Buhle
Out of all the benefits I've reaped from my popularity on Twitter, I cherished my cyber friendship with Buhle the most. I made friends from high places and some from humble places, some of which I am still in good books with and some not, but I cherished Buhle the most.
How we first met? It was in 2019 when I tried to sell bananas to her out of my scorch-cart but she was such a rude girl and said "angila mali", this doesn't sound rude at all from reading it but it was in her tone her eyes and her body language that she was rude. Manje nathi we are even rude(r) so my friend said "uyakhanya" and we broke a good chuckle and snapped hands chatting about Bulawayo girls and ubumbulu as she quietly disappeared into an alley. I subbed her on twitter the same day and she quoted "fuseki" with laughing emojis and that marked the beginning of my likeness of her and our interaction.
I'd see her a lot in town since we both frequented the city but it never neared a get-to-know chat as sometimes she'd be across the street and we'd just wave, you know that sort of thing? And, I couldn't just abandon my scorch-cart to cross the street lest the municipals snatch my wares on a raid operation, and, what's worse approach the girl pushing the thing? Nah. An abrupt meet-up was just fairly appropriate. At times Buhle would be traversing the city with her groupies, singling out a girl in a group is like untying a knot, hectic! But I always looked forward to talking to her more. It couldn't get pitiful than this but the more I looked forward to seeing the girl the less I saw her, the science was not sciencing. I then first DMed her asking why I wasn't seeing her as often, to my disappointment I discovered that she'd flown out to Europe before I could establish a relationship beyond just being town buddies with her.
Buhle was like that, and, it didn't come from a place of clout chasing, she genuinely had her best interests in people and I happened to be one of them. Unfortunately, in the same year of my constantly rising popularity I suffered a devastating blow-up, it was as though my balloon was blown to the max and just burst to irreparable pieces; I got dragged and canceled over contentious tweets. Without getting much into the details, guess who was my third eye? Buhle.
What I liked most about the girl was that she wasn't swept with the crowd in the tide of banishing me on timeline to harbor likes and follows, Oh people got likes that day! As for Buhle, she by exception kept her silence and approached me privately, by her approach she didn't fight me although the situation was indeed pushing.
Buhle gracefully showed me a perspective I was not seeing about my tweets and kindly asked me to take them down, she stated how that was going to affect my works and my image, unfortunately I can be hard headed so I didn't listen but I did appreciate her approach. She didn't put it against me, she still remained hostile to the situation and that was quite a noticeably endearing behavior to me. It exhibited her humanistic weight and gravitas, a disposition of moral intellectualism, basically she was a mature person and I've since always admired her for that. I love people who are real, people who are slow to judge slow to criticize, even under the temptation of contempt, people who think and reason. Buhle is wired just right, a very young person but with quality wires, ykwim? Unlike Yvonne Maphosa, a woman much older than her who went out of her way to re-imburse my police-bail fee when I got unfairly arrested because it was popular to support Ricky at the time.
Shockingly, when I needed support the most she was in the forefront calling me rubbish and reducing my apology to nothing. Someone who had my phone number and could give me a call to take down the tweet. How do you despise someone whose day you've once saved? Let alone not have the capacity and understanding to forgive. It's better to keep quiet than to exhibit how opportunistic and dark your character really is. I've never wished to return someone's money like I wished with Yvonne, even tenfold. One day, when I get stable I am going to envelop R200 and send it down in a thank you card and a note to her Capetown mail-box. The biggest clout chaser who taught me such a good lesson about people and how shallow timeline relations are, I learned by her that social media does this thing of giving people a false sense of community. How do you stone someone you once showed compassion to? It was by comparing Buhle to her that I acknowledged and really cherished Buhle's rather humane essence.
A year after my cancelation and downfall, and spending a great deal of time off social media, I made an attempt in 2021 to reclaim myself on there, to which I was misconstrued and ill-received. Guess who was in solidarity with the condemnation which was thrown at me? Buhle. She went onto her Instagram page and posted multiple stories venting about a people who don't forgive, that she didn't understand why such behavior prevails, she said a lot of things in her over twenty stories. I didn't respond or thank her because it was just priceless, there are things you just look at and really appreciate so much that you are confined to subtlety and just remain mentally awed. I actually didn't understand why she had such a big heart for me. It's like being invited in rooms you deem you're unfit for, you can't be excited, you just remain emotionally numb and stoic in disbelief, at least that's what happens to me most of the time. I remember the accident I was involved in in August of the yesteryear, usually I am a fighter and I rage but I was so awestricken I couldn't say a thing to that lady, I was just blasted and you know when there is a huge blast there is a deafening silence. Likewise, Buhle deafened me! And I couldn't say thank you.
