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Life tips with Charles Mushinga

The memories of my childhood days are still vivid.

I remember the first time I was offered drugs.  We were finishing Grade Seven and had a leavers’ party at school.

 After seven years in primary school, you can only imagine how we felt about moving on to high school.  We felt like heroes, like adults. 

And everyone affirmed our feelings, especially the adults. 

At school they called us the big boys/girls. Teachers would stress, “Do not behave like children! You are not kids anymore. The school looks up to you for leadership and guidance.” 

At home every relative and family member would stress, “Wakupedza Grade 7? Inga wakura nhai Charles!” (You’re graduating from Grade 7? What a big boy this makes you!).

 We would play humble but the truth is, those words were sinking deep into our sub-conscience. 

We believed we were adults and looking back I realise even taking instructions from real adults became a challenge. 

We believed adults were too old to know how things should be done and we had better ways to do things. 

So at that party in 1993, the mood was hyper and the air of adulthood was dense in the environment. It didn’t surprise me or anyone hence when John (not the real name) took out some glue and started offering it to the boys to smoke.

 I didn’t even think of the glue as a drug but the boys were “wise” enough to know that smoking that glue (through blowing in and out of some plastic that had been smeared with the glue) was illegal and should not be done in the open. 

Only the “clever, mature” boys could be let in on the secret and no girls or snitches could know what was going on. In fact this special group was no more than 10 boys and I was among them.  Everyone could see something is happening in the corner with mostly the soccer boys but they had no idea what it was. 

The boys would hold their bottles of coke with an air of invincibility and walk to the said corner where they would smoke the glue and walk casually back to the radio noise to fit into the crowd. 

They didn’t realise it but they all laughed a lot more the more they frequented the dark corner. To be honest when one of them invited me over to be part of the secret, it felt like the greatest honour.  

I was certain I would live up to the dark corner challenge and I swore I would never snitch.  This is me snitching years later and this means I have failed both aspects of the challenge as I also refused to sniff the glue. I do not regret. 

Looking back, I wish I’d snitched that very day. But John scolded the other lads for inviting me. 

He wasn’t happy at all after I refused to smoke glue. 

“Ndakuudzai siyai Charleh uyu! Igwara. Tatokwana so.” 

(I told you not to include Charles. He’s not man enough. Tell no one else, keep the circle small) he said. 

The other boys tried to encourage me using the phrase “you’re no coward” and telling me I can do it and it will leave me semi-floating in happiness but I stood my ground. 

“Yes guys I’m a coward on this matter. But don’t worry, I’m no snitch. Your secret is safe with me,” I told them. 

To cut the long story short, the last time I heard about John, he was in jail for possession of dangerous drugs and was looking at over ten years behind bars. 

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Another friend, let’s call him Mark, is not in jail but he is now a drug addict. He looks like a zombie more often than not and I do not know which drugs he is using now as I am no longer one of the “clever boys” but I know not even two years in rehab will cure him. 

Everyone can see that he is going to die from drug abuse and I’m certain it all originated from that Grade 7 party. 

Mark could have said no like I did but the fear of being labelled a coward was too much for him I guess. 

My other friend smoked the glue that day but the following day he came to me and told me I’d made the right decision to say no to John and he swore he’d never use drugs again. 

Today he is doing really well with his life because that Grade 7 party was a life lesson to him. 

Looking back I realise we were just kids back then. 

In fact, today, years later, we are still only youths and find ourselves consulting the real adults on many things about life. 

So remember, you are only a child and will be young for a few more decades. 

There will be many Johns in your life who will try to sway you from the right path of life but you must know right from wrong and be solid when you say no to peer pressure. 

Life is too delicate to learn from your own mistakes. 

And remember, it’s the little things that count. −[email protected]