Imagine this: An entire neighbourhood is talking about how this 13-year-old girl is pregnant, but not even her mother remembers on whose lap she frequently sat on, or who frequently visited the home, or which driver brought her to and from school for free, or who has been buying and giving her gifts. Everybody heard the neighbour’s dog was barking last night, but nobody remembers at who.
The market vendor remembers buying the plantain for $20 but says she can’t remember who she bought it from because COVID was still on and he wore a mask.
Everybody knows the corner shop was robbed yesterday, but at that moment the security guard was in the toilet and did not see who drove out with the goods.
The whole neighbourhood knows the school was robbed last night and all the laptop computers were stolen, but they keep buying them for $50 on the streets and nobody is asking where they came from or remembers who sold it to them.
A woman’s son got caught selling drugs at the school, but she says she had no idea, because she never searched his bag, even though she saw he had a $2,000 cell phone.
Everybody took a picture of the young lady that was hit by a car at the pedestrian crossing to post on Facebook, but nobody saw the vehicle that did the hit.
We all heard the shots, but could not decide where they came from…
And those stories go on and on and nobody sees or hears or knows, because it is no body’s business, yet everybody knows.
How strange it is, that Joe Public always knows, but the investigating police officers never seems to know? There is never ever enough convincing evidence to lay charges, but the whole neighbourhood knows who committed the act.
These days shooting is rampant, but nobody knows how the guns are getting here, who are the buyers or the importers, the owners, or the means.
We are the best at keeping a secret and not knowing and not seeing and never being aware. I wonder how and where we inherited such skills or where is the school of learning that makes us know how to remain so tight-lipped. Frankly, I sometimes feel we should begin to export such talent, because we seem to be experts at concealing evidence.
Meanwhile, on the back of it all, I keep hearing of surveillance cameras being installed, but I still can’t see them anywhere. So, am I too blind to see, or are they hidden away to be concealed from the public eye?
I can go on and on, but you get my point…