The village that taught me to judge
In our village, life was simple but hard. The sun was hot. The ground was red and dusty. People worked from morning to night. Women wore long skirts. It was […]
Village Wisdom Served in a Basket of Peanuts
In our home, the rooster was not an alarm clock, he was competition. If he dared to crow at four in the morning, my mother was already awake. By the […]
The Day the Sky Came Calling
The sun clawed its way over the jagged silhouette of thorn trees that Saturday morning a bold, unforgiving Zimbabwean sun that didn’t rise with whispers but with a roar of […]
The Village Teacher and the Lies we Tell Ourselves
The ten-minute walk from school to my home with Mr. Moyo felt like a forced pilgrimage. To me it was torture, to him, apparently, it was an opportunity. Every few […]
The village Marula Nuts Fight Back
In every village, there are rules, simple and very clear rules. The problem was that these rules came with no explanation whatsoever. And the number one of the most important […]
Christmas in the Village
Christmas in the village carried a kind of magic an electric, lawless thrill that could make even the most well behaved child abandon every rule they had ever learned. It […]
The Village that raised me between two fires
I grew up with two grandmothers. To avoid confusion and to preserve family peace, I will call them Gogo X and Gogo Y. Both my parents are last-born children, and […]
The village that forged my choices
Just when I thought my luck had exhausted itself, it decided to dig a deeper hole. You see, before she left for the burial, my mother had sealed the grain […]
The Village that forged my choices : The Year of Freedom and Fanta
The year my grandmother got sick was, secretly, the year I got my freedom. That year, I had almost finished writing my ZJC (Zimbabwe Junior Certificate) exams, the grand finale, […]
The rhythm the village taught me.
Consistency over feelings. Saturdays were the longest days in the village. The kind that stretched your patience and tested your obedience. There was no school to rescue us. No bell […]
