We’re all Guinea Pigs.
No, it’s not what you think. The question is, at what point in Zambia’s history has this place been flowing with milk and honey? Aren’t we the same men that have had to deal with meal coupons in the 80s, miners buried alive every other year and the horrors of privatization?
To be a Zambian man is to know that nothing is stacked in your favour. There are no free lunches, easy wins or short cuts. You dig into the dirt and pull out the jewels for your career, family, business and most importantly, you fight for your mental health.
The Zambian variant of masculinity is not for the faint hearted. In fact, we’re all guinea pigs in a test of what we’ll do next. How we’ll respond.
The men before us also failed to talk about what was eating them, refused to go to the hospital until they were falling apart and went to their graves with unresolved childhood trauma.
They didn’t have to navigate annual inflation at 15.7 percent, severe drought, the Zambian Kwacha at more than K27 to Donald Trump’s US Dollar, the internet always trying to raise our children … you simply have to punch a button, pick a ticket and wait your turn to be tested.
Yet we’re expected to still show up as fathers, husbands, brothers, uncles and other masculine roles that demand that we lead, protect and provide.
No living creature on the planet carries a bigger weight on their shoulders.
As a guinea pig, you’re placed as the head of a household against the influence of twerking videos on your children, powerful men that promise the world to your teenage daughter, media influence on the sexuality of your sons.
You have to unshackle the handcuffs of masculinity, where bringing up your struggles in a WhatsApp group invites memes and jokes from men that are going through the same challenges, if not worse.
It’s something they don’t tell you as you get older. That money, lack of it, beautiful women, political and corporate power, inflation, load shedding, marriage, age, friends, the exchange rate make you a guinea pig for masculinity.
A guinea pig to be tested every morning on whether or not to respond to the saucy message from a woman that’s not your partner, buy fuel for your car or mealie meal for your family.
And you must pass the tests with flying colours or find yourself crawling into a ceiling to avoid the consequences of your actions.
There is no man that is spared of life’s defining tests. Do your money and power embolden your interest in women? Or do they have you retreating into a family man that provides a world of possibilities?
You can choose to take on your battles or record 400 episodes of your failed tests as a man.
