It's been a hectic three days. I was failing to sleep at night and to make things worse,
I have been doing all my chores and even working on other people's chores, just so
as to stop my mind from over working.
It's early in the morning, on my forth day and still my mind is playing tricks on me,
so I decide to do something other than cooking, which Shamiso and Rumbidzai can
handle. I put on my red overalls and a head wrap. I go and collect my grandfather's
tool box and I invest my time, into trying to resuscitate his old tractor. This tractor
has been in the garage for three years. Sekuru (grandfather) never bothered to get it
fixed, so I embark on a journey to try and fix it.
I spend hours trying to fix it. I don't go for breakfast as my appetite seems a bit wan.
"Eey! Let's cut the madness. Come and eat." Shamiso says to me.
"I don't feel like eating anything right now, maybe later." I respond dismissingly.
"Come on, you haven't eaten the whole day. Its three thirty right now and you haven't
had anything solid to eat. Now let's go." She says as she pulls me out of the garage.
Protesting would be an absolute waste of time so I just follow behind her as if I am a
little girl and when we reach the kitchen, Shamiso puts the plate of rice in front of
me, pours herself a cup of rice and sits opposite me, her elbows balanced on the
table, her hands carrying a cup of tea.
"Don't you dare, tell me that everything is alright because it's not. Now tell me, what's
wrong? And it's definitely something from that phone call" she says.
"Well, yes it's something to do with the phone call, but this is greater than the words
that were spoken." I respond.
"And what is that supposed to mean?" Shamiso asks, her fore head creasing in
question.
"I wish I could tell you. I really wish it was as easy as me, opening my mouth and
spilling it out but it's not. But I promise to tell you when everything is in place. It's
not something that could kill me, so you have absolutely nothing to be worried
about." I respond.
"You are very quick to defend issues, but from what I am gathering, there is more to
this issue than what you are telling me. I mean, it was able to mutilate your big
appetite. That's usually an almost impossible" Shamiso says.
"Yeah, it sounds and looks big but it's nothing that I can't shove aside and move on.
Trust me on this one okay." I say to her.
"That's if you insist." Shamiso says hesitantly.
"Thank you for being so understanding. This is why I love you so much. If I was
drunk, I would have given you one big kiss." I say to her as I take her hand into mine.
Shamiso knows when to stop, when to ask, when to criticize and when to be the
pillar. She is the color in my world. Well, she is a different color from Simangaliso
and Arnold but she sure makes a notable difference.
"This is the problem with you Maria, you just want to joke around with everything.
Even serious situations. You should have been an actor. You would have fitted quiet
well." Shamiso teases, her corner smile that is too akin to that of Arnold's, raising
from the corners of the mouth and eventually, it's a fully bloomed smiled, her
beautiful front teeth exposed. In no time, her girly laughter erupts in the room.
Adorable if you ask me. The problem about this particular action is that it causes me
to join in. the temptation always over powers me.
After I finish eating, she calls me to our bedroom, where she is to show me certain
dress from a friend of hers. I sit on the bed awaiting her to finish her searching. I
have been sitting on this bed for barely five minutes and already my eyes are feeling
heavy. Shamiso turns to face me.
"And she is falling asleep. It was intentionally you needed the rest. I noticed that for
the past three days, you have been twisting and turning at night. Sleep evading you."
she says as she removes my shoes. This clever cousin of mine! She sedated me with
sleeping pills, I don't blame her though, I really needed to rest and cool my over
thinking mind…..
I woke up the next day, early in the morning and I really felt much better than the
previous. I took a hot bath, got down to preparing the breakfast and as I was still
preparing breakfast, Miriam walks into the kitchen dressed in her nightdress, m
morning shoes, a wrapper and a doek.
"Good morning." She says as she sits down.
"Morning how are you?" I ask.
"I am fine." She says and there is a deep void silence. The both of us are out of words
to talk about.
"So you are planning to ignore me forever?" she questions after a brief pause.
"I am not ignoring anyone, the thing is I just run out of words to say. Nothing
personal. Maybe it's caused by the fact that I stay alone and I find absolutely no need
to speak. I speak when spoken to." I respond.
"I would have believed that statement if I didn't know better. Maria, I have seen how
much you speak to everyone else, especially Arnold, Tariro, Shamiso and Rumbidzai,
but when it comes to me, it seems like you would have swallowed your tongue.
