1/ Back in the 80s I was a member of our village acapela Christian group known as the Voice of Praise. I will narrate how in one night I used my conflict resolution skills to get the group back together but ended up resigning from them on the same night.
2/ Those of us from Nkayi and surrounding areas are familiar with the famous Harmony Sounds and their song "Ukuqala kwesiphetho". Our group sang almost the same songs and was a household name in Silobela, Zhombe and Lower Gwelo areas. I missed out on their many tours.
3/ The group was formed by my relatives and was composed of as many as 25 members. It helped keep many a naughty village boy on the straight and narrow. When I went to secondary school I ended up moving from the village to Bulawayo. My arrival in Bilawayo is a thread on its own.
4/ I remained a loyal member of the group during school holidays. This particular school holiday I observed that the group members were not on speaking terms. We could not meet for any music practice and we were no longer singing at all. No one would respond to my questions.
5/ On this last Friday of the school holidays I convinced the group Chairman to call a meeting of everyone. Though younger than most members I occupied a special position of being uncle to most of them. When I spoke they usually listened respectively.
6/ I told everyone how unhappy I was that they had stopped singing together and wanted us to discuss this issue and resolve it that night. I was surprised when my much older nephew who was lived at our homestead and was closest to me decided to open up at that point.
7/ I had spent more than 3 weeks trying to discuss this issue with him but he wouldn't say a word. Apparently the crisis started when one of our singing mates decided to shoot his shot at my nephew's girlfriend one very beautiful Khumalo girl.
8/ With support from my nephews half brothers and cousin, the girl had been successfully persuaded to dumb my cousin for this other fellow comrade. As a result two factions had been born and the singing group had all but collapsed.
9/ It was at this point that I realized moving to the City had completely changed my values as compared to my group mates. I told everyone that I thought it was foolish to destroy a group which we built over years over such a trivial issue.
10/ After some apologies by all those concerned in the snatching of my nephew's girlfriend everyone was ready to reconnect and move on. Then came this very strange request that completely took me by surprise...
11. Someone made a suggestion that to avoid a similar incident in future, everyone needed to reveal who their girlfriends were. The group agreed and there started the moment that resulted in my my sudden transformation from a peace maker to an antagonist.
12. It started with the group chair revealing his twenty-one girlfriends. This chap was multi talented, he was a soccer player, volleyball player, long distance runner, headboy at both Primary and Secondary school and knew how to pick the biggest dictionary words.
13. To watch him list his list of girlfriends as some form of accomplishment, drove me to complete anger. The guy who followed had his own impressive tally at somewhere over a dozen. With the exception of a few of with nothing to declare, most group members has 5 and above.
14. Everyone then thanked me for making the initiative to bring everyone together and they promised to stay together. I was then asked to say something in closing. I stood up and told them that I was resigning with immediate effect because my values were incompatible with theirs.
