The Sunday News
Nkosilesisa Ncube, Sunday Life Reporter
A typical Valentine’s Day used to involve a full on, all out celebration of love. It was characterised by ballads playing everywhere and long queues at movie houses and restaurants, pharmacies would make a killing from selling gifts.
However, this was the scene on 14 February 2017 . . . people got up in the morning, went to school and work respectively, ran into a few teenage couples dressed in red, at sun set they went home to sleep and alas, Valentine’s Day was over and all that remains of that are decorations around various shops that had hoped to make an earning over the day of love.
Most businesspeople were disappointed because very few were willing to spend for the simple reason of the economic situation prevailing in the country. At a time when there is an intense cash crisis and at a time when people are generally struggling to make ends meet, celebrating Valentine’s Day is perhaps one of the most impractical things an average Zimbabwean citizen can do.
As a result, Valentine’s Day went unnoticed by masses in and around the city, not because of lack of the sentimentality that is required to celebrate the day but because the resources to express the sentimentality were not available.
A mother of two noted that she and her husband could not spend on Valentine’s Day while fully aware of the responsibilities that would be waiting them long after the 14th had passed.
“I understand that today (Tuesday) is the day of love but I cannot put a lot of money into celebrating this day when I know that I could use that same money to cover costs that will be there even after Valentine’s.
“I would rather pay my daughter’s fees rather than celebrate for one day. I would have loved to receive a gift from my husband but I understand that we have to live well within our means,” she said.
Although financial constraints are the biggest reason why people chose to check Valentine’s Day out of their calendars is because to them, Valentine’s is still a very foreign and Western idea.
The demographic that was most inclined to this reason consisted mostly of the traditional adult males. One family man particularly admitted that he wanted no part of Valentine’s Day because traditionally he knew nothing of it.
“I grew up in Filabusi and where I grew up, these things are not celebrated. I do not believe in Valentine’s Day and I do not need one specific day to show my wife that I love her. I love my family everyday,” he said.
More than that, some people shy away from Valentine’s Day because to them it is a pagan holiday. The biggest sceptics in society have viewed Valentine’s not as a day of love but as an excuse for people to have indiscriminate mating rituals.
A liberal thinking 22-year-old student, however, said she had refrained from celebrating Valentine’s Day because she believes it put an unnecessary material value on the relationship that she has with her boyfriend.
“I feel like the whole Valentine’s thing just complicates relationships. It’s not about love anymore; it’s about whose boyfriend bought the best gift or took her to the best restaurant and that puts a strain on any relationship so my boyfriend and I sat this one out, because we did not want to be dragged into all the competition,” she said.
Although people stayed away from the day for various reasons, the truth is it went by unnoticed and only time will tell if this stay away from Valentine’s Day was a once off occurrence or if the people of Zimbabwe have totally written the day off.
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