admin
Fadzayi Maposah-Correspondent
There are people who always try to keep a good person down. But then there is that saying, you cannot keep a good person down.
Whenever women gather, there is much talk about this, that and then!
The talk is endless. There always seems to be something that needs to be talked about.
So many words are exchanged. Females do not run out of what to say.
At times the challenge is the way the words roll out of a mouth.
Some words literally fly out of the mouth and hit others very hard as they fly out.
Such words only leave others scarred. It would be good if all the words that came out of anyone’s mouth were soothing and soft. Unfortunately, it is not so. Most of the words that roll out of the mouth if not tamed can hurt others.
So in the context of talking it is possible that one may get hurt or hurt others.
I was at an occasion graced by women from different backgrounds. One woman commented on how hot it was. Another responded that it was probably hot because it was about to rain. Another looked up in the sky and then asked if the women remembered what they had learnt at school about clouds and rains. I listened from a distance and observed how the women interacted.
After one woman had talked about rain clouds, they started talking about clouds.
Again I listened from a distance. I was partially distracted by my phone. The clouds names started coming.
“Cumulus,” one said. Another pointed at the sky.
I looked up too and remembered my Geography teacher as I tried to search the sky for a cumulus cloud.
As if programmed on Google, the one who had pointed at the sky started to describe what a cumulus cloud should be.
If her teacher had been present, that teacher would have been proud of the work he or she had done.
The woman described the cumulus clouds as puffy balls of cotton wool adding that they are the most popular of all the cloud types.
One challenged her about the height from sea level she laughed in response and confessed that she did not remember.
She added that all she remembered was that the clouds made the sky very beautiful.
The women who were all looking up now said that they could do cloud watching as a hobby and a way of appreciating nature.
Although I had not been invited to be part of the discussion, I was enjoying it from the terraces.
As one who is always on the lookout for stories I find myself in some conversations though on silent mode . . .
I looked at the clouds and then silently recalled the names that came to mind cirrus, cirrostratus, cirrocumulus.
As I was doing this I was not pointing, I just looked up and recalled how teachers had said that one day the information would be important and as students we had wondered where and why we would name clouds?
Actually to be honest we had thought that the teachers were just being too hard on us.
The lesson learnt is that life is lived forwards and understood backwards.
As I was drifting off down memory lane, my ears suddenly cocked into action when I heard two words, sanitary pads . . . Aaah anything related to the reproductive system is my thing!
I just could not make the connection between clouds and sanitary pads initially and as I was debating how the women had made that connection, it suddenly dawned on me as one of them spoke:
“These matters of the moon girls, are not easy to deal with” she said.
The moon is way beyond the clouds that we are talking about now. For a long time, I used wonder why as the Shona people would talk of menstruation as kumwedzi. It is because it is a monthly occurrence, which follows some sequence, hence the word “kutevera”.
The other women in the group seemed to agree with what she said.
If there is something that always amazes me is how some people are totally gifted when it comes to communication.
Such people bring an issue to the level of those who are receiving the message.
Then the other member of the group said just as the clouds were not at the same height, she had come to realise that sanitary ware was not the same for everyone.
She confessed that at some point in her life she had never dreamed that she would ever use sanitary ware from retail outlets. At this point I was all ears.
It is not easy to tell a woman’s age, saying the wrong age can get one into big trouble! Let me just say she is way younger than me.
“I used pieces of cloth that my aunt gave me. After use, I would wash as she had taught me, dry, iron and store for future use. Then it was the only available option,” she said.
“When people talk about use of cloths they seem to think that it is those in the rural areas who use such. I grew up in town but did not use bought sanitary pads. Look at those clouds, moving from one place to another. That is the story of my life, I have since moved.”
I looked at her with much respect.
Sharing very private information with ease.
She had not finished. She continued: “Life has taught me to make the best of every situation. Once I combined a sock and my cloths because I had to be somewhere and I did not want any embarrassing moment. Life does not wait just because one is ‘mooning’,! It goes on and you cannot take back those days. Make the best of every situation!”
Online Reporter