The Ten Rules I Grew Up With, An African Love Story

Today, once again, I will be writing about home. Not the home where I live in but the home I came from. I grew up in Bulawayo, in Southern Zimbabwe. It's a city where I spent the first eighteen years of my life (back then my main aim was to leave) but it's a city that shaped me and whose very texture I miss. But more than the city and my friends, I miss my homes. And no, that is not a typo (see Rule 6), as an African, every home where a relative lived was my home. That's just how things were. Those were the rules and here are the top ten (in no particular order):

"A city whose very texture I miss"
Jacaranda's in Bulawayo (c) Frankie Kay https://frankiekayfotos.wordpress.com/

10. Elders are to be respected

End of story. There was no if, and or but about it.



9. Money does not grow on trees

This is a statement that was hammered into my head time and time again, my parents, uncles and aunts repeated it ad nauseam.

"Stop wasting water as if money grows on trees." 

"Why did you leave the lights on? Money doesn't grow on trees."

" Why is the Mazoe finishing so fast, do you think Spar gives them out for free eh? Money doesn't grow on trees!"

Growing up, one never quite understands the implication of all those rebukes and the place they were coming from but now as a working adult and with bank statements, tax declarations and bills pouring through my postal box like water, I now (quite sadly) understand. And living in Europe, where people do live as if money (and resources) grow on trees, I am grateful for the lesson.



8. There is no such thing as sleeping in

When I was in Algeria for university one of the (guilty) pleasures of life that I discovered was waking up at midday on a weekend. I would like to say that this was a rare occurrence but I have enough sins on my plate let me not add lying to the list. (In my defence though, once you live through 45° Celsius summers you won't be snickering so hard at me will you?) The joy of knowing it was a Saturday and that there was absolutely nothing to do was glorious and I would open one eye early in the morning, acknowledge the world existed and go back to sleep.

Why was slothful submission to sleep this glorious you ask? Because growing up, there was no such thing as a weekend. My mother would come and knock loudly on my door if I slept too late and if she didn't hear the patter of feet in a few seconds she would burst into the room and draw the curtains, sunlight streaming into the room like an uninvited guest at an African wedding. Any notion of sleeping a few more minutes would die there and there because my bedroom faced the East and the full glory of the day would blind me momentarily and chase sleep away. My mother would stand there to meet any complaints, "Ah, when I was growing up, we would be up long before the sun had finished charging its batteries, and here you are complaining in bed at 9am. Mxm. Vila voxo!"



7. You know nothing John Snow!

Fans of Game of Thrones and those raised in African households will know what I am talking about. The formulation is simple: as an African child growing up in an African household any complaints on why things were as they were would be met with the phrase: "ah, you know nothing shame. When I was growing up..."

Complaints about why we had to take the bus to school when the other children had cars: "you know nothing, when I was growing up we used to walk ten kilometres to school and we would arrive fresh and ready to learn." 

Complaints about why ZESA was gone: "ah when I was growing up, we had candles and gas lights to study with and when night fell it was time to sleep vele. If only you knew."

Complaints about being bored and having nothing to do: "hehe if only you knew. When I was a boy I would be woken before dawn to go and herd the cattle and only be back home after the sun had set. Children of today shame!"

Complaints about going to the rural areas for holiday: "you know nothing you child of the City. This is where I grew up. This was my home"

Looking back I really do realise that I really did not know anything.

(c) HBO

6. Family comes first

Without going too deeply into the drama that is family (my mothers family is Sotho and they speak Sotho which I don't understand, my fathers is Ndebele but they all speak Shona and that's just touching the surface), there was one thing that came as naturally as breathing. It was a rule that was hardly spoken, it just was. Just as it is in Game of Thrones (forgive me, I am a geek and therefore a superfan), family is everything. My parents once lived in Europe before I was born and they told me about siblings who would book appointments before seeing each other and that would be once or twice a year (this apparently was Sweden in the eighties). To illustrate how different things were in my African household, we once drove to Gwanda where my aunt lived when I was around six or seven. There I met my cousin who was a year younger than me. When it was time to leave, I calmly told my parents that they could leave without me, I would take the bus and follow on Monday morning. And that is exactly what I did.

