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Fadzayi Maposah, Correspondent
I have a number of good-looking relatives.
Let me put that properly, I have many good-looking relatives. These individuals are from both my mother’s and my father’s side.
I have matured with age and I have never called myself ugly. Maybe the standard of my good looks is not up there, but it is somewhere!
The fact that there are good looking people from either side means I have the beauty as a recessive gene?
I will leave you to refer to your high school Biology notes.
I have a friend who never calls anyone ugly.
Remember we are from the generation that claims to be well mannered!
At times when I hear people of my age or even older call out obscenities in the traffic congestion of Harare, I am ashamed to belong to that generation.
If I was writing this on social media, I would put a sad emoji.
So, my friend as I was saying earlier, never calls anyone ugly.
That ugly exists as an opposite of words such as handsome, beautiful or pretty is something that she has opted to ignore.
She agrees with many things in the Student’s Companion, except that.
She calls what others term ugly as interesting.
It can be interesting looks or interesting face. The friends that I have!
Back to my good-looking relatives.
Do you know that there are times that I have been with some of these relatives that I have been asked where I know them from?
The differences in our looks are so striking that people are eager to know what the connection between us is!
I always smile and calmly respond that we are related and then proceed without being asked to explain how we are related.
In the case of male relatives, some people can actually be saying in their minds, that we do not deserve one another or in Shona —”Zviuya hazviwanani.”
Chamu was one such good looking relative.
Was is applicable because he passed away.
Chamu was my cousin. Let me do this as I usually do with the people requiring an explanation. Chamu’s mother is my paternal aunt, “Tete Joyce”, my father’s sibling.
She is the sibling who comes after my father, WaMambo.
Now my father came from a polygamous family. Tete Joyce and him shared the same mother and the same father.
If Chamu was supposed to bring his mother and Tete Joyce could not be there, I could stand in the mother’s position with much ease.
You see how close a relative he was? Now my cousins were taught to respect us as their mothers and their uncles.
Chamu was older than me and even Fungi his sister who was the same age as me would call me aunt (Mainini) Fadzi.
It did not matter whether they carried you on their backs, it was Mainini or Sekuru (uncle).
They never called us just by our first names. Even his surviving siblings still call me Mainini. It has always fascinated me being called Mai vangu (my mother) by someone way older than me.
Chamu was not just good looking but intelligent too.
I thought of him when I was at the University of Zimbabwe on Monday this week. He studied there graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Town Planning, I think that was what his degree programme was called then.
Chamu was my first close relative to make it to UZ.
This was a great achievement especially given that it was the only university in Zimbabwe then and being pachikomo (at the hill top) at that time was really being put on a pedestal.
He had risen from humble beginnings, having grown up in the rural areas of Shurugwi in Chikato where he did his Ordinary Level then proceeded to Chegato Mission for his Advanced Level that he passed too.
He never forgot to enjoy the fruits of all his hard work as he died young.
Within five years of graduation, he had died. Young, strong and intelligent, he was when he died.
I am one person who enjoyed having a working ‘son’ when I was at the Harare Polytechnic.
When Chamu got a job, he told me and also told me that he was working close to Harare Polytechnic and I was free as his mother to pay him a visit.
I remember going to see him at his workplace and being introduced as ‘Mai vangu, Mainini Fadzi’.
Would you not feel special too if it was you? If I did not check on him, he would check on me at college. These were the days before mobile phones, so he would just come looking for me unannounced.
When he died, I was really heart broken.
He had been living proof that it was possible from humble beginnings. So much potential gone without the country having gained much from what he could have offered. Grave yards are rich places, being home to great minds and dreams that were not lived.
As I sat at the UZ bus terminus taking advantage of the shade as I waited to see someone, I saw hordes of young people go in and out of the campus. So much potential.
There are those like my Chamu from humble backgrounds but who are there together with the cream.
Their dressing is simple and basic; they seem focused on why they are in college. About two chairs apart from me, sat two such young men who were encouraging each other.
With the semester just starting they wanted to hit the ground running and make the most of time they had.
Who does not need a friend or class mate like that?
Everyone needs someone who is able to steer them so that they remain focused.
To be able to steer others, one has to know which road to walk. Chamu from where I stood then, seemed to know which road to walk, what happened?
To be continued . . .
Online Reporter