Memories, The Village Sitcom (Part 1)

Memories: The Village Sitcom part 1 by Nyasha Musimwa

 

 

“Bongwi, Bo-ngwi, what the hell are you still doing at the kraal. Your water for bath is cooling!” barked our elder sister Shamiso, gesturing so that I could remove my underwear. With her help, I had managed to unbutton my shirt. I had to do it fast if not, more shouting coupled with heavy slaps that deafen my ears would follow.

 

“What is the hurry Shami! Bath, bath and bath each and everyday, am I aquatic like tilapia? I will bathe at my own time. This is none of your bloody business. I have told you many times. For that matter, today, I will not bath. If your are angry, go and hang yourself!” roared Bongwi, my elder brother who was in grade seven, six classes ahead of me.

 

Truly, gone were those days Shamiso could extend her hands on him. Bongwi’s response would then be a strange scream like a woman giving birth to a porcupine. Now Bongwi was a “man” as he proudly called himself.  He boastfully responded like a king giving his concubines orders. I really wanted to laugh but remembered in time that she would vent her anger on me.

 

“Boy, you don’t just stare at me as if I am a TV set. You ought to know what you are to do by this time. Do you hear me?”

 

 Her voice pierced through my ears like a dynamite blast. She grabbed my right hand and shoved me to the enormous flat stone that had served both as a place to dry cereals during harvest time and as a bath place for my family especially under the cover of darkness. From this stone, I perfected my art of crying.

 

If ever there was an interesting situational comedy in my village, the one of my sister giving me a bath was to take the first prize.  Neighbors would wait anxiously for their show each day. Like any other sitcom, it had it own dramatic and humorous moments. Those who knew that they were going to miss the next episode would gladly tell their fellow friends to record every action that was to happen. If poverty was not the anthem of my village, maybe my neighbors were going to record everything on their digital video cameras and watch it on their flat screens. After that, they would spice their words to produce a powerful narrative of how wild my sister had become. Human beings in their desire to seek and find the cause and remedy to each and every problem, makes them the craziest animals on earth. Freely some women dispensed advice to my mother to seek the help of a witchdoctor who would try to soften the “spirit” that they believed haunted Shamiso. Unfortunately, Mother did not buy their advice. Her words were; “Spirits have anything to do with my daughter As she is the only girl and at the same time the eldest among my boys.  She is trying to express some authority. It will soon pass with time.” Such words made some of them to think and conclude that Mother was also possessed with the same spirit.  Thus why as they say she was not in the position to see what they were seeing.  As I struggled with my pant which was fast becoming small for my body, I recalled the eavedrop I did some two weeks that had passed.

 

“MaMoyo,  Let me tell you!” said Mai Brian whose belly was reporting another life that was on its way although she was still breastfeeding Pipo her ninth child.

 

“Eeh, vasikana, what is it?” asked the ever-giggling MaMoyo. 

 

The two best friends had arrived at the well in their best moods. They had not noticed that I was in at the top of the fig tree inspecting my birds’ traps that I had set the day before. My military like tracksuit camouflaging well with the tree’s evergreen leaves made my presence unnoticable.  I was right above them. They didn’t dare to look up. If they had done that, they were going to spot me.

 

“Shamiso, Shamiso, the strange stupid girl whose mother like her is but strange. Like mother like daughter, believe me. Wild girl, if she were mine, Lord have mercy! Heaven was not going to stop me from skinning the devil out of her. I place my bet, this creature is not going to get married with her wildness,” said Mai Brian spiting on the ground cursing my sister before she went vomiting her hatred for my sister.

 

“MaMoyo, that sixteen year old girl is a devil. Her temper is too much. I wonder how she relates with other form twos at St Blessed Virgin Martha. When she is at home she slashes her younger brother as if he were a lizard that has fallen on her lover’s lap. One day she is going to kill him.”

 

The two friends adjusted their kangas and helped each other to balance their clay pots on their heads. As they head back to the village, from my vantage point,  their stories I still followed.

 

“Eunice!” whispered Mai Brian who often liked to use her friend’s first name. 

 

She continued; 

“If this wild Shamiso gets married or does something worth mentioning, let my right hand wither.  The witchdoctor I visited last weekend told me the naked truth…!”

