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“Until the people around us achieve greatness, we cannot ourselves be great!” — Qhube

Zifiso Masiye

Sihlangu! My heart is sore in a thousand places . . . And the dripping dark cloud that enveloped the skies of the City of Kings last week told the story of a million Matabele hearts you stabbed and ripped apart, unkind dagger. 

“Lingakhaleli mina, lizikhalele lina ngokwenu . . .” All your words and morbid quips ring afresh now. Thus, so often you would remark, as you needlessly did in grim jest in our last conversation, before bursting into that raw, roaring infectious signature guffaw of yours, Qhube. Namhla usihlek’usulu. Damn dude! What macabre Shakespearean tragic exit was that?

Act V: Scene III

(Gates shut! Abrupt lights out. Gently flapping silhouette curtains. Deep, eerie darkness. Deathly stillness. Audience finicky. Ringing tones . . . no reply. Text messages . . . no reply. App messages, no answer! Audience unease . . . Audience fidgets . . . ‘The number you’ve dialled . . . The number you’ve dialled . . . The numb . . .’ Ash`umlungu! Audience fidgets. Uneasy mumblings. Then dead quiet. 

Wide-eyed, loud silent questions . . . More muted questions . . . Contorted faces . . . Multitudes mortified into bemused silence. Big tear-drop splashes stage. Gong! Curtains drawn . . . ) EXIT Dlodlo!

THE END

Out, out damned spot! Waze wasitshil’umoya. My heart goes out to your wonderful wife, Nokuthula. These are but words, but really, I have no words my dear. My heart goes out to your super-nerd look-alike son cum great friend, Stofo . . . In ways none of us could ever be, you were this larger-than-life, instant role model to every child you happened to meet in your huge colourful lifesphere. I always wondered, not without a significant tinge of envy, how much bigger an icon and pillar you were to your own offspring. Bantu, waqamuka umjingo ingane zisajabulile! 

My heart goes out to your life buddy and bosom twinny, Allan. All of us together, could never be half of you to him. Not if we tried. Phepha. We watched him crush and fall over the year. Yet quietly, we all knew what colossal man-mountain of a friend he had in you. I’m so sorry Nyandeni. Who will you be ugly with now! Your deep, sincere brother’s keeper brand of companionship was always a refreshingly rare, enviable, incomparable example of bloodless love and supreme camaraderie. Who will Charlie-Uncle the girls now? 

Sihlangu Dlodlo

A beautiful, inspired soul who lit up every home he walked into with a smile and conjured a way to lighten the obvious and not-so-obvious burdens of others. Your deep concern, your generosity and selfless commitment to the goodwill and welfare of others is a life lesson that has shamed all of us, perennial recipients of yours and your wife’s benevolence.

My heart goes out to your countless loved ones, so many young people I have watched over the years hug and cling to your coat tails in adoration, and glow in the spontaneous spark and warmth of your sheer effervescence, your dripping love and effusive mentorship. From our very early days back at Sobukhazi, your unique gift and uncanny ability to laugh at yourself, to twist adversity into advantage and to find the silver lining in every cloud enabled you in ways many of us struggle with, to see tears before they flow, to pick a hurting child in a crowd, to become an effortless part of every painful story and without the need for cameras as applause to extend yourself, give out tonnes of love and bring hope to the hopeless. From the hill and from the rubble, you dug out talent and made it blossom.

My heart goes out to your family, oMpangazitha, amaQhub’angelaqhwala . . . Asikiz’amadod’abhodligazi! Usiveyise sisath’uyasoma nsomi. Nanku sibhodligazi demedi! Even there you taught me, I’m certain many too, not the theory, but the lived testimony of how true charity begins at home . . . How love, integrity and respect are earned values and how without earning the right to lead my village, I should never dream of leading society. Dudu. Lilahlekelwe MaNtungwa! “I am the proudest Nguni on earth, and I make sure all my Zezuru friends know that. How I have earned their absolute respect is that they also know well how proud I am of the pride, in his own right, of a Zezuru counterpart. I am acutely aware of and alive to our shared spaces and my appreciation of our shared destiny frees my mind of any conflicting woes . . .” 

You didn’t let your fierce feelings of belonging bury you in the sand, and when it was needful you didn’t hesitate to go against the grain . . . With the same passion for social justice and self-determination for your people, you preached the fallacy of dysfunctional group-think and the archaic idiocy of narrow ethnic entitlement. Brotherman Mpangazitha . . . Such a robust, pragmatic, visionary Nguni thinker we shall miss.

