The Awakened Woman by Tererai Trent

Author:Tererai Trent
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria/Enliven Books

Forgiveness at the Heart of Your Belief

One important way to grow your soul rather than your ego is to practice forgiveness, to place forgiveness at the heart of your belief. I was only nine years old when I learned the power of forgiveness from my mother, when she showed me by her actions how freeing your heart from bitterness empowers you to transcend the gnawing of the Little Hunger in favor of seeking the sacred.

When I was nine, my father disappeared without a trace. My mother could not imagine him joining the freedom fighters, and in any event, he was too old to walk the long distance to Mozambique for training. She thinks he might have gone in search of a job at a nearby tobacco farm. We suspect this is not something he would be proud of, and worse, it would place the whole family at risk of being killed if his work status became known. The freedom fighters would consider him a traitor, the punishment for which is terrible to imagine, while the Rhodesian soldiers might torture my mother to death if they suspect her husband has joined the freedom fighters.

As the war for Rhodesian independence intensified, so also did poverty and anxiety. Few of the villagers had the means to sustain their families, and worse, we begin to hear of increasing random acts of atrocious violence. There are almost too many horrible stories to tell: of women being gang-raped and tortured by Rhodesian soldiers, and from distant communities, we hear that soldiers raped young girls and poured hot porridge into the vaginas of older women who refused to reveal the identity of the nonfamily members who last had supper with them.

Not long after my father’s disappearance, it is our turn to buy hiking boots for the freedom fighters. It falls upon my mother to find the money to fulfill this obligation, and because she hopes to squash any rumors about my father’s relocation, she also decides that we must find him.

Early one morning, my mother, sister, and I leave the village under the pretense that Tariro is sick with malaria and must go to the hospital in Karoi. Playing the part of a sick child is easy for my sister because she is not as talkative as I am. A half-empty bus arrives at our terminal. While we are excited about the ride, no one talks. Fear is written on the faces of the bus driver and conductor.

The driver’s eyes dart back and forth as he orders the conductor to get people onto the bus as quickly as possible. The conductor warns us to refrain from eating guavas or drinking water, as it is risky to make pit stops. Unfortunately, this also means that we cannot eat mutakura (boiled maize mixed with bambara nuts), which our mother has prepared for the journey. Because eating mutakura makes one very thirsty, our mother hides the food.

Halfway to our destination, a dozen men with machine guns block the road. Pointing their AK-47s at the bus driver, they order everyone off the bus.

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