 

“What truth? Tell me then. You know I am your best friend. I can’t betray you.” MaMoyo had cut short her listen ability. Her friend had been talking since they had arrived and left the well.

 

“Sekuru Godobori, told me that the girl is not going to be married, come what may. To prove it, he gave me some charms that are going to prove him right. Among my fifteen Sekurus , it is  Sekuru Godobori I rate the best. He cannot lie to me,” said Mai Brian scratching her buttock whose irritation she failed to hide.

 

 As they moved closer to the village their voices became faint. From their conversation I gathered how some people in our village were not resting in a bid to meddle in what is going on in other people’s compounds.  It shocked me to learn that Mai Brian who was a close relative could look for charms that she believed could worsen my sister’s behaviour. Her idea was to see our sister a curse in the village. She wanted her life to be a poor man’s song.

 

Most of what happened during my bath sessions were stories I kept for myself.  Sometimes I would report to Mother what had happened whilst she was at her vegetable stall in market. In most cases she would be too tired to listen to everything. I also discovered that my reporting became a source of more beatings the following day.  What I did was to learn and bear my suffering silently.  Each and every bath my sister was giving me was accompanied by insults and beatings. What really made me sad was the fact that she was not concerned whether the bath water was cold or very hot. She was not concerned if I was sick or not or whether I needed a bathe or not.  Above all, her hands were unkind and rough.  They were like the surface of our rough dung kitchen floor. Whenever she scrubbed my back, her unfriendly hands would leave their undear prints. Many a times I would bleed. All this made each and every 5:30pm unbearable for me.  As for my fellow villagers, it was an amusement of the highest order. The kind they wished not to miss.

 

“Boy, I say stretch your arm. I want to rub the soap under your armpits. Are you getting me boy!” She screamed raising her hand; ready to give me what she termed; “Action Stimulant.”

 

Immediately, I had to do it forgetting the bruises I got from the afternoon’s mock wresting with Chipani. She had seen the bruises but reserved her comments. For her they were not anything worthy to avoid. Merciless she ran into it with soap filled sponge.

 

“Ouch, Sissy Shami, you are hurting me!”

 

 Tears that had loaded my eyelids since the beginning of my bathing ordeal streamed down my cheeks like two dam openings after massive downpour.

 

“Boy, don’t give me lessons on how to bath a pig like you. Boy, I can easily lose my wires and descend upon you like hell. Do you understand”

 

I received the expected slap on my naked back. This managed to send me down onto my two little buttocks. As I tried to stand, two strong ones were added on my head. As for the last one, I saw it descending like the mist on Mount Kilimanjalo. Skillfully I had to employ my dodging tactics. Unfortunately, I missed the edge of the stone that I was standing upon and I landed on the mud. On the other hand, Shamiso who had thrown her whole strength on the blow I had tactfully avoided went straight into the basin splashing the water as if a professional diver had just made a great dive of the century. I knew that I had provoked bee in their hive. I had to face the wrath. From her forehead ridges were forming. The kind I saw on Mike Tyson during his fights on T.V. She stood up. Arms akimbo, she declared;

 

“Boy, now you can dodge me like that. Boy, discipline can’t be dodged. Boy, after doing something wrong to your sister what are you supposed to say?”

 

 

“I AM SORRY,” came my reply as I climbed back on the stone.

 

The commotion was as expected, the awaited attraction for our neighbors. They were now each on strategic position not to miss an inch of the action. Short ones were standing of top of stools or chair. Those, whose sight could not take them far, found space between the leaves of the hibiscus that surrounded our compound.  Among the spectators was Tracy who had come in our village to stay with her Aunty. Her story has it that both her parents had kicked in a car accident.  Being age mates we attended preschool and finished together. Now we were in grade one. Although, she was young, Tracy was wise than most of her ages mates.  This made us to be so close. Many a times she had expressed her bitterness at my tribulation. This particular episode was too much for her.

 

“Shamiso, why do you always beat your own brother like that? I hate you, I hate you.”

 

A wild roar of excited audience greeted her protest. It gave others chance to add more syllables to the drama.

 

“He is now old enough, why can’t you leave him to bath himself. You just enjoy treating your mother’s son like an orphan,” said a female voice I could not recognize.

