All That It Ever Meant by Blessing Musariri

Author:Blessing Musariri
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Norton Young Readers
Published: 2022-11-05T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I don’t feel like being with everyone today. As we leave Victoria Falls, I stay in the back of the truck and make a nest for myself on one of the cushioned benches. I want the movement of the car to take me to a place that’s not outside, that’s not long grass flashing past the window and a road disappearing into a small section of “what lies ahead.” I don’t want to see the signs that say we have forever kilometers to go before we get anywhere, the single mud-colored stores with their Coca-Cola signs, the service stations that may or may not have fuel. I don’t want to see goats and donkeys, clusters of huts. I just want to find a story in the hum and rocking and jolting of the truck. I can hear the muted voices of Baba, Chichi, and Tana in the front and I think of the years I’ve come from up to now. I’ve been thinking about Mama since the other night. Not all the way thinking of her but just having her hovering somewhere in my heart. I’m not old at all and yet I feel like there was a time in my life, in all our lives, when things were a completely different story—like not-even-the-same-book kind of story to what it is now.

When we were younger—not even that long ago in real life, but a whole lifetime in the story—there were always friends and relatives from Zimbabwe living with us, some just visiting, some going to school, and others trying to find their feet, looking for jobs and leaving when they could afford their own places. We didn’t ever think about what might be back in Zimbabwe; we took it for granted that Zimbabwe came to us. Sometimes we hated it, other times it was fun, it depended on who was staying at the time. Mama’s sisters ’Nini Saru and ’Nini Lisbet were the most fun. They really spoiled us and it was like we had three mums all at once. Even when we had chores and Baba would say “let them do their chores,” they would find a way to get us out of them.

Baba’s friend Mr. Joe was hilarious, especially on Friday nights when they came back from the pub and he would be on the other side of the bottle. One time he gave us twenty pounds each, weaving about the room as he talked and talked about how women were so treacherous, especially one called Maidei, while Baba tried to get him to settle down. Mama gave us a look that said, “Don’t you dare take that money”—because that’s what we were always told, don’t take money or food from people—but me and Chichi, we wanted the money and so we acted like we didn’t see that eye. He even gave a twenty to Tana, who at eleven months had the good sense to grab on to it but not enough sense to not try and put it in his mouth.

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