What story your hidden essentials tell about you

Fadzayi Maposah Correspondent

Have you ever walked into a room and you quickly picked a pleasant fragrance but could not exactly pin point what the scent was or where it came from?

At times you can then ask other people in the room where the scent came from.

Then when one is told what the scent is, either he or she quickly says “yes” meaning that the question that was ringing in the head has been answered and that the response came as confirmation.

It could be “Oh is that so?” This means that one had no idea what the scent was and it has been part of a learning curve. That is the pleasant side of making use of your nose….

Have you ever walked into a room and you quickly pick a not so pleasant smell and yet you cannot say what it really is? The words with question marks in your mind could be socks, shoes or laundry that did not dry properly?

A long time ago when most adults were a lot firmer than they are today, it was common for parents or guardians to get into a room, pick a strange smell for lack of better words.

These adults would then start looking for whatever was causing the strange smell. They would literary ransack the whole room! What would then follow is the adult looking for the one who occupies the room together with the piece of evidence of where the smell originated from.

Back then the adults, most of them anyway did not seem to care in whose company you were in. They would simply dangle the evidence in your face! I am sure if one tries that today, they would face a lot of tantrums and much door slamming.

Is there something that people of my generation and the ones before ate that we are not including in “Ama2000’s” diets these days? I will admit that we threw tantrums (just occasionally).

We threw the tantrums in the absence of adults. It could have affected us in terms of mental health well-being. I am not sure but I will make an effort to find out.

The adults specifically parents and guardians could be in your bedroom whenever they wanted something from that room. Actually in most instances you were not allowed to say “my” room.

It was shared communal space and there were limits in terms of what you could actually do in the environs of that room. Everything that you had creative energy in terms of what to do with that space had to be approved. Anyway I digress.

Do you know that there are people who actually stash underwear?

Stashing is what my aunt Bongani and I used to do when we were adolescents when we stayed in the rural areas of Rockford.

We used to take indigenous fruits (tsubvu) from the tree before they were ripe and find a hiding place for them to ripen.

Then we would check on our loot very often, giving one another one or two to taste.

Now when it comes to stashing underwear, one has a hiding place like aunt Bongani and I but as we all know undergarments do not ripen so why do people do this?

The versions I have heard are varied. One reason is that one will just wash the underwear at once and hang them to dry properly with two or three clothes pegs apiece! Now with the rainy season upon us, this may not be an easy feat.

The other reason is because one has many pieces of underwear so there is no need to wash until either they are wearing the last one or there is one left where ever they keep them.

My maternal grandmother MaSibanda used to take us to bath by the river. When I hear people say Tokwe, I am sure that is the river we used to call Tugwi….Anyway, she did not allow us to bath in the river.

She would draw water from the river into the metal dishes then we would take baths by the shrubs nearby.

Nobody would bath until they had washed their underpants. When it was dripping on a tree branch, one could start bathing.

Gogo would take the metal dishes and load them on her head. As she packed the dishes we would make our underpants head coverings. As we walked home, the underpants would be drying in the hot sun! When we got close to the homestead, these underpants would be put in a dish for hanging out to dry later. As soon as we got home we would wear clean and dry underpants.

What I really do not understand is how someone can bath and not wash their underpants. The other group of people, do not stash underpants. They wear dirty underpants after bathing! It is not that they do not have soap or water, they just cannot be bothered.

Some people do not just get it do they? How can you bath only to wear dirty and sweaty underpants? These individuals have no respect for their private parts?

Failing to take care of their bodies if you ask me. Add to that a sanitary pad that has been in place for just too long. Hmmm. Deadly combination for the noses that will be exposed to such.

That is what I kept thinking when one fellow passenger who had had more than his share of alcoholic drinks kept asking as the commuter omnibus sped away: “Driver kuti muno makafira gonzo” meaning driver could there be a dead rat in here. No one answered him and he kept asking until he got off.

When he jumped off he had a few words as passengers trooped in to fill spaces: Driver, it should be the smell of people who do not bath or who wear dirty underwear). Drunk he was, but he was not the source of that rat smell because even after his departure the “strange smell” prevailed….

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