Agogo Mailes

I don’t know whether this was a fitting goodbye to my grandmother; that is me arriving when she had already been buried and staring thoughtfully at the mound of fresh dark brown earth, underneath which her lifeless 90 year old body had no doubt began its decomposition process. Right there in the dark brown earth of Kamphilu lay my connection to over  70 years of my maternal history.

Not that I did not try to be there in time. My attempts had seen me jump on some coach at Intercity bus terminus, with the rather chubby conductor assuring me that I would be in Lundazi before end of day. What followed were hours of endless revving of the bus while passengers complained loudly to no one in particular. My attempts at reading “To Kill a Mocking Bird” for the fiftieth time only making me more impatient. It would take another 4 hours before we were bounding on the great east road on our way to Lundazi and even then I literary had bigger problems to worry about.

These bigger problems were in the form of a man-mountain, who decided to leave his sit and squeeze into the one right next to mine.

Any momentary relief I should have felt at finally starting this journey quickly dissipated into frustration at my lack of comfort, as this very fat man whose every breath sounded like a broken radiator pushed me to the utter periphery of the two seats, while incessantly wriggling his ample bottom in search for more pockets of space. He kept up this annoying habit for a good part of five hours. He introduced himself by literally depositing his 200 kgs on my right thigh, my rather loud protestations only made him snort like a pig before clumsily shifting in his seat to try and create space for me, rather unsuccessfully.

He did not speak to me directly, but kept up a rather raucous conversation with another passenger about politics. Every now and then, he would reach into his pocket, pull out a handkerchief and give his nose a mighty blow, before breaking off into another lengthy rant against the government without waiting for his friend to finish. I cannot even begin to describe my untold suffering each time he foraged for his handkerchief or phone, every twist of his huge trunk would result in me being pushed further into the bus’ body with my bones would be jammed together like some python was preparing to swallow me.

That would be my torment till Petauke when my “thorn in the backside” reached his destination and announced his departure by again clumsily rubbing his buttocks in my face and nearly breaking my glasses as he made his way out of his seat. His replacement was a very small elderly lady who smelled of dry fish. She didn’t say a word to me till she disembarked.

Once in Kamphilu, I was quickly whisked to the graveyard, where a few hours ago, my grandmother had been buried. Back from the graveyard, I was arraigned before the elders. One of them who I later came to know as Shepard, said something very rapidly in Tumbuka which roughly translated to “this is one who went to be educated in the land of the white man”.

They all nodded with grave tired faces. They never looked me in the eye, but would steal glances at me; their eyes dull, only momentarily flicking into life. They had seen it all. From the time my grandfather, then a retired teacher decided to settle on that land, 30 kilometres from Lundazi, they had been there. They had shared his vision, a small fast talking man who was the local leader of the United National Independence Party, they had hopes that he would represent their interests in parliament one day, except fate had other plans.

The man they fondly called “Dontiwale”, a vernacularisation of his favourite phrase “Don’t Worry”, suffered a mental breakdown. He died a raving lonely man somewhere in Chingola, leaving my grandmother to tend their land and found the village now called “Dontiwale”. It was she they had just laid to rest.

 My head was pounding my eyes hurting due to lack of sleep. One by  one each one asked me, “do you know me?” I didn’t.

So what did we sacrifice on the altar of flashing lights, second-hand cars, well rehearsed American accents and the watches to match. The sprawling shopping malls, plots in various stages of completion, designer clothes and state of the art smart phones. What did we pay for our huge offices, the company paid for tea and a sporadic international trip once in while, the selfies and hashtags? What did we sacrifice for a lifetime supply of bundles, social media, music, movies and pizza?

Well for starters there was Uncle Zimba, brandishing a toothless grin and eyeing me thoughtfully. He had been a member of the Lumpa church under Lenshina and had lived through the government’s fractious relationship with the Lumpa church. He got my hand and led me to a section of uncleared bush west of the homestead. “Right there, that is where the church was housed”, he pointed ruefully.

He remembered the day like it was yesterday when government forces came to break up the Lumpa church cells. He had never seen a dead body before but on that day saw the very visitation of death. He was only a boy but that trauma has stayed with him for life.

Or you could look at Shepard, who prefers to be called "Shapespeare". His feet look like they have never seen the inside of a shoe, yet he will tell you that he was a champion footballer in his days and a runner too. He represented his school and province and was courted by a host of top clubs, until he broke his leg during one of the games. Now like the others, he goes through life with a certain dull light in his eyes. An acceptance or resignation of sorts. In the evening he hunts for home-made liquor, clutching a jacket with more holes in it than a golf course. He will stagger home to his bed after midnight and repeat the process the following day.

“I am turning fifty this year” he says without being asked. “after that I will stop counting the years.  Then I can die. That is the only way to get you town folk back to the village, not so?”

Or my grandmother Mailes buried a few hours before I arrived in Kamphilu. There is still debate as to what her real name was as there is a very credible story that she was named Wailes in commemoration of the wireless radio that had just become mainstream then. She was married off at 15. It is said her husband desperately wanted a son, but she ended up giving him seven females, the first-born who came to be my mother. The last time I visited her in the village was in 2013. Even then I was on my way to Chama for official duty. I asked our driver to stop by the little green Mosque which is just next to the homestead. It was a ten minutes visit…

I wish I had stayed longer.