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With the modern urban set up of most communities, traditional African relationships are no more

Ignatius Mabasa Shelling The Nuts

The Shona will tell you that another person’s wife is your mother-in-law and your handshakes should never go beyond the shoulder, but the city will tell you that it only works kumusha.

IN one of his songs, Gwagugwa negugwe, the late Paul Matavire captures how he fell victim to a Gokwe woman who acted contrary to expected cultural social etiquette of keeping a safe distance.

He says,

Kumuchonya kana kumbodzungudza

Kumubhabhadzira, kana kumbovhinyuka

Kumupuruzira, kana kumbonditakunya. . .

Sometime this month, I was in a queue to pay Harare City Council bills at Rowan Martin when a middle-aged woman wearing an expensive suit and perfume walked up to me, touched my arm and said, “Ndiri kuuya mumashure menyu. Ndiri kudzoka izvozvi.”

I didn’t have a problem with keeping a place for her in the queue, but the way she touched my arm unsettled me. My heart skipped a beat because I felt manoeuvred against and cornered. As strangers, the distance between us was unhealthy, and her touching me worsened things.

When I moved back to show her that I needed my space, she peeled a smile and walked away. I was greatly relieved when my turn to be served came and she had not come back.

When I studied communication, I learnt that there is what is called haptic communication which is the way in which people and other animals communicate and interact using the sense of touch.

Generally, touch is an effective way of communicating because it conveys physical intimacy. A couple of years ago, a friend of mine got off a bus before his destination.He had boarded a Zimbabwe Express Motorways bus that was popularly known as ZEM to Chitungwiza after a day’s work.

The buses used to get very full such that passengers stood in the aisle with very unhealthy and uncomfortable body contact. Actually, a number of males made the news in those days for sexually attacking female passengers by taking advantage of the close body contact.

On that day when my friend got off the bus prematurely, he had been one of the lucky ones to get a seat.He sat next to a middle-aged woman. In no time, my friend dozed off and disappeared into the peaceful land of sweet sleep. The ZEM buses usually took close to an hour to get to Chitungwiza, so one could actually sleep for about 40 minutes.

As the ZEM bus laboured with its human cargo to Chitungwiza, my friend felt his knee itch. In his sleepy state, he stretched his hand and touched the leg of the woman sitting next to him. Then, he felt his hand being slapped and he became wide-awake. To his horror, he discovered that his hand was resting on the lady’s lap.

He quickly mumbled an apology and without wasting time rose from his seat and forced his way through the human hedge of standing passengers. He rang the bell to alert the driver that he wanted to get off and the bus stopped in the middle of nowhere to let him out.

This is one isolated case, but generally we Africans in the city face serious space problems. It is not just in public transport where male and female strangers have to have very close bodily contact, but also in a lot of other spaces.

At my uncle’s house in Kuwadzana – there are five families renting rooms and sharing one toilet, which is also the bathroom. The toilet at this house is a conflict zone – it is where all the five families bath and relieve themselves. It is an uncomfortable place when there is no city of Harare water and these families can’t flush the loo. It is an unfortunate situation when the women are having menstrual periods and need space, privacy and water.

It is a terrible situation for baba vaJohn from the rooms at the other end of the house when he knocks on the toilet door and Mai Chipo the other lodger shouts from inside to inform him that the loo is occupied. And because baba vaJohn badly needs the loo, he will wait, but not before telling Mai Chipo kuti kurumidzai.

Just having a married man standing outside a toilet, and a married woman relieving herself inside and having a conversation is taboo. But, that is the way of the city.

And when Mai Chipo eventually leaves the loo, she will find Baba vaJohn waiting outside. She will smile awkwardly to show that she is a victim of the way buildings and spaces are structured in the city. Baba vaJohn will quickly go into the loo, banging the door behind him. He can’t stand the putrid stench that has generously invaded the loo. When he sits on the toilet seat, he will realise that Mai Chipo did not flush because there is no water.

So, his stuff will nicely rest on top of Mai Chipo’s. The toilet is badly configured for an African and how he values relationships. The Shona will tell you that another person’s wife is your mother-in-law and your handshakes should never go beyond the shoulder, but the city will tell you that it only works kumusha.

I remember how one old woman from kumusha was visiting her daughter in the city. The old woman needed to use the loo and asked her daughter which toilet her husband used. When the daughter laughed and said, “Why amai, he uses the same toilet that we all use.” The old woman refused to use the same toilet that was used by her son-in-law.

She said, “Mukuwasha angagare pandinogarawo ndisina kupfeka? Hazviite.” The daughter ended up asking her neighbours to allow her mother to use their loo.

The need for space is important not only for in-laws, but even father and daughters. We have heard cases where fathers had sex with or raped their daughters. Kare vana vairara kunorara vana, and it was such that girls kunhanga and boys kugota. But the city forces us to do the unorthodox.

I know one man who is sharing one room with his wife and three children. Kumusha nyika haipere semutaundi. In Harare, we are forced to behave like mice in one hole. And even when the TV shows inappropriate programmes, we are all forced to watch and make feeble attempts to divert attention by talking about the rains being late in June.

The city is a beast that chops, chews and spits out relationships. There are too many faceless and nameless people.

One young woman discovered this when she visited her sister in Chitungwiza. The sister used two rooms and had three children. She had no room for her visiting sister and had to go and ask her neighbours to accommodate her. So, the visiting sister had to go and share space and blankets with strangers. After three days, she told her sister that she was going back kumusha because the girls she went to sleep with had a habit of sneaking out at night.

When they went out clubbing, they locked her in to make sure she did not open for strangers. But she in turn could not sleep fearing that they may bring men who would rape her.

Another young woman got invited to work as a housemaid by her sister. By the time she arrived from kumusha, she found the job taken. Her sister’s employers could not allow her to stay with them. So the sister asked a man who stayed in a tiny wooden cabin nearby to accommodate her while she looked for a job. The young woman left after a few days because her benefactor was pestering her for sex to the point of attempting to rape her.

Space is generally defined as that continuous area or expanse which is free, available, or unoccupied. We are experiencing significant changes to our lifestyles and in the process we are closing cultural spaces through architecture, lifestyles, work and even technology.

Culturally and traditionally, space and distance were control mechanisms. Traditionally, the appropriate way to behave was to keep strangers at arm’s length, and acquaintances at elbow length. The hand length and bear hug was reserved for close friends.

It is true that kare haagare ari kare and what used to be rivers have become fords. But, we have shrink-wrapped