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We cannot tell if the village love we had in the past was going to remain the same. We can only hope to find more love in the future, perhaps in a different place.

WE met Misheck, my cousin Piri’s former husband at Hwedza Growth Point last week. When Piri saw Micheck dressed in a white robe surrounded by a group of apostolic women, she quickly hid her bottle of beer and dashed out to greet him. Micheck and Piri separated three years ago. They embraced, laughed and talked while the women in white watched and smiled with discomfort.

“Does it ever happen to you, that you meet someone you used to love so much and then you grew apart? One day, you meet him again and the love is still there, especially when he looks so handsome with his shaved head and long beard? Oh, how I loved Misheck! ” Piri said as we left Hwedza and continued on the drive to the village.

“Tell me more,” I said.

I already knew the story of love and romance that had happened once to Piri in a bus. But I wanted to hear it again because it was the story of a simple village romance that had thrived and blossomed.

It was that kind of love that some of us liked to dream about, if we had stayed in the village and there were no economic or social problems.

Some years ago, Piri moved to the city to look for work. She was 32, divorced and with little knowledge of the city. At that time, she was not the same Piri you see now. She had a certain calmness and innocence that seems to have been eroded by living and surviving in the city.

A year later, Piri left the city and ran away from Operation Murambatsvina, the clean-up Harare campaign. The illegal cabin Piri called home had been destroyed and her cigarettes and sweets tuckshop razed to the ground. With no source of income left, Piri headed back to the village to start afresh.

Like Piri, Misheck was going back to his village too. Three years gold panning along the Mazowe River and doing odd jobs here and there had yielded little. Back in the village Misheck was the first born son in a family of six children. His father was late. And here he was at the age of 30 returning home with no money, no job and worse still, no wife.

When Misheck first saw Piri, she was struggling down the aisle of a village-bound bus with an oversized plastic bag full of groceries. Misheck thought she was the kind of woman his mother would like – fat with strong legs

He caught a glimpse of her bottom. It was big and beautiful. Misheck smiled to himself, hiding two missing front teeth, the result of a fight with fellow gold panners a year ago. He made the decision to propose his love to Piri long before the bus reached the Hwedza Mountains.

Piri had wedged herself between two passengers right at the back of the noisy bus. Misheck knew that one does not climb the mountain straight up; you go round and round until you get to the top. Before he even greeted her, Misheck asked Hwindi, the bus conductor, to pass on a bottle of Fanta, two buns and a boiled egg to Piri. She made eye contact with Misheck and smiled, covering her mouth, in case Misheck noticed that, like him, she had two missing front teeth.

First impressions were very important. She accepted the gifts. Then she made a sandwich with the one egg and drank the Fanta quietly. Other women passengers looked at her with envy. In these hard economic times, men no longer offered gifts so easily. Hwindi came back and told Piri she could keep the empty bottle because it had already been paid for.

When Piri finished eating her egg sandwich and drinking the Fanta, Misheck decided it was time to make his first move. He would be welcome. A woman does not accept a man’s gifts unless she was willing to be his friend.

This woman will be his mother’s daughter-in-law, the new muroora. Misheck asked to swap seats with the old man sitting next to Piri. The man got up, winked at Misheck and whispered, “You are a hunter my son. A real hunter has an eye for good meat.”

“When I saw you come into the bus, I loved you immediately. I bought the Fanta, buns and egg so that you can taste my love for you. I knew you would make a good wife for me. You are fat enough, healthy and strong. Although you are dark in complexion, to me you are still beautiful. I would not be embarrassed to show you to my mother,” Misheck said.

Piri played hard to get, as a girl is supposed to do. “How can you say you love someone you do not know?” she asked him. Misheck said all that did not matter because they were already on the journey to know each other.

The only reason he would turn away from the journey right now was the question of totems, mutupo. He belonged to the Soko, Monkey or Baboon totem and if this was Piri’s totem as well, then the love he felt for her in his heart was doomed.

People of the same totem should not fall in love, let alone marry.

Piri said she was Chihera, belonging to Mhofu of the Eland totem.

“VaHera women are hard workers. They also make good wives,” Misheck said, clapping his hands together with joy and revealing his missing front teeth. She took the hand off her mouth and smiled back at him. Four front teeth missing between the two of them.

Fanta, buns and an egg on their own would not have won Piri’s heart. It was the praise poetry that did it. By the time the bus crossed the Save River, Misheck was reciting the full praise poetry of the VaHera clan to Piri: “Ndidewo Chihera Mukonde, mwana waMhofu, Chidavarume, Chirera nherera Love me, you daughter of The Great Eland Bull, lover of men, you the carer of orphans).”

A man who can recite to her the praise poetry of her people so well had to be a good well-grounded traditional man.

They reached his bus stop first. Before he got off the bus, she declared her love for him. Her village was several kilometres farther on, just off the main route before reaching Dorowa Mine.

Few days later, when Misheck’s mother took one look at Piri, she shook her head and said she will not accept a daughter-in-law who had been married before.

Misheck ignored his mother’s disapproval. He insisted that he loved Piri. His mother was furious: “What is love? You want to spend the whole day eating love? Look at our poverty. We cannot eat love. Leave this woman alone and go back to work.”

Misheck would not be swayed away from his love for Piri. Within a few days, Piri moved into Misheck’s mother’s kitchen hut, as a new muroora should do. Misheck’s mother would not touch what Piri cooked. When the fights between mother-in-law and muroora did not stop Misheck and his bride moved a little away from the main village compound and set up a hut that served as kitchen, bedroom and granary all at the same time. They had a piece of land, a village spring nearby and firewood from the hills.

The romance between Misheck and Piri continued to blossom. He accompanied her to the grinding mill, to look for firewood, to fetch water and everywhere. In the dry season, he sat next to her on an anthill while she caught the red ants – majuru – for relish. When the rains came, they went back to the anthill soon after sunset to catch the nutritious ishwa, flying ants. Sometimes Misheck went hunting rabbits, trapping mice and fishing in the Save River.

Throughout the rainy season, they were seen in the field ploughing, sowing, weeding and laughing together. Misheck’s mother could not stop the romance between Misheck and Piri. She accepted that these two were thriving on love.

During the third year of their marriage, there was a drought. Piri and Misheck harvested little. They packed their bags and moved back to the city to look for work. Piri stayed with various relatives who could not accommodate both of them at the same time.

Living separately and faced with economic hardships, they grew apart.

Micheck returned to the village where he continued to hunt, weld pots and pans, thatch houses and paint school buildings. He joined the Apostolic church and within a short time he was a leader and some people said he was also a prophet.

When we met Misheck at Hwedza with his group of Apostolic Faith people, they were going to a big gathering in Chiweshe.

After embracing again and exchanging phone numbers, Piri and Misheck said goodbye. Piri walked back to the car. She was not wiggling her bottom inside her jean skirt as she normally does when people are watching her. It was a soft, rather solemn walk. In the car, Piri was very quiet for a while.

“We would still be in love, if only we had stayed in the village,” Piri said, slowly reaching for her beer. That was just a fantasy, I told her.

We cannot tell if the village love we had in the past was going to remain the same. We can only hope to find more love in the future, perhaps in a different place.

Dr Sekai Nzenza is a writer and cultural critic.