 

“Leave her like that. The boy will take revenge one day. She used to do that to me but I had to employ the David like heroism and disciplined her with a vollies of stones from the valley.” I knew it was Bongwi. He had to give his own version of how he overcame her beatings. It was his nature not to care. He was heading and chesting the paper ball he had made the previous week.

 

Truly, I wanted to try the same bravery but I was too weak to think of it. My arms were not strong enough to venture into the stone throwing drill. Above all, the stones were a distance from where I was standing. As she stood staring at the half empty dish of water, I could feel her temper and temperature rising above sea level.  Her hand was shaking like a reed in the fast waters of the Nile. Shamiso was biting her lower lip. Her eyes were bloodshot like a bull sharpening its horns on an anthill in preparation for a fight.

“Boy, see you have managed to pull a bigger audience today. Some of which are barked like silly dogs at a low hanging cloud. Boy you need to tell me, are you the one who had sent this silly little Tracy to say what she said?”

 

“No sissy Shami.” I declared my innocence and proceeded;

 

“She is just…” I quickly tasted my words before I uttered them. I wanted to say that she was just concerned. This I knew was likely not to be taken kindly. If I had said it, a couple of slaps would have rained on me.

 

“She is just what?  Boy, finish. Do you know that I can just screw her the way you are used to?” I had to employ silence. Grandma   had taught me a great lesson. I had come to value it.  Shamiso continued with her fury as she cleaned my back that was now tinted with mud. Her right hand moved every part of my body as if she was scrubbing a floor that had taken years to be cleared. Where it was sacred for her to touch, she demanded that I do it myself. She turned her back towards whilst I cleaned. When I had finished, I echoed;

 

“Sissy, I have finished!”

 

With anger boiling inside my chest, I visualized years to come when I would take my own bath. Of course, I would take it slowly enjoying each and every moment of it. Nobody would shout or threaten me.  I envied my brother who had graduated into manhood and was taking his own bath without beatings. Bongwi who possessed a special gift as far as bathing was concerned. I used to see this whenever I would accompany him to River Marekito for bathing. Upon reaching, he would remove his clothing in a split of a second and dive in the cool still water. For some minutes he would remain underwater only to emerge when I would be about to cry for help.  I loved the way he swam.  He sliced the water artistically like a duckling.  He never showed any sign of weariness. I believed that my elder brother was a fish.

 

“Stand up straight. Otherwise I will give you a take away,” Shamiso’s voice cut through my reverie. After that she started wiping my head with the towel mom had bought the previous summer as my birthday gift. It was the last phase of my suffering. Immediately, I sensed that my bladder had to release what it carried. I don’t know why it had to happen that time as she was still wiping. But nature has it, no doubt about that. It had to take it course. I had no control over it. Does anyone have? I tired to control but the results are nothing but frustrating.  The harder I tried to control it, the more difficult it seemed to be tamed. Thus, I found myself urinating right on her back as she bowed wiping my feet.

 

“Boy, boy, boy…! What is this? Boy there are some jokes I tolerate. But this one I can’t!” She furiously grabbed my hand. I had no time to dash for my own safety.

 

“I am sorry sissy Shamiso. I am sorry! It just came on its own.” I cried thinking that she would take my pleas into consideration. It was a waste of time. She could not. That’s why couldn’t excel Mother in kindness and tolerance.

 

“What do you mean; it just came on its own. So you think I am a toilet to receive your waste just like that. Am I your wife to touch your urine? Boy lessons I will always give you without me getting tired. Your children’s children will remember it, I tell you.  Let your fans gather once more for a late show.” Anger and intolerance were already paraded on her tiny face. There was no going back. I knew it. Her shouting and the first slap was enough to call back the villagers who had retreated to their various shade thinking that the episode of the day had ended. They were now rushing to their position to capture another edition unfolding.

 

Shamiso never failed to fulfill her words as far as beatings were concerned. A lesson which she as the teacher had prepared, I was now receiving. Within seconds, I was once again on the mud. A double kick had sent me diving like an acrobat. Two slaps on both cheeks made me to see stars even though it was still 5:49pm. I landed on my buttocks again. I felt greater pain than the previous one.  As I was trying to crawl out of danger, I received four strokes from the towel that she had put in water. Each stroke landed on my bare back like lightning.  I felt it piercing through my flesh like a sword of the Arab knights. I wailed as if the thirteen devils were after me. My sister was still raising the wet towel waiting to give me another stroke on her favorite place, my back. I managed to slip through her legs and made straight the concrete pebbles Mom had collected for the foundation of the new hut she was intending to build. Armed to the teeth, I challenged for a fight.

