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Isdore Guvamombe Reflections
Zimbabwe’s roads have been turned into death traps by a multifarious array of kombis, one might be forgiven to think are being driven by genetically modified zombies and not people.
They straddle lanes.
They create side roads.
They overtake where it is not allowed.
They don’t observe traffic lights.

They shout obscenities and swear at everyone who questions them. They do so many bizarre and unthinkable things on the road.
This villager certainly cannot believe they were born of women. They must have dropped from hell.

The law is there, the law is broken every second, every minute, and every hour.
The police are there, arresting the kombi drivers every day, every hour, every minute and indeed every second. But why does it continue?
Are the penalties not deterrent enough?

Passenger life is under constant threat and death has occurred numerous times. Other motorists are not safe either. Pedestrians are not spared. But who are these kombi drivers? And who are the owners?

What really has hit us as a country? Do we deserve this?
Back in the village in the land of milk, honey and dust or Guruve when ancestors cook, you never see the smoke, once you see smoke it is a human being cooking.
Is this a problem bestowed upon us by the ancestors? NO! It is human problem and therefore should be solved once and for all. We must have the capacity as a country to deal with these kombis.

For more than a decade now, Zimbabwe has been grappling with the kombi menace and can one man or woman just stand up and put this menace to rest?
Surely, it is not impossible to have our young brothers driving the four-wheeled coffins to just follow road rules and turn those coffins back into passenger vehicles?

Back in the village, elders with cotton tuft hair say it is the folly of villagers that when a needle falls into a deep well, many people will look into the well, but few will be ready to go down after it. At least one or two people should be able to say, “Well, I am going after the needle. If I don’t who will do it?” That is manhood. That is real manhood and not bragging about having the biggest bamboo stick.

We all know the problem and we have all experienced it unless one lives in Mars but who really is willing to act and put this to rest? Everyone complains about the kombis, about their drivers and their attitudes but no one has really acted to finality. Why, why and why?

We have a vision about what we want on our roads but vision without action is a daydream and so is action without vision is a nightmare.
This villager is watching the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development Dr Obert Moses Mpofu, talking about banning the kombis. His vision is to retain the old mass bus system. Good idea, from the village, but are there many takers to supply the huge buses?

His middle name being Moses, he might be attempting to take us to Canaan. This villager is certainly one of his followers and will walk behind him.
Minister Mpofu is probably right for all other solutions seem to have failed, for, tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today. And, understandably, dealing with kombis after this long entrenchment will not be a stroll in park but I am sure the good Minister knows it has to be done.

Does the village soothsayer, the ageless autochthon of wisdom and knowledge not say when a bee perches on your genitals it takes great skill and not force, to kill it?
Police have tried this operation and the other but this villager noticed that, maybe because of resource constraints or something else, police do not sustain such operations for very long. Soon after standing down from a particular operation, the situation goes back to its old chaos.

From where this villager, the son of a peasant stands, we should not look where we fell, but where you slipped. As a country we saw the transition from the old conventional buses and Peugeots where we sat legs criss-crossing in the boot to kombi. As a country we saw kombi operators giving their drivers daily cash-in targets.
Like an audience of a movie we watched the drama unfold and today we are in the thick of the kombi mess.

The kombis have soiled our roads. They have shredded to pieces the Highway Code. They have indeed defecated on the morale that held us together as motorists and become beasts among us. How do you honestly drive safely alongside a beast or zombie masquerading as a driver?