Clearly you are ignoring me." Miriam responds.
"I am wise enough to know that I can't dodge you forever, so why would I do so? And
besides, you are family and I can't do that." I respond.
"You are no longer the woman I used to know. You have changed and believe me,
your transformation has been for the worst. I mean, you can easily lie without even
thinking about it." Miriam says.
"Look Miriam, I am a bit too busy for petty talk. Find time later when I am free so
that we can chit-chat. But I really doubt you will find that time because I am always
busy. Get something to occupy you and you will find absolutely no need to talk to
me, unless if it is necessary." I say and I walk out of the kitchen, carrying a set of
plates the ones that I will use when I am now serving the porridge.
I set the table, serve the porridge and I call everyone to come and have breakfast.
After breakfast, I wash the plates whilst Rumbidzai and Shamiso prepare tea. After
everything is done and set, we all settle down for some tea. Tea is always a heavy
meal in this house and in most cases, we have tea in a shade in the exterior, that's
if the weather is favorable like today. We usually us a long rectangular table and
everyone sits with their loved ones. We single mothers, usually sit with our children,
but Arnold has taken my boy and he is the one who is sitting with him, so I am sitting
with Shamiso and Joshua. Joshua is Shamiso's son and they have a very good
parent-child relationship.
After tea time, I then decide to slip away to the garage and get down to trying to fix
the tractor. It's always a task and a half to fix a machine but I love the challenge. I
work on the tractor for hours and when I am done, I put the parts back together and
start its engine. The engine roars as it wakens from its long slumber. I drive out of
the garage, wearing a proud smile. I did something that the men in the family could
not do for years. It makes me happy.
I drive the tractor to the fields where I till a small piece of land. I stop as soon as I
hear the men whistling. These idiots will trigger unnecessary attention. By the time
I am reach the gate that goes out of the fields, a small crowd of people has gathered
there to see the tractor. It's as if, I turned water into wine, yet I just played the
mechanic to an old tractor. From the crowd, I see my father. A proud smile plastered
on his aging face.
"I knew you had it in you. And today, you proved beyond doubt that you have the
gift in you. You surely are the mechanic's daughter." My father says, as I get off the
tractor.
This had been a great debate at home. My father always wanted to know who had
his gift of being able to fix cars. Arnold had proudly claimed to possess the gift and
he backed up his argument by saying, since the gift was from the masculine parent,
it would surely be inherited by the son. Since he was the only boy in the family and
in the society we lived in, we had never seen a female mechanic or ever heard of one,
we assumed he was right... But he had it all wrong, he had miscalculated everything.
I discovered this gift when I was in South Africa, during my university years. I had a
friend who had a brother who was very good with fixing cars, especially motor
mechanics. So, whenever we would visit my friend's home, I would always stray to
her brother's garage. He noticed that I was being fascinated by the way he
administers his work and so he started involving me in his job and that's when he
ignited my gift of motor mechanics.
After fixing the tractor, I return it to the garage, remove my dirty overalls and I wash
them. After that, I take a bath and change into a knee-high, black floral dress and I
go outside with the sole intention to read. Shamiso, Rumbidzai and I, sit under a
tree, talking about this and that, whilst listening to some music from the radio. In
front of us, at a distance, the children are playing with a paper ball.
They are playing a game that I really used to love, ever since I was a child. In Ndebele,
they usually called it 'Umamtshayana'. For some time, I watch the children playing,
in the process, awakening the sweet reminisces of my child word. I get up from where
I am sitting and I join the children. I ask to be alone in the game as the children
throw the ball. I play, till I quit and then I move to the younger children who are
playing yet another game of jumping a set of boxes drawn on the ground using a
stick. They use a flat stone. I play that game with them and after that I go and join
the older boys who are playing some soccer. I play until at last, I am exhausted
totally. I then go back to Shamiso and Rumbidzai who are laughing uncontrollably.
"Maria, you are now a mother. Cut the madness ad live up to that age. You are now
grown! What should the kids do if you run around like a young child with outrageous
sugar levels in their blood that is driving them nuts?" Shamiso says, causing me to
laugh.
"You guys, we are not getting any younger, so let's have some fun before we get old
and grumpy. We only live once, so let's smell the roses whilst we still can." I say to
them.
