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My cousin Piri and I heard that the mulberries were in abundance at  the village compound of Jemba and his sister-in-law Mai Esinati. When we  arrived at Jemba’s house, only a few kilometres from our village, the homestead  seemed deserted except for a couple of skinny hungry dogs, chickens, wandering goats and cows eating old maize stalks.

Then we spotted Jemba, lying on his back under the mulberry tree, catapult in hand, quietly and strategically shooting at the birds feasting on the mulberries.

Since his return from Hwange Safari Lodge where he worked as a waiter for many years, Jemba has lived in the ruins of this huge village compound almost all alone. He left his wife and four children in Hwange because they did not want to come and live in the village. This is the old Mudhibhisi, the dip tank attendant’s home. And Jemba is the youngest of Mudhibhisi’s  four sons.

Long  ago, before independence, Mudhibhisi was a big man here, commanding a lot of respect because he kept all the records of people’s cattle in his big book. He knew exactly how many cattle each family kept and reported anyone who exceeded his cattle quota to the Native Administrator’s office.

It was Mudhibhisi’s duty to teach Africans to maintain just a handful of cattle, only five each, because there was not much grazing land in the Tribal Trust Lands.  Mudhibhisi himself  had more cattle than most people, because he was Mudhibhisi.  In those days, this village compound had an aura of wealth. Some village girls, Piri among them, hoped that one day, they would grow up and with some luck, marry one of Mudhibhisi’s sons.

Over the years, almost all the adults in Mudhibhisi’s homestead have died, leaving only Jemba and Mai Esinati, the wife of his late older brother. Jemba is the head of the family here now.

He is responsible for looking after this whole village, from the old houses, kitchen huts, granaries, kraal, cattle, the fields and all the graves of his people.

He makes decisions on what tree to cut in the field, what chicken to slaughter and who to lend his father’s scotchcart to.
A few metres away is Jemba’s late older brother’s house occupied by Mai Esinati. She lives here with three of her grandchildren.

Village gossip says Jemba and Mai Esinati are no longer on talking terms because she will not obey his orders when it comes to the management of the village homestead. Lately, they say she has become very outspoken and even aggressive towards him. She does not consult him on anything nor does she acknowledge that he is the head of the family.

“The real men who used to hunt antelopes are gone. We are left with the lazy ones who hunt birds lying on their backsides,” Piri said loudly, startling Jemba.

He turned and quickly sat up to welcome us.  The birds hiding in the green thicket of the mulberry tree flew away.  “Haaa . . .  now you have disturbed my meat,” Jemba said, getting up from the dusty ground.

“Titambire!” he said, pulling his trouser pants tied around the waist with his late father’s brown leather belt. It was the belt with a snake buckle, the type worn by native police reserves or dip tank attendants in colonial days. Jemba held a stone and his rekeni, the catapult.

“His mouth was covered with red markings from eating mulberries. At the bottom of the tree were two dead birds, one a dove and the other one, a jesa, the small red yellow and black one with hardly any meat on it at all.

“Hesi mhani Piri!”  Jemba shook Piri’s hand and kept on holding it laughing and praising her by our totem, Chihera, the eland.
“Is this really you? Chihera, chigagairwa, Shava, chirera nherera. You, the carer and comforter of orphans!”   Every time Jemba sees Piri, he always says he could have married her if she had stayed in the village and not run away to the city like we all did, during the liberation war.

Jemba  offered  us roasted dried corn, peanuts and water.  “These days, your body is all together. Wakaumbana! I should have married you,” he said, looking at Piri from top to bottom then up again, licking his lips like he had seen a tasty dish.

“If I had married you, I would have ended up like a homeless rabbit, tsuro chaiyo,” Piri inspected Jemba closely, from his Zanu-PF green cap, his patchy beard,  old brown T-shirt with holes at the shoulders, to the blue trousers with patches at the knees and the back side. He wore self-made sandals made from old tyres, nails and glue.

“Why do you kill a bird with no meat?” I asked, examining the nasty wound on the jesa’s mangled head.
“Meat is meat. It does not matter how big or how small the bird is,” Jemba said.

“In the old days, real hunters did not waste time shooting little birds. They went for the doves and guinea fowls, fat birds with good meat. Not these miserable little birds meant to decorate the world and not to be eaten. Learn to respect  the environment, the way our ancestors used to do,” Piri said.

Since when did she care so much for the environment,  I wondered?
Piri settled herself comfortably on a flat rock next to the dead birds.  I picked mulberries and ate them directly from the tree.  They were juicy, deep red and tasty. Jemba pulled out a piece of newspaper and tore a piece from it.

He licked the piece, revealing one missing front tooth and several more at the back. He took  brown tobacco from a plastic bag, placed it on the newspaper, rolled it and licked the paper to seal it. Then he walked into the  kitchen hut to light his cigarette on the hot embers.

Meanwhile, Piri kept on watching his backside. Then she  nudged me and whispered, “What happened to the real men with muscles who used to  get up early and get the  cattle on to the yoke and plough the fields all day?