No invitations necessary, no deadlines or schedules to work around. I would spend weeks in Harare at my cousins, a month at my aunts in Beit-bridge and weekends with cousins in Bulawayo on the spur of the moment. Because that is what families do.

Family. Duty. Honour
(c) HBO

5. Gratitude is not optional

My name, Bongani, literally is an instruction to 'give thanks'. One does not just walk into an African household and eat food then rub ones belly in satisfaction. One claps their hands in gratitude and lists the clan names of the house before thanking them from the bottom of their hearts. And that is that.

One of the best stories from my cousins was when they ate then sat to watch TV as if nothing had happened. Their mother, my aunt, quietly gathered the plates went to the kitchen and cooked a fresh pot of sadza and stew and served them again. When she registered their apparent dismay she innocently mocked, "I didn't hear a thank you so I assumed you were still hungry. Now finish those plates." 



4. When we buy new things one does not remove the plastic cover until it is torn and begging to be removed

We all know the TV remote that stayed wrapped in its plastic until it had holes. And in an age where we all now regularly buy smartphones with the processing capabilities of a 1980's supercomputer then replace them when the screen cracks, this is just a beautiful extension of rule number 9. And an application of rule 7. We know nothing.



3. Friends should be chosen carefully

I would like to think I was not the only one who was subjected to a full FBI interrogation when I asked that a friend come and sleep over. Who are his parents? How long have you known this person? Where does he live? But of course once they met my friends they would be granted the seal of approval and our home was theirs.

I only came to understand why when I was leaving for Algeria. My mother, a woman I had never been apart from for more than three months at a time gave me this parting piece of advice: "choose your friends wisely. They will be many acquaintances in life and you can afford to have bad ones but one thing you cannot afford is a bad friend." 

Now, looking back, regret says; if only I had understood exactly what she meant.



2. I am because we are

In Ndebele we have a saying, umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu. It is part of the concept of Ubuntu. (And no, white people, it is not Ubhuntu, it is Ubuntu) Simply put it means 'a person Is because of other people.' Notice the capital 'I' in 'is', that again is not a typo: our raison d'être (the French have a beautiful way of expressing that capital I: raison d'être; the sole or ultimate purpose of something or someone) is not for ourselves but to change the world around us and to serve those around us. In some households it would be expressed as don't waste food, children are dying in that country I don't want to name whilst you are busy here wasting food. Certainly that was true in mine as well. But it was also in the small things, stubbing your toe and squealing with pain and everyone around you says sorry. In Europe when I say sorry to a friend who has hurt himself, they laugh at me and say but it wasn't your fault. Yes, I know but I feel your pain.

I Am because you are. It was being reminded to do whatever one could do for those less fortunate than oneself. It was weekends spent at a children's shelter with my Dad, watching my mother give her time and effort to whatever cause she felt could help. And slowly learning that I could do the same.



1. This is not a democracy, it is a constitutional monarchy

I remember watching some America reality show and seeing the children swearing at their parents. And when I say swearing, I mean screaming 'fuck you' at their mother. For those who were raised in African households this needs no further explanation. For those who were not, let me just say a little demon whispered in my mind, imagine that happening to you and the rest of my mind revolted in horror. Because we all know what is like in an African household (if you still don't know refer to rule 10). And we all know that any bambini unfortunate enough to whisper back at an African parent will know that day what is is like to visit hell.

"I'm beating you and you are crying? Hahaha manje you will know what it's like to cry."

[Five minutes later]

"I'm beating you and you are silent? You are a man now? Let's see who is the older one today!"



Zeroth Rule. There is nothing an African Household will not do for its own

This is an extension to rule 6. But more specifically aimed at the household rather than the extended family. In Ndebele we have a saying, indlovu ayisindwa ngumboko wayo.

Literally put, an elephant is not weighed down by its trunk.

Simply put: there is nothing I would not do for them.

And there is nothing they haven't done for me. 

We Are Not Lions...