"We do have fun, only in an adult kind of way." Rumbidzai responds.
"Amen to that!" Shamiso responds.
"You guys are so boring. I can't believe you two have prematurely aged to such old
ladies. The next thing you will be wearing head scarfs and long skirts." I say to them.
"If it's the only way to show that we are grown up women who have had their fair
share of fun and pain, then so be it." Shamiso responds. We sit in silence for a few
minutes, everyone seemingly consumed in their novel, except for me. I really need to
do something fun. Something I haven't done in a long time, something interesting,
childish and crazy.....bingo!!!
"Ladies lets go swimming by the river" I say to them.
"Are you out of your mind? What do you want people to say if they see a bunch of
half-dressed grown women, swimming by the river like small children?" Shamiso
asks.
"It's not like we are going to display ourselves to every wondering eye. If you are
against the whole idea of swimming in the bra and underwear, then its fine, we will
swim in our clothes. It would be a hell lot fun to come back home in drenched
clothes." I say to them.
"Sisi Maria, where do you get all these crazy ideas?" Rumbidzai asks, as she giggles
uncontrollably.
"I am not sure what went wrong with this one. Did I sedate you with the correct drug?
Oh my, I might have given you something for the psychos." Shamiso says.
"And I will show you psycho today. Thanks for the idea" I say as I snatch their novels,
together with the radio and I race to the house. When I get to the house, I go to my
room, search for some shower caps, I put on one and then I race outside, connect
the hose pipe and I pull it to those idiots. I find them talking, their backs to the
direction I am coming from. From a distance, I spray them with water and they jump
in fright, standing up from the garden chairs.
"Welcome to CRAZY!!" I shout as I continue spraying them with water. I throw them
the shower caps and as soon as they wear them, they come rushing towards my
direction to snatch the house pipe from me. We fight for the hose pipe, until I let it
face upwards, spraying all three of us with water. This is how we used to do things
as children. Crazy if you ask me, but we all have to let loose at some point in time
and enjoy life.
"if I come up with a cold, I will kill you. I mean who wants to celebrate Christmas
with a cold?" Shamiso sulks, as the three of us are sitting at the kitchen table,
drinking some tea.
"Don't be pathetic, you can't have a cold for just washing yourself with cold water,
worse off, on such a hot day." I say.
"Point of correction, I did not wash with cold water, I was soaked with cold water."
Shamiso responds.
"But the bottom line is, as childish as it was, we all enjoyed ourselves. I haven't had
so much fun, in a long time." Rumbidzai says, accompanying her statement with a
girly giggle. These days, she is animated, she bubbles with life and laughter. Sweet
innocent girl laughter that I had never known she possessed. I bet Ngoni really learnt
a thing or two from our previous conversation
"We are yet to have more fun though. I want to make this time worthwhile." I respond.
"Don't kill us in the process of having fun. We have children to take care of and lives
to live." Shamiso says.
"All this is coming from a woman who once almost got me killed, from her endless
jokes. I choked on my tea and for a few seconds, I heard the angels singing." I say to
them, causing the two ladies to giggle uncontrollably. I really am making fun of that
day, but that tea almost claimed my life and today, here I am busy laughing yet the
same beverage that almost killed me, is sitting right in front of me. The beverage that
almost made my son an orphan prematurely...
Tomorrow is Christmas and thence the greatest cooking starts today. Others get
down to baking and then the others fix other meals that require a lot of time to
prepare. The kitchen is swarming with ladies and other men who can cook. Most of
the men deal with the meat and we ladies take care of the baking and cooking. Arnold
is busy with a camera, recording all the proceedings that are happening in the
kitchen. He has been doing this since he got a camera and to tell the truth, these are
always valuable memories to the family as a whole.
Shamiso and I usually favor baking as we get to fix the dour once and then get it
into the oven in phases and after that, we laze around, cups of tea held in our hands
and novels on the other hands. All we have to do is just to moderate the heat of the
oven and that's all. Though we are usually the last batch of people to go to bed as
our dishes take a much longer time to cook than all the others. What's really fun
about staying up late is that we get to drink some alcohol, diluted with either tea or
juice and of course we get to taste our confectioneries. If we were a little younger, we
would have baked some space-muffins. I crave some marijuana, but then I am grown
up so I can't be doing weed at this stage in life. I really miss being young and up to
no good.