Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Pollution

When someone mentions pollution and climate change, we think of large factories belching black smoke into the air and spewing poisonous fluids into our water systems leading to the births of deformed children and large tracts of arid wastelands. We never think of our selves as polluters and wonder how we can play our part in cleaning up the world.
Whose fault is it that the streets of Harare are usually fithy? Is it the city fathers who do not ensure consistent cleaning? Is it because there aren't enough bins?
What do you do with your litter? Do you always place it in a bin or do you just throw it wherever you happen to be when you are done with your fast food container? If we all disposed of our litter correctly where would the unswept garbage be coming from?
Think about it and change your habits today. Encourage your friends, colleagues, relatives and strangers to think clean and not litter

Guruuswa

Guruuswa is the legendary home of several Shona tribes from which they emigrated to present day Zimbabwe. This place is believed to have been in central or East Africa. The Bantu Migration theories support the oral tradition.
Guruuswa was a land of very high grass as the name implies, thereby ruling out the rain forest region. Wherever it actually was, it was a land of lush vegetation, an African Eden.
Why the Shona ancestors migrated from there is not quite clear, but war is a good guess as hunger is unlikely to have been a factor in that land of plenty.
The Shona and other peoples settled in Zimbabwe and learnt agriculture. With the coming of the Europeans with their medicines, machinery and improved food security, the population exploded.
With colonialists exporting the wealth of the land thus minimising development, we got overpopulated.
Added to that we had a civil war lasting many years.We have also seen an economy that collapsed and a gross mismanagement of our resources as a few individuals grab everything at the expense of the majority.
We now have a situation where our country is failing to support its own citizens. The facilities like hospitals, educational institutions and utility service providers are failing to cater for everyone.In other words we have overpopulation.
It is up to each and every one of us to reclaim our land and return it to the idyll of Guruuswa, one little piece at a time. It is no use waiting for politicians to do something. Each one of us has a role to play and we need to start now, today!