I am as bewildered as the ordinary Zimbabwean as to why the death of what essentially was a big, wild cat has managed to unite the world in mourning. The excitement has risen to the extent of seeing my Twitter Timeline and Facebook homepage flooded with hashtags such as #cecilTheLion, #WalterPalmer and even, sacrilege of sacrileges, #jeSuisCecil. Demonstrations have been organised, petitions signed and Jimmy Kimmel was so moved by the events in Zimbabwe that led to Cecil’s death, that he shed tears on his show. In 24 hours alone, the hashtag #CecilTheLion racked up three quarters of a million tweets. Zimbabwean Twitter was soon alight with tweets of bewilderment and slight mirth as we watched this global display of grief over the death of one of our lions.

Honestly, shrink him a little bit and he's nothing more than a cat! A glorified cat!

The backlash was inevitable though; some Zimbabweans are now feeling slighted by the international media, who have thrust a dead lion, into the limelight ahead of what they feel are more deserving issues. Like the case of political activist Itai Dzamara who was kidnapped four months ago and is still missing or a government seemingly hell bent on digging now that the economy has reached rock bottom; issues like rocketing unemployment and an ever fragmenting ruling party facing off with a fractured opposition. But in the plethora of commentary both for and against Cecil The Lion, I find something deeply disturbing. In criticising Western Media for their focus on this story, Zimbabweans are silently overlooking our own silence on our own stories. 

Men and women on the far side of the planet have taken to their streets to protest for the rights of a lion they will never see. Yet in Zimbabwe itself, we have held our relative peace as nine thousand people have lost their jobs in two weeks according to President Robert Mugabe himself. We have looked and mocked each other on Twitter as we watched Mrs Mugabe essentially award herself a Doctorate from the country’s leading University, the #DrAmai hashtag trended for a few weeks but at the end of the day, we have let her keep her dubious degree. We watch as government bickers openly, Ministers are spied on and political parties fragment into more pieces than they are Christian churches and in all this we seem to have failed to bring as much attention to our own issues as outraged white Americans and ‘Western Media’ have bought onto the case of one dead lion.

One assumes Cecil is in Lion Heaven singing Hakuna Matata....

Our voices all over social media have never been as united as they have been in this weird pro/anti Cecil The Lion universe we have been thrust into. Our willingness to analyse the legality of extraditing Dr Palmer has never been as in depth as our analysis of Doctorates falling from heaven into the laps of ruling party members.  And even when our voices have reached levels matching the current brouhaha, action has not matched Western efforts over a dead lion. In one day Jimmy Kimmel has raised USD 150 000 for Cecil The Lion. This is not to negate nor ignore the tireless voices who have spoken out over the past decade, organisations and individuals alike, who have fought for Zimbabwe. But this is to question the many who have remained silent in the face of the few who have acted and spoken, risking livelihoods, lives and limbs.

 Part of it is due to the eternal optimism of Zimbabweans, what else has taken us through hyperinflation so terrible the government could no longer fit enough zeros onto the local currency before it collapsed? What else has taken us through almost a decade of electricity cuts, water cuts, understaffed and underequipped hospitals? Where the citizens of almost any other country in Africa would have long ago declared enough to be enough, we have simply held onto the belief that tomorrow is another day and maybe, just maybe, tomorrow will bring something better with it. The rest is fear. Fear of a repressive regime that rules in a country where opposition leaders get severely assaulted by the national police, where political activists disappear, where outspoken Catholic Archbishops like Pius Ncube are silenced with nationally broadcast ‘leaked’ sex tapes. 

But in failing to address the optimism that has led us nowhere nearer to regaining the glory of our yesterday nor face the fear that has bound us to inaction, Zimbabweans are demonstrating that as much as we might cry for this lion, this alpha male who was king of Hwange National Park, we leave our story, by default to be told for us by the ‘Western Media’ and foreigners who will always care for whatever their heart chooses to care about. And in failing to stand up for our own stories, speak out with our own voices, we fail to be fearless or brave or agents of change on the broken scene of our country’s landscape. We fail to be lions. 

Tywin of House Lannister: A True Lion

Remembering Home, Remembering You

I remember the sun peeking over the horizon as if it was scared of announcing a new day. But already the light of its glory has set the sky on fire and the day has begun. The rooster crows in agreement and I lie in bed, this feeling of deliciousness inside me. The joy at being alive, of being here, inhabiting this space, this time, being home. Outside, the dew covers the delicate fronds of grass and hangs from the rose petals, a delicate beauty dripping like diamonds from the soft pink of the buds.

