roast meat. So the other day, I had relatives visiting from South Africa.
They could not possibly go back to Johannesburg without enjoying the freedom of eating meat and sadza in a friendly place with positive ambience and really loud conversations. My relatives do not easily do that in Johannesburg because it is not safe. Here, at Mereki’s, there was no fear of my relatives losing their brand new car. It’s a Range Rover. And they also have a brand new Mercedes 500 series back home in Sandton City.

We agreed that we would go with the Rover because when this car is off the tarred road, it is not scared of the mud and dirt. At Mereki’s, we parked the car in the most prominent place where everyone could see us while our meat was being roasted by one mother from among many. Mai George, Mai Precious, Mai Gonyeti, Mai Fungai and others are always there waiting. They cook nice food, the way our mothers back in the village used to cook for us.

While I waited for my South African based relatives to buy the meat and drinks (they like to pay and that is nice too) I took a short walk, nyama ichigochwa. The sounds of laughter, song, conversations, reggae, Macheso, Mtukudzi, Nyabinde and Charamba’s Gospel songs filled the air.

At Mereki’s, they play anything and you can dance from wherever you are standing if you feel the urge to do so coming. You can also walk to anywhere, including the cemetery which is only up the road. The Apostolic Faith Mapositori pray across the main road from the noisy bar.

With the red colored soil hill behind them, the Mapositori were mostly women, mothers decked in angelic graceful white robes. I walked to the place where some people roast corn at the corner, diagonally opposite Mapositori.

Walking back with my tasty corn (a little salt added) wrapped in green maize leaves, I noticed again, the woman I had seen earlier going up. She reminded me very much of my own mother.  She sat cross legged on the verandah of one of the houses opposite the night club.

She was looking at urban life, its people, its colors, the young and old talking, selling stuff, singing, laughing, joking or just walking past.

The woman looked about seventy or perhaps a little bit more. I could tell that she was one of those village mothers. She had the manner that my mother had at the same age.

Village mothers are not hard to recognise. You can pick them from a crowd. They have a certain way of dressing, walking and talking. A certain way to tie their headscarf, wear their matenesi shoes or wrap around their cloths.

If you are in doubt about their village identity, check out their hands.
Those hands are rough, discolored and cracked with short or broken finger nails, testimony to years and years of hard work. These village mothers often sit cross legged or they have their legs outstretched in front of them. When they come to town, you often spot them sitting somewhere, waiting and watching the world silently.

I did not greet her, though I should have because it is not polite to just talk to an elder like that without going through the formalities of shaking hands and then asking about their health.
But at Mereki’s, conversation is easy, informal and relaxed. I stood on the footpath and asked her what she was thinking about, sitting there so quietly.

“Muri kufungeiko nhai Mhamha?” Surprised, she smiled at me, like we had met before and shook her head gently. “Hii, ungazvipedze nhai mwana?” Meaning there was a lot going on in her head.
Since there was no gate and nothing to stop me from going in, I went on to the verandah and sat next to her. I broke my maize cob into half and offered her one. I said, “I saw you with this sad expression on your face when I walked up to get my corn. Now when I return, you still have the same expression. So I said to myself, let me ask amai ava, what she is thinking about. Muri kufungei?”

With her head on the side and her hands folded up on her lap, she said, “Day after day, I sit here, doing nothing. This is my son’s house. They are at work or at church every day. My thoughts are back home, kumusha mwanangu.”

She said she came from Nyanga in the Eastern Highlands. There was no one left back there though she still went on short visits to sow maize, weed and harvest her crops. Her husband was dead. Her adult children wanted her in Harare.

They said it was too expensive to bring her back to Harare when her arthritis or Blood Pressure got worse. I could understand all that. That used to be the case with my mother. Looking at me, her eyes distant and sad, she said, “Todiiko nhai mwana takapfigirwa muchizarira?” Now that we are locked up in a cage, what else can we do?

She spoke for the disappearing village mother who, for many years, never strayed too far away from her village, musha wavo. There was a time when these mothers were hardworking and free, before they got locked up in new faraway places away from the village.

And I could see them all, village mothers we have dragged to places we now call home in Bulawayo, Johannesburg, London, Toronto, Nebraska, Auckland and everywhere. Vari muzvizarira, locked up. Their Diaspora children have plucked them out of the village, secured an American visitor’s visa to take them on an aero plane to see the grandchildren, sons or daughters in law.

