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Sekai Nzenza
“HAVE you ever been to Victoria Falls?” I asked my cousin Piri as we drove towards the Hwedza Mountains at sunset. We were going to the village, coming from Harare, as we often do.
Piri shook her head to say she had not been to Victoria Falls. “And have you been to Great Zimbabwe?” She shook her head again, her eyes focused on the road ahead, resting a big bottle of beer comfortably between her legs. I teased her some more, deliberately. “Have you been to Mana Pools? Hwange Safari Lodge? Nyanga in the Eastern Highlands? Karina Dam on the Zambezi River? Matopos in Bulawayo?” She shook her head again, not saying a word. I already knew that she had never been to any of these places. In fact, Piri has never crossed the Zimbabwean border to go anywhere. Ever since she left the village, she has only been as far as Harare and Bulawayo and maybe Mutare for a wedding.

Before descending towards the new Save River Bridge, I stopped the car on a high plateau. The sun was a big red ball surrounded by red, yellow, orange and streaks of blue and purple clouds. Breathtaking sunset. I got out of the car and took a couple of pictures with my iPhone. Back in the car, Piri had removed my jazz CD and put on Simon Chimbetu’s song about a dead woman’s lament, asking relatives to keep her colourful dress because she was in the process of asking God to come back home to care for her last born child. “Rokwe rangu remavara chengetai”. I switched the music off. It was too sad. I wanted Piri to see and appreciate the beauty of this country instead. The serenity, the silent valleys, the colours, blue sky and the peaceful slow pace of everything. Spring season of the pfumvudza was here and the trees looked magnificent with their various colours of red, yellow, green, orange and rustic brown. It was like the beginning of a European autumn. Stunning! During this time of the year, I absolutely adore the village and the beautiful memories of childhood and my teenage years.
“Next time, I will go to Gonarezhou to see the elephants. I have not been there yet.” I said. Piri did not reply. Instead, she kept on humming Chimbetu’s song. I told myself that in the near future, I should consider travelling to the village with someone else who had a better appreciation of the beauty of our natural environment.

“Just look at that sun again. Only minutes ago, the colours were something else. Now they have changed again.” I said, smiling. Piri yawned, and then burped so loudly. She did not even say, “pardon me”, as people do after making such a rude sound. “It always surprises me to hear so many Zimbabweans saying they have not been to any of these beautiful places in our country. Zimbabwe is beautiful. People cry for this country. Vanotoichemera,” I said.

“Where is it beautiful? Kunaka pai?” Piri asked.
She had finally found her voice. I said, “Because you have not been to these places I mentioned, you cannot fully appreciate Zimbabwe’s beauty. But most Westerners do. Why else do you think we were colonised? The land, the rivers, the animals, the mountains, the minerals, everything. And as for our weather, what can I say? Ndingati chiiko? We are blessed to be born here.” Piri looked at me and laughed with some slight tone of sarcasm.

“You and Reuben. You are mad. Munopenga chete,” she said. Reuben is my cousin who went back to Australia after the elections. “You run away from this country to seek a better Western lifestyle, education, jobs, good money and nice clothes, nice everything. Then you come back here after many years and say Zimbabwe is beautiful. Was it not beautiful when you left it? Where is it beautiful now?

There is poverty and hunger everywhere. Aids, lack of water and firewood, lack of food, bad rains. Nzara yega yega. If I was educated, would I still be here? No. I would be in the Diaspora, too, choosing to eat raw vegetables because I am sick of meat. You ask me if I have seen Victoria Falls. Have you seen this, have you seen that? Where would I have seen what? What for? If you want to show me the ruins of Masvingo, matongo acho, I will come with you. As long as we stop and roast meat and I can drink cold beer all the way.”

I did not respond. What else could I say? We drove in silence for a while. We still had another 20km to get to the village. “Zimbabwe is beautiful to those with money to throw away by going all the way to Gonarezhou to see elephants drinking water,” Piri sniggered.
Then she put on the voice and tone of an evangelical preacher. Pointing to some deserted villages and lonely graves on the outskirts of the village compounds, she said. “There is nothing beautiful about disappearing villages, Sis. These villages started dying during the liberation war. People who escaped to the city did not come back after the war ended. Our own family members moved up north to Muzarabani and they are still there. Aids came here and people have been dying ever since. Later on, many people settled on the land what was once farmed by the white man. Will these people pack their bags one day and come back to this?” She pointed to the scrubby bushes, thorns and anthills. Dry, bare and barren. A fire had just ravaged the trees and grass, leaving the ground covered with black ash and burnt pink mushuku leaves. It looked desolate.

We passed a small village hut and saw a woman disappearing through the tall grass carrying an axe. “She is going to cut another tree for building her garden or for firewood. Stop and tell her not to cut trees and save the environment. If you do, ask yourself how she will cook. Only death will stop more destruction of the environment around here. If all the people who are dead now had lived and stayed in these villages, there would not be a single tree left. These surviving trees must be grateful to the graves.”

