IN THE ABYSS

 

 

 

 

 

As the unending drips of water hit the floor, the atmosphere turns dire. The entire level is drenched and one can smell mud, blood and water so distinctly. Not to mention, the intimidating weight of the watery grave above them. In this setting, an unfortunate community lies defeated and in utter despair with one foot in the after-life. This is a place that turns men to boys and boys to men.

In the bleak moment, a host of agonizing sounds emerge from the huge boulders, “Unyawo lwami! Mayibabo!!”, (My foot! Somebody help!) it continues.

It is the voice of one nursing a raw wound from last night’s calamity. Countless others have fallen victim to the unforgiving boulders and some lay buried beneath the rubble. In the commotion and dust storm, many have been unable to liberate themselves from the danger and yet in this moment the brave one strives to survive. At a surprisingly secluded corner of the hell hole, two brothers lie defeated and somber, as they contemplate their next step. The older one looks into the eyes of his sibling and says,

“Asibhale Ndoda! (Let us write man)”,

This is a hard and daunting suggestion! It is to write a letter that will inscribe their despair of the moment and close their grand curtain. They try best to hold back the measly tears their bodies contain…. Thulani is barely out of his teens and bares the responsibility to be stronger. Sphiwo, the younger brother is looking up to him in a most saddening fashion and fear grips him as a vice. He gives a fading response,

“Ngiyasaba bhuti! (I am scared brother)”.

Thulani stares hopelessly into the air as a way to flee the misery of partaking in his brother’s agony and breaks down in those expensive tears. He is also crying for the fear of not living his dreams. He had always wanted to buy a bicycle and build two mud houses with a JoJo tank. Dying young is almost hard to bear but his body is wasting away and not being able to help his brother is even more torturous. In this moment of pain, a voice from a distance seems to diffuse the somberness as stranger attempts to sing a crooked tune in his intoxication.

“Senzeni na? Senzeni na?” (What have we done) he sings,

It is a struggle song right from the 90s that became synonymous with the African youth craving for answers from their colonial past. In many ways it remains a rhetorical lullaby to people like the two brothers, and to the stranger a mocker and sarcasm in a world he has seen to be highly hypocritical. Men in this domain have made harmful substances a coping tact, a way to escape their tenderness and human vulnerability.

Sphiwo’s breath is departing from him with every passing second and his will to fight is now very strained. He has not eaten in days and his wounds have not improved. The dominating presence of darkness and rock surround the brothers and the entire community of fighters like an unforgiving army ready to subdue and engulf them, however nothing is as dominating as the personal struggles and scars these specific brothers carry. Their story is not unusual, it is the story of pain, complexity and the urge to make it…

Gwanda is a small town in the Matabeleland region of Zimbabwe. It is a place of drought and dust. Thulani and Sphiwo were not spared from the exodus of survival that culminated as a result of economic hardship. Theirs is a tale of becoming men in a time of misfortune and a struggle to continue the legacy of the Mabaleka’s. They are the only heirs of a humble family of peasants, they are the hopes and joy of their kinsmen, a beacon of light to their elders who saw them off a year ago as they embarked on their maiden journey to the land of “Igolide” (Gold).

There is much their family does not know about their treacherous journey south, the giant crocodiles that stole their innocence and zest in the Limpopo river, the unforgiving hike in the baobab plains and the harsh realities of living in the concrete jungle of Gauteng. The truth is Sphiwo and Thulani were broken way before coming here and the shame of giving up before trying was a feat too high, so they soldiered into the shaft with a desperate and oblivious hope of striking gold. Albeit, nothing could have prepared them for the pain in the abyss…

Thulani breaks the silence again as he beckons for his brother to come to life, he squeezes his hand and finally gets a response from Sphiwo. He encourages himself to believe for the better but in his heart are myriad emotions that center around the pain of not seeing his pregnant fiancée back home. The ultimate love of his young life and beacon of hope. He promised Skha the moon and the stars and his love for her was so strong he actually believed he could summon the celestial bodies at her feet. In contrast, he lies beside the lifeless bodies of men that carry equally tragic love stories.

Oh, the pains of Africa! The abyss paints a picture of African souls striving against an intricate fate. Many of these are of pure African descent but do not possess a green book to justify their existence. Many are from Zimbabwe where Thulani and Sphiwo are from. Their great treks to the land of gold is the death trap, the bait that never gave a morsel of meat but a piece of hardship and misery. It is hard to understand why a group of once; sprightly men have resorted to the pit leaving their lives behind. Couldn’t they have stayed behind and lived in poverty for the rest of their lives without a chance of emancipation and couldn’t they have just laid in the “ignorant bliss” of subjugation, in a dry haven with little to show for comfort and wealth? …

As Sphiwo re- emerges from his coma, he finds a new energy to honour Thulani’s request. He gets a hold of the small, scruffy notebook with pen and scribbles a note with great difficulty under the dim light of his waning headlamp. It simply contains two words “Ngiyalithanda lonke!”

Its hard to see why love could be the theme of his scribble, how does love still rule in such a harsh and hateful reality. Does it validate the resilience of the human spirit, does it speak to the invincibility of “Ubuntu”? The brutal honesty is Sphiwo is still a boy child on a journey of making sense of it all. He is a budding shoot who could shape his world into a dreamy haven for his kinsmen but these realities are a stark contrast to that love. The very oxymoron of growing up as an African.

Sphiwo is still to understand his forefathers lived in the shadow of nothingness and lived their entire lives thinking they were less of a man. They worked in the city very different from their native lands, and had to forgo a lot of their dreams for bread and butter. He does not understand a lot of valuable oral history was lost in translation and it will take his only eager intuitions to unravel what that even means. Looking into the future is therefore a possible impossibility, for how can you know tomorrow without conceiving the past. He stares into the dim roof above him as he hallucinates the angelic faces of his kin and squeezes the hand of his beloved.

In what seems to be a little over an hour later, a faint voice over a gramophone is audible. “This is a police operation, please show yourselves Madoda (Men)! Izikhali phansi madoda {Surrender your weapons)!! The voices speak in a language that is close to home for the brothers. It is as though their biological folk are summoning them for a ceremonial feast but in reality, this is the change that changes everything. Their lives once again hang in the balance, the pit is ready to spew them out and usher everyone to a further depressing narrative. In the moment, there is no movement or scuffle, instead the injured congregation of men, silently pray they are located amidst the rubble. They have considered the permutations of what being rescued means. They will be transported to yet another prison but one that will provide a dose of sunlight and shame then all roads will lead back to Gwanda for the Mabaleka brothers. Thulani masters all his strength and lifts his headlamp to get the attention of the nearing voices and he is soon located. At this point, he leans to his young brother with a defeated smile on his face and shrugs him to say, “Bhudi sizophuma” (brother we will come out)! But Sphiwo gives no response….

THE END