Desperate Cirmustances

Two jokes were published in one of the local publications and they went on something like this

The Queen of England, George W Bush and Robert Mugabe died and went to hell. The Queen said to the devil, I want to make a call and find out how are the people of England are doing back home, she phoned for two minutes and the devil said it is going to be ten thousand pounds. George W Bush said I want to phone my administration and find out the progress on Iraq, he phoned for three minutes and the devil said it is going to be sixty thousand US dollars .Mugabe not wanting to be out done said I want to phone my wife Grace, I want to talk to my cabinet, my cousins and everybody who knows me back in Zimbabwe .He phoned for six hours and the devil said it is going to be one (Zim) dollar. Mugabe smiles searching his pockets Ah –a-a-a-a-a-a only one Zim dollar, and the devil replied yah-a-a-a-a-a-a-a, from one hell to another it’s local.

Another one went something like this…

Nelson Mandela, PW Botha and Robert Mugabe survived a plane crash and found themselves on a certain island with a different kind of people. The King of the island said, I would let you go if you pass a test, which is in two parts. The first part of the test is to go into the forest and bring with you three fruits of the same type. They set out to go and first to come with three apples was Botha to whom the king explained. The second part of the test is to swallow the fruits as they are without making any expression and release them at your bottom. Failure to that I will kill you, if you pass you are free to go. Botha swallowed the first fruit, the second one he failed and he was shot dead. The second to come with three strawberries was Mandela, he swallowed the first one, the second one and on the last one, he laughed his lungs out, so he failed and he was shot dead. Later that evening Botha and Mandela met in hell and Botha said to Mandela, you should not have laughed you almost made it man to which Mandela replied, I could not help it man looking back I saw Mugabe coming with three huge watermelons!

The clouds that had engulfed the sky that morning posed no immediate threat to pedestrians and motorist alike. It was rather dark for an August Friday morning and the streetlights were already light in anticipation of the immanent rain.

The city was alive with traffic noises, a common thing at that hour of the morning particularly in that kind of weather. The runner grass that was planted beautifully along the tresses leading to the Library Gardens was beginning to show signs of life after the merciless winter. Somewhere not a long distance from this marvel of nature, some kids were skateboarding falling and rising again, falling and raising with the same level of passion and enthusiasm leaving me in absolute wonder.

It rather took me back to my own childhood, growing up as children, we were not limited and our world had no boundaries. We were creative too; our imagination was untamed like wild horses. I remember clearly, most of our toys were a creation of our own imagination; our parents could not afford such luxury un-necessities for they had much more pressing issues on their loads.

This morning however, I had a load of my own. I had come to the library to conduct a research on the profile of two companies, which had scheduled me for interviews during the course of that week. It had been almost a month since my last employment and the scope of financial responsibilities was beginning to give me sleepless nights.

There was a grave silence as entered the more secluded part of this 1950s architecture. Something caught my eye; it was a publication on a tattered peace of a Newspaper that was just lying on the floor. I squatted trying to put the pieces together and reading at the same time, when I felt the warmth and the smoothness of her hand on my neck, I turned around and my eyes landed on her legs, which seemed to be going up forever and ever. She had this deep smile, which I could describe as infectious for lack of a better word.

When she asked me, why are you crying? I gave her that foolish look and answered, “I am not crying, I have got a problem with my eyes.” O-oh God who was I fooling, but then again how could a man not cry when his country is on fire?

Place of birth

Let me go back where it all started, I was born in a village or rather at a hospital near our village called Elangeni. Elangeni means a place where the sun shines. Built on a plateau the place could be seen fifty or even a hundred kilometres away from any direction.

To the north of our home looking slightly above the eye level, lies the magnificent lush pictorial Mount Belingwe with a number of small hills attached to its belly all looking as one from a distance. The rich black clay soil that starts from the foot of the mountain range to somewhere just before our village is cress crossed by a number of small rivers that flow throughout the year. A wide range of wild animals freely romps on this part of the planet with sense and attitude of not only something that belongs, but owns the place.

