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Sekai Nzenza on Wednesday
MANY years ago, when we lived in the village, we did not have enough clothes. One day my mother took two buckets of her newly harvested groundnuts to Mr Jack’s store. Mr Jack was the only white trader who owned many stores in the Tribal Trust Lands. People took their grain to be weighed and they got paid with goods from the store. For her two buckets of groundnuts, my mother was given three children’s dresses and a packet of sugar. The dresses were for my sisters Charity, Paida and I.

My mother said these dresses were each a size bigger and would last for a long time while we grew taller. Not fatter, but taller. None of us were fat. We would then hand them down to the younger sisters, Vongai, Raviro and Rumbi.
We proudly wore these plain dresses made of thick dark blue jean-like material.

Because the material was so tough and rough on the skin, everyone called it the “Satan cloth”. For over two years or even more, we wore our Satan dresses and they showed no sign of wear or tear.

At school they labelled us the “Satan” dress girls, vasikana vamarokwe eSatan. We longed for new dresses. So one day, when our mother was away, visiting her maternal home for a few days, we placed the dresses on a flat rock and used smaller stones to pound and make holes so it looked like rats had gnawed on them.
It was a lame lie.

As punishment, my mother said we would wear those dresses every day until such time that they were so worn out that they looked like rags.
In those days, every single cent made from my mother’s industrious pottery making or beer selling was used for school fees and books. We never got new shoes except hand-me-downs from our older sisters and aunts.

At boarding school, we had one new pair for school and one pair of Bata tennis shoes for sports and walking around.
When a dress or school uniform was torn, we sat there and used our needle- work skills to sew and mend.
We dreamt that one day we would pass the Cambridge School Certificate, then train to be a nurse or a teacher.

The University of Rhodesia was too much of a dream to make. Hardly any students from our villages made it to that almost all white institute in Salisbury. Besides, we heard that many students who were lucky to get into the University of Rhodesia read too much politics and they behaved badly.

Because they knew too much, they made a lot of noise against Ian Smith’s Rhodesian government. Then some of them were sent to prison, got kicked out or they ran away to Zambia where they were free to talk about land, freedom and fighting.

When the liberation war reached our village, my mother sent us all away to Salisbury where we shared a two-bed roomed flat in Glen Norah B.
That was the time we discovered black and white television, refrigerators, ice cream, big Philips and Supersonic stereo systems. We saw handsome guys driving Alfa Romeos, Peugeot and Renault cars.

My brother Charles had a blue Corsair. We had more than one dress because my older sisters had become nurses and teachers. Our eyes were opened to the possibilities of what we could also acquire, if we studied hard and got a job.

Years later, my sisters and I travelled different journeys from the village to the city and to the Diaspora. Other family members, like my niece Shamiso, only left the village for the city just 18 months ago. But, when you see her today, she dresses like she has lived in town all her life.

During the past six months, Shamiso has changed. She wants everything new and fashionable. She complains that her husband Philemon is slow to move with the times and buy her the latest fashion.

Philemon is the guy who sells airtime, phone chargers, batteries and other gadgets on the streets in Harare. Their son Prince is almost six months old. Ideally, Shamiso should be living in Philemon’s village but she has consistently refused to live there, preferring the city lifestyle to the village. In the end, Philemon gave in and they now rent one room in a big house in Chitungwiza.

Shamiso says she is embarrassed that they still have a 14-inch television with a “big stomach” yet people next door already have a 29-inch plasma television. In response, Philemon says he cannot keep up with Shamiso’s demands for fashion and everything new.

He has responsibilities for his grandmother back home in Bocha, way past Buhera. He wants money to pay for the rethatching of her kitchen hut, money to pay for cattle treatment because the dip tanks are not working, and money to fix the garden fences so her vegetable garden is not destroyed by the roaming cattle and goats. But Shamiso has other priorities.

Last month, Shamiso heard there was a new takeaway chicken place in town. The chicken is fried and there was a picture of a white man on the packet of the red chicken packet. Everyone in Chitungwiza was talking about this new chicken from America. Shamiso’s neighbours brought it home and gave her half a wing, and a couple of chips so she could also taste it. Shamiso was hooked. “We cannot go to the village over the weekend without tasting this Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC),” she said.

“But why? Is it so different from other chickens?” Philemon asked.
“That is why you are always behind with fashion Baba vaPrince. You need to keep up with the times,” Shamiso said. They argued over it three or four times until Philemon gave in.

So, on, on the way to the village a couple of weeks ago, we did not pick up Shamiso and Philemon in Chitungiwiza. We met them outside the KFC shop, baby in tow, eating greasy chicken pieces and chips.

“I am so happy tete, to finally eat this chicken from America,” said Shamiso.
“Who said it’s from America?” Piri asked. Shamiso asked me to confirm that I had eaten that chicken in America and if I tasted the one here, I could tell that it was genuinely American. “Tell them tete, “Shamiso said, smiling.
“She has developed a disease to buy, tete,” Philemon said.

Piri turned and slapped Shamiso’s knee.
“Mainini Shamiso, shopping and buying something new all the time will not satisfy you or give you happiness. Ask Sis,” Piri nudged me on the shoulder. “Sis, you still suffer from the shopping disease, don’t you?” I ignored her.

My eyes were focused on the road as we drove out of town. But my mind went back home to the wardrobe and the suitcases full of clothes and shoes I had not worn for a long time.

Then I recalled the Satan dresses of my childhood. Was the lack of clothes then, responsible for my insatiable need to shop that came later on in my life?

When I was in America, I discovered online shopping. From my sofa, I could surf eBay and buy shoes, clothes, phones, anything without leaving the house at all. I had several credit cards handy. I clicked the “Buy It Now” as if the item would disappear if I did not buy it there and then.

Then the item would come by post only to realise that it was not what I wanted or the shoes were too small, too big or the wrong colour. But there was this gratification of receiving something from the post, trying it on and then thinking of when and where to wear it.

After wearing it once or twice, I was back on eBay again looking for another dress or for something else. Since credit cards allowed me to buy and pay later, there was no stopping me. This disease only ended when I came back to Zimbabwe because I had no money, no credit card and no access to eBay.

My instant gratification with consumerism blurred the line between what I really needed and what I wanted. That was the time when I thought I could buy a silver Hummer, the four-wheel-drive H3, 3.5-litre and 220 horsepower. I would bring it over to Zimbabwe and I could see myself driving it all the way to the village, stopping all stations and letting people come in to inspect my CD system and the seats.

I recalled calling my late sister Charity who was then a diplomat in Ethiopia, to tell her about my dream car. Instead of sharing my enthusiasm, she said I was crazy. “Unopenga? How can you buy a Hummer when you do not have a house? Will you live in a Hummer?”
The wisdom of my sister took the upper hand to my irrational consumerist reasoning.

Our desire to consume more and flaunt our status through the food we eat, clothes, cars, houses, jewellery and other gadgets has existed since the Industrial Revolution. It preceded the coming of the white man and the materialist “civilisation” to Africa.

Like Shamiso, who has little, we keep wanting more, believing this will make us happier. My mother was probably happier, carrying her two buckets of groundnuts in exchange for three very long lasting Satan dresses from Mr Jack’s village store.

Dr Sekai Nzenza is CEO of Rio Zim Foundation. She writes in her personal capacity.