Are You Listening

By Marionette Zvavamwe

The book  talks about the injustice the Black Asians and Minority Ethnic people go through in their day-to-day work lives. It enlightens you with the possible history behind some of the mentality mixed with emotions lightened by humour.

The book follows the life of a young professional Zara, as she struggles with her health at home and recalls the incidences she and her colleagues had to endure, as she stares death in the face while being watched by her family.

The prognosis is against her and the country wonders why the black ethnic minorities are either infected or affected. This book, through Zara, gives you the stories the BAME tells, it gives you an insight and the possible reasons why that is but is anyone listening. Are You Listening?

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marionette Zvavamwe
• Release date: Jun 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201766030

Marionette Zvavamwe

Marionette Zvavamwe is an award-winning writer and author of the new book "Are You Listening" She writes on subjects close to the heart that perhaps people do not want to talk about. Coming from a flamboyant rich background with an extensive academic and professional profile, she brings you this book that crosses all those boundaries to resonate with you and your experiences, 

Book preview

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to thank my daughters Alijah and Nicole, how many times have you had to hear me read through my book and what I want to achieve. Thank you for the image you portray of me, both in your lives and in the photographs you took for this book. My older sister Millicent without you I would probably lose the plot, your unconditional love is amazing. My baby sister Milinda, my confidant, your voice I will always hear, the times I have read this to you, you should know it by heart. My mother the strongest woman I know, your wisdom I will always cherish. My dad ER my best friend the first love of my life, you inspire me always. The BAME community for giving me the platform to showcase my book My friends those who encouraged me to write the stories told by many to perhaps paint a picture that may one day be seen.

CHAPTER 1

I woke up with a start, coughing, almost gasping for breath, as I tried so hard not to cry. I have been off work now for the past three days as I was suffering from the dreaded new disease. My chest was hurting so much, it was as if a spear had been plunged from the back of my left shoulder, through my heart into my left lung, the pain was excruciating and there was nothing I could do about it. I was in bed alone as I was in isolation, my husband couldn’t be with me as I didn’t want to pass the dreaded disease to him, so he was sleeping in the other bedroom on the first floor, and I slept on the second floor in our en-suite bedroom. This was the setup we had put together a week ago since knowing that as I worked in healthcare, I would be exposed to patients suffering from this unknown illness.

I turned on the light as I coughed up blood-stained sputum into the tissue  that I had put next to the light switch.

Oh, dear God, have mercy on me, please Lord, comfort me, save me Lord, and preserve my life! I prayed as tears started rolling down my face.

Just as I thought that the cough had subsided, it came back again, this time with a vengeance. I coughed so much I thought I would burst the tiny vessels in my eyes, I gasped for air in between the dry vicious cough, when I heard...

Darling, are you alright?

There is an old African saying, "an elephant never complains about the weight of its task, that’s for it to bear, no one else" I quickly wiped the tears from my eyes and wiped my mouth, tried to pull myself together as I did not want my husband to come nearer to the bed. I didn’t want to contaminate him, I didn’t want to inflict him with the same pain that I was going through but at the same time I craved his strong arms around me; I had not hugged my kids or my husband in two weeks. The burden of gate-keeping my family’s health was getting too hard for me, I just want to be outside doing my thing.

Oh God, I can’t do this, I don’t have the strength to go through this alone. I know your Word says you won’t test me beyond which I can’t handle Lord, but Lord, I can’t handle this but still, not my will, but your will be done oh Lord, I cried internally.

Do you want me to get you anything? my husband Rhys asked.

Please fill and switch the kettle on for me, and could you please bring me the dish; I would like to inhale the steam. Thank you, I managed to say with a frail but weak voice.