My heart goes out to the Arts. Behold, how great thou art Dlodlo! You just took your exceptional intellectual creativity and fascination with the unconventional perspective to a whole new level. Who would’ve imagined at the very close of such an inspiring colourful book of A Life Well-Lived, you would so connive with the gods of dark arts, mix fiction, grim humour, make-believe and stark reality? Who would have imagined you could so surreptitiously sneak back on the theatre stage and give us so audience-numbing, so melodramatic an end to the tragedy you wrote on your departure lounge, and forced us into unsuspecting audience roles to play along! Not even Shakespeare in his element.

Man! You’re a morbid genius!

Sihlangu Dlodlo

My heart goes out to Makokoba. No lecture room out there ever churned out that depth and quality of ubuntu and sheer humane spiritedness. Your grounded emotional sensitivity and empathy, your bold resolve and readiness to draw seamless inspiration from darkness and adversity is a PhD only possible from the street University of Makokoba.

My heart goes out to sport, to the Highlanders family and indeed to all things Bulawayo. Lord, the big dreams, the vision and exquisite plans you shared in your office that “last Saturday!” The global Bosso supporters leapfrog we just shared! Strategic mandates mushrooming that so depended on you and your person. Who will nearly see this in your eyes Bro? My heart goes out to all our shared friends and to everyone whose life you touched nearly as beautifully as you did mine.

The master of double-entendre, you ever dabbled on the fringes of perverted foul . . . an ironic enigma you were. Dirty rogue, yet so squeaky clean! You made ugly feel charming and look so irresistibly beautiful. I know none who was more no-holds-barred, more frankly brash, kasi-raw and rough-on-de-edges . . . Yet I know none who was more gentle, debonair, groomed and cultured in humane etiquette that placed more respect and prime value in the next human being, no matter their station in life, than you Qhube. You had this inherent twisted logic about stuff, but your easy-going satire and sarcastic tongue-in-cheek approach to things of life somehow evened out with your sincerity and deeply authentic love for your people, for common goodwill, for the next person.

Who will wake us up to all that lewd Facebook hillary of peeping tom stories. Yes, today my heart goes out to that towel-wrapping neighbour whose naughty legs ever play tricks with your eyes Mr Dlodlo, as you peep so unintentionally through your innocent window, and die to help the poor young woman reach out for the pegs up the wire. Uzasala echayiswa ngubani impahla umakhesto? My heart goes to all those “figurative” (pun intended) and literal early morning lady joggers that confused and made your 5am fitness club so foolfeeling! (sic) 

My heart goes out too to that late Friday woman who happens to need a lift, which lift happens, by some ill fortune to wind up in Dlodlo’s kitchen . . . Which lift eventually drops her off at her place on the Tuesday of the following week! Who will “lift” the poor woman today Qhube!!? Such was your crazy twisted wit . . . Often I would read your weird banter five times be it politics, women, business or sport . . .  With the mind of a friend, with the mind of your boss, with the mind of your wife, with the mind of the party, PSL or your child . . . And still end up with one conclusion: You were one happy, helluva crazy Mother of All Jesters that the world needs a million of! Why die on us now?

Sihlangu Dlodlo

This breed of humans is extinct. The mould stolen. They don’t make such husbands anymore, Noe. They don’t make such dads anymore Mzwaa. They don’t make such friends anymore Brotherman Ripper! No, they don’t. 

So much poorer are we all!

And no. It didn’t have to be something spectacular, unique you did for, or a special word you said to somebody out there particularly. Yet, with such as your like, it is enough, in some weird sort of way, for a random Matabele citizen, to wake up and just know that one Sihlangu Dlodlo is there, alive out there . . . In strange ways, your personality generates some sense of calm in the storms, reassurance and safety often to people you may never have met. Your resilient spirit, so inspiring, free as a bird, radiates effortless feelings of joy, libertus, defiance, love and ambience. You are the unsuspecting embodiment of our supreme cultural heritage and pride . . . and that unwritten willpower for self-determination and dignity of ubuzwe bethu. Silahlekelwe!

You are such a stark reminder that true leaders need not be thrust into any office. They just spring up and sprout organic . . . assume and carry that community torch and lead. Nor pomp, nor ceremony. Today, all of a Sunday, we wake up to find that assured, self-charging brightest of torches dark, still, extinct, cold and lifeless on a Nketha floor. BUT WHY QHUBE!