Torn Apart: BOYD PHIRI
TODAY marks the end of 2017. It’s that time again when people develop fantasies of self-reform, I mean, every end of year individuals make resolutions to change their course of life in the New Year.

Scroungers in watering holes would be making resolutions to add more meaning to their habits by including new names to the list of big buyers.
Obviously, they would be looking forward to embracing more of their underachiever personality they really are.
It seems good timing for one to make resolutions while everyone is feeling guilty about not accomplishing the previous vows on their lists.
I am not sure this time around how people in the hood are doing with resolutions, perhaps I should suggest some for them.
I know you’re thinking about the idea that people should stop defecating openly near water sources, given the increasing number of cholera cases in Lusaka.
But top on the list of things I want drunkards in the hood to do is to stop peeing against private property, especially that most houses near bars and taverns are getting corroded by urine.
Of course, no property owner in the hood wants to see the corner of his house or shop discloured by urine.
I know that some men would be too willing to stop peeing everywhere next year, I mean, how can they know what to do to change their behaviour if bar owners don’t provide patrons with toilets?
For some men, being denied the right to a toilet at a bar is like being subjected to waterboarding torture, which is why they provide children in the hood with ‘pictures of the day’ as they attempt to empty their bladders.
Children in the hood know what their manhoods would look like when they grow up because they see drunk men peeing openly every day.
Obviously, boys have heard about witchdoctors who sell such things as penis enlargement concoctions in the hood.
Children in the hood see and hear a lot of things, which is why nowadays they copy drunkards who say ‘mahule yosila tigula’, which literary means, “we buy finished prostitutes”.
This is borrowed from traders who go round townships with loudspeakers announcing that they buy used old batteries.
To those who are in the habit of buying ‘finished’ prostitutes, my advice is; make a resolution to stop patronising brothels. The call-girls may also resolve to take up some course in marriage counselling and be ready for marriage.
Okay, that’s not the only resolution I want to suggest for the hood. Let’s see, parents to stop marrying off their children early?
Of course, Government and non-governmental organisations have been trying to stop the practice for years, yet some parents have continued marrying off their children just to acquire goats and cows from men who marry them.
Maybe the parents who have married off their children early could resolve to start a #BringBackOurChildren campaign.
Obviously, just considering the need to have their children back would force authorities to consider an amnesty for them.
How about if men resolve not to marry girls as young as 12 years? Maybe they could also resolve not to visit witchdoctors for sex boosters such as mwana apeluke, which means “Let the child swing.” Don’t ask me swing from what?
If they don’t keep this resolution, they would have to wait for a doctor at a hospital to normalise their overgrown prized possessions.
Looking around in the hood, I see other people with numerous things that need changing. It seems as though it might be easier to make resolutions for other people than for myself.
Probably I would urge people to resolve not to kill their spouses each time they quarrel as a way to solve a problem or indeed kill themselves when they fail to solve a marital problem.
Recently a man of Garden House in Lusaka hacked his wife to death, apparently after a domestic quarrel.
That was sad. But how could he know what to do to change his life style if he didn’t keep his resolution to stop GBV in 2017?
This is the problem with resolutions. If you don’t keep them, you end up killing your spouse or yourself.
But it seems ex-soldier Trywell Katukula has a propensity of trying to commit suicide, which, I suppose, is his perennial resolution.
He tried to end his year with another suicide attempt by climbing a telecommunication mast, perhaps this is the only resolution he has always wanted to achieve for the past three years.
Let’s see how your New Year’s resolutions would pan out next year. But the most important thing you can do is to stop worrying about what you can’t do.
bjboydphiri@yahoo.com