Excess, Instagram lifestyle and #Inequality

Last weekend after an exhausting but fulfilling content gathering trip in Mufulira, I asked our driver to stop by the roadside so I could buy #Musuku (don't know what these fruits are called in English). After surviving the female traders attack, we set off for Ndola. I was sat in the backseat thoroughly enjoying my musukus oblivious to the fact that I hadn't even washed them. And eating musukus does lack decorum because you have to break the little thing open, then suck the mash and juice off the seeds. I even proceed to chew and swallow the skin. It's not an elegant exercise but great for roughage.

Anyway, while I was having my musukus moment, my colleague in the front seat turned to look at me and then asked, "You are not a slay queen, are you?". In retrospect, I must have been made an interesting sight. My big afro and clothes a pale brown from walking the dusty streets of Butondo community all day, my lips and skin chapped from inhaling sulphur dioxide popularly known as #Senta and here I was mong'onaring (don't have an English word for that too) on the musukus.

My response: I think being a slay queen is a lot of work and needs quite some investment especially time, which I don't have. I'm just a simple story teller of people's difficult and painful realities. I spend time with people who have seen and survived atrocities, people who think they are less because they have very little to live on. My work has made me a minimalist because I feel having excess is an insult and disrespectful to the people I work with that struggle to just have something to eat, let alone a meal.

Of course, some think this is extreme but in my case, it is not because I know and have seen first hand how much what we think is important and hold on to #excess can be the difference between someone committing suicide and choosing to live; how an old sweater can pull a young woman out of depression; how the cost of a MAC powder can pay school fees for children in community schools or loafers can feed a family for a year.

So...no, I'm not #slayqueen neither am I a thoughtless spender - my heart, cannot just allow for it. As a consequence, I have had to let go of some friendships because I couldn't keep up with highend Instagram lifestyle.

I have a legacy to build, all my meagre resources are channeled to my mission to leave #Zambia and #Africa better than I found it. A very big and expensive mission which demands my all, that means keeping myself in check from something I'm naturally inclined to, hoarding and being excessive.

Having said all that, I think slay queens are courageous, always beautiful, on point, glamorous and artistic with their looks. Diversity among women should be celebrated.