I remember that beauty. Beauty of the garden I kept myself, worked every Saturday to water and mulch. I remember the stark blue of the sky in winter. Cloudless and stretching like the mind of God to the ends of the world as I lay in the grass watching it. Innocent. Guileless. Clueless. My world was limited to the borders of the city I had been born in, Bulawayo: the place of killing. I began each day as I always did; a bowl of porridge. On a good day, with a tablespoon of peanut butter and generous amounts of sugar. I never understood those who put butter in their porridge, I was always a peanut butter guy. I haven't had porridge in almost ten years.

I remember the avenues of Bulawayo lined with jacaranda's in October. That is the image most tourists have in their heads, the image that a quick Google search will give to you: streets covered in a carpet of purple, drops of perfume falling from the trees to the ground where they lay waiting to be squished by the wheels of cars or your feet as you passed by on your way to the shops to buy a loaf of steaming fresh bread from the Hot Bread Shop. But an image less know about is an image of the Flamboyants that bloom in early summer and explode in a red as deep as the eyes of the setting sun. Some are isolated trees, lost amongst the crows of the Jacaranda's, but some are armies that line Cecil Avenue on it's way to meet Hillside Road, standing guard over the narrow road like loyal red sentinels watching over you as you pass by.

"Loyal red sentinels watching over you as you pass by..."
(c) Mrs P. Wise

I remember my first high school. Nestled deep in the heart of Makokoba, its green solitary field, an emerald that I told myself would one day watch as I played soccer to the applause of a cheering crowd. That never happened. Instead I lost myself in the brown face brick buildings, discovering science and literature and a world I had never imagined existed. Hard working men and women showing up every morning to make sure one thousand children each got an education that would arm them for a life in a country that was beginning its slow decline into madness. But what did I know of that? For me life was scrunching up my noise on days when the sewage in Mazaye decided to smell and waft into our Maths class as we tried to concentrate hard on these things called variables. Or the smell of incense during mass at school that made me wonder if God smelt like that; mysterious, stuffy and holy.

I remember you. Remember the force of your being, the beauty of your soul. The way we laughed all day never once thinking that it would all end. Remember the way you and I walked through the streets of that City we both called home, looking for what it was we did not know. But perhaps it was just looking for the happiness of existing in each other's world, sharing the space that Universe had loaned us, given to us and whispered softly that she would take it back one day. But we never heard her did we? We walked carelessly past the white splendour that was City Hall, sat our buttocks on the hard pavements as we waited for our kombi to go home, the squalid beauty that was the flea market with old women selling tomatoes. The freshest tomatoes in the world they said, the most beautiful, juiciest and reddest of them all: all for just two dollars. Two dollars only. I would give every dollar I had to have those days back.

I remember Christmas. No, nothing like the spectacular December lights on the Champs Elysée in Paris. Nothing fancy that sparkled in the flash of tourist camera's and makes them catch their breath. More humble, more basic; static lights stretched over Gwanda Road, all the way past the greens of Centenary Park, in the shape of a fat Santa, reindeer and spelling out Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Or perhaps it was one of the Christmas' I spent in the village with my gogo, the smell of the manure that was used to create the hard floor of the huts fading more and more into the background as each day passed. I regret never having milked the cows, never having carried a bucket of creamy milk to gogo milked by my own hands and waiting for her to congratulate me in Sotho, a language that I still do not understand.

"I will be lucky enough to go and live out those memories waiting to happen..."
Source: RedJBishop

It's funny no? One regrets the things one never did. I don't regret the day I froze in front of the entire school when I was supposed to give a prayer. I don't regret the friends I made who would later leave me, the days I spent carved into the hard stone of my memory that I will pass my hands over till the day I die. Instead one regrets the roads untravelled, the sights unseen, the words unsaid said to you. But perhaps one day I will be lucky enough to go and live out those memories waiting to happen. Add them to my memories of a City that calls out to me in my dreams, whispers to me in my days and says only one word, a simple word that tugs on my heart with such force I fear it will break.

Home. 

