SOWE rekuDomboshava had been the pastor’s choice.
He had said that there was power in those mountains; power to unlock God’s favour.
His sermon on God’s favour had been inspiring.
He had said: “God’s favour will give you the job you don’t qualify to have. God’s favour will give you the spouse everyone thinks you don’t deserve. God’s favour will open doors for you. God’s favour will get you the visa to the UK and the US nyore nyore with no questions asked.”
On the mountain side, an elderly woman who had prayed for the possessed college girl rose up, curtsied three times and said: “When I was praying for the girl, the spirit of God showed me that we are resting on a place where a battle was fought muhondo yerusununguko. The spirits of the combatants who lost their lives in that battle are still around. It is as if some of them still do not know that they passed on. I do not understand how it is like that. That is why I have kept saying kuti pane nyaya apa.”
The polarised flock was both intrigued and frustrated with the elderly woman’s patience with the possessed girl.
The aspiring Member of Parliament was seething with rage. The retreat had had all the signs of God’s favour and it was just unbelievable that he was now having to watch his expectations getting reduced to a pipe dream by these demons.
A part of him was suspecting kuti the whole thing was a hoax. He was suspecting that the flock had been infiltrated by State agents and the hoax was being orchestrated to frustrate those seeking God’s favour for the opposition. It just could not be in the nature of God to side with terrorism.
God could only side with progressive forces.
And yet, he found the ‘hoax’ proposition was not convincing even to himself. It was irrefutably naïve to deny that what they were experiencing was very real. He was remembering how the girl had side-stepped his charge and mocked his zeal and ineptitude.
There had been nothing feminine in her manner.
She had looked down at him among the women in whose midst he had crashed in his failed charge and she had shaken her head and she had contemptuously declared, “Dzungu …” and burst out laughing.
He remembered how the laugh had been infectious and drawn half of the flock to join her in mocking him.
He remembered how the girl’s eyes had followed him like a hawk’s as he dusted himself, walking back to mend his broken masculinity among other men. And then she had matter-of-factly written him off in the words: “Kare kangu ndaiuraya zvakadai izvi.”
The hurt had been deep and seared his very soul.
He felt everyone judging him. He felt everyone questioning his aspiration to be a Member of the Legislature.
But what was really shaking him was not what he thought others were thinking about him.
What was really shaking him was what he was beginning to admit to himself regarding his political perspectives.
He felt that the very ground they were standing on was condemning his views. The elderly woman who had prayed without insolence had said that they were resting on the site of a battle of the liberation struggle; a site where the spirits of the fallen heroes were possessing the generation of the born-frees. It occurred to him without any doubt that it was such strange phenomena that would keep the legacy alive no matter what the white-sponsored opposition did.
His own family members who had borne the brunt of the liberation struggle had always branded the Western-backed opposition views as reactionary and misguided.
An uncle had pointed out that the betrayal of the liberation struggle by some politicians who claimed to be patriots was just that – a betrayal of the revolution!
The liberation struggle remained legitimate and clean in its goals. In that case there could never be any justification for any indigenous political party to be sponsored to restore what the liberation struggle sought to dismantle.
The uncle had stressed: “We don’t support the betrayal of the struggle. But standing with the enemy the liberation struggle was waged against cannot be the alternative to the problem.”
He felt like a discovered and ignored traitor …. Not just ignored …but ignored with contempt!
On the mountain side, the elderly woman who had prayed without insolence said: “What is happening here is no simple matter and it has no simple solution like some of you are inclined to think. We ….”
“There is a simple solution to it all!”
The elderly woman turned to face the interjector seated right next to her.
She asked: “What is the solution?”
“It is called prayer!”
There was solid pride in the woman prayer warrior’s voice.
The elderly woman did not argue. She gestured to the college girl’s age mate who was still stretched out on the hard granite and said: “Ndezvekuonesana izvi.”
The elderly woman sat down and the flock looked at the interjector, challenging her to exorcise the fallen hero’s spirit.
The challenger looked towards the pastor but his attention was averted. He was looking down gathering grains of sand with a small twig in his hand.
The collective gaze of the flock literally lifted the challenger to her feet. And, as she dusted herself, the metallic sound of some small object falling from her dress caught everyone’s ear.
That same instant, the college girl’s mate suddenly sat up and said: “Please give me that.”
The women scrapped for the object and gave it to the challenger.
The old guide asked: “What is it?”
The challenger tossed it in the direction of the men.
A man caught it, narrowed his gaze for a better look before passing it on. It passed through several hands before it got to the muscular young man who had talked about tracers.
The muscular young man who had talked about tracers looked at the object and smiled.
Then he held it up for everyone to see and said: “It is the cartridge of an AK 47 rifle.”
To be continued…