Over there, in the faraway cities, they will get everything they want to eat. Bread, meat, chips, hamburgers, fried chicken, pork ribs, cakes and all you can drink soft drinks and beer. Even Whiskey. Some of the mothers overseas stay to become babysitters to grandchildren children who do not speak Shona, Ndebele or Tonga. Only English. “Gogo, speak English,” they ask, before ignoring her for the rest of the day or maybe for days or even weeks.

One year, rimwe gore, when I was in the Diaspora, I flew with my mother from Harare, to Sydney and all the way to Melbourne. Over there, she liked the Chinese shops and their varieties of vegetables, especially mowa, derere and dried mushrooms. One night it rained so much and my mother could not sleep. She paced up and down. At three o’clock in the morning, I asked if she wanted a glass of beer to help her sleep. In those days, she still enjoyed a glass or two of beer.

Sometimes more than two glasses, when she was in the mood. She shook her head and said, no, she was not having any beer.

“Why would I be drinking beer now when it is raining like this?”
What has that got to do with the rain? I thought, but I did not ask because she had that restless and impatient look on her face. I had grown up with that look. I was always a little scared of that serious look. It had too much authority. With that look, she could easily say, “Kurumidzai, sungai mombe murime, quick, plough the fields.”

Or she could say, “Get your hoes and dig in the garden now.” There was never any day called a holiday with my mother.

It was work all the time. For years. But that was all over now. Who did she have to work for? After all, she was in Australia. She should relax or watch television.

There were many channels to choose from, from sports to movies for over fifteen years of age and those for adults only. Unlike the village, there were many choices here.

So we sat on the sofa and I put the television on. I searched for the right channel to suit my mother’s interests.

What else could we do at that time of the morning?
But my mother said, switch it off. “Dzima zvako.” And I did.
Then we sat there looking at each other. My mother was unsettled. She kept on referring to the rain, its sounds and the absence of lightening.

“Saka bumharutsva zvayanaya kudai, vamwe zvavo votoita winter purawu ini ndiri kuno,” she said, referring to the others back in the village getting up early to plough the fields in preparation for the real rains end of October or November.

I relaxed and laughed, “Mhayi, if it rains here in Australia, it does not mean it has rained in your fields back home.”

Surprised, she said, “Heya? Still, I must get back home soon because when I left, the manure was still in the cattle pen, the goat house needed repair, and the kitchen hut must be rethatched as well.
I dreamt that the cattle had broken into the garden and all the vegetables were gone. Hakuna chakanaka kumusha uku ndisipo.”

She had a long list of what needed to done back in the village. Like most village mothers, my mother and her village, mai vangu nemusha wavo, were inseparable.

The lives of our mothers were characterised by the historical conditions in which they lived. Mothers without National Identification certificates, land, schools, hospitals or clinics.

They collaborated with the freedom fighters in the liberation war. When the land finally came, some were too old to work on it. Others followed their children to the resettlement areas where they now sit in a strange place, alone and isolated from the old family and community. And others try to sleep listening to the loud noises of urban living in Warren Park, Mbare or Chitunguwiza.

Or maybe they sit in their son or daughter’s big mansion in Borrowdale or Glen Lorne in front of the television watching Africa Magic or reality American shows. They wait for the maid to bring them food. Sometimes, they just sit there and watch us, their wisdom and experiences buried in their silence. What then shall we do with our mothers when they come to the city and they are too old to remain in the village?

They do not talk much about the reality of their lived experiences because we are too busy to listen to them. That silent voice, sitting outside a house at Mereki’s, on a sofa in Australia, in church in Florida, or alone feeding the chickens along the Zambezi valley far away in Musambakaluma, has something to say about the past. But there is no one to talk to.

There was a time when our grandmothers and our mothers told us the stories told to them by their mothers. We learnt about the past through oral history. But these days, we no longer have time to tell those stories to our children.

And yet, those stories are meant to tell the children about their past, who they were and who they have become.

The story of my mother is a mirror reflecting the lived experiences of many mothers. It is the memory of their diverse experiences over time, from pre colonial, to colonial and to the present. There are many angles, voices, places, tears, pain, laughter, dances and music to the memory.
The memories of our mothers cannot be finished in this column.

Allow me, to go further next week because I am not just talking about one or two mothers. I am talking about the lived experience of our mothers, not written or even captured properly in the books of history.

The silent voices of our mothers speak of the complexities of their lives, the ordinary and yet extraordinary lives.

They tell us more about the lived experiences of their pain, courage, resilience and determination. To remember, every so often, the voice of our mothers is to remember who we are and where we came from. The voices of our mothers also speak about our current lives.

We must capture our mothers’ voices before they move on to the next world. Because it is inevitable, that the earth will take them one day, if it has not taken them already. Pasipanodya.

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

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