Sometimes something touches you so deeply that finding the words to express that experience is impossible. That’s how I feel about Poetry Africa at Book Café. I would like to write about the defiance in Xapa’s performance of HIStory, the beauty of TJ Dema’s articulation of womanhood, or even the happiness we in the audience felt as Didier Awadi performed in French because of the joy we could plainly see in his face. I don’t think my words would be adequate. So I’m going to share Harare, whose performance by Chris Abani moved me to tears.

harare
chris abani

his thoughts shed tears for what his people
have lost
Chirikure Chirikure

Downtown Harare. Pavements and nice trim
islands feel like the white Africa it used to be.
Its fading beauty arrested in the late seventies
feels like Lagos in the fade of colonialism.
–
But Yvonne says: Butterflies are burning.
Here.
This is kwela.
–
In the Quill Club, black journalists hold court,
say, Bob uses this land as his
private safari. The kudus are
nearly extinct. They play pool, chafing
against the government. We could be in
The Kings Head in Finsbury Park; a cold
London night. And the locals complaining
over warm pints about the native problem.
–
The still young woman smoking
a pipe against the wall of the museum
was once a guerrilla. Says, The men here fear me.
She knows all about killing.
Also about blowing smoke rings.

This is kwela.
–
In a market adjacent the poorest township
I finger useless trinkets, displaced as any tourist.
All the while ogling valuable-in-the-West
weathered barbershops signs
that I am too afraid to ask for.
–
Everywhere people wear cosmopolitan selves
but tired, like jaded jazz singers reconciled to loss.
Hats are perched at that jaunty angle that makes you
think that all washed-out things, like Cuba, are cooler
than they are. Is this kitsch?
–
And everyone says: The trouble with Bob is…
And this is kwela.
–
In the Book Cafè, a vibrant subculture:
Art, music, and poetry are alive and well.
Rich whites slum with African: for a moment
we all believe it is possible. This. Here. Now.
–
A Rasta in Bata shoes does the twist
to a Beach Boys tune played by
a balding white man in a night club.
This is kwela.
–
The older white farmer in the five-star hotel
still calls this country Rhodesia.
Says, No offense, but you bloody Africans
can’t run anything right.
I have him removed.
–
It was not always so,
and still I have questions.
Yes. Yes. Even this
is kwela.

It is now very common to see families functioning without full-time maids. Fewer and fewer people can afford to pay a maid for a month’s work, with the trend now being that a maid comes in once or twice a week to help with the bigger jobs. In addition to this, few mothers (the custodians of the home and family life) can afford not to work, so as to take care of their homes and families. Despite all this, the dishes still need to be done, laundry washed and ironed and houses swept and dusted. So, with mum and dad working, no maid, and young children at crèche and school, who is doing all this work? Who is taking care of the home?

Mum, of course! It’s what mum’s do of course, and they’re so great at it! She is the first to get up, preparing everyone for their day (ironing, cooking breakfast, bathing kids, packing school lunches), and cleaning up after them along the way, before they all, (including Mum), set off for work or school.

After a long hard day in the office (just like dad), mum gets home, and begins her “evening shift” at home. Whatever she has not done in the wee hours of the morning, will be waiting for her, when she gets home. Again, she gets everyone settled in for the night (bathing kids, preparing supper, supervising homework and play). All the while, dad is either out, having a beer or seven, or in front of the TV with the day’s paper.

After supper, mum carries the dirty dishes to kitchen sink and washes them, so that at least she can wake up to a clean kitchen at 5am the next morning. You’d think that once the dishes are done and the kids are in bed, her day is done. Oh no, it is quite the contrary, mum must now go out to washing line and bring in the laundry she did before sunrise that morning, and begin to iron it. Maybe, she’ll set herself up in front of the TV, so she can be entertained while she irons. From time to time, she has to switch off the iron in order to go and check on the sleeping children and refill Dad’s water glass, or get him another beer.

With the ironing Mum can now relax. But not before she has soaked the kids’ uniforms so that they are easier to wash in the morning. Finally, she can rest! But can she really rest, with this nagging feeling in the back of her mind that she has forgotten to do something? “Oh, well, whatever it is, I’ll do it in the morning.” Mum’s off to bed, to join Dad who’s already been there for a while, (he went straight to bed when he got back from socialising at the bar).

Bathed and thoroughly exhausted, she climbs into bed. He turns over and reaches for her. He’s in the mood tonight. He tells her how beautiful she looks. She rolls her eyes. “I look haggard,” she thinks. “Like I’ve worked three jobs today. And in 6 hours and 23 minutes, I have to do it all again. And he picks this moment to be in the mood! He’s got to be kidding!”

I know several women who have days like this most of their lives. They toil at work and home, putting everyone’s needs before their own. How can it be expected that she should cope with this much work in a day, especially when her husband is so tired and needs a break after a day in the office? These grossly unequal work contributions in the home, (especially where there is no hired help), no doubt lead to burnout, resentment and other issues that can lead to the degeneration of relationships.

Here’s Tapera Kapuya’s latest opinion piece:

Keeping society out of our bedrooms

For a couple of years running, gays, lesbians, prostitutes and other adults indulging in one manner or the other of consented sexual gratification – between adults of consenting age – have been subject of mass bashing. No one can stand on their defence for fear of association. They are a convenient distraction, an appropriable conversation initiated by political leaders when they fail to provide solutions for the country’s problems. Or for religious leaders whose convoluted sermons fail to hide the contradictions of their failure to side with those demanding justice and dignity in this, their Lord’s earth.