At any time of the year, the mountain range is an absolute marvel to look at, during the dry season its shiny granite rocks glitters from a distance that’s far, with the tip of the mountain so high giving an illusion of touching heaven. It transforms its self towards the rainy season with patches of purple and green threatening to swallow its magnificence. My parents have a vivid memory of growing up in this area, a place they called home. When mother relates her childhood stories, it is with both pride and pain. She would normally end her narratives by words, ‘that is life the way we used to know it’.

The area now belongs to Naughty, the new owner of Bend Mine and carries jail sentence for villagers’ young and old alike. We could not go beyond Kaswiswi River, which is just before the Emerald Road along which most of the houses in our village are built. The area around Kaswiswi still resembles the former in more ways than one, but to our parents it saved as a bitter memory to a life that used to be. It is nature the way God intended it to be. There is chekesani, ruguru, shuma and wild range of berries which we used to make cocktails with warm milk straight from the cow.

The lush sub-Saharan vegetation provided cover for all sorts of our childish games especially after the rains. We could play mud missiles, hide and seek plus the only swimming I can pride myself of was learnt by trial and era in that river. Our herds had no reason to stray, the bushes provided enough leafs for sheep and goats. The dark clay could burst into life with green grass, which could come to knee level in record time as it competes for sunlight with other vegetation. This provided enough food and nutrients for the rest of the herd.

Water was in abundance, crystal clear water flowing leisurely down the river. We used to catch fish as they try to swim against the current up the river, mostly smaller fish but sometimes bigger fish as well. On a lucky day with the help of our dogs we could catch even a springbok and our mothers never ran out of praises. That was so delightful to our young hearts, which made us feel manly. Once in a while our fathers would go straight into the farm for bigger game, they had never came to terms with the fact that this land had now been demarcated as private land, a concept that was so foreign to many.

Uncle Sam, who is my father’s brother and the last born in their family once, got arrested for this act. Not surprisingly the whole village attended his court case giving him some sort of celebrity status, which I have no doubt knowing my uncle, he enjoyed very much. From my father’s family side Uncle Sam is the drama queen of the family. At one point he is said to have been beaten up by somebody after he said to him, “I slept with your wife before you married her”, the man then said, “it means even now you are still sleeping with her”. When we asked him about it he does not deny or agree, he simply says it was Tavern politics.

However, on this particular brief moment he seemed to be carrying what the villagers called their legit way of living upon his shoulders, therefore his case against Naughty the owner of the farm was a case against the whole village.

When the judge asked whether or not he was pleading guilty he said he was not. He then went on to ask the judge that if Naughty says I killed one of his animals how many of those animals were left? The judge turned to Naughty as the complainant and asked how many of your animals are left to which Naughty answered and that he did not know, so uncle Same proceeded and said if he doesn’t know then it is not his animal that I killed. The prosecutor sensing the direction this court case was now taking, said, the animal belonged the state. Uncle Sam then said he also belonged to the state and if the state decides to give its people game meat he could be excluded for he had got his share already.

His case was thrown out of court on the basis that although he might have killed the animal, there was no absolute evidence that the animal actually belonged to Naughty the complainant. So Uncle Sam became a free man and this was the beginning of a marriage of convenience between the villagers and their rich white neighbour.

Naughty needed the villagers to support his retail establishment and for labour in the farm, the villagers also needed Naughty for convenient goods and work. They only met if they had to, and so was their relationship henceforth.

So the starch of land between the farm and the village represented a tiny part of the forbidden fruit, it was a no man’s land filled with the possibilities that the land yonder was pregnant with, a land they used to call home. If what we were experiencing as children on that piece of land was anything to go by, then surely heaven lay on the other side.

They were endless possibilities within this small starch of land that divided our village and Naughty’s farm. Even now as an adult, Kaswiswi continues to represents the fondest of my childhood memories.