A Simple Farm Worker

A Simple Farm Worker

By Andrew SevenSeven

The following is a work of fiction, any similarity to an actual event is purely coincidental.

This story first appeared in the Villager newspaper.

Matamu Sikerete was a simple man, he knew it. He had always been simple, even from a young age. He embraced it, it’s who he was. As a child, when other boys in his village dreamt of travelling to the city, becoming lawyers, and driving the latest cars, all Matamu wanted was to build a home that wouldn’t collapse after the first summer rains, to take care of his mother to her dying breath and as he grew older, to find a wife that would have him, and thereafter spend his days meeting her needs.

     Fate was faithful to his ambitions. He finished grade 12 with 15 points, just enough to land himself a job at a large farm 5 kilometres from his humble village on the eastern border of Kavango. Matamu was 20 when he got the job, just after he completed his matric. A repeated grade here and there throughout his educational trajectory meant he finished school quite late in life. His first job was a dung heaper, meaning he collected all the cow dung at the farm to be used for fertilizer.

     Presently, he rode around on his horse overlooking the farm. He was a tall, dark man with a bushy, unkempt beard and hair and the eyes of a man who had seen much pain and overcame it all. Fidgeting a pistol tucked in his belt, he clicked his tongue and guided his horse away from the small hill, then signalled his subordinates to gather up the cattle and lead them back to the farm. Matamu had been the foreman for seven years now, with a mammoth salary of N$3,500 a month, and that in itself was overachievement of his dreams. He had hoped to be a farm worker so he could make enough to buy the wood and material to build his home, and now, he was giving others orders. And he no longer smelled like manure all the time. He just had the natural musky smell of manliness.

     The best part about it was, he had a beautiful wife, Maggy, waiting for him at his trailer home away from his village cabin home.

     As he descended the hill, Mika, his assistant, and really the only person he could call friend on the farm, ran after him and signalled him to stop. “Ah, Matamu, the cattle are well fed today,” he said reassuringly. “Will you be having dinner with Mr. Kruger tonight, then?”

     Matamu laughed a little. Every Friday, he would dine with the master of the farm and his family, provided business did not slack. He wife was usually invited along as well, but Maggy was like him, unworldly and modest, if not more so. She preferred to stay at home, knitting though she barely got any done. Mika on the other hand was a curious, opportunistic wrench who sought every chance to fashion himself good fortunes, whatever form they arrived in. He would often ask Matamu what they were having and how long they would be having the dinner. Matamu knew well that Mika wanted to be invited along to the dinner, perhaps to gain favour with Mr. Kruger, but that was a position he would have to gain through hard work of his own and not through backhanded smooth talking.

     “Yes,” Matamu responded as he often would. “And like always, it’ll take about an hour. Go home and bath; that manure does not mix with you well.”

     When Matamu got home, he found his wife just getting back from her duties as well. She looked pretty in her yellow dress with flower patterns. He had bought her that on her birthday three years ago. It was starting to a little pale now; he knew he had to get her another one soon. They spoke for a short while, and once again she confirmed to him her intentions to skip the dinner. Matamu was slightly annoyed, but he barely let her see that before he picked up his jacket and left for the main house. Dinner was lovely. Mrs. Kruger prepared a nice fat duck, which Matamu had about two a year at her choosing. It was delicious but it not last. After about quarter an hour, Mr. Kruger’s grandson, Hans, cut himself with the kitchen knife when he was allowed liberty to do like the adults did. Mr. Kruger was so upset that he called an early end to dinner. Matamu gathered his things and headed down towards his trailer. The lights were off, which was strange because Maggy was supposed to be knitting, but perhaps she had grown bored and dozed off; which didn’t make much sense at all because she would be better entertained if she would accept the dinner invitations. As Matamu approached it, he heard a soft whimper from inside. Or something like a whimper. Maggy usually did not grunt in her sleep, even when she had nightmares. Was it a robber? He narrowed his eyebrows, filled with curiosity, then, approaching the door, tip toed and pulled the knob as quietly as he could. The light of the full moon shone straight into his small trailer house, right to his bed. There, it revealed his friend and assistant, Mika, lying down, moving his lower body back and forth, and under him was his wife, Maggy. Matamu’s hand reached for his pistol.