I had set up a little table with the kettle, lemons and a cup so that I didn’t have to disturb anyone once I went to bed. This was the advice that was floating on the Internet; to drink lots of water with lemon and to inhale a lot of steam at least three times a day to avoid getting the virus. Well, I don’t know if it works because I still got it or did I not do enough before I got infected? I had been sipping on hot water every 15 to 20 minutes when I was at work, like it was advised and I had been steaming and inhaling the steam with Eucalyptus oil whenever I get home coupled with the fact that I had been chugging lots of lemon-water but still, here I am, gasping and fighting for my life alone, drowning in my own mucous.

Rhys brought back the dish, I thanked him and then asked him to leave as I was going to be okay from here on. Rhys was dying inside; he was so used to being my strong tower, used to always making my world just right. I could see he was struggling. Rhys is that type of guy that always puts a protective arm around me in a crowded place. He is helpless in making my world just right for me right now and it’s tearing him apart which explains why he was outside watering my vegetables, something he has always left for me to do but he knew my vegetables would die if no one waters them.  I took the eucalyptus oil and put some drops in the dish and poured in the hot water. I took my dressing gown, covered my head and started inhaling the steam; I usually do this for about 10 minutes.

While I was inhaling the steam, I couldn’t help but reflect on the events of the past year which I believe led me here, fighting for my life after having been chucked into the lion’s den.

About this time last year, I must tell you I got tired of going to meetings and explaining to our new management team the basic functions of the different roles that the staff were operating within the department. The big boss had come from a department, different to ours which made it frustrating. "How did she even get the job? Who did she know? These were the questions on everyone’s lips which are somewhat expected, considering that the word on the street was, she had messed up in her previous job and had left before the heat turned up, or may have even been encouraged to resign before she gets fired. The meetings were funny I tell you; I could take the minutes from a meeting six months ago and everything would be the same; word for word, even the action plans would be the same especially for the rest of the group apart from mine. Oh yes, they made sure I always had an action plan that they expected to be delivered.

These meetings are so boring and what makes it worse is that they call for them right after lunch, come on! Who does that? Many self-help books talk about making sure you schedule more active things right after lunch and to avoid meetings, yet here we are having meetings right after lunch. I always watched in amazement while the boss and a couple of her friends took turns to doze off during these meetings, the only thing that seemed to keep them awake was when they were ganging up against me, the only BAME staff that attends these meetings, well, at least that’s the way it appeared to me. Oh, my bad, BAME is the politically correct term meaning people of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnicity, so basically everyone who ain’t white. That’s me!

Does no one else see these people sleeping during these meetings or am I confused? Well, you know the answer to that; they are all linked like a gang, clique or pack, so there would be no reprimands. I kid you not, the situation is like that of Mr Bean’s episodes on TV, where he fell asleep in church only to wake up on the hallelujah, so I always clear my throat and shuffle in my seat just to see how quickly they pretend that their eyes are wide open and listening. LOL. It’s no wonder the meetings are the same, week in week out, month in month out and the action plans never got acted upon because they are asleep half the time, these are the managers that are supposed to sort out the systems and ensure they function well for the patients and staff. I often wondered if this was the case countrywide or worldwide.

I remember a particular weekly meeting which I was still allowed to attend back then where I had to convince them that we needed to put some shifts in place to cover lunch breaks with emphasis on at least 2 to 3 shifts. Trust me, it was like trying to get blood out of a stone. The management just could not understand why we would need people to come in and give lunch breaks. You see, the roles that these members of staff did were pretty much one-on-one roles, so they would need someone to give them a break so that the patient and team was not left unattended, but this was not understood. Whether it was not understood, or they did not want to understand, I was convinced it was the latter. I knew there was a cost implication to this request but there was also a safety issue and the safety issue outweighs the cost implications,  right? Or so I thought, that’s why I would bring it up whenever they decided to listen to me in these meetings.

I once attended a course that talked about influence; it said sometimes you are the wrong messenger for a particular message, so it taught us to seek out the right messenger if you truly wanted your message to get across. Remembering this, I decided that the week after, I would invite my immediate manager, Ester, to bring this message to our boss. My thinking was my immediate manager was white and of a similar age