I am quite aware of the non-contentiousness of this piece. We are all agreed on every aspect I raise in it. Apart from, perhaps, my openness on the subject. Sex and sexuality. And how this is a very private matter for the citizen. And how social morality should never apply.

There is something very wrong with collectivized morality, especially when it comes to the subject of sex. For starters, it is one such issue that rarely finds comfort in public conversation. Even in private, it sort of has to wait till after a measure of some substance enhancer, insanity or as part of delinquency. Even amongst those who have just had it.

Words referring to sex cannot be uttered without being offensive or socially inappropriate. Even amongst those who do it in the acceptable setup: heterosexual married couples. Unless one borrows the language of external societies for whom sex and sexual expressions are not taboo. So whereas we can say without shame words referring to our sexual organs by name in English, Spanish or French, we couch in shame and contempt when the local vernacular is used. We can freely describe objects or those who look sexually appealing publicly as being ‘sexy‘ – with not consequences but for an envious stare – but the same description or word would get you plucked horns should you give it an approximate translation in our own languages.

It has been argued, probably rightly so, that this moral ‘correctness’ about the subject of sex, including subtracting it from acceptability from general discourse, explains why our people, more than any other race or ethnic group, have suffered the most from diseases that are sexually correlated. Our intervention programs have tended to be too moralized for quite obvious a subject. They are laced with doses of contempt. Never an acceptability that sex is a fundamental necessity for every adult, both for pleasure as for physiological needs.

But even more disturbing and in need for an unambiguous challenge is the whole manner in which society has increasingly poked its head and now finding comfort in the bedrooms of other adult citizens. Consenting adults are deprived the freedom to choose how and with whom they should have sex. There is always a moral police somewhere ready to pounce on those considered sexual deviants. Even worse when these, men and women, perhaps lacking enough gratification in their own lives and therefore quite finding it vexatious that others can enjoy it variedly, find themselves in positions of authority.

There is no suggestion of names here. But if we look closer into the abuse of religion and the State to brutally blackmail and attack those whose sexual conducts they do not agree with. This is irrespective of two fundamental codes: that those whose sexual preferences and acts are consenting adults and, that their acts, privately engaged in, have no physical effect on the persons who find these acts contemptuous.

The arguments raised to criminalize sexual gratification of consenting adults that is not deemed in synch with dominant views are just as ambiguous. Ranging from religious ones concerning how God and nature made things a certain way to an Afro-ethnic uniqueness of particular forms of how to have sex. These arguments are often presented in a hacking manner – where emotional and physical battery follows any attempts to rebut these so dismissible rationalizations. This explains why gays, lesbians, transgender and the women sexuality lobby demands greater support from civil society, and protection by the State.

We might not agree with other people’s sexual preferences. But where these preferences are confined to consenting adults, they really are of no business to any other person. That a woman, or a man for that matter, chooses to charge another to have sex is their own matter. Those who do not agree with paying for sex have a ready recourse: not to seek those who sell it. Same applies with those who do not agree with gays and lesbians: stick to your preferred sex. You should not conflate your subconscious fears or ultra egos and imposing your preferences on other persons.

As the new constitution is being drafted, special thought should be paid to ensure that the State and society do not become peeping Toms. Neither should it allow society into the bedrooms of adult consenting citizens.

A neighbour, a young doctor stationed at one of the government hospitals here, lost laptops and mobile phones to some daring house breakers last month. Naturally, he rushed to the police to make a report. The cops “sprang” into action, and a few days later, they visited the burgled home with the “suspect” but found no one. Another few days later, a friend of mine who knew one of the investigating officers asked him if the good doctor had recovered the stolen stuff. “We did, but the doctor did not,” came the reply. And I imagine it was said with a knowing wink. Turns out the burglars had struck some illegal deal with the cops, and my friend suspects the cops “pocketed” the stolen property! So much for hunting the bad guys. The doctor keeps making endless trips to the police station to check on “progress” and each time they tell him they are still investigating. So much for law enforcement hey?

Not that we care anymore, since it seems he was killed in Sirte, 20 October 2011.

But for a while, (I have just been for a 6 weeks holiday) Zimbabwe was top of the list for him to flee to. Like the tyrant Mengistu before (who I think still lives in my Ward)!

However, in order to be safe, Gaddafi would have to know he was not jumping into the fire (from the frying pan). He would not want to do a Charles Taylor – fleeing his war crimes and taking refuge in Nigeria, which country promised him safety for the rest of his life. But then, two years later, bundled him off to the Hague, where he now sits in prison (although I assume it is better than being hauled from a concrete pipe, beaten and then shot to death).

So why didn’t Gaddafi snivel into Zimbabwe? He had the money, the local contact, bunkers to use?

He did not come here, or attempt to, because, (like all tyrants) he needed to avoid democracy. And he can see that democracy is coming back to Zimbabwe. And even the local tyrants are going to suffer from it in the next two years.

Willows require still pools,
girls, silver-backed mirrors,
priests, the cross of Jesus.

Only jacarandas
can take their reflection
from the dull sky of tarmac.