     Mika and Maggy immediately shot up from their comfortable position, the look of deathly shock and horror painted on their faces like a canvas. Mika’s had an extra unpleasant twitch at the change from sheer pleasure to sudden fright in the space of a second.

     Matamu could not believe his eyes. He was still sorting out his emotions, from disbelief, to anger, disappointment. However his hand had reacted already. Shaking with fear, it pointed the gun at his betrayers, his index finger hovering recklessly beside the trigger.

     “M-m my f-friend,” stammered Mika. “It’s not what you think it looks like. I swear.”

     Matamu’s finger almost jerked the trigger at that. He bit into his lower lip to stop himself from shooting that slimy rat right there. He appreciated Mika trying to undermine his intelligence about as much as he appreciated him sticking his privates in his wife. His simple mind had exhausted the scenario. Surely there was nothing more to it? Mika was always a scoundrel, he knew that, and always would be. The only reason he ever tolerated him was because he was occasionally funny and was a hard worker. But Maggy? That thought was deferral. For once in his life, he wanted answers, he wanted to understand whatever complex reasoning lay behind his faithful wife sleeping with a good for nothing maggot; why she would cheat on him.

     “Why?” was all Matamu could utter starring solemnly at his wife. Maggy had sat there the whole time, crying, trying not to look at her husband’s pistol.

     Mika puckered his lips and looked uncertainly at both of them. “So does that mean I can leave?” he said, raising a finger. He held the blanket at his waist to cover him and attempted to get off the bed, but as he did that, he consequently exposed Maggy’s nakedness. Matamu had had enough, he flung his right arm back and smashed Mika in the head with the butt on his gun. He fell back on to the bed and Maggy jerked much of the blanket back to cover herself.

     “I am getting very impatient now,” Matamu whispered. “I don’t know how much longer I can keep myself from sending bullets into both of you, tell me why you did this, Maggy.”

     “I-I,” Maggy began, but she cast an intimidated glance at the gun and squirmed in fright. “Please. Please.”

     “Make me understand, Maggy,” Matamu replied sternly. “I am a simple man, but make me understand why you would do this to us.”

     “Maybe that’s just it, Mata,” said Maggy with a small tone of renewed courage. “You have no ambitions, you-when we met I loved you, I still do, but I at least thought you were going to do something with yourself, but you have been content with being a farm owner’s glorified slave. Getting dinners if you work well like that was something to be proud of.”

     “And so the solution was to sleep with my subordinate? Why didn’t you tell me ages ago, we have been married for five years and you didn’t bother to tell me you were not happy!” Matamu asked.

     “I-I,” Maggy hesitated. “I didn’t know what to hurt you. I love you, Mata, but I cannot be a foreman’s wife forever, washing that stinking wrench mistress and her ratty children’s clothes. I want a better life.”

     “And Mika will give it to you?” Matamu asked. His gun dropped at his thigh. He was utterly confused. Was his wife a gold digger? She had never revealed herself to be that. She was always so supportive. But if she was, what would she get in Mika? He earned N$1,500 a month, less than half of his own salary.

     Maggy glared sideways at Mika. They were still tugging the blanket for coverage. “He’s a slimy pig, true but he has plans to leave this place,” she said, her face contorted with disgust. “He’s going to Windhoek in four months, he was supposed to leave a month ago already, but his mother died, so he had to stay for a few months to take care of his sisters. That’s the only reason I sleep with him. He’s taking me with when he goes, and he’ll help me get a job in the city.”

     If Matamu was confused before, now he was completely bewildered. “Your mother is alive, is she not?” Matamu asked Mika. “I saw her not two days ago.”

     Mika instantly became excessively interested in the plain patterns of the blanket he wrapped himself in. He stared down resolutely without looking up, or answering Matamu.

     Maggy’s glare died away quickly to give way to curiosity. “What?”

     “Answer!” Matamu demanded of Mika.

     Mika licked his lips nervously and smiled as he looked up at both of them. “Yes, my mother is alive.”

     “Why did you tell me she had died?” asked Maggy.

     “I’m not going to Windhoek,” said Mika staring back down at the blanket. “I only said it when I found out that’s what you wanted. I would have said whatever you wanted to hear to sleep with you.”

