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Fadzayi Maposah Correspondent
I am always surprised by how people improvise when dealing with complex issues.
When my companion and I were confronted by a woman who thought that we had invaded her area of authority by asking her daughter to be careful, we did a forced hurried inspection of the garden.
There is something about being shocked, reactions can be strange. The outburst from the mother was unexpected.
What had prompted the call to the girl making a fire in a tin was mainly through motherly instincts. We just thought that we were looking out for the young girl.
Little did we know that we would experience the mother`s wrath.
It reminded me of a time when I was in a supermarket and the till operator after being thanked by a woman who I know is a pensioner, said “Welcome Gogo, have a good day!”.
What the woman did was to throw a tantrum and ask the teller if she was old enough to have a grandson of his age.
The teller was quick to apologise and say that by addressing her as Gogo had been out of respect. The woman who had been called Gogo said she did not need his respect, he could just say Welcome, have a good day.
I have lost count on the number of times I have been called Gogo because of my grey hair.
It used to sound funny and even irritating initially, but I have come to the realisation that most people associate grey hair with being a grandparent!
The grey hair which started springing up in my late 20s has its own benefits.
Commuter omnibus conductors will ensure that I have a good seat and in this mask era, I may just find myself in the senior citizens queue at the bank only have the teller look at my identity card and then at me again when I am being served!
On Tuesdays in some supermarkets I am always offered a senior citizen`s discount!
My grey hair is hereditary. I never saw WaMambo, my father with any other hair except grey when I was young.
By the time I was in high school, his hair was white and it earned him the nickname “Mudhara Whitehead”. He never dyed his hair. The white hair was his trademark and he always stood out with the hair…
I digress. The white or grey hair is a story for another day…
So my companion went to the vegetables living up to the Shona proverb “Nyadzi dzinokunda rufu” which loosely translated means, embarrassment is worse than death.
We did not say anything about what we had just experienced. Our talk just focused on the plants in the garden.
As women who are now experiencing occasional hot flashes as we move from having the “it” experience on a regular basis in transit to menopause, we felt a lot of heat from the embarrassment that we had just gone through.
After some time with neither of us referring to what we had just gone through, we had reached a calm point and went into the house.
When we sat in the kitchen making tea we could hear the mother scolding her daughter. My companion and I eyed each other.
The two were in the room that served as their kitchen and family room. Because of the shared wall which is rather thin, raised voices are not encouraged in the ghetto or high density suburbs.
Though the mother had stormed out of the house like a hen defending her chicks from prowling birds, inside she had turned on her daughter.
It was difficult to follow the whole conversation. We had to have our tea and try talking to one another lest the mother would come and bang on the kitchen door shouting at us for prying into their private affairs.
What my companion and I were able to pick from the conversation was that the daughter was to burn the sanitary pads privately without attracting an “audience” as it were.
She emphasised that it was difficult knowing who to trust and who could be “mischievous” with soiled pads.
We knew without having the mother elaborate that by being mischievous she meant being bewitched.
As we had our tea we consoled one another that being grey haired is not easy.
We assured one another that we would celebrate the years that we have been blessed with and would not allow our self-esteem to be dented by people who looked at us with suspicion.
We sipped our tea and half listened to the conversation in the next room.
I then made my companion laugh that the mother would have to ensure that all sanitary ware would be disposed at the break of dawn or late at night when everyone was sleeping.
As my companion walked me half way home, we were liberated to talk about what we had seen and gone through.
One of the questions we had was where would the soiled sanitary pads be kept before they were burnt? This question was asked against a background that the family did not have lots of space that they used.
Where would the sanitary ware be before it was drenched in paraffin outside so that it could easily burn?
How often was the sanitary ware burnt? Did the family accumulate a lot of sanitary ware before burning it as a cost cutting attempt? We had many questions then. We are still looking for answers.
It could be the reason that we have additional grey hairs. Pressure! Knowing that our hairs have relegated us to those who can bewitch others can only have more grey hairs sprouting if one has low self-esteem.
It is sad that as one celebrates aging, others look at you with a lot of mistrust. The grey haired ladies should be pillars of support for the “it” experience providing invaluable information!
Online Reporter