“The men who could pick up an axe, go up the mountain and cut down a big tree with just a few strokes? Where  did all the  hunters, the drummers,  the strong  dancers go?”

“I said she should stop all that fantasy and accept that times have changed and most strong men have either died, moved to the city or disappeared in the Diaspora. Life is never static. We have to move along with change,” I said.

“How is your sister-in-law, Maiguru Mai Esinati?” I asked when Jemba returned.
He shook his head and said he had not spoken to her since the last donor food handouts,  long before the harmonised elections.

Then he went into this long complaint  about  Mai Esinati. He said she was wearing the pants around his own village. She had forgotten that he was the head of the family. She went to  church meetings, Zanu-PF meetings and burial society meetings without telling him.

Not only that, sometimes she even went to Harare in a kombi and was gone for days without explaining the reason for her absence.
Jemba said he could cope somehow with all that misbehaviour, but what bothered him most was the support Mai Esnati was getting from the donors.
“At every food handout, she is among the first to receive food because she says she is a widow, a grandmother, a female head of household. She says she has HIV, but that is not true. If she has Aids, why is she not on tablets and why is she not thin like the others?  She only said she had Aids so I do not inherit her,”  Jemba said.

Then Piri fired back at him. “It’s the two of you left in this compound.  You should just respect one another and not humiliate each other in public like you did at the food handouts when you told everyone that you were her husband.

“Do not try and stop her food handouts because the food must be given to someone.  If  the food does not go to Mai Esinati or the poor and needy,  it will be given to  horses back in America. Do not fight over the donors’ food handouts.  Just be nice to her and get her to share it with you” Piri said.
“What is the matter with you?”

Then Jemba stood up, threw his cigarette butt on the ground, stamped on it and said: “Nothing is the matter with me. I am a man and I deserve respect in my own compound.

“All I am saying is that there is a conspiracy by the donors to support only women and leave men out. Donors arrive to distribute food and  single out widows as if being a widow was something to be proud about.”

With his own eyes, Jemba said he had seen the donor women stand there with notebooks and pen asking for the poorest  and weakest people in the villages.

“They said to Sabhuku, show us the widows, the children heading families, the disabled, the weak and those on HIV treatment and orphans living alone. How many houses are headed by orphans in this villages, how many? None.

“The young girls were sticking their chests out to the officers fighting for first place in line, saying we are orphans, we are orphans. Tiri nherera, tiri nherera.  They  were given big 50kg bags of maize meal and packets of beans. What about me?

“There was drought and the harvest was  bad last year and the year before. I have to beg for  donor food from Mai Esinati  because I do not qualify for food handouts. Should I go hungry because I am a man?” Jemba said, looking more disturbed than angry.

Piri then halted him there.  She said:  “Jemba,  you cannot sit here and blame Mai Esinati for collecting donor handouts. She is a woman and women have responsibilities to feed the family.

“Go to Mbare today and look at how many women are busy doing something to feed the family. Then look at how many men are in the bars, playing pool or drinking ZED and other spirits.  Men do not feed the children.”

But  Jemba was not going to listen to all that. He was adamant that  widows like Mai Esinati were  taking over the villages.
“I tell you, the men are losing their power everywhere.  In town, some of the  women are already wearing suits as  if they are men.  If  the Government does not stop them,  the women will soon force men to wear dresses, feed the babies and change nappies. And where will this end?” Jemba asked, looking at  me. I sensed an accusing tone in his voice.

Piri patted Jemba on the shoulder and addressed him by his bird  totem,  “Shiri, you are not alone to get so upset. In the Diaspora, I heard that if you beat your wife or scold her badly, she will pick up the phone and call the police. They will arrest you in no time. Kechemu dzinochena  and you will sleep in a cell. Then you have to beg her to forgive you and withdraw the charge.

“The power you used to command in the old days  is being eroded with change, Shiri. Accept change and get off your backside and stop shooting small birds. After all, this is your totem and you should not be eating it,” Piri said, picking up the dead dove and examining it.

Jemba ignored the reference to his totem. Instead, he pointed to Mai Esnati’s house and said,  “What change? You want me to sit here and see Mai Esnati destroy my brother’s kraal, kill and eat the livestock as if I am dead?”

We all  looked towards Mai Esinati’s house, only a few metres away.  We saw her darting in and out of  her big asbestos-roofed house into her kitchen hut.

Smoke spiralled from the hut. We could smell that she was cooking meat, chicken or something nice. She waved at us and made a sign to say come over. Jemba  shook his head with resignation.

He gently kicked the dust and the goat droppings around him and said, “If this village had remained the way it was when Mudhibhisi was alive, and  if my brothers were here with me, we would still be  strong men.  But now, I have been weakened.  I am all alone. My strength is being sucked away daily by a woman.”

Dr Sekai Nzenza is a writer and cultural critic. She holds a PhD in International Relations and works as a development consultant.