Fadzayi Maposah-Correspondent When I was in college, the Warriors soccer team, then known as the Dream Team, touched our hearts. We loved soccer! We walked to the National Sports Stadium in Harare just to watch the team. Wearing our Dream Team T-shirts, we cheered the team on. We had different types of t-shirts that were evidence of sacrifice. We had to save money to buy them. I remember one T-shirt that had the players’ line up at the back, which made it easier to remember their names. Those players were some of my generation’s crushes! During the soccer matches when the team played very well, we screamed. We whistled (others more than me, since whistling was not and still is not one of the things that I do well). We danced, hugged and moved in happy circles. We waved our flags. We sang. One song that we sang and that would thunder throughout the national sports stadium was “Yave Nyama yekugocha” as we told the team playing against our boys that they would be roasted. The Dream Team roasted many teams that came to the national hunting ground. The National Sports Stadium has my invisible imprints, dances and tears of joy, happy memories of my college days. I have been back at the National Sports Stadium many times since my college days. It carries awesome memories. I started supporting soccer out of peer pressure, but it became part of what my college friends and I did. Since my college friends had other teams that they supported, there were Sundays that I was alone in the hostel as they paid allegiance to their soccer teams. On some days, they came back celebrating, and on some days, they came back frustrated that their teams had lost. The team had not lived up to expectation and they just could not understand how the players had missed so many clear chances. We had such days when the national team disappointed. When we were so sure that we would win, we lost. The walk back to college would be very long and the flags that we carried, somehow seemed heavier than when we came to the stadium. Professional soccer analysts have other colleagues out on the streets. Although, not employed, they have so much to say regarding the level of play. Players are criticised, it is suggested how the players should have played and how they should have made use of the missed opportunities. The coach is also analysed. These people have time for the game that they love. As spectators on the terraces, we have a lot to say. I am not sure if we are able to play better than the players if we replace them. I was on the road this week, to the Eastern Highlands, specifically Mutare. I love travelling on the bus. It is a full basket of different people and many stories. Just being on the bus is a whole storybook. I boarded the bus in Marondera with two other people, a male and female, and I sat with a couple and their two children. The wife held the baby while the father had the son on his lap. The boy was told to greet Gogo. With my grey hair, I am an instant grandmother. The male that boarded the bus with me had a television and asked that he be assisted to put it in a safe place, and the cheerful conductor did that. When he got off in Rusape, he forgot the TV and the driver only realised that when he got off briefly to stretch his legs in Nyazura! After Macheke, there were many free seats so I changed seats. I sat next to two young women who were “discussing” another woman. I kept myself busy on my phone as they talked. The woman, as far as they were concerned, was a cry baby. She was not strong enough to be a woman. If she was weak, how would she handle proper womanhood. I had no idea what proper womanhood was. As if they read my mind, proper womanhood was giving birth, they said. They laughed as the other explained that she could imagine the discussed woman pregnant. How would she handle the nine months and the labour pains, the graduation to womanhood. I asked them how they knew that their relative was fertile. They stared. I asked them why they were sure their relative was weak. One answered saying when they left Harare, she was excused from work because she had serious period pains. The other woman scoffed: “Kutorera off period here?” I asked her if she had ever had a painful period. She said yes, and that she had handled it using painkillers. I asked them if the relative had always had painful periods and if anyone taken her to the doctor or encouraged her to see one? No, was the answer, it was not necessary. Why? The two had an answer, “it was part of being a woman”. I informed them that there are conditions that make periods unbearable and one may need medical attention. I gave them an example of endometriosis. This is when a tissue that is similar to the one in the uterus is inside the pelvis or abdomen. This can cause painful and heavy periods. As the bus rolled on, we continued the discussions and I was happy to answer the questions they had. By the time we got off the bus at the old rank in Mutare, I had done a lot of information dissemination and they had promised to check on their relative. Armchair coaches and analysts, we have a lot of those. Being informed and being empathetic is very important. Talking about sport, hearty congratulations to the Sables, the Zimbabwe Rugby team! They qualified for the Rugby World Cup 2027. The Sables last qualified in 1991 (I was in Upper Six). Cheering you on from the terraces! I am on my way to get a rugby jersey and dedicate time to learning more about scrums, tries, throwing, backliners and lineouts!