And Then The King Fell

"Gogo tell me a story", Mandla piped up in the failing light. His voice piercing through the gathering darkness with all the innocence and insistence that only a seven year old has.

Gogo stirred from whatever depths of thought her mind had descended to. For a moment she seemed as if she hadn't heard the question, her face expressionless, a calm sea upon which a wave of laughter burst. She cackled for so long even Mandla began to worry that finally Gogo had finally lost the last of her wits as mama said she would. Mama did not really like this Gogo that much, Mama liked the Gogo who was her mother and not this one who was Baba's mother and spent her days wrapped in her silent thoughts. 

"You want a story do you?" Her voice was strong but breathy. The question hung in the air for a moment before she went on. "You want a story and I will tell you one, I will tell you a story of a King, powerful and royal. A King who mounted the world and thought the Sun revolved around his balls".
Mandla giggled, he liked it when Gogo was in this mood, he knew the story would be good. He stood up and went to snuggle against her, his eyes closed and very soon his whole world was Gogo's voice. Gogo's powerful voice weaving its threads through the darkness. 

"Once long ago, long long ago back when the stones were still soft and snakes had legs; long ago when Elephant's nose had not yet been stretched by Baboon and Cheetah had not painted with spots by Hare. Long ago in this very land lived a powerful King who ruled his country with a stone fist. His people were the saddest in the land and yet their lands overflew with maize and their rivers with gold. They could not speak because the King did not like anyone but himself to speak, for he thought his voice was the most amazing thing in the world. They could not think for the King felt that only his mind held anything of interest. And while his family were the fattest in the whole grasslands, their skin soft like that of the plum in summer and their hair black and shiny like the inside of a Mamba's mouth; his people starved, their stick-like figures standing like praying mantis' in the harsh glare of the light of day.

"while his family were the fattest in the whole grasslands..."

People came from far and wide to this land to trade gold with this King, and precious stones and maize. They came from the Northern lands where the sun shines all day and rests only for an hour before rising again. They came from the East where the jungles are so deep and dense demons live in the darkest corners of that land. They came from the West where they worship fish yet eat them more than anything else. They came to trade and the King and his family grew fatter and richer than all the lands that had come before and all the lands that were to come after. Or so they thought."

Here Gogo paused. The Sun had now set and the smokey interior of the hut was now completely dark. But she didn't motion to Mandla to look for the candles so he stayed snug and calm in her embrace.

"No one knew how it happened but those who served the King became blinded by his wealth. Perhpaps it was the sight of the gold that dripped from his body, or perhaps they were blinded by the gleaming rolls of fat that rolled off his fat belly. Some say it was the witches of the West who had been bribed by the King's diamonds who bewitched them but soon the entire land was bewitched."

Gogo's voice grew dark and heavy, punctuating the hut, reverberating against the mud walls and making Mandla grip tighter into her shawl.

"They grew crazy, worshipping the ground he walked on. What little food the people had, they gave to the already fat King to celebrate the day of his birth. One time in the middle of a drought, they slaughtered so many cows and goats, the waters of the River Nkawe turned red for seven full days and seven full nights. Even as the people slept under stars for lack of homes, the King built more and houses for him and his Family. While his people walked, the King used the gold of the land to buy horses from the strange lands of the North. While the children of the people went to sleep hungry, the King used the silver of the land to buy fish from the lands of the West; smoked fish, spiced fish, dried fish, fish aged for centuries in the ageless storerooms of the Western people and whose taste is said to be unrivalled by anything under the sun. Whenever he spoke, his Royal Servers would drop to the ground and thank the heavens for having been blessed with such Knowledge. Whenever he would deign to look at one of them they would freeze, afraid of upsetting the balance of the Universe if they made one wrong move in his presence. Very soon they began to call him not only their King but also their God". 

Gogo spat out that last word with such vehemence she began coughing. Her rough heaves felt painful to Mandla but he sensed a deeper pain in her. He clutched tighter to her side, afraid the King would materialise in the hut and bewitch him into thinking of him as a God. Gogo was silent for so long, Mandla feared she had fallen asleep. 

"What happened next Gogo?", his voice was now plaintive, "what happened to all of them". 

To Be Continued....