     Maggy’s face dropped. But Matamu’s lifted slightly. Maggy began to cry, and looked up at Matamu. “My sweet Mata, forgive me, I am so sorry. I didn’t know what I was doing. Please forgive me.”

     Matamu leaned forward, grabbed the blanket and pulled it off of them. “Get the hell out of my house, the both of you.”

     They just sat there trying to cover their bodies with their limbs. But Matamu pointed his pistol fiercely in their direction. “Get the hell out of my house, both of you before I shoot you. And Mika, be assured that you won’t be returning back to work.”

     They got up and began to shuffle out of his trailer house naked and into the cold night. Matamu slammed the door behind them and stood there for a while. He was still angry, but he was also humoured, which was probably the only reason he hadn’t shot them both. And now that he thought about it, shooting Maggy would have brought him no lasting joy at all. What a complicated night he had just had for one as simple as he.

The Wedding

The Wedding

By Andrew SevenSeven

The following is a work of fiction, any similarity to an actual event is purely coincidental.

 First published in the Villager newspaper

It had been a few days since Geraldine had stopped crying—three to be exact—yet her eyes were still blotted with a lingering shade of red. She looked at the man sat across her; a tall fellow with short Rasta dreads and a kempt mustache. She still wasn’t sure whether she hated him or loved him, but one thing was sure: she wouldn’t be feeling the pain she was right now if it was not for him. He had come over to her apartment at her request. She needed answers. “How long have you know, Shaela?” She managed after the longest pause yet.

     “Almost five months,” Shaela replied. He had a deep booming voice that betrayed a soft tone of care.

     “Five months and last week’s events were how you chose to tell me?!” Geraldine lashed at him. But when he raised an eyebrow, she backed off. He had tried, she knew, but she had not even entertained the idea before. Now it cracked its whip at her. Geraldine had grown up with Shaela and they even used to be the best of friends. They had lived in the same street in Soweto since birth, but after her father died when she was 12 and she moved to the upper class suburbs when her mother remarried, they grew apart. She always thought he was jealous of her because of that. She had gotten a taste of the life they planned for when they were kids before him. Without him. She now knew she couldn’t have been more wrong. “How did you find out?”

     “I don’t know,” Shaela began with a shrug, “I guess I’ve always been jealous of any man that got close to you, especially one that drove a Hummer. But I was just about to leave things be, return to my miserable life without you when Angelica came into the picture…”

     Angelica, Geraldine thought. She shook her head as memory flashed back to her wedding day. It was going to be the single greatest day of her life. She was in her room in front of a tall mirror taking it all in. The cake, the decorations, the colour combinations, the food—and most importantly her wedding dress (well, most important after her Prince Charming)—everything was perfect.

     At that moment Ndeshi, her Maid of Honour, barged into the room and slumped onto her bed. “Suzanne started drinking a bit too early and threw up on her bridesmaid’s dress. I got her into a spare and she’s now taking a cold shower.”

     “Where would I be without you, Ndeshi?” said Geraldine gratefully, taking her eyes from her majestic reflection. “How are you Festus?”

     “We’re going to talk about that when you get back from your honeymoon,” Ndeshi dismissed her. “Today is about you. And I think I hear a car pulling in. That should be your stepdad. We should be off to the church soon.” And with that she was off again.

     The church was packed, and every standing person was beaming up and down at her with stretched grins as she and her stepdad walked past them down the aisle; Everyone except for Shaela, her childhood friend. She wondered why she had even sent him an invite. The wedding theme song played on as she walked up the steps and was handed over to stand, facing her fiancé. She couldn’t believe this day had come at last. Many of her friends told her fiancé he was the luckiest man in the world for having found her, but she knew she was just as lucky. He was the kindest, most handsome, romantic she had ever met. He was perfect, and she loved him with all her heart. She was the luckiest girl in the world.

     The Priest waited till everyone was seated, then began to speak. “We are gathered together on this wonderful summer afternoon to share with Geraldine and Rodger, who, today exchange vows of the everlasting love…”

     Geraldine skipped that part. What a farce! Her thoughts touched back down to the present where, Shaela, sat across her, merely waited, patient. He must have noticed her wander off.

