Collection

When we were running and accidentally tripped and fell, our Amama would leave her fire hut and come pick us up, dusting us and saying “Never mind you killed a mouse.” When we scratched at our distended bellies and yet continued eating about anything; boiled maize, phala, masuku, mbewa; our Amama, snatching the mbewa, and before we could protest, would say, “When you eat, eat the tail, the body, and the head. But don’t eat like a Chitute!” When we called each other’s head big or legs sticks, chanting it in rhythm, turning it into a song, our Amama would chastise all of us, asking, “Who are going to cook mbewa for each other when they grow up?”              

When we crossed the compound boundaries and attempted mice hunting, our Atate waited until we returned and twisted all our ears until they burned and buzzed like trapped bees. When we woke up the next dawn, he handed us clubs, Mphici, saying, “When you marry, yearn for a baby boy so that he can kill mice for you when he grows up,” and led the way.          

Dry, stinging smoke. Maize stalks and grass snapping in quick, orange flames. One afternoon, 1991. Before our Amama ordered us out of the field, we had been playing Kabishabisha in tiny khaki Kaunda shorts amongst heaps of dry maize stalks and grass. The grass pricked at our thighs and would later summon scratching fingernails upon contact with river water during bathing. She set one heap ablaze and circled it with a long stick; brave only from a distance. Warm ash lifted and settled on our skins like little black butterflies. Soon, we began coughing; our ka-chhs piercing the crackling of fire moving faster than expected. Our Amama already back at her fire hut, she shouted our names without even looking up. We left the long stick alone, drew back and sauntered by the compound boundaries.                          

Days later, our Atate’s eyelids drooping, his ears—white hairs peeping out of them—bent by the static-frequented voices of the late afternoon Nkhani M’chinyanja, we crossed the compound boundaries and strayed into the black and emptied crop fields of Lundazi district. Ash stuck between our toes and painted our shins an extra black. The thin, bittersweet smell of a burnt field clung to our short kinky hair and would be there even after bathing.

As we parted ash with our Mphici, we avoided holes with wider and smoother entrances. Our Atate had warned against them. He had also warned against coming by ourselves until we could. But there we were. We searched for the thinner holes which mice called home. We called this home too.  

Slow-burning wood. Metallic; tang of raw flesh. With our ears still warm from twisting by our Atate’s fast fingers and his non-committal stern warnings about disappearing without permission still looming—heavy canning reduced to this only by the responsibility shown in the 54 mbewa—we squatted around the hearth. We marveled at our Amama’s evisceration skill. Never missing a chance to jostle each other with our knees over inevitable disagreements about who caught which exactly.

Our Amama, the firewood red glow reflecting in her eyes, instructed, “Feed the fire.

Close your eyes and blow.

Harder.

Now stop, and move back.

See, while we have fourteen different kinds of mbewa, 36 of your catch are Kapuku. These four with reddish brown backs and white stomachs are Thodwes. This only one with dark and brown stripes is a Julungwere, and these 14 are Chitutes, they eat about anything. Kabwira is a misfortune.

Never catch it.

When you cook, let the fire lick the pot’s belly until it murmurs to itself as it simmers water, salt and the meat. Tilt the pot’s mouth so it drinks ember heat like so. See? The fire sniffs at the meat before accepting it. Now the fat is hissing, the little limbs into stillness are tightening. When you cook, the smoke should cling to your hair like proof.

Look, smoke is drifting your way. You’re sinful.”

Our Amama had the best laugh in the world.

Musky smell of goats and their dung. Wet soil, rich and red. We heard the drumbeats and crammed the roadside. While we rushed, leaving behind half-filled buckets with the dung, older ones of us said it was the suit man from Lusaka. We explained that he spoke for us in Lusaka in the house where they made the rules. We were wrong. It wasn’t the suit man. He never came around so often.  

We watched as Misozi, our friend, took her usual small, careful steps behind the drummers. Like she was testing the mud. She wore her best clothes and a strand of red beads around her thin neck.

We wondered why she hadn’t told any of us that today would be her birthday. We wanted to ask her there and then but three doek-wearing old women surrounded her. She walked past us like we were never even there.

We envied Misozi.

Then they walked past Misozi’s place. They walked past ABanda’s, AMkandawire’s and ASakala’s, and entered AJere’s. We entered too. A group of ululating women welcomed Misozi.

We thought, AJere’s place would never make a bad place for a celebration after all. Only compound with huts with iron roofs in the whole village. Largest Nkhokwe for storing maize. Fattest goats and most Amamas.

We watched Misozi getting covered under a white wrapper and being led to the male hut.