I wouldn't know if she shows so much love to her friends but what I do know is that she is purely passionate, and, it is not centred on reciprocation, it is just her disposition. It's like kindness, true kindness doesn't need one to ask for it to express it's self, it carries dimensions which recognize unsolicited need and it delivers. There are people who are just big hearted man and Buhle was undoubtedly one of them.
Unfortunately I am an imperfect human being who is additionally constantly in a tide of brawls. I always just find myself in a fight and distasteful shenanigans. Recently in September of this year I joked and called a guy a downsyndrome on twitter, they don't have a downsyndrome but I implied they had. To me, this was just a joke but I have learned from people who approached me then that it was actually an outlandish misbehavior which paddled a stigma there is on downsyndrome people, and the guy expressed how it affected him profusely and that it damaged his brand, to which I eventually apologized.
Further to this scandal which startled an old rage and contempt, more attacks were hurled at me by a couple more individuals. I was degraded for selling bananas for three years, and, before I'd even apologized to the guy whom I'd called a downsyndrome, him and his popular artist buddy had wanted to meet me in person. I told them I was curious to know what the occasion was and gave them my location, to which they fell back. You see I am a very fit and risk driven chap actively living in the real world, I am not a homebody, and I have been in quite the rough fights as a street vendor, so I am not the type to be threatened by crispy skin and sparkling eyes city boy tweets. I am always curious to find out exactly what someone wants to meet me for, and, it's not even that I am a kickass or anything it's just that I have been in enough fights to not be afraid to get into one unless of course we've once exchanged blows and you've smacked me, I have respect for guys who've knocked me. My think is I don't take intimidation lightly, actually intimidation makes me anxious and anxiousness drives me to want to get things out of the way as soon as possible before I stress, hence let's meet. I am not the type to shrink in the face of a challenge, my pores open up and you will have to prove to me that you really say what you mean, so let's put talk to act there and there. I almost lost my life to four thugs that assaulted me into hospital admittance, after that tragedy I couldn't fear a threaty-tweet by boys without a single scar on the face. So I said to them if you want to flex muscles lets and gave them my real location. Buhle however quickly reprimanded me publicly, she stated that I was wrong for wanting to meet the guy after initially attacking him, to which I conceded and apologized. But the guy didn't appreciate my first apology, so after softening him to a reason he then instituted to me the formal apology above, by which I exhibited an unhesitated compliance and quoted my initial apology. I apologized twice.
Now, because the attacks were coming as casted darts people weighing in with their opinions parading like entre-economic intellectuals and making me a subject of failure and a laughing stock for being a visionblind vendor who hasn't opened a shop in three years and ought be embarrassed, I was tweeting defensively and by reciprocation, so my tweet barrel was very bad in taste.
Buhle then inboxed to express that she was tired of my degrading tweets, to which I said "clearly you don't see me being degraded and me reciprocating." and that was the last time we talked.
The most condescending and unsettling tweet for me amongst all others was one by a girl who said "Pushing bananas for three years and you want to beat your chest??? How embarrassing".
I remember it took me three days to toughen it up and let it slip my mind but I remained in disbelief of how much the tweet disturbed me. I remember thinking 'surely social media has a huge bearing on the mind' because this is a real person living in the real world and believes my toil of three years is an embarrassment, I couldn't gather peace from her tweet, I couldn't.
I made attempts to reach this girl nicely hoping she would take the tweet down, to my dismay she exhibited much more arrogance and laughed it off with friends trivializing my concerns and toying with my feelings saying I am a banana boy looking for attention it is scorch-cart mentality; see the constant disparaging remarks degradation and the infanticizing? Well in modern language "sizing" lol. I was disgruntled to then see Buhle in the comments laughing at the menace. The other friend was a girl I was well acquainted with from the city pavements and admired very much and whose braiding business I constantly supported by referring girls to.
I'd never questioned Buhle's genuinety but at this point I did, I actually wondered if in my previous scandals she'd really remained hostile or I just didn't have an encounter with her contemptuous comments. I was so disappointed in her but out of my respect for her and a soft spot really I mustered my composure but I'd gotten the first sign and bloop that this camaraderie wagon was soon coming to a halt.
During this, my attempts at coming at every Jack and Jill and Juanitta, I got a DM from the allegedly downsyndrome guy saying he will not accept my formal apology until his demands were met.