     Geraldine got up and poured herself a glass of orange juice from the fridge. When Shaela declined an offer for one, she returned to her seat, took a sip and asked. “Angelica was the first?”

     “Yes,” said Shaela. “The sad thing is, you weren’t even to be the last.”

     Geraldine remembered the first time she had set eyes on Angelica, only a week ago but it still burned deeply in her cerebral cortex.

     The Priest was finishing his speech; only one meaningless formality was left. “If there is anyone here who objects to this union; speak now or forever hold your peace—”

     The silence lasted only two seconds—a woman in a purple veiled hat stood up and spoke. “I object.” The church erupted in a reproaching hum. But the woman continued. “I object because my name is Angelica Barnes and that man is my husband.”

    

     Was this someone’s sick idea of a joke? Geraldine thought. On her wedding day? At the altar? “Who the hell are you?”

     “Tell her, Rodger.” The woman said. She moved out of the pew and stopped at the base of the steps. “Tell your wife to be who I am.”

     Geraldine flung her head to Rodger whose face was ashen with pure horror. But he wasn’t looking at Geraldine, or even at Angelica, but further on down the aisle, where 7 women had entered the church and were approaching. They were women of various skin tones, too; An Asian, an Arab-looking woman and others also. “What is zis?” a brown skinned woman with a French accent inquired.

     This was turning into a circus. Every eye was focused on Rodger who could only smile sheepishly and wipe sweat off his forward.

     Geraldine shook her and head for what felt like the 900^th time that day and held her glass tightly so her hand would not shake. “You say he’s been doing it for years.”

     “Yes,” answered Shaela. “Angelica was the first, he met her in Botswana on business and they got married there. When he realized that certain financial advantages were granted to citizens that foreigners were not privileged to…well, I suppose he saw the profit in that. He expanded his reach across the globe. Ming is from China, Marion from France—he even married someone from Singapore. He managed to keep his secret under wraps using different aliases and fake IDs, but something this big was always bound to blow up in his face.”

     “Where is he now?”

     “Well, as you know he was arrested, but he’ll be deported back to his country tomorrow where he’ll answer for his crimes. All his marriages have been annulled.”

     And now came the part that concerned Geraldine the most. Her heart accelerated a little as she asked. “Why did you do it?”

     “How could I not?” Shaela answered with a slight hint of offense taken. “When I saw him kiss Angelica I had to do something, I told you about it but you wouldn’t listen. So I dug further and more dirt came up on him. After that I felt I had a responsibility to those women to show them who this man they had married really was. I don’t regret ruining your wedding. You had a right to know who you were marrying before you signed the papers.”

     “Is that all it was,” Geraldine asked innocently. “Responsibility?” Would he get the hint already!

     “To them,” said Shaela. “Yes. To you, something much more, and it’s not jealousy.”

     “I know that now. So then what?”

     Shaela leaned towards her. “During these last 5 months I reached a point that I didn’t’ mind who you were marrying. I just wanted you to be happy—truly happy. Even though it killed me inside. You wanna know what it was that kept driving me to expose that man….it was this:”

     He cupped her face in his hands, closed his eyes and they shared in a kiss he had only dreamed of for so many years.

The Dichotomy of American Cinematic Egotism

The following was first published in the Villager newspaper.

The Villager is a weekly Namibian newspaper.

The dichotomy of American cinematic egotism

The United States of America sure loves itself doesn’t it? Hopefully this doesn’t piss of any American aid funding agencies in the country, but let’s be honest, the country is the international superpower equivalent of Narcissus, the Greek mythological hunter who fell in love with his own reflection.

You mostly see this in movies. It’s as if the cinema is America’s giant lotion bottle for the proverbial obvious. Red Dawn is a movie about North Korea hostilely occupying American soil; with no clear purpose apparently; simply because they can. The result? A large, trained North Korean army division gets their buttocks handed to them by a bunch of American teenagers. Seriously. They had zero training, just a chorus of American patriotic chanting, because that’s usually how winning a war works.

