The Sunday Mail
Some time back, while readying my son for a new school term, I had the shock of my life after realising the pair of shoes I had bought for him a week before schools closed could no longer fit.
I had to scrounge around for cash to replace them.
You really do not need all this trouble against the backdrop of other competing interests.
This is the nightmare for most parents around the country.
While learners continuously nag parents for money to buy trinkets, they often conveniently forget to ask for desperately needed school items.
The reminder only comes at the last minute.
Parents are equally to blame.
They know school fees are inescapable, but they leave it until late to pay.
Whenever a new term begins, it is not unusual to find parents and guardians scrambling to put things together.
The coronavirus-induced lockdown makes things even worse.
One can imagine that learners, most of whom have been sitting at home since schools closed on June 4, have since outgrown their uniforms, and replacing them comes at a cost.
Government’s announcement that schools will reopen tomorrow for examination classes and a week later for all other learners has generally ignited frenzied activity as parents and guardians begin preparations.
Gentle reader, loan sharks, banks and other creditors are currently overwhelmed with applications.
“Nothing is as embarrassing as failure to send a child to school. I have to ensure I get half the fees needed so that I can request a payment plan from the school,” a workmate told this writer early last week.
“Iyo yekunzi baba yandiparira. I have to make sure I have enough money before next week, so I have extended a begging bowl to well-heeled acquaintances so that I raise enough money for fees and other sundries,” he added.
So eager are parents to raise fees for their children that some are busy dispatching letters of demand to debtors while others are hiring bouncers to collect money from whoever owes them.
“My children cannot fail to return to school when someone out there owes me. I have instructed the boys to collect the money owed as quickly as they can so that we do not suffer the ignominy of being the only parents to fail to send children to school in this era,” said another guzzler in Gazaland, Highfield.
Another quipped: “I do not mind high-interest rates. I am just going to do whatever it takes to ensure I have enough money come opening day.
“I am going to borrow from the bank because that is the only place I know that does not go about telling whoever cares to listen about my situation.”
This is also a time of drama for men who sired children out of wedlock.
The baby mommas are playing every trick in the book to wring cash from them.
Some of the money actually never reaches the school and only God knows where it is spent.
“A child remains one, never mind the circumstances of birth. The man responsible must pay for the fruits of his loins. Children must be in class as we haggle over our collapsed marriage elsewhere,” yours truly heard a woman saying in capital letters (a new lexicon for shouting).
As schools prepare to reopen, employers are dealing with another thing altogether.
“Boss, my mother has been hospitalised and the medical aid does not cover the ailment, so I need to pay for the services using cash,” I heard a certain bloke telling his boss.
However, it is our hope that the opening of the new school term will actually help lower cases of drug and alcohol abuse that were afflicting most communities.
Happy schooling!
Inotambika mughetto.
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