His demands were that I pin my apology to my profile and repost it everyday on my Whatsapp status for a week. He said him and his team had escalated the situation higher and I would be receiving phone calls from the local authorities. I realized then that I was dealing with a childish fella that actually had a couple disabilities and it were a disability to read the room a disability to take a joke and an inability to respect those he thinks are inferior to him. So I quickly went and deleted my apology and told him he was moving the needle and a little too ambitious and for that reason him and his so called team were about to realize I am not just a banana vendor, I am Ricky, a human being with a dignity which will not be toyed with by people who want to inflate their twitter egos with petty demands to show their mates and girlfriends.
I requested for his e-mail and that of his team so I could write them a lengthy feather ruffling letter with regards to all of this and promised him that I was ready to exercise legalities, and that since as he'd said we couldn't communicate at length, I would only be accepting calls from the authorities he'd said he'd assigned to deal with me. I love to make people realize, and they were going to realize. But they fell back, again. I publicized the chat and took it to my timeline having realized how much disrespect my name had been beat down by and I wanted to make him an example to people that you don't judge a book by it's cover. Don't think because I am a vendor you can just shit on me and litmus test the extent of power, a buld will light up under your scalp and you'll realize you've delved your hands in shitty business. So him and his artist friend blocked me, fucking cowards! The gag is my High-School senior reminised to how I never let anyone bully me back in High-School and I had a chuckle appreciating that first hand assertion and reminded him that he once gave me a hot character building clap, to which he mentioned he regretted, but we were just kids you know.
In all of this scandalism my mind kept drifting towards Buhle. She was the dearest person to me on social media and despite trying to put a point across to my enemies I wasn't fond of her witnessing my dark side really, I had such a caution for her. It's like not posting thirst traps or profane statuses on a Facebook account out of respect of family there, my caution for Buhle was as such. I didn't like to pose on her an impression of the guy who is up for a street fight legal fight any fight, but I am just a man. However each time she came at me I would soften up because I have it in me to make her feel as urgent to me as she has made me feel concerning to her. So, knowing how our last dialogue ended I knew she felt very ugly about me and that worried me and has continued to. Nothing makes me feel like a bad person like losing someone who genuinely had my best interests in spite of my shitty behavior, but that kak feeling didn't outweigh my need to clear some people and restore some respect for my name regardless.
This September squabble died down, days passed without a call of prosecution or a court appearance regarding an offense/violation of the Cyber Act, which quite disappointed me because I wanted to make him a textbook case so bad! My name is so disrespected I needed a good example to exhibit my intellectual and social capacity whilst the iron was still hot. What he was too dull to realize was that by exchanging my Whatsapp status with his anonymous friend who happens to be in my many contacts, and further posting my Whatsapp status on his public Twitter account, it was an infringement of my privacy, which appends the Data Protection Act he wanted to throw so much in my face. He'd only realize by my counterattack that him and his team were shooting themselves in the foot. Furthermore I was keen to cite his artist friend's belligerent responses which ignited the whole "let's meet on site" thing in the first place. He thinks he's so popular he can meet with anyone and pounce them, I wanted to find out! It's unfortunate some people you can only discover who they really are the hard way.
As everything died down in the last quarter of September with no calls no court proceedings, I still remained unsettled with a certain girl's tweets, at the most it kept bugging me why Buhle of all people would be laughing off such a degradation. Has she grown tired of my shit? I know even the best of people reach their last straw but am I that bad really? She's the last person to be on that extreme, perhaps I am that bad! But I couldn't put it against her for picking that side, although I thought it was out of character of her. Besides, she has sympathized with and corrected me counless times in the past I couldn't fail to understand her only wrong move once. So I let it slip through without expressing my disappointment to her, I had never expressed my gratitude for her either, so I squared it. I remained grudgingly unsettled though with the idea of letting that girl live her whole life with her heart full and her teeth gleaming out of the satisfaction of throwing so much slime in my face and walking over it scott-free. It felt like a snot on my shoe. So I fetched her.
Fetching this girl was motivated by things bigger than the disrespect she had subjected my works to and how disturbed and unsettled I was by her tweet. It was motivated by my disgust for classist bullies especially in a developing country like Zimbabwe. I broke out of a classism to be the guy I am today who is unashamedly actively pursuing a better life in the odds, it was a paradigm shift! It is very unconventional for a banana vendor to market so well and write so well and think so well, you must be able to tell there's something more to the guy, he's cut from a different cloth. So I do not appreciate someone who reduces such an earth moving paradigm act which fails many, especially when their classy silver spoon is sponsored by tithes and offerings from people who nguavanguava like myself, people who have to toil the earth to earn a dollar, people who sell different things to tithe at her church for her to eat, wear and drive, over my dead body!
