Perhaps the happy days are back again
A good rainy season brings with it plenty of fish, wild fruits as well as other delicacies like mushrooms and people generally eat well

A good rainy season brings with it plenty of fish, wild fruits as well as other delicacies like mushrooms and people generally eat well

David Mungoshi Shelling the Nuts
UNLIKE money, when rain falls, everyone under it benefits. We all get wet to the skin if we are foolish enough to walk in the rain with no umbrella or raincoat. In a good season, if we are diligent as farmers, and work our land as we must, we reap huge harvests. And when that happens, happy days become the norm in simple rural ways as well as according to the bread and butter mantra.

Life is cyclic. The same things come and go again and again while we live.

When talk about climate change first surfaced, there was a lot of scepticism. It sounded like science fiction.

To this day, Big-Brother-Is-Watching-You, America, that conceited nation of immigrants, a motley mix convinced they are the greatest country on earth, does not subscribe to climate change initiatives.

That is why Donald Trump has been threatening to bring back coal despite its known hazards to his people.

It is proven fact that the devastating droughts that wreaked havoc around the horn of Africa and in Ethiopia in particular, were a result of damage to the ozone layer occasioned by the activities of industrialised nations.

Regardless of what those who trash climate change and deliberately engage in activities that damage the ozone layer and ultimately lead to changes in climate, evidence of climate change is there for all to see.

Last September, I went to the United Kingdom hoping, among other things, to experience for myself their white Christmas. But alas, with a few exceptions of bits of snow here and there on the motorways, there was nothing to write home about.

For us here in Zimbabwe, having largely borne the brunt of climate change in our region these last few years, with drought after drought for several seasons, it came as a welcome change to have rain in abundance for the first time in years.

The heavy rains brought back a lot of nostalgia for many people.

Zhizha, the rainy season, has traditionally been a time of affluence and joy for many, especially in the rural areas.

There is so much to eat everywhere. When the rains are good there is an abundance of most things.

Depending on where you live, a variety of wild fruits is there for the taking.

Delicious water berries (hute) are a welcome delicacy. In the olden days girls ventured out into the customary wetland areas to collect the fruit for sharing with those at home. Not only are water berries juicy and delicious, they are also nutritious and filling.

You do not need a meal after you feast on them. Children like water berries because they leave one with a purple tongue or some other such colour.

Water berries have found their way into the people’s oral traditions.

There is a place in Chikomba District which goes by a name that strangers always find curious.

It is known as Bako Revasikana (the girls’ cave). The story is that on a certain morning many years ago before the coming of the white man, a group of girls went to collect water berries. But as luck would have it, it began to rain and rain furiously.

The English would say it rained cats and dogs! The girls took refuge in a nearby cave. When there was a lull in the rain the girls came out of the cave with their baskets (tswanda).

Unfortunately, a pride of hungry lions had also sheltered from the rain nearby and when the girls emerged the lions pounced on them.

A good rainy season also brings with it other delicacies and people generally eat well at this time. Wild mushrooms are an exotic delicacy. Whereas townsfolk are not too keen on wild mushrooms believing them to be poisonous, rural folk welcome the largesse.

They know their mushrooms and also know their ecology. They know that, for instance, different colonies of wild mushroom sprout in almost exactly the same areas when the rains come. A colony of poisonous mushrooms is never visited by even the smallest insects. It eventually just dries up or rots.

In the fields you get lots of nutritious vegetables, from pumpkin leaves to the succulent leaves of spicy tsunga.

Zhizha is a time of plenty and the cuisine is varied. Everybody eats well and people are generous with what they have. It’s a time of plenty of everything. Those who have orchards introduce variety into their diet with peaches, guavas and mangoes to spare.

Even the livestock knows when to multiply. Young ones come along when there is plenty of water to drink and lots of grass on the pastures.

A few weeks ago I took a trip into the countryside and what I saw was pleasant and surprising. The effects of the good rains were in evidence everywhere. Green grass everywhere and flowing rivers and streams.

The herds of cattle that I came across looked healthy and well-fed, quite unlike communal area cattle. No doubt there is plenty of milk these days. I love that because no dairy concern has as yet mastered the art of culturing milk the traditional way,

In recent times indigenous cuisine has seen more and more people appreciating and preferring it. I can think of restaurants where they serve indigenous foods including finger millet sadza and the now very popular road-runner chickens.

Cultured milk is also available at such outlets. This is healthy eating without doubt and in these days when nutritional prescriptions are known to impact healthily on people with diabetes and HIV, you could do worse than eat at these places.

There are many children who may only now be discovering what a real river is like. What with so many bridges with nothing but sand under them or at best snaky trickles of water that make you wonder why the bridge was ever built.

I get that kind of feeling whenever I walk on the Birchenough Bridge once a bridge over the Mighty Save River. It is difficult to believe that this river was once home to hippopotamus herds and crocodiles and that villagers caught a lot of fish to supplement their food supplies. We need to do something about this river before it’s too late.

The word mubvumbi is probably unknown to many young Shona-speaking people. Mubvumbi is ceaseless rain that goes on and on for hours on end and sometimes for days, shutting people in. You cannot leave your homes during such rains and the rivers get really flooded. Flooded rivers often have nutritious dividends.

Fish often stray out of the rivers and go up rivulets that soon become shallow or dry. When that happens you can easily catch or trap the fish. Such times are exciting times, punctuated by children’s joy and laughter. Life in such times is idyllic, like a dream.

In the rainy season that has just ended, graphics people and photoshoppers had a field day. Social media was awash with gruesome pictures of simulated drownings. Strangely, you often had vehicles being washed away when pedestrians were crossing quite easily.

Fake news! But of course, in many instances, the drownings were real enough. People will always cross flooded rivers in spite of warnings not to do so. Not everyone gets across in such cases and most can’t swim.

Many years ago my younger brother and I were caught up in the rain. We were on our way to visit a married sister of ours in a village we could reach by crossing three rivers.

The rain fell after we had left home and since the distance we had to walk was considerable when we got to the last river that we had to cross to get to her place, there was a raging flood. We tried everything but there was no way we could have crossed that river.

Disappointed and unhappy, we retraced our steps. The first river was now the last. And when we got to it , it too was in flood. A man came by with his cattle. He drove them across the bridge and held fast to the tail of one of the oxen.

We watched in awe as he made it across. As for us, we could only turn back and seek refuge overnight in the nearby village. We went to a bachelor uncle of ours who had put up a neat two-roomed structure with a thick professionally-done thatched roof.

We had the honour of spending the night in his modern house.

He was home for Christmas and had brought a transistor radio along so there was music to ease away our disappointment. The evening meal was simple, but nutritious and delicious: sadza with pumpkin leaves in peanut butter sauce to which a bit of ground chillies had been added.

Those were the days. With another good season or two promised, perhaps the happy days are back again.

David Mungoshi is a writer, social commentator and retired teacher.

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