One gentleman from Epworth who resides in the Magada area and has worked for more than a decade at one of the manufacturing firms in the city, is ruing the day he decided to visit his in-laws in the rural areas.
laughing it off with Blaah Dhee
This security guard decided to pay his in-laws a visit after he had been working night shift for the whole of the previous week. After knocking off on Friday morning, he headed straight to Mbare Bus Terminus and caught the earliest bus to the rural home.
He had not rested.
On arrival at his in-laws’ homestead — being a cultured son in-law (mukuwasha) and as expected, he went straight to the fields (kumunda) and toiled for the better part of the day. You see, culturally one has to make an impression on the in-laws, lest you are labelled no good for their daughter.
In the evening, the dog-tired son-in-law went back to the homestead. Incidentally, only the mother-in-law was at home.
As per cultural dictates, the son-in-law made himself comfortable on the built-in long bench you usually find in most kitchen huts in rural homes. The bench is normally reserved for visitors and is therefore called chigaravaenzi, meaning visitors’ bench.
Now, a visitor in the mould of a son-in-law will make himself comfortable at the extreme end of the bench, very close to the door.Sitting at the other end might result in the son-in-law getting in the way of the mother in-law and impede her movement as she goes about her chores. For, the bench ends next to the built-in shelf for kitchen utensils.
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Physical contact between the two, son-in-law and mother-in-law, is considered taboo in most African cultures and is classified as an unforgivable offence that can attract a hefty fine in the form of a number of cattle or thousands of dollars.
Having had his meal, the son in-law just sat quietly, lost in deep thought. You see, besides not being allowed to come into contact, the relationship between the two has so many other restrictions culturally. For instance, no part of their bodies must ever come into contact and the conversation is prohibitively formal.
Not even hand-shaking is allowed. Greetings are exchanged from a distance, with mother-in-law either kneeling or seated cross-legged while the son-in-law squats or sits neatly at a distance. Why this is so or how it came to be, it is a topic for some other day.
With no one else to talk to, coupled with having been working night shift compounded by sheer exhaustion, naturally the son-in-law began dozing. A few moments later, he fell asleep on the bench in a sitting position just like he sometimes does at work — the security guard way.
Now, in the line of her chores the mother-in-law wanted to go out to fetch some firewood. Unfortunately, the son-in-law’s legs were somehow blocking the door way. Being an elderly cultured woman who prides herself in the strict observation of cultural norms, there was no way she could jump over her son-in-law’s legs.
Naturally, she did what is expected of someone of her age and stature. She began clapping her hands the traditional way as a way of bringing the son-in-law to her attention. You know how mothers-in-law do it.
“Ndipindewo mukuwasha [May I pass through son-in-law],” she said while clapping.
The son-in-law heard the voice from deep in his sleep and it sounded from far away as if in a dream. Being the type of security guard who places so much virtue in being job conscious, the last thing he could allow to happen was for anyone to get the slightest notion that he had slept on duty.
The first thought that came to his mind was that he was at work and must have somehow dozed off a bit. His reputation was at stake here. It had painstakingly taken him more than a decade to build that and he was not going to let it be destroyed just that easily.
With a start he jumped up, and was all of a sudden the ever alert and job conscious security guard of untainted repute on duty.
“Eee hapana zvekuti mukuwasha, mukuwasha pano! Pabasa pano. Munhu wese anobuda achisechiwa. [Here at work, I don’t mind who you are, everyone has to be subjected to a body search],” he said.
With that, his hands went to work. At first the mother in-law was mesmerised and just stood there dumbfounded. The security guard’s trained hands went first to the hips, back and to the pockets in a searching movement. It was only when the hands were drifting towards the breasts enroute to the armpits, that the mother-in-law jumped away with a scream.
The scream brought the son-in-law back to reality with a startle. It took a split moment for what had just transpired to register in his mind. The implication dawned on him. He took to his heels and vanished into the night.
