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Here, this villager works with hordes of aspiring and inspiring wordsmiths.

Thanks to Rosenthal Mutakati for standing in for the villager for a moon, of course, a log thrown into the river does not become a crocodile.

But, it is better to be married to an old woman than to remain unmarried. At times, the guest has tastier snuff!

Back in the village, the just-ended festive season left its own history and memories for, do village elders not say, no sun sets without its own history?

In the period before the festive season, this villager spent time between the fields and the village.
At times along the banks of Dande River and on some occasions at Gunyazberg – a popular drinking hole – where village guzzlers connect with their urban folk, while chugging the wise waters.
But it was the village. The village! The craggy Mavhuradona Mountains stood to the east as imperious overseers of the community on their feet.

For the ordinary Zimbabwean, Guruve is shrouded in myth and mystery as are the two superimposing mountains.

What with diesel n’anga Rotina Mavhunga, Girl Jesus, Mbuya MaDhuve and the spirit mediums Mutota, Karitundundu, Chirambakudomwa, Gumboremvura, Dumburechuma, Chingowo, Swembere, Chidyamauyu, Mvura Kanyemba, among others?

Each day on my way to and from the fields I watched children play.
Young girls folded hems of their skirts into their panties and played games, chatting and arguing among themselves about the rules of the game.
The mountains watched in defiant silence!

On the other side, ear-splitting whistles echoed from the mountains as boys called their several dogs for hunting escapades.

It is through the echoes that the mountains speak back.
The festive season eventually came and as usual it came with all its tapestries.
But there is a story that shook the village.

On Christmas Eve, amid the pomp, zest and funfair brought about by the euphoria of the festivities, Tsvimbo Tsvuku got entangled in the web of transport blues. Men take chances, when transport blues bite.

He started hitch-hiking to the village and instead of getting transport straight to the land of milk, honey and dust, he hitch-hiked to the small farming town of Mvurwi.

There he hoped to connect to the village, where his wife waited anxiously for the traditional goodies.
A carrier bag (popularly known yonder in the village as Mbare bag) in each hand, Tsvimbo decided to beat other travellers at the conventional terminus in Mvurwi and hobbled to flag down lifts along the Guruve-Mvurwi Road, opposite a high-density suburb.

Just there his trouble started, for he had too many delicacies in his bags and unbeknown to him there was yet another delicacy awaiting him in Mvurwi.

There he stood, his body silhouetted against the sunset sky, intermittently flagging down the lifts.
The sun cast a golden halo around him but something else caught his eye, a woman at the house opposite where he stood.

Scantily dressed with a skirt resembling an extended waist belt, she intermittently moved in and out of the house, pulling a stool and sitting there, legs apart. Never like a woman. Never!

Do village elders not say that a lowly dangling fruit is always at the mess and mercy of children? It is scarred all over by fingernails, as they test its ripeness. It is exposed.

Tsvimbo was just 45km from the village and would no doubt make it that night.
His family waited for him.

This villager was droving past and courteously stopped just to greet Tsvimbo, a very close uncle. The car was full but greetings were necessary.

As fate would have it, the weather changed while Tsvimbo stood by the roadside and the silhouette was overtaken by decent drizzle.

The woman shuffled in and out of the house. She sat on the verandah, same style.
She invited Tsvimbo into the house but he turned down the offer and continued flagging down lifts and one by one, they went past him.
So did the conventional buses!

What struck Tsvimbo the most was the woman’s continued shuttling in and out of the house.
He was later to find out why, when the huge rain-drops started pattering and forced him to seek refuge in the house.

As Tsvimbo hobbled with his two heavy Mbare bags, she came out of the verandah to help him out of the rains.

Just inside the house, Tsvimbo whose clothes had become a bit wet, was shocked to the marrow.
She took out two unopened Chimombe fresh milk pockets that she had been warming in hot water, actually placed them under his armpits.

They were really warm for someone that cold. She took a bucket of warm water and placed Tsvimbo’s feet there for the much-needed warmth.

As if that was not enough, a cup of black tea followed.
“I think there is milk in one of my carrier bags. You can also take out one loaf of bread and one packet of Stork margarine and some tinned beans,” said Tsvimbo, overwhelmed by the hospitality.
As he sat on the bed awake, Tsvimbo looked at Laiza, whose name he now knew.
She foraged through the bags looking for the items.

He noticed that her faced was small and round, pimple free, dark and smooth like tobacco seed.
She had an appealing gap between her top front teeth.

Just at that time, he felt hot and started removing the milk pocket and the blankets but Laiza had not yet done with him.

After the meal, she literary bathed him, something by his own confession, his wife had never done.
She towelled him, too.

As to what happened after bathing, your guess is as good as mine.
They became one. Tsvimbo was shocked by the expertise in bed.

Do village elders not say that the warmth of a rock is only known by the lizard that lies on it.
The truth is Tsvimbo spent the Christmas and New Year holidays there, while his wife waited. Waited. Signed. Waited. Worried and without explanation!

The wife even went as far as reporting a missing person to the police yet Tsvimbo drowned in pleasure.

With time, the Mbare bags were emptied there and so were his pockets.
Tsvimbo explained to this villager later:

“I then ran out of cash and she hatched a plan to go to the bar and get one or two men to sleep with and raise my bus fare. I needed to go back to work on January 2 and I was desperate.
“I remained at home and around 8pm I was ordered out of the house for a few minutes while she served the man.

“I stood in the cold trying to disabuse my ears from the squeaky sound of the bed, for a few minutes then she came out with the man and went back to the bar while I went inside to rest.

“She whispered that the client had paid US$3 and she needed more for our food and my transport back to work.

“A few minutes later, she brought another man and we repeated the scenario. It was quite some painful experience.
“She did that four more times that night.”

The nymphomaniac taught Tsvimbo a lesson.
To date the village is shaken and so are his workmates, who have seen him crumble under the notorious January disease.