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Lenox Lizwi Mhlanga

WHEN I turned more years last June, I really felt the weight of aging on my shoulders. I have been trying to fight a losing battle in pretending to be younger than what I am.

My grandmother, MaNkiwane, was the most humorous person I know. After my mother, that is. She had such a bag of tales. You can now guess where all this came from. I really miss my granny. Nonetheless, memories of days past are something to treasure and I have decided to share this with you to jog those of us who grew up when stones were still soft.

Thank God that I had such a wonderful childhood in this beautiful country. Think back to the time before the Internet or the ATM, before PlayStation and DStv, and CDs and DVDs and Bond notes.

Way back, I’m talking about the time of umacatshelana (hide and seek) or ingqobe or umalalisa with a tennis ball at the square. Games like Jim-Bass, u-Tap-Tap, u-Ara Wuru, umatshayana, kick and run, stop sweetie-sweetie, and Christopher Columbus, and how everyone wanted to be the Soviet Union or the USA!

How about building a swing from a piece of rope tied to the protruding branch of a tree yompintshisi (peach tree) where there were no guarantees that the rope would withstand all the strain put on it. The result was broken limbs that would earn one a thorough beating.

And what about the times when you were lucky enough to go to Centenary Park to eat utshinda (candy floss), and riding the miniature Choo-choo train and watching the peacocks parading their glamorous plumage and the fountain with its constant shower of water spray which you awaited and relished fiendishly when it sprinkled you with its cold, yet refreshing wetness or its changing colours at night. How about the Trade Fair and its iconic Luna Park?

How about the dreaded bath time at 4PM then having tea eka-four lembambayila (sweet potato) from Lower Gweru eaten in your pyjamas so as not to soil the sofas? And you knew that if you bathed, no more playing outside.

Closing the windows at 5PM so as to keep the mosquitoes out, while waiting for TV1 to begin so as to catch the Muppets, the Flintstones and hey-hey-hey Fat Albert, Voltron, Care Bears, Button Moon. Then it was Star Trek, Hawaii 5-0 or the bald Kojak with the lollipop.

When the weather report started, you were sent to bed, after the parents had insisted you observe serious silence during the news. Strictly no noise, perhaps because isikhiwa sasibeqa abadala and you did not want to be blamed for the old man not understanding the news fully.

How about their own periodic exclamations of, hmmm uyatshinga uSmith, uzondile uThatcher, asazi sizabona ngakho (we will see). School holidays meant travelling to ekhaya (rural areas) or having the dreaded extra lessons. A few days before schools restarted, you would plead with your parents to get you brand new socks because all the ones you have had amazambane (holes).

At Christmas time, it was a time for negotiations. Ufuna izigqoko zeKrismas or ufuna i-uniform? It was a hard choice but most times, of course, you got both. Oh, our loving parents, how they managed you can never say.

The night before the first day of school you couldn’t get to sleep. Shoes were polished until you could see your name in large capitals, uniform pressed and new stationery that our parents liberated from their workplace. First thing in the morning, you would get your lunch box with a bread sandwich (ugqu), and Mazoe Orange crush. Who would forget that smell and taste? With Dandy bubble gum going for a cent, ice-cream from the Dairiboard, Happy Chappie on the corner with his little cart.

Yes, running to omasalu (vendors) to buy ama-rama, maputi, pennycools or ichongo, all for not more than a dollar? Do you remember? Do you still remember all those years ago, when going into town seemed like going somewhere very special like heaven? And your mother made you “dress up” for the trip or threatened that if you don’t finish your food uyasala. And when in town, wailing for fresh chips from Royal Sunflower and a Coke? Sipping the 300ml bottle of Coke forever ungafuni ukuthi iphele?

Remember racing with old tyres or half bricks, to see who was the fastest and never shoving bricks at each other like they do today. Playing soccer with ibhola lamaphepha (plastic/newspaper ball) and never smoking iwiti (mbanje).

Going to the shops to go play islug (table soccer) and not robbing defenceless kids? And if you ran out of money, usually 10cents, you then filed down a two cent or hammered a one-cent coin flat to use instead and it always got stuck?

And Bhudi Davie wemagrosa would come flying out to get you and your tshomies? Catching the one who could not run as fast, but would live to tell the tale. Of being shut inside the cold room with hindquarters of beef and inhloko (cow heads). Those were the crimes then.

What about the fights? About you falling out with your buddies and they threatening ukukubamba – to deal with you? NGIZAKUBAMBA meant that you had a hard time going to the shops unescorted. And it was the same at the end of the school term. Just before the holidays?

Then the cycle would begin once again.