Sekai Nzenza on Wednesday
An old woman, whose face I could not recognise because she was too far, stood counting my mother’s cattle in our kraal. We have 14 cattle, two cows, one bull and several steers and one calf. This kraal where we have always kept our cattle is only a few metres away from the village homestead to protect the cows from hyenas and some people who sometimes become hyenas at night.

As the old woman counted the cattle, I recalled the days when our kraal was so big. When it rained, thick manure split into a drain that my mother had dug out all by herself.
At that time, we had 31 cattle and they produced manure that could fill three fields.
When two of my older sisters got married, each one’s husband brought us cattle as part of the bride price.

We increased our herd from 15 to 31 in just a few years. But we did not keep those cattle for long because my brother Sydney got married and used some of the cattle for his own marriage.

That is the way it was done.
You sent cattle to marry a new wife and your wife’s brother took the same cattle to another village to marry his own wife.
Through marriage, this cow leaves our village and this cow comes back.
Chimombe enda, chimombe dzoka.
With so many cattle, we fertilised the fields from cattle manure.
We had never seen the expensive commercial fertiliser that we buy from the shops now. Most people in this village cannot afford the fertiliser or the seeds.

They rely on donors for assistance. It makes you look back and wonder how much our lives have changed. Back here in the village, we have become so dependent on the donors to come each year and feed us.

After counting the cattle while talking to her all the time, the old woman walked through the homestead gate.
I recognised her immediately.
This was our aunt, Mainini Mai Spiwe from the Homa Mountains.
She belonged to the Buffalo or Nyati totem, which is the same totem as my late mother.
According to totem relations, she was my aunt and we regarded her with the respect of a mother even though she was not a blood relative.
Mainini Mai Spiwe greeted us and sat down on a mat near the kitchen hut.
Piri and my friend Bhiya were relaxing over a cold beer. My brother Sydney sat on a log drinking as he often does on an evening like this.

We offered Mainini some Mazowe Crush cordial and Marie biscuits. She sat on the mat dipping the biscuits into the drink before munching them with a few of her remaining back teeth.

She drank two glasses and when her thirst and hunger was gone, she suddenly launched into scolding us like we were little children.
She pointed to the barren dry fields and called us a bunch of urban lazy people with no knowledge of farming.
“By this time of the year, all that manure in the kraal should have been spread in the fields and winter ploughing completed. Are you alright in the head?” We looked at each other in embarrassment. But we let her speak. You do not talk back when an elder is this angry. Then Mainini started calling upon my mother’s name and lamenting her death. She said, “Oh my sister the Buffalo, Nyati Mhenyu. It is true, that you have departed. Your fields are forgotten and over grown. And your adult children sit and drink beer all day. You gave birth to people who are not people. You educated your children to deny the existence of this soil,” she said, thumbing the ground with her fist.

I moved closer to where she sat on the mat and said, “Mainini VaNyati, we are doing something about the fields. Tomorrow, we have a nhimbe. Before the rains arrive, this field will be ready for sowing,” I said, sitting cross legged next to her.

“Will you plough your mother’s fields and keep them alive?” Mainini asked, looking at Sydney. “Will you? Your mother loved these fields. How many years did she give her life to these fields? Did she not educate you from selling peanuts from these fields? ”

It was all true. The soil was my mother’s life. Mainini kept on. Pointing to the fields, she said, “Your parents built this homestead. The orchard, the borehole, the granary, the kraal, the chicken house, everything. Do not let it die.”
Piri poured more beer into a metal cup.

She composed herself and addressing Mainini she said, “We hear your words. We are ashamed. But we also want to tell you that we came here this week to register our names in the village so we can receive the fertiliser and seeds when the donors come.”
“That is why you are here? To wait for the donors?” Mainini said, shaking her head.
Bhiya and Piri nodded. They said they were going to register as vulnerable widows so they can be given agricultural inputs and handouts quickly.
“The councillor sent a message to say they want names of widows, the disabled orphans and all the old and vulnerable people for seeds and fertiliser,” said Bhiya.

“So, if the people they want are so weak and powerless, how are they supposed to find energy and knowledge to work in the fields? Some of them do not even have a plough. The donors should give handouts to people like me who are strong and able to work hard,” said Piri.
“Taura zvako Piri,” said Bhiya, urging Piri to say more. They laughed, joining their hands in a huge loud clap.

Throughout the past cold season, Piri sold second hand winter jackets from America. But the weather is so hot now and jackets do not make good business any more. So Piri has given up on selling jackets. She is going back to farming here in the village and in another place near Concession.

“If you do your tobacco right, you will make money. Grow maize, tobacco and sunflowers. If one crop fails, you will be fine with one,” my brother Sydney advised like he was the Master Farmer. Sydney has never been known to be a farmer in all his life. A teacher, yes. A farmer, no.

Bhiya and other people around here grew tobacco last year. It was hard work and they cut down so many trees to make furnaces for drying the tobacco under controlled heat.
It was tough on their backs and joints. They made some money but would have made a lot more if the price was right. This year, only half the people in our village are growing tobacco.
“It’s not for weak people, this tobacco growing business,” said Mainini Mai Spiwe, getting up.

With her back slightly bent, she lectured to us one more time on how we are losing connection with the soil.
“A person came from the soil. A person will return to the soil,” she said. Munhu akabva muvhu. Munhu achadzokera muvhu.

“Now you are getting old. You used to work so hard in the fields and still dance to the drum during harvest ceremonies,” said Sydney laughing as Mainini Mai Spiwe walked away with her back slightly bent.

At this point, Bhiya suddenly asked me a question I was trying to avoid answering for some time. “Ndakanzwa kuti makasiya basa?” Bhiya wanted to know if it was true that I left my employment.

I said that was very true.
“You left an office with air conditioning where you used to have a tea boy come and save you tea while you sat on the comfortable chair?” she asked.
I nodded.

I told them that I was going to spend a lot of time down here in the village, growing new crops and practising new methods of farming.
Sydney and Bhiya looked at me like I had gone mad. Piri pretended not to listen.

We had already been through this conversation before when she challenged me not to leave my job because she liked to visit my office and order tea, like she was someone very important.
All that is gone now.
I am going to work the in fields and make my own tea.
“What was wrong with your past job?” asked Bhiya

“Nothing,” I lied. The truth was that I was restless in an office job. I wanted to spend more time here in the village, seeing the rain come over the mountains and hearing the children sing, “Mvura ngainaye tidye mapudzi.” Let it rain, so we can eat pumpkins.
This rainy season, I will work on my mother’s fields and in other fields as well. I will grow maize, sorghum and groundnuts.
The following day, before sunrise we commenced the nhimbe to dig all the manure from the kraal.

The people came from surrounding villages, each one with their hoe and others with a shovel.
They dug and shovelled the manure into the scotch cart which was then pulled by four steers.
They made manure pyramids in the fields and then spread it all out.
By mid morning, they had ploughed two fields.

When the sun was beating so hard and the cicadas were going wild, we sat under the big mulberry tree and shared vast plates of sadza, fried chicken and cabbage.
At sunset, we sat in the golden glow of the sun shelling the ground nuts. We shall begin planting in the fields when the rain comes in a week or maybe in two weeks.

Dr Sekai Nzenza is a writer and cultural critic.

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