When you look much closer at this you realise just how frequent this occurs. Two of the new blockbusters are practically the same movie. White House Down is about terrorists attacking the White House and subsequently getting their rear ends kicked. Olympus has Fallen is about terrorists attacking the White House and subsequently getting their rear ends kicked. You would think they copied off each other for the script.

Almost all the big hit movies revolve around America. If it’s an alien invasion, whatever the extraterrestrial visitors are looking for is hidden in America. If the world is coming to an end, the most interesting moments will be occurring in the Land of Opportunity.

Now a lot Afro-centric voices are displeased with this and this is very understandable. They hate that America is so focused on itself in its artistic expressions but I think we have to realise a major contributing factor for this is that the movies are being made in America by Americans. I’m sure if Namibians had the budget (and talent?) to pull off an alien invasion blockbuster, Martian kwaitos would be pitching up in Independence Avenue.

The reproaching finger has to be wagged for the right reasons. In the new Die Hard movie, our American hero, played by Bruce Willis, erects an arrogant middle finger at his about-to-die Russian villain as he jumps to safety. In the high grossing film Armageddon, starring the same Bruce Willis, meteorites fell to the earth and caused much destruction. Paris, the French city gets totally destroyed by an asteroid fragment. But that wasn’t a big deal, everyone cheered when America was saved.

I think this is where the real issue lies. Despite tensions in North Korea reaching boiling point, American film makers still received epiphanies to make movies that depict Koreans as bulling, incompetent jerks with an air of sexual deprivation. With great parts of the world already hostile towards America due to this perceived attitude, which they totally have, you would think their PR work would be more PR and less mud smearing.

So I think there should be fairness in our disparagement. There’s nothing wrong with feeling patriotic about one’s own country and depicting it in film. If we made a good movie showing how awesome Namibia was, we’d want others to watch it and I’m sure America feels the same. It’s only when that patriotism becomes jingoism and pokes at other countries that it becomes a problem. What’s the solution? Does anybody have Michael Bay’s number?

Should all words be pliable?

The following was first published in the Villager newspaper.

The Villager is a weekly Namibian newspaper.

Should all words be pliable?

Andrew SevenSeven

So I’m sure you’ve seen the new Trevor Noah show, That’s Racist, right? Maybe you bought the DVD or copied it from a friend, whatever, the show was pretty funny. Besides the humour, he really got the crowd buying into the philosophy that words were quite pliable if you invest enough time to changing it. The focus word here was kaffir and he really believes that if we use it often enough, particularly in mundane contexts, the word would lose the power it so tightly holds over the southern African region. It’s not a word that gets used often-although get used it does, let’s not kid ourselves (and in very racist contexts as well), and most of the continent does seem to be slowly forgetting the bitter word, nevertheless when it does show its head it has a way of turning even the kindest heart into a pungent jumble of bile. But such was Trevor’s charismatic sway that he even got a few impressionable white girls to call themselves kaffirs.

If you look to history, it’s a given fact that words can change meanings over time. After all gay used to mean cheerful or merry. The American counterpart of the word kaffir has been embraced by the black community there, so much so that it is employed as many times as the word ‘the’ in the average rap video.

But has that actually made things better? Why does it feel like much of the community that has embraced this word amongst them also endorses some of the foulest lifestyles on the face of the earth? Not to mention that the actual meaning of the word hasn’t been changed, has it? Nigger is still used to refer to black people, even in the black communities, and it still carries some of the negativity previously associated with it.

Words very rarely fully disengage themselves from the association attached to them, even over time. Gay may now mean homosexual, but that that is still due to most of that community’s over eccentric gesticulations. But perhaps what’s worrying is that a lot of women are starting to use this kind of thinking with regards to the B word. For most, it’s no longer an insult now. It doesn’t matter that the word means a female dog. It can be changed to mean something else. But how many of these people would be fine with their young daughters calling themselves that?

Besides that, isn’t word association one of the many things that set us apart from animals? We’re people after all. Should we just disregard the fact that our parents and grandparents died so we’d be freed from the old systems? Isn’t pain a part of being human? A lot of us have a greater respect for history and our ancestors now because we still appreciate the weight behind the words they were lashed with.

When the comedy shows are over, what will we tell our children about our past, and what will their reaction be if their association with the word is nothing different to what they have with a cellphone charger or a glass of water?