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Isdore Guvamombe
Saturday Lounge Reflections
Back in the village, in the land of milk, honey and dust or Guruve lived a man called Chikondondo. He was quite a knave!
A short, stout man, with rickety legs that seemed to quarrel as he walked about in a slouching gait and uncultured dread locks — made him look ghostly. You could easily see a landscape between his legs. It made him look very evil and cruel.
Red-hot eyes, from which tears intermittently, cascaded without provocation, completed his ghostly appearance. No one dared look him in the face twice, without risking being haunted by the figure at night.
Chikondondo’s lips were always cracked and so were his feet. His feet knew no shoes. In other words shoes were alien.
Friday is beer drinking time. Under a Muchakata tree, the calabash of succulent home-brewed beer did the rounds from one thick-lipped mouth to another.
The young and more affluent went to Gunyazberg, the popular township drinking hole at Guruve centre.
There, they downed canned and bottled conventional beer and got drunk, silly. But the elders stuck to the village, where opaque beer was in most cases free or sold for a song. Everyone could afford.
A spitting distance from the Muchakata tree in the village, a young prophet, Hosea, who had suddenly become the centre of attraction conducted his service.
Traditionalists never believed in him.
When Chikondondo passed by Hosea’s shrine, he called him, prayed and ordered his aides to shave Chikondondo clean. Hosea did not like Chikondondo’s dreadlocks, as villagers believed the hair was behind his lightning making wizardry. Like the Biblical Samson, the power lay in the hair, so they believed.
There was a fight. Rolling, kicking. Kneeing. Shoving. Kicking, Groaning. Biting. Groaning . . . groaning, groaning! Wrestling. Quiet. Shaving!
Women, clad in all white, sang “Hossana” as the ‘scoundrel’ was being shaved.
When Chikondondo was released, he ran away, stopped and used a cursory finger.
He walked back to collect his hair but they refused to give it to him. He shouted that he would strike back at Hosea. Just after mid day, the church dismissed; quite early today. Every congregant to his or her home.
The young prophet retired to his home.
He decided to take a nap in his bedroom, for, in the kitchen, his wife chatted with her mother, his mother-in-law. Appropriate registers made it difficult for him to stay in the kitchen.
He also wanted to change from church regalia.
But, suddenly, lightning stabbed the air, immediately followed by a thunderous clap that seemed to shake the earth’s innards. The bolt struck the kitchen. Hosea’s wife and mother-in-law where thrown outside. So where his three children. In the bedroom, Hosea felt numb all over the body. The church regalia he was wearing was burnt but his body was untouched.
He could not move an inch. He watched haplessly as the garment that he was wearing burnt, leaving him in his underwear! It was spectacle.
There was the smell of roast meat. There was the smell of wire or metal burning. The homestead was covered under a blanket of smoke. The smell of death hovered.
The wire line used for drying clothes melted.
Hens crowed, for the first time. The cocks giggled, instead. Do villagers not say he who is struck by lightning does not hear the thunder?
The guzzlers abandoned their beer, dashed to Hosea’s home. They performed first aid on the victims: pulling the victims’ tongues back to their positions to avert choking. All except Hosea had severe burns.
The prophet shivered. He could not believe he was alive. He even did not notice he was left in his underwear, until an old woman offered her wrapping cloth to cover him up. Besides, he had soiled himself!
“I am sure if I was in the kitchen, I would have died. It missed me because I was out of the kitchen. But the mystery is that the garment I was wearing got burnt, without burning my body. It’s a mystery.
“I now believe the man is very strong. He passed by the road moments ago and he saw me entering the kitchen and thought I was still there. I had just gone in to greet my mother-in-law and went to change in the bedroom,” narrated Hosea.
While villagers were still trying to come to terms with what had happened, Chikondondo arrived on the scene and asked Hosea: “Did you feel me? Wandiona ka? Did you see what I can do? This is just a warning!
“What is better, to have less thunder in the mouth or more lightning in the hand?” Chikondondo asked as he took off for his home.
Everyone froze. No one dared follow him. Fear gripped the village once more.
But, does the son of the god of thunder die of lightning? The soothsayer, the ageless autochthon of wisdom and knowledge says not every thunderclap is followed by lightning and neither is every lightning stab followed by thunder.
The full import of this is that there is hardly scientific explanation for lighting when used by people with supernatural powers.
In the village there are people known to manufacture lightning for witchcraft. Dare them and you see what happens! The soothsayer says there are people who use mercury, human blood and pig skin to manufacture lightning.
Believe it or not, when the time is up, lighting strikes. The recent incident in Chitungwiza might have baffled many but if it is supernatural, there will not be an answer. If it was a natural accident, then the leads would be found.
Believe it or not, the Chitungwiza traditional healer might have pressed the play button instead of the send button, as has been widely rumoured — jokingly.
Villagers believe, the target must have been very far away and in terms of the law of wear and tear, it would have hit the distant target with appropriate power.
But that it exploded, within, means it was too powerful. Village elders, with cotton tuft heads, believe lightning never strikes twice in the same place.
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