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Blessing Musariri Shelling the Nuts
A long time ago, Christmas meant new clothes, going kumusha, carrying water for my grandmother from the well on the first day there and having her thank us by our totem followed by the gift of a chicken from her coop cooked over the fire in her kitchen.

It meant sharing a room with all my sisters, cooking big meals for many people, an abundance of fruit from orchards in the Eastern Highlands, selling maize on the farm, creating variety shows to entertain each other in the absence of television, long walks in tall grass and my father asking us in the morning if we heard the rain during the night on Christmas Eve.

Later, abroad at university it meant cold weather, possibly snow, unending Christmas anthems in stores decorated to the hilt with glitter and glitz.

It meant wondering if it was worth it to return home for the short holiday, tinny sounding Christmas cheer in pubs and bars, sharing a bottle of sherry with flat-mates after mince pies and maybe a roast chicken dinner and sometimes feeling like an orphan despite the desperately cheerful phone calls back home to wish everyone a merry Christmas.

Christmas meant angst over what presents to buy for others and excitement at the thought of what gifts were coming my way, also some internal coaching on how to act grateful for every present even if it was the last thing on earth you would want.

Coming from a big and very diverse family the thought of Christmas presents buying became something born in a nightmare, especially in Zimbabwe where variety was not always available.

Eventually, buying gifts became so stressful that as a family we agreed we would only do it for the children and even then, would it be something worthwhile?

Sometimes we ended up buying things just to have bought something and not because we knew that person particularly wanted it or would get joy or good use out of it.

I confess, I don’t remember many of the gifts I have received over the years, but I do recall the dread with which I approached the prospect of shopping for gifts.

It was a relief not to have spent the weeks before Christmas scouring around in my head for gift ideas that would not just be something to give for the sake of it, but that would be meaningful, useful and truly appreciated.

Funny enough, I have one abiding memory of a gift I was given at some point in my childhood and I suspect it may have been given sometime during the season of Christmas, but not necessarily as a Christmas present.

And there you have it, a classic case of ignoring the present in favour of endless hours of fascination with the empty box in which it came — I don’t remember many of the Christmas presents I received over the years but I remember this one perfectly un-Christmas-present-like gift.

It was the most exciting and fascinating thing.

A gardening hoe.

Not just any hoe, but one made especially for me.

It was exactly the right size for somebody of about six or seven years of age and made entirely of iron.

It wasn’t pretty.

It wasn’t even particularly well finessed.

I loved it.

It was a thing of absolute beauty simply because it was mine.

When I first got it I would go and sneak peeks at it where it was safely stored in the laundry room with other gardening implements.

I couldn’t believe it.

My very own hoe with which to till the land and plant the seeds the way I saw my mother doing.

No more standing on the sidelines picking flowers and moulding mud cakes.

I would be part of the important business in the field.

At the farm, while my older siblings were walking the furrows in the fields, picking cotton in the hot sun or spreading fertiliser in the itchy maize, my job was to stand with my father and watch, while asking a million questions, all the time wishing I could also be in the mix.

The other thing required of me was to run back and forth to the house to refill bottles of water for the thirsty workers.

In retrospect I realise now how lucky I was to have escaped the labour by virtue of my age.

Also being the child I was, I begin to believe that had I been let loose in the field my parents would have found themselves with a lot more to deal with than searching for errant teenagers who had snuck off to take a nap somewhere in the tall stalks of maize.

Needless to say, this hoe caused a lot trouble.

I could not be made to do anything for the sheer excitement of knowing there was that implement out there waiting for my small hands to lift it and bring it down with purpose into clods of soil.

The chance finally came when we went to visit my grandmother.

I went with my mother and some cousins.

The first day I got to use my hoe I remember the walk to the field behind my grandmother’s house, passing the lemon trees, then the mango grove, past the prickly pears blushing under their spikes along the path where we walked in single file, my hoe in hand, ready to finally get to work.

I don’t remember the rest of the day at all.

In fact I suspect that I discovered it was not so much fun after all after the first few minutes and spent the rest of the time playing on the sidelines as usual.

What I do recall is that long after returning from the fields, all washed up and clean, sitting in my grandmother’s kitchen, I remembered that I had left my precious hoe out in the field.

It was a disaster of immeasurable proportion and needed to be rectified immediately.

No I could not be still, I could not wait, I could not first eat or find my shoes first.

If I left it out there a minute longer anything could happen to it.

It could very well disappear into thin air.

No I don’t know where my shoes are and I don’t have time to look for them I must go now, not one second later, it will be fine, I’ll be right back, nothing would bite me as I would be very quick.

No reason could reach me, no fear could dissuade me.

Off I went.

Within the first five steps away from the kitchen, something bit me on my foot.

I screamed as if I had been mortally wounded and went running into the arms of a cousin — everyone had rushed from wherever they were in a great panic.

The pain was enough to convince me I was dying and I made sure everyone else believed it too, of course until they realised I wasn’t.

The insect that bit me was found.

In my memory, they put it in a shovel, burnt it, ground it and used its ashes as antidote, rubbing it into the side of my foot where I had been bitten.

It seems, for many years I had the zig zag scarring along the side of my foot to remind me that sometimes my mother is right when she tells me to put shoes on because there are things outside that bite.

And I have this story, always, to remind me that in the face of ever evolving electronics, ever dynamic trends and upwardly mobile expectations, happy memories and good advice make the best gifts.