We got home when it was already dark. My brother Sidney, Sabhuku the headman and our neighbour Jemba were there, drinking chandada, the one-day brew. There was no fire in the kitchen hut. I stood there, by the granary and felt my mother’s absence. This kitchen hut and the fireplace is where we all grew up before migrating to other countries. There was always life here; people, laughter and activities. My mother has been gone more than a year now. In the kitchen hut there is nothing left, except a few pots and pans. My mother’s big and small clay pots are also gone. There is no water, no fire, no food, nothing.

And yet, Sidney and his drinking mates are sitting on a big log outside, having a wonderful time. Soon as they heard we were on our way, Sidney’s friends gathered to wait for us because this meant there would be bottled Western beer and with some luck, even some cheap spirits made from cane sugar or something really bad for the liver.

After the usual greetings, I had to challenge my brother, although he is the head of the family. “Why is there no fire and no water in the kitchen hut? You cannot expect me to come here with groceries, beer, and meat and air time while you all sit here and drink. It’s not fair. Hazvisi right izvozvo,” I said. They totally ignored me because they were busy talking about the new wave of witch hunters called Tsikamutanda and Bere Dzvuku, the Red Hyenas holding ceremonies in many villages accusing people of witchcraft and taking away their cattle as punishment. This team was on its way to our village.

“And you tell me Zimbabwe is beautiful when we allow poor people to be ripped off in broad day light by fraudsters and tricksters,” said Piri, her hands on her hips. She pointed to Sabhuku and said, “Unless you are also getting something from these witch hunters, I cannot understand how you and the police are letting this happen?

Strangers driving nice cars, drinking and dancing with girls then accusing people of witchcraft and forcing them to sell their cattle. And where are the police and all those people in Government who are supposed to protect the poor? It is cruel to steal the only source of wealth village people have. Ah, Zimbabwe is beautiful for sure.” Sabhuku tried to argue that he had no power to stop the witch hunters because they were coming from higher powers. “What higher powers? These witch hunters know that village people are superstitious of each other. They are using fear to extort money from the poor.”

Then Piri walked away and quickly took off her high-heeled shoes, put on black tennis ones, a wraparound cloth around her bottom and a head scarf to cover her Brazilian weave. She grabbed a torch, took a bucket and said she was going to fetch some water from the borehole (chibhorani) and then pick some vegetables for dinner from the garden. In the meantime, she said I should light the fire and begin to cut the meat and prepare dinner. “Sis, mochiisa moto nekubika nyama.”

Me. Light a fire? When did I last do that? I asked that we swap chores. She said no and quickly disappeared to the garden. I could not remember when I last made a fire. I could do it but the ashes and the smoke would stick into my hair. I had my hair washed, shampooed and twisted at the salon the day before. Besides, my eyes were going to get all red and that was not a nice look when I got back to my meetings in Harare the next day. No, I was not going to make a fire. Village smoke and ashes? No, thank you.

Jemba came to the rescue and made the fire based on the promise of a dollar for air time. Piri cooked the meat and the vegetables in less than an hour. Then she sat there, cross-legged, stirring the sadza pot effortlessly turning the cooking stick this way, that way, backwards and forwards the way my mother used to do. She dished out the sadza, meat and vegetables to all of us. With all the work done, she staked the dirty pots and plates for washing tomorrow.

Then she sat back against the wall, legs outstretched, bottle of beer close by, talking, laughing and joking. Once again, the village hut was full of life. That was the way it was meant to be. Keeping the village fires burning. My mother would have been very happy. But for how long were we going to keep the beauty of the village and this fire going?

I sat on the bench close to the door so I could breathe fresh air and avoid the smoke. Jemba, Sidney and my friend Bhiya sat along the same bench. The box with ice and my wine was just outside the door. “I have nice beautiful sisters. I wish one of them at least, had stayed in the village and married here. Then I would be calling on my brother-in-law to manage this home for me. But my sisters love Western lifestyle too much,” Sidney said, laughing. “All my sisters have gone to the Diaspora. Some married white men and that was the end. The village dream of a son-in-law responsible for cutting firewood for me is gone. Haa, vakomana. Kushayawo one mukuwasha anonditemera huni!”

The laughing, joking and telling stories was going to go on for a while. I retired to my thatched rondavel, leaving them to the party.
Soon after dawn, the birds started to sing and I got up. Down at the borehole, Piri, Bhiya and the other women were already watering the Simukai project garden before it got too hot. There was loud laughter, chikwee. What made them laugh so early in the morning?
I took a walk up the hill and sat on the rocks near the homestead. From there, I could see the various colours of the trees, announcing the beautiful spring season of the pfumvudza. I could see and smell the never ending beauty of Zimbabwe with all its contradictions and ambivalences.

We live in the middle of modernity and tradition. We are caught in the conflict between the village and the city. We suffer from the memory of the painful events, the fear of death and the blindness to simple things of beauty. At the end of the day, we celebrate the changing of seasons, the new tender leaves of spring, the feel of love and laughter, the joy of being.

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