Poverty is what has made many African men to think that cars are a sign of success, they are a sign of how we don’t understand money yet, writes Hopewell Chin’ono.
I have been embarrassed by many Zimbabweans who drive expensive cars, but we are hugely shocked when we go to their villages to bury their relatives.
How do you meaningfully invest in expensive cars when your parents are living like rats at the village?
I have seen men who drove million rand cars being buried in a sorry state at their ancestral villages.
This is what leads to the tragic ZANUPF mentality of stealing money meant for medicines in hospitals, the failure to have a mindset that has a proper understanding of priories in life has destroyed African countries.
How do we expect you as a leader to build hospitals with money you are in charge of when you can’t build a decent home for your parents or yourself at the village, something that benefits you directly.
Civilised societies first build public infrastructure before luxuries.
They have legacies, they leave behind legacies, but many in our midst will leave cars and memories of living it up not things to be marvelled at.
What will we see when we come to bury your parent or yourself at your village?
Imagine this, a car bought in 1980 is rotting somewhere in the soil.
But a cathedral, family home or library built in 1850 still stands, let us change our mindsets!
We want to see more pictures on social media if your villages not parties and cars.
Let us see how you have transformed your ancestral villages, don’t be an embarrassment lying there in your casket.
The good thing is that your Sekuru will insist that “toenda naye kumusha.”
Are we going to see a decent home or a set of huts with no ablution facilities, imagine how far those bottles of blue label would have taken you in leaving a decent legacy for you and your kids.
A man who can’t build a decent rural home for himself or his parents has no capacity to do anything meaningful for anyone.
