I WAS telling my daughter of a hilarious and frightful incident I recently experienced in Waterfalls, Harare. My sister had directed me to the homestead of her friend whose husband was selling pigs on the cheap. At the oldie isolated house I was met by my sister’s friend and a couple of infant children. She led me into the house. There was no electricity, but in the fading light my eyes settled on what I thought was an apparition. Sunken in a dark sofa was a most frightful image; an old white guy with long unkempt white hair and beard. Only the presence of my sister’s friend kept me calm. She introduced the whiteman as her husband, a farmer. In a subsequent quick chat he claimed to be renting a plot in Murombedzi for his piggery project though he claimed to have a farm in Mvurwi. I reckoned the Mvurwi farm had been acquired. This white farmer image reminded me of a word from primary school student’s companion English; hermit. My daughter, who had patiently listened to the story, in between bursts of laughter, said the encounter reminded her of the English idiom; “He has gone native.” In the ensuing argument we, in jest, traded accusations about which of the two reactions was colonially inspired. We finally exited the argument with daughter asking, “Where has all the fun gone if every conversation has to be politicised?” My answer triggered what I thought was a profound conversation, below, between father (P) and daughter (T). P: The town is full of reminders of our colonial past and the neo-colonial imperial present. These reminders include urban poverty, mixed race marriages of convenience, hallucinations over an acquired Mvurwi farm and access to international media. However the village provides semblance of our once pristine environment and culture with its politeness, peace, tranquillity, coolness offered by tree shades and plentiful food supplies. T: Dad you have a romanticised view of the village. You only lived in the village for less than a quarter of your life and that was in the formative years. Since then you have only been the occasional visitor where you spend most of your time with urbane company at the township. With my two versions of the village I fare much better in village talk. One is lived experience; battling with cooking on open fires on a hot day and the resultant smoke, sweat and noisy sounds of despair. This has always been my Christmas experience in the village. The other is of the village that my late grandparents brought to me. P: Each time I am in the village I am transformed by how everything is interrelated and meaningful. A visit to the cattle kraal early in the morning is a reminder of family history, marriages, spirituality, wealth and nature. In the fields I see the natural industriousness of our people and under a cool tree shade am able to meditate and reflect on the meaning of life. The village reminds me of John Keats’s poem, ‘Ode to autumn’ or Mungoshi’s ‘Mapudzi’. T: My most cherished village moments are memories of Sekuru Makwa’s visits to Westgate. When he came from the village he brought with him cassava and paw paws. Even though I was never a fan of these, I always cherished the love behind sekuru’s gift parcels from the village. Sekuru, despite his lack of fluency in Shona, always had hilarious tsuro nagudo stories. I have fond memories of his childhood, especially about when he was learning to march as a trainee security guard. In order not to forget left and right, they had paper pieces on the left leg and grass on the right and would chant “huchani, pepera….huchani, pepera,” which is Chewa for grass, paper. In the end I gave him the nickname Huchani pepera. P: Sekuru brought you his village. What own village will you share with your own children and grandchildren? Stories can never substitute the real thing. Solutions to our economic, health, cultural and spiritual crises are in the village. It is there we must go to for inspiration to build a truly Zimbabwean identity. T: Sekuru Makwa brought his traditional medicines from the village and they were effective in town. In China I had a nagging tooth ache that was instantly cured by Chinese herbs. Traditional medicine can therefore equally flourish in urban settings. I also recall how my other sekuru, your father, how, when I was only four, he raised his walking stick, pointed it at me and declared, “uyu achagona” a prophecy that has come true. P: All you say has roots and inspiration from the village. Unless we nurture and nourish the village culture our culture shall end up like the Waterfalls hermit, weighed down by self-inflicted lunacy.