A Peep Into How A Personal Matter Is A Community Matter In Kanyamazane

A loud thud caught my attention while I was washing the last plate from that day’s lunch. The thud was followed by a loud groan and I could immediately feel my stomach turn. I was certain someone was hurt. Throwing the kitchen towel into the sink, I hurried to the door where my eyes widened in shock, my nose felt fried and I could feel the disarray in the air.

My brother had fallen off the mango tree while fulfilling one of his hobbies. My brother, young as he is, prided himself in being the community’s distributor of mangoes. Weekly, he would grasp the flimsy tree branches in the hot summer heat and choose the ripest mangos to give to our neighbours. He religiously did this despite not being paid for his strenuous efforts. Occasionally, his efforts were met with Mam’Sakhile giving him a box of ripe bananas which I would make into a banana bread. This banana bread, however, had to be prepared meticulously. Without milk, because the children in the community love baked goods but most of them are lactose intolerant. His knee was a canvas of red tissue as he panicked by what I imagined was a mixture of pain and shock from what was happening.

I stood frozen at the door when I realized what had happened, I quickly snapped out of it when Mam’Sakhile came squealing to his aid, abandoning her fruit and vegetable stall. Five dogs, two of which I had never seen before, were already next to my brother offering to lick his wounds, he made most of these furry friends when he delivered mangoes. Joining my brother under the tree, my heart sank when I assessed the damage and my fear of blood kicked in. In that moment, the warm summer breeze felt harsh on my skin as I hurried into the house to fetch a bandage. I knew it would not do much, but it would stop the bleeding and give my brother the impression that at least one of us knew how to handle the situation.

Mam’Sakhile’s alarming and hysterical call for help had uBab’ Victor peeping through his kitchen window where he used to wave at any neighbor passing by. After his friendly wave, he would continue the conversation with a dry joke and close off with an update on when the next power outage would be. Owing to the lack of high fencing, uBab’ Victor quickly saw the condition my brother was in and rushed to get his barely-road-worthy Toyota van from his garage. After three unsuccessful attempts to ignite his engine, three boys from the community were pushing his car from the back while he offered them words of encouragement and overpraised their strength. The news about my brother’s injury travelled faster than light across the community. My brother, watching the commotion, squealed in pain and pleaded that I call our mother.

Mam’Ndaba came rushing into the yard, with her bible in hand, as she prayed the trip to the clinic would be without disturbances or roadblocks. While Mam’Sakhile and I steadily carried my brother to Bab’Victor’s car, she prayed for his speedy recovery and indicated that we could go and she would call our mother to meet us at the clinic, she also added that we could purchase her holy water for only R10 to induce a speedy recovery. Hurriedly, we got into the car and we were off.

As we left the house, the ice cream truck came towards the community as it would weekly. On this day, however, not many children rushed to choose their toppings as the news about my brother had brought concern to many. We drove past the community JoJo tank and Bab’Victor shared another one of his dry jokes to lighten the mood in the car. He had a habit of joking about things he disliked, the power outages, the lack of clean drinking water and even the young men who would go jogging in the mornings. “Only mad people run without being chased”, he would often say and top it off with, “Maybe they are running from their problems”.

We drove past Stintile Secondary School, the highest achieving school in the district, and the church. I reminded my brother of the time he mistakenly fell asleep in the bathroom stall to cheer him up a bit and he giggled. He then retaliated when we drove past the gym where my pants tore as I attempted to lift a 50kg dumbbell during my first, and embarrassingly last, visit. Our laughs were cut short when Bab’ Victor stuck his head out the window and shouted at the young children racing on their bicycles and playing with other material in the street. He shouted out warnings, raised his fist in the air and the street cleared momentarily.

While clearing the street, one of the young boys fell into the community garden. All neighbors value our garden, which explains why he quickly propped himself up and checked on the cabbages he fell next to. uBab Victor quickly stopped the car to assess the impact of his fall, the young boy confirmed he was fine and didn’t need any medical assistance and the car sped off.

At the clinic, the nurse hurriedly took my brother into a closed room where I imagined he would be examined and prodded. While the walls felt like they were closing in and my throat felt scratchily dry, my mother came rushing through the clinic doors, worried that my brother and I had to go through clinic admin by ourselves – we were still her babies in her eyes – and more worried that my brother could have broken a bone.

After what seemed like an eternity, but was actually a total of three stressful hours, we were finally able to see my brother. Relief filled my eyes when I realized he had what seemed like only a bandage and not a cast around his leg. By this time, the neighbours we had left in our yard had supportively joined us at the clinic.

Owing to the lack of adequate resources in the clinic, my brother was discharged early with a handful of medication. Eagerly, I drew my phone from my pocket and noted which medication he had to take before meals, which he had to take after and which were for pain. As though he had been a soldier coming back from war, my brother was met with cheers and ululations from our neighbors when he was wheeled out of the clinic.

As we drove home in our mother’s car, with Bab’Victor driving ahead of us and two other cars with our neighbors behind us, I knew that our community was more than buildings and landmarks that tell stories about where we had been but it was characterized by all the people we created those stories with. My community is home to lactose-intolerant Natasha, church-going Mam’Ndaba and comedic Bab’Victor. With Mam’Sakhile’s fruit and vegetable stall, the gym that belongs to the Nkosi brothers, Kwanda’s Nails and Bhasoni’s Shisanyama, my community is the local economy that economic anthropologists will write dissertations about and the goldmine of stories that would give Netlfix a run for their money.

This piece was written as part of Fundza’s Fellowship Programme.