spawned unbridled money markets whose deleterious effects may yet unseat the powers that be. Bureaucracy blames everyone else except themselves. As usual.

I digress. So, i had USD; she had no change. I had no local notes, she had a swipe machine for bitcoin. Sigh! I was stuck because if i didnt pay for parking my car it would be clamped and i would have to dig deep in my empty shallow pockets to have my car released. Clamping fees are so high you can get a cardiac arrest. As usual in these sticky situations i unstuck myself by phoning the mother of my kids. My saviourimean, my second one after Jesus Christ. Instantly i got wired money on my phone and paid using Ecocash; a popular platform giving the Reserve Bank a run for their money. As providence had it, i had also forgotten my swipe card which i share with my queen. In all this, social distancing and hand sanitizing was on the back burner, while we haggled over parking fees. I m sure SAR COV 2 was lurking not far withits invisible scalpel. When i raised my head from the payment fiasco i was struck by the all pervasive message on billboards, shopfronts and car stickers. "Be Wise Sanitize", screamed the warning. I thought, welcome to hell bro!

I lost count of how many roadblocks i had gone through on a stretch of 12kms. The uniformed forces clad in their infamous uniforms of repression were stopping every vehicle to demand travel permits. You had to have documentation to prove that you were on a Covid mission or had a letter from your local officer in charge of police to justify your being up and about. As usual, many went past by dropping a dollar. I even drove through without a licence which i had forgotten with an overzealous police officer at another roadblock. With the police focusing on Covid 19 i drive without a drivers licence these days because they are focused on Covid 19. I doubt the offices that issue replacement licences are functional anywhere.

The few cars able to penetrate the roadblocks drove slowly. I drove slowly, more an instinctive subconscious decision due to the preponderous of police and army. Drivers seemed to be social distancing due to the police "virus". There was a beeline of idling cars spewing their ozone depleting toxins at a petrol station. Above the din of idling cars was a deeper roar of diesel geneators everywhere. I suspected there was no grid power. This was a daily occurence due to a severe drought which had depleted the waters of the Zambezi River from where most electricity was generated. In fact most people were resorting to renewable energy to supplement erratic utility power. In fact, this was the cause of my visit to town. I was looking for a solar panel and pump for irrigating my crop at my farm plot.

So, here i was facing Covid and the uniformed officers in the city. Everywhere it said, " Be wise Sanitized".

So far, i think, i have been wise. I have sanitized.