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“It’s valentine’s day on Friday,” I told my cousin Piri. She frowned and said, “So?” “You may get flowers from a lover,” I said. We were drinking tea with corn bread, chimondi mwii, in Mbare, not too far from Rufaro Stadium where my cousin Laiza lives. We sat on reed mats on the verandah. As always, the street was vibrant with plenty of noise from stereos, people shouting, singing, kids crying or laughing. Traders passing by selling anything that can be sold including heart shaped balloons for Valentine’s Day.

“I do not want flowers on this day called Valentine. I want money,” Piri said.
“We did not grow up with red flowers. When did a flower say I love you? If you love someone, you just love her and you show it with your good works towards her,” Piri said.

When we lived back in the village, long before independence, we did not know about Valentine’s Day.
But we knew about love because we saw it being expressed in a little kindness, generosity and respect that came with simple village love.
I remember seeing this kind of love when a whole lot of us village kids were down in the valley herding cattle and goats. One boy called Lovemore told Nkazana that he loved her. He made beautiful intricate grass bracelets and a bark and sisal whip, chamboko, for Nkazana. We were envious. Lovemore and Nkazana were inseparable. They would always drive their cattle away from everyone else.

In the late afternoon, when their cattle were full and no longer wandering around to graze, we saw Nkazana and Lovemore lying a little too close on her cloth under the muchakata tree.

I still remember how happy and content they looked, even though they were too young to look like that.
One time, Miss Rwodzi, our teacher at St Columbus School in the village, explained the meaning of Western love to us. She said people in love kissed because among European people it was a real expression of love. Sometimes people kissed on television. We had never seen a television then, except the colonial mobile bioscope that came once every year to our village school. Nobody kissed in the bioscope stories.

Then one day, when I was on the village bus coming back from boarding school, I saw, with my own eyes, Samuriwo, the bus conductor, kissing a woman called Maggie at the back of the village bus. This was the first time that I had seen a real kiss between two adults.

Before independence Samuriwo’s bus travelled between Salisbury and Muzorori & Sons Stores, stopping at all village bus stops. We used to board the bus a few kilometres from the boarding school. The distance was only 60 kilometres but it took almost two hours to get to the last bus stop because Samuriwo stopped to deliver letters or groceries for the women whose husbands worked in Salisbury.

Samuriwo was already in his late 30s or maybe early 40s. He was a very light skinned guy with freckles and brown sharp eyes, always clean shaven with a moustache. He smelt very nice, unlike some of the village men. We wondered how it was that Samuriwo smelt so nice yet he spent hours on the bus from Salisbury to Muzorori & Sons Store. Always clean, with a brown jacket, white shirt and gray pants with black shoes. He read books and played Western music on the bus all the way from Salisbury. We admired the way he carried a leather bag of money across his shoulder and signed the receipts with such beautiful handwriting.

Samuriwo travelled to Salisbury three times a week. He had his dinner at Muzorori & Sons Store which was the bus’s last stop and ours as well.

Here he would take his whichever lover he brought from Salisbury to the eating houses at the back of stores. Then Samuriwo took his long play records, LP’s from the bus and played country music by Don Williams and Dolly Paton in the store. He often had a different woman to accompany him from Salisbury each time. You could always tell that the women were from Salisbury because they wore Afro wigs and platform shoes. They used Ambi skin lightening creams on their faces but not on their arms and legs. They often spoke Shona punctuated with many English words. Samuriwo called each one of them “Lovie”, “Honey” and “Darling.”

One regular girlfriend was called Maggie from Highfield, in Salisbury.
People said Maggie worked in one of the big shops where only white people were allowed to shop because they had more money than the Africans. Maggie liked to dance and show her love for Samuriwo publicly. They played songs like Percy Sledge’s “Let me wrap you in my warm and tender love.” Dolly Parton’s “On the Wings of a Dove” and Dobie Gray’s “Sitting on the Dock of the bay”. Right there, in the middle of Muzorori & Sons Store, Samuriwo and Maggie held each other very close and danced like they were white people.

I stood aside with my two sisters, Charity and Paida and admired them.
We hoped that one day, we would also go to Salisbury and discover real love then practise the Western way of love through kisses, hugs and flowers.

Then the war came and the bus stopped coming to the village. Samuriwo and Maggie were not seen again. We left our mother in the village and moved to Salisbury, settling in a two bedroomed flat in Glen Norah B with our brother Charles.

During that time, we listened to romantic songs and discovered the romance that came on Valentine’s Day.
Educated boys bought balloons, red flowers and teddy bears for their girlfriends.
One day, in February after independence, a card arrived at our flat with the words “Happy Valentine my love.” It was a big one, with padded stuffing, a picture of a big red rose and a European couple holding hands in the middle of the heart. When we opened the card, it had big writing with: “I love you. Yours Forever, Your Valentine”.

There was no real hand written signature. My sister Charity claimed the card as hers. Paida did too. Even though I had just been born again to become a serious Christian and was waiting for God to show me the right man, I claimed the Valentine card as well. I was almost certain that the card was from Brother Jerry, the tall guy with an Afro, who quoted so many Bible verses using an American accent without even looking in the Bible. I loved him for that. It had to be him.

We placed the card on top of the display cabinet. When Charles came home from his job at Air Zimbabwe, he claimed the Valentine card as his too. We told him it was not possible that the card would have come from a woman.

Only men sent such romantic cards. Although we never knew which lover sent the card, I still wanted to believe that it was Brother Jerry. There was nothing wrong in a good Christian girl like me at that time having fantasies about love on Valentine’s Day or on any other day.

After all, Valentine’s Day was based on a romantic myth or fantasy about a man called Valentine who lived during the 3rd century in Rome. He was jailed for secretly getting married to young lovers. This was against the law which required men to remain single so they could be strong soldiers. Because of his love for women, Valentine was sentenced to death. Later on, a day to celebrate lovers was named after him.

These days, Valentine’s Day is expressed through flowers, money, clothes, lingerie, chocolates, teddy bears or dinners. Without that, some women may not think that they are loved. But this cannot be true. Surely, in these hard economic times, a guy may not be able to afford flowers for his lover or his wife. This does not mean, in any way, that he does not love her or he loves her less. What really matters is the kindness, friendship, generosity, communication and respect that comes with real love.

On Valentine’s Day, my cousin Piri wants money. But there is not much of it around. As for me, a single, nice artistic bracelet made from the village grass will just do.

Dr Sekai Nzenza is the Chief Executive Officer of RioZim Foundation.