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 slope, a college girl had been possessed by the spirit of a fallen freedom fighter and caused quite a fracas.
The freedom fighter had identified himself as Cde Gandidzanwa.
A woman with an effortless voice had raised the song, ‘Jehovha chiona zvaite nyika’ – a slow and solemn Psalm that had caught on the flock like a clean camp fire that burns without smoke.
An elderly woman had prayed for the girl without insult and she had not cast the fallen hero out of the college girl.
Nobody had spoken in tongues.
Nobody had invoked holy ghost fire to burn down mweya yemadzinza.
The pastor had observed the whole thing in subdued awe.
The suggestion to send the possessed girl back to rest and recuperate in the minibus at the base of the mountain had found no consensus.
She had been allowed to stay.
And then she had insisted she wanted to rest before proceeding.
The elderly woman who had prayed for her without insult had simply said: “Pane nyaya apa.”
The old guide was more than curious.
He was disappointed that the spirit of the fallen hero had slipped away just like that – slipped away right from under their – under their what?
Under their what?
He had found himself marooned in the middle of the thought.
He had so desperately wanted contact from the other side; any contact with anyone from the other side.
And, it was not a new feeling.
He had felt like this before.
At the end of the war, he had watched the road with an intense expectation to see his own brother among the returning heroes of the struggle.
He had wanted the family to celebrate like other families were eating and drinking and singing kuti:
“Mauya mauya comrade
Zvamauya hamuchadzokera!”
The feeling had grown desperate with each passing day. And then, The Herald had published a roll of honour; thousands of names his father had asked him to go over again and again unwilling to accept that nothing could come out of it.
They were only pseudonyms – ‘Mabhunu Muchapera’, ‘Nyika’, ‘Hondo’, ‘Tichakunda’.
He could have been any one of those coded identities; a skeleton lost in some thicket, mineshaft or mass grave. With time, they had accepted that he would not be coming home.
And then around 2000, the phenomenon of the spirits of fallen heroes possessing mediums and identifying their remains for proper burial had become endemic.
The family’s expectations had been rekindled.
The father had said: “If we cannot have him in flesh and blood, we should at least have him in spirit.”
And they had waited in vain.
And then the father had died in 2008, having waited virtually three decades in vain.
The old guide had then latched onto the strange hope that after varova guva rababa, the father’s spirit would return with news of contact.
But, that too had also not come to pass.
And then hundreds of remains of fighters and civilians had been discovered at the Chibondo mineshaft in Mt Darwin.
Spirit mediums were identifying individual remains. Hundreds of desperate families had converged on the site in hope.
The old guide’s family had also joined those families but came back with no news.
The old guide was now looking at the strange college girl in a desperate hope to make contact with his lost brother.
The desperation was making him feel a strange fraternal kinship with the college girl.
The elderly woman who had prayed for the girl without insult repeated the words: “Pane nyaya apa,” and sat down beside her.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder.
He turned to look.
It was the aspiring Member of Parliament and he whispered: “Mudhara. Can’t we proceed nezvatafambira?”
He did not answer him but gestured with his chin towards the pastor who was appearing to be in a daze.
The aspiring Member of Parliament prodded: “Ko taurai navoka.”
The old guide thought that he was being insolent and ignored him.
He pretended not to have heard him and walked away.
A good singer raised the song: ‘Jehovha chiona zvaite nyika,’ and the flock took it up.
After a soul-searching while, the pastor started praying and the flock joined.
Some spoke in tongues and several replied and it degenerated into something akin to an intense argument.
The pastor concluded his prayer and the strange tongues argument fizzled out.
The flock waited for the pastor to say: “Zviratidzo.”
He remained silent.
The college girl’s age mate rose up and thrust a fist into the air and chanted: “Pamberi nehondo!”
The flock was surprised.
The pastor thought he was being funny and was about to put him in his place when he broke into song:
“Uya uone
Uyaa unone mashura
Uya uone
Mutoko rodhi!”
Before they could recover from the surprise, the young man staggered and fell into a cluster of screaming women.
Three men jumped forward and retrieved his body.
A desperate voice asked: “Vakomana, what exactly is happening here?”
The elderly woman who had prayed for the 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.”
To be continued…