Then we saw our Amama, glaring at us from the ululation crowd. Did our ears work? Why couldn’t we sit our buttocks down and collect manure as told ever?

The hum. White smoke, chemicals that smelled like bicycles. The first time we boarded a UBZ, our Amama asked Jericho to capture us. We fought for the middle. Jericho alone had a phone that had a decent camera. So, he bartered pictures and calls for crops and animals.

Several stories surrounded how he acquired the phone. Some of us heard that the Mission gave it to him when he offered them his deceased Atate’s land to build the Church after everyone else refused. Our own Atate, before he passed on, often grumbled, “How is it not wrong for a god’s house to have children and elders to go to the same hole? For a very vague god to call another god an idol?” Others of us heard that Jericho actually sold his late Atate’s land to the Mission and travelled to Lusaka and bought the phone by himself. Still, we heard, at last, that it was a gift from the Father to him so that again when he finds the yellow clay, he may call them to come back and rebuild the Church, re-dig ditches at night and collect the clay.

We brandished our teeth behind Jericho’s phone. We scrambled to see the picture. Then he and our

Amama disembarked. We heard our Amama asking him to keep it safe, and keep keeping our Atate’s one safer even. She told him he would find his doeling later at our place. Our Amama waved at us with both hands as the bus roared alive. It would be our first time seeing Lusaka.

As if the funeral news was not devastating enough, they served us a tray of rot stinking rats.  

We kicked it away and stuffed our ears with our fingers at their guest-honouring ululations.

We grimly joined the line and waited for our turn. At least, of all our offers and pleas, they had given in to only one of hosting a body viewing. Then there she was. Wearing our black skin that they’d deliberately oiled with animal fat, an attempt to hide wrinkles of years of hunger. A head cloth that we knew was sitting on where she was scalped to baldness and soreness. A faded chiffon yellow dress that we knew was hiding her eighth’s second trimester (they refused the dress we bought for her). With the calmness of a well-fed cat, she looked like she was sleeping.  

We overheard them whisper, “Death is death, we will not bury our own elsewhere, especially their city graveyard.” But we scoffed. We had been informed. We whispered too, “Our friend will not just go away at the hands of a monstrous polygamist.”

They rewrapped her in the reed mat, with red beads around her thin neck, and buried her by the compound entrance. A little mound of red soil. Both our casket and grave plate, they refused.

Before going back, we visited our Atate’s grave. And found a huge Mukwawe tree towering back

at us.  

When our children were born, they asked where we were born from. Was it beautiful? What was it like? Feel like? They asked why we named them Lincolns, Ostens, Shauryas, Todds. Why they bit their tongues at the mention of their last names. Why it had to be so difficulty. Why did the Chinese eat frogs? Gross, were they mad? They asked if they could guess what our Amama fed us for entrée and dinner. Pepperoni pizza? Was it it? Great cook? Our Amama, could she prepare prime rib medium-rare so perfect like Christmas-dinner tender? So, our Atate helped us with homework, too? Sing the alphabet, A for Albany, B for Boston, recite the numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10! Tennessee! Like them, did we shriek at rats? They are scary, right? Like the big one the size of a rabbit they saw on TV. Ew, awful, they bite, right? They asked what they should become when they grow up. Read books and become suit men, too? Like Barack Obama. Right? Or like Bernie Sanders, right? They asked which they should see first, Niagara Falls or Los Angeles? Or, wait, Disney World? Beautiful, right? What did we think? What when they were queer? Like really not straight, like fellow kids from TV. They asked if we would still like them? Follow them? Share?

They asked what mbewa meant?

Dear Bishop,

You can start off. 4,000kg in total. We have brought down every hill and every mountain of red soil. We have rid the Luangwa River of all fish and used your liners (if you don’t mind), and divided the river into two. We have washed the red soil in the first river until it has turned the yellow colour of our palms. It is no longer empty red sand but shiny, prized bullion. On the flat mountains we have raised houses of prayers and called the second river Jordan. We have prepared the way and made the paths straight. With our own labour we have secured the openings in the basket and made sure no more yellow promise stays behind. With our own hands we have crafted an empty placard and now we wait to hear the church’s price. In advance, we agree.

900 million kg. Nothing more, nothing less. We have dug holes the size of Russia and raised black mountains the size of Everest. We have rested under the shadow cast by these heights and eaten peaches grown in these holes. We have bathed, worn ties, and convened again. We have deliberated successfully and finally settled for a green colour. Again, we wait for the church’s price to fill our green placard and we agree already. Finally, in service to this, we have fed the yawning dark holes only 1,964 corpses. Greater good, smaller evils, like you said, Bishop.  

Please start off.

Yours fully, We.

***