THIS Christmas we are headed to my in laws, the first such Christmas with them. Perhaps reflective of a patrilineal ancestry, Christmas has always been in my village or, especially of late, in Harare.
The latter is perhaps reflective of waning control in family decision-making.
After years of apprenticing, my wife has grown in confidence and influence in family matters.
She is now at least a co-head.
I am not really bothered, for, are varoora not the custodians of our culture and traditions?
I leant of our Christmas venue when I overheard a conversation she was having with her Mozambican maternal uncle.
She was excited at having found them after three decades of broken communication.
Christmas would be in the village and will coincide with a big sadaka, spiritual memorial.
My in-laws have an Islamic ancestry and sadaka is Swahili for Sadaqah, a voluntary offering to Allah.
For now, it will suffice to just call it a big party!
After the call, she did not have to brief me.
She immediately posted on the family whatsapp platform the 2016 grand Christmas plans.
Everyone was excited including this mukuwasha who posted a message of solidarity with the planning.
My wife’s father (Manuwere) and maternal grandfather (Salazi) both came to the then Southern Rhodesia as migrant labourers in the 1940s from their village of origin in Northern Mozambique.
Their families were related.
In a variation of ‘rooranai vematongo’ counsel, an arranged marriage followed between Manuwere and Salazi’s daughter in the mid-1960s, a union that resulted in blessings that include my wife.
In 1973 Salazi retired after years of servitude in Rhodesian mines and opted to return to Mozambique.
He took with him his wife and the two youngest sons.
Left behind were my mother-in-law and her two brothers.
My mother-in-law was already married to Manuwere and blessed with children by then.
In the mid-1980s, Salazi’s wife, following the death of her husband opted to return to Zimbabwe leaving behind her now grown up sons.
Years later, following displacements resulting from RENAMO insurgency, communication dried up completely.
This year the uncles managed to send their telephone contacts with a pilgrim to the Bernard Mizeki shrine and months later, the phone number reached us.
From that was born that Christmas-planning call.
My wife’s uncles are on their way via Malawi.
They have a complicated itinerary that takes them through Blantyre, Tete, Mukumbura and then Harare.
It is something to do with permits for non-passport holders.
Sounds like part border-jumping to me.
Their mother, my wife’s grandmother, soon to be a centenarian, is excited at the prospect of meeting with her two lost sons.
She is not aware of the complicated travel itinerary.
This is all part of the trials and tribulations that arose from the Europeans’ partitioning of Africa in Berlin in 1884.
Her other Zimbabwean children, including my mother-in-law, are all late now. Keeping mother and children apart is ironically part of the rule of law and defence of national sovereignty.
Two principles that not even Christmas may knock charity sense in them.
I am genuinely looking forward to this Christmas sadaka.
As mukuwasha I have already committed myself to two goats and a few bottles of brandy.
This time I need not worry about my wife groaning about how culture abuses varoora.
She will be a tete, a female father.
My wife always complains about Christmas day in Unyetu.
She wakes up early to sweep the yard, bathing the young before preparing breakfast, slaughtering chickens and cleaning goat offals.
If the heavens are not kind, it’s a very hot day and they spend hours in sweltering heat at the fireplace preparing Christmas lunch.
And in some years, she is a brewery sentry; keeping an eye on the fermenting seven days brew, doro reChristmas.
Everyone expects her to be a machine that timeously delivers the different meals.
I spend most of my time networking and enjoying with old pals at the local shops.
That this is not village of origin does not help matters.
She is always skipping Christmas.
She wishes for our urban house to become our home/kumusha for Christmas to finally arrive.
This year she is in her backyard and for a change, not a muroora.
From a distance, I will want to see how she handles her varoora.
For me Christmas in the village has always been a great occasion.
Am worried though; as urban homes become misha, will the village Christmas survive?
Will my wife make peace with kumusha, especially over Christmas?
What will be the impact of her growing power and influence over this?
Christmas nostalgia overcomes me.
Growing up, I took forever to go to sleep on Christmas’s eve.
Christmas day tended to be very wet.
On a typical Christmas morning, Mbuya aCecelia would wake us up early to plant the sweet potato crop.
We would curse her for her unChristian behaviour of having us work on this ‘holy day’.
She would do this on a morning whose highlight was the unveiling of our new Christmas clothes.
Breakfast of abundant jam-spread bread was another highlight.
We gladly welcomed passersby to this morning feast.
We waited for the church musical procession, mbuserere, to come, joined it to show off our new outfits at the Christmas service.
We came back home to a waiting lunch of rice and chicken.
It was a delicious meal as this was before artificial soup powders.
After lunch, we demonstrated our dancing skills to the sound of records on the stereo.
From playing records, we left for the local township to mix, mingle and network with the wider community.
We left elders home to enjoy the Christmas seven-day brews.
With the soft pounding of the raindrops, I drifted to sleep and only woke up to bright rays of the 2014 Christmas morning sun.
This year I will worry not about aCecilia on this Christmas day.
I will rise late to enjoy some whisky and roast goat meat at the Christmas sadaka.