My biggest gospel goes to young people stuck in classist confinements and can't break their comfort zones and remain couch bound layabouts in the pits of Zimbabwe because they think there is shame in adapting to the poor circumstances here, my gospel and that which I am pragmatically demonstrative of says "Vuk'uzenzele". It is very unfortunate that classist bullies stir such a devastating destruction to that cause by such tweets, and I was not going to let her walk away gleaming and her heart full. I wanted her to empty herself by an apology and realize she is just flesh from a sand we all walk on, there was nothing special about her that could place her above another human being to say such an uncouth thing and walk away without a slight ounce of remorse. If I can apologize for a downsyndrome tweet why can't you realize your derogatory tweet was insensitive when you've been reprimanded against it to apologize? Why don't you even have the shame to take it down even? And I was not about to walk around embarrassed about selling bananas for three years because some girl born with a silver spoon and has never missed a meal said so, whereas in actuality it was the greatest thing I'd ever done to establish a great name for myself and I had to prove that name by fetching her. So I took my time to gather my approach and made sure it was going to be bigger than her. I wrote a lengthy bone sounding letter on a public platform which translated to high concerns and a couple phone calls and in a few hours her dad reached to me privately and further publicly apologized on her behalf. She then locked her twitter account and posted a lousy apology.
I had a chuckle on realizing how actually remorseless she was and I instructed that she must delete it, publicize her account and restructure it with something sound and contextual, to which she submitted.
The structure, pinch and grievance-weight of the letter which I wrote was meant for job retrenchment or employee extraction, so much that without due recognition of the urgency of the matter whatever organization or company was going to suffer collateral. Luckily for her she works at a family church and escaped extraction by a cat's whiskers. I love to make people realize, and they will realize. Fetching this girl for fourteen days wasn't an easy quest, I faced chilling resistance from my sources.
Many people in various communities I am clasped to, the church community the cycling community my residential community and that of my clientele advised me to let her go, she's just a girl, and her dad is a tiger, but if I've learned something from the way I was canceled and lost well-wishers, radio interviews, opportunities, people and customers? Some forces don't give a flying fluke who you are, you have to learn a good lesson and you have to be held fully accountable for your actions and suffer the consequences. I am sure she is a better person now and has respect for me and anyone she deems inferior to her. And that's what matters.
During this drama, I then expressed to Buhle how disappointed I was in the way she entertained this girl's tweets making me a laughing stock. You see this was no longer about me calling someone a downsyndrome, if it were then she would've corrected me on that and that only and we moved, but she went stupidly into denigrating someone's works and a way of life for over 80% of Zimbabweans, to flaunt how better off in life she is than myself and most Zimbabweans. Reducing three years of my hard labor to nothingness in front of 8 679 people and refusing to apologize and take it down is peak arrogance, and I had to clear it with absoluteness! If someone is wrong you address them by their misdeeds and correct their shortcomings, you don't delve into and reduce the works of their hands sweat and bristle to nothingness with hopes and bright wishes to cancel/eliminate them over an outlandish joke or a misbehavior of some sort or a contentious opinion or whatever misunderstandings, that is evil! It's like laughing at a woman who had a miscarriage and you attack them with derogatory statements such as "you're not capable of carrying a baby and you want to beat your chest? how embarrassing/you've got a loose womb" simply because they joked that someone has a downsyndrome, yet they don't have. If they even had a downsyndrome it'd make it a totally different scenario, it'd be square and retributive, but they didn't. Many men work hard but suffer a miscarriage of their works, many women fall pregnant but suffer a miscarriage of their fetus, this however doesn't make them less capable of a success in child bearing nor does it render men less improbable of life's achievements, but it does surely disturb them the same if you attack them in such a manner that implies that they are failures, they are not failures, and you will realize. The emotional and physical investments over a woman's pregnancy are the same a man's workmanship. You will never find rest and peace from woman whose miscarriage you laughed off and jested until you atone for it. Such is a man's works too, there is agony in working hard and not achieving much, exactly like a miscarriage! You can't joke that down and walk away.
I hope my disturbances by this girl's tweets are understood in that perspective.
Buhle blocked me on all social media platforms after this drama, and I haven't stopped thinking about that, her grace towards me was her best trait. I do understand that it is by my own shortcomings that people get tempted into disrespecting me and find themselves entangled in the vines of my fields wherewhich I break a stick to discipline them, or get entangled but their own balls' hair. It is all by my fault and I hold myself fully accountable. It is also by my fault that Buhle has found herself in a place unanticipated to her with regards to me, a place of having to hate me and my tweets and the way I deal with things, to have to test her patience and kindness and serene personhood to the last straw and just quit. I acknowledge all of that and I am working on myself and learning to do better, but I couldn't fully commit to that without reconciling with Buhle and her goodness to me, and perhaps restore the camaraderie we had going on. It was too good to lose over social media scandals.
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