Selfish

 Two years ago I had visited my grandmother in Port Shepstone during the Christmas holidays. The last time I had visited my grandmother was ten years ago. The city life had now consumed me. But when I was there I felt free, there was less pollution and the houses were further apart. Everyday started slowly and ended calmly, no drama. It was like I was in haven surrounded by angels.


It was a Monday, the 22nd of June. The day started normally; breakfast followed by never ending household chores.

Midday, after lunch, Grandma was busy with sewing and everybody had gone to where they entertained themselves. My younger cousin had gone to his friends. They had just been introduced to puberty and were following weird trends. They were cutting their hair like football stars, a style they called “Steko”. They wore sneakers and skinny jeans; their idea of a swag. All the village girls were crazy about them.

My aunt was the worst. The tavern was like a job to her, she attended in shifts. Her favourite was six to six, sunrise to sunset. Every evening she came back smelling of alcohol, and woke up in the morning to rush back to the tavern without taking a bath and without any money. But she would still come back drunk much more than she had been yesterday. The truth is she was running away from doing households chores.

While granny was sewing, I sat down right next to her and offered her help, as if I knew anything about sewing. This was much more entertaining than having to watch walls or sit outside under a tree damaging ant holes.

Granny surprised me when she asked me about what I wanted to do after my studies. She was never a person who wanted to listen to other people’s dreams, she found them irritating.

 After I had told her that I wanted to be a writer, she gave me a scary look, as if she was letting me know that if I continued with this nonsense, she would squeeze the life out of me. I immediately told her I wasn’t too sure about this and I told her about I.T. and explained what it is. She smiled and told me she couldn’t wait to visit me in my office. That was a relief.

A minute later she then told me a story about a man who died two decades ago. This man didn’t have a son and he was always angry because his three wives didn’t give birth to a boy. Two didn’t give birth at all. He had only one daughter with his late first wife, MaKhumalo, who died giving birth. She was too young, only thirteen years old.

This men was Jabulani Msomi but people preferred to call him by his last name. When his daughter was six years old he decided to marry another wife. He married MaNzama but she never gave birth. A year later he married his third wife MaNdlovu but she also did not give birth.

His younger brother Vusi had all what he wanted. Vusi had two sons and two daughters, a mixed pair from his two wives. Vusi got his two daughters married, each for eleven cows.

Their parents were very happy and they seemed to love Vusi much more than Jabulani. Vusi’s first son found a job as an Afrikaans teacher in a school in Umlazi. He gave Vusi a lot of money, which he used to start a chicken farm.

Jabulani never liked this. His daughter Nonhlanhla was not educated, unemployed, and not married at the age of twenty five. The problem with Jabulani was that he was stubborn and he always believed everything he did was the right thing. He never listened to anyone. Jabulani was very jealousy of Vusi’s happiness. He wanted to snatch it all away.

                         [1].  [2].   [3]