 

“Shami, Shami, come now. I will to stone you to death. I want to kill you. I WANT TO KILL YOU!” Tears streamed uncontrollably down my cheeks like rivulets competing to reach the Indian Ocean. The audience this time was on my side not apathetic as before.  I could see them smiling and urging me to show my manhood.  Some were waving their smelling rags cheering as if it was their favorite soccer team leading five goals to one against their opponent. From them came all sorts of words I could not comprehend at once.

 

“Poor boy! Boy, I will finish you. You think I am afraid of those small stones?” She declared advancing fearlessly like a lioness.

 

 Fighting my fear, bravely I sent a dozen volleys of stones. A few she dodged but those that got hurt her and refueled her murderous thirst for revenge. One hit her some few inches from her left eye, left a mark that she still bear to this day. I too, like the Germans in the World War Two, had hardened my heart. There was no looking back. This was not the climax of an episode many had never thought would take place. I think some among the crowd were betting to see who was going to give in Shamiso or myself. They were interested in the fight.

 

It came as unexpectedly. I had not expected that the fight was going to end so abruptly. That was the voice of uncle Tichafa whose visit nobody expected.

 

“Hello, Hello, are they’re any living creature on this compound?”

 

 He had to shout from the east gate to our compound.  From the corner of our house, I could see him coming. He was carrying his brown briefcase. Casting   his eyes on the pebbles I was holding and a crowd of spectators, he sensed that something was amiss. As soon as the uninvited audience saw him, they shyly left their slunk away. Among them, Bongwi who had distanced himself and turned into an inside non-participant came humbly like a dog that its master had caught about to kill a chicken.

 

“Bongwi and Shamiso, may I know what is happening. What are all these people doing behind the hibiscuses?”

 

We knew uncle Tichafa as a serious soldier. He had no time to joke if ever he asked for an explanation. Bongwi was the one who answered. Briefly, he narrated how Shamiso had first slapped me and the fracus that had followed. As anti climax, he advised us not to fight again. That night after mother had arrived from the Market, we all knew what had made him pay such an unexpected visit. He was to take Shamiso to live with her.

 

“Uncle, how long are you going to stay with her? Will she come for holidays?”

 

I really wanted to know. I felt that if she could be away from home, I would regain happiness. I knew that Mother would go ahead with her earlier plan of employing a house help.  A house help would be better than Shamiso, I did believe.

 

“Uncle, I think this is good for Shamiso,” declared Bongwi who seemed to share the same sentiments. From the corner of my eyes I could see Mom nodding as if all of her problems were solved at once.

 

On a warm April Saturday afternoon, ten years down the line, I was now a big boy in Form Three.  Bongwi was struggling with Agronomy in the Technical College he had taken regardless of Mother’s passionate pleas. Our sister Shamiso came home accompanied by a group of ladies in white and gray. She wore a dress similar to them. Her name was now Sr Stephania of the Sacred Name of Jesus.  Though I was told that she had joined religious life, I thought she would not go far in the life.  Seeing her, I nearly laughed. She like was a cartoon drawn by my favorite cartoonist. I glanced at her; the dark spot was still there but all over her face, I saw a new radiance of maturity and tenderness that surprised me. I plunged into her now sisterly arms. She smiled and hugged me tenderly. Mom, who had been knitting some gloves for me, had missed several of her stitches. Her Shamiso for sure had taken freely the chastity belt. It was to our utter gladness that she shed streams of warm tears as her nature demanded. In the mean time our once eager audience started swelling into our compound. Word of Shamiso’s return as “The Nun” had traveled like a veldfire fanned by a furious wind.  Two goats were slaughtered. As celebration was the only action we could treat our eager neighbors. Out of curiosity, I looked for Mai Brian and MaMoyo. They were absent.                                                                          

 

 

 

 

1.     Vasikana- Girls

2.     Sekurus- Witchdotors.

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