Conversations with Mama

“Lungile, do you see hope written in my eyes?” Mama asks me. Her face has beautiful contours, shaped and forced by emotions, expressing many things. I know a smile, anger, a frown on her face. I did not know that hope could be written on it too – I am learning something new.

“Explain hope to me, Mama?” I reply, feeling out the ground between us. She looks at me. I know the face that says I am in trouble – it does not look like I am today.

“Hope is a feeling of expectation and desire for something to happen, mntanami – my child.”

“I see, Mama.”

“Faith is trust and belief over time. Hope and faith have nothing to do with money or position.” I can’t put my finger on where this talk is going, but I know she wants to tell me something important for my life. I can feel it.

“Why are you talking like this, Mama?” She turns and looks at me.

“Can you see the hope I have in you my child?”

“Yes. But I have so many questions, Mama.”

“You were born asking questions.” She jokes.

The footpath we are walking on meanders down to the river. It is well worn by those who walked before us, winding through vegetation and between rocks. An aloe catches my hand. Maybe I should walk behind her. These paths are never wide enough for two people. No, I want to be next to her. I want to talk more.

“Grandfather worked for a company for many years and dad has just started at the same company.  I am expected to work there one day.”

My father works for a company that recycles rubber. He cooks this material to perfection and brings it back to life. He has the keys to the factory and he has to open at five thirty to start cooking. The boss comes in at eight thirty with a newspaper every morning. In the morning a pile of paper lies on one corner of his desk and by the time  he leaves, at five, it is on the other corner. But it is not this paper that makes him the money.  It is my dad.

My mom stops and looks at me as if to say, “What do you know, Lungile?” The words don’t come out her mouth, though and I go on. These words have lived on my tongue for a long time. For a long time I have wanted to say them.

“Someone else’s grandfather owned the company for years, their father has just taken over the company, and they are being groomed right now to one day take over the company too. Who would not rather be part of the family that has owned the company for years?” I pull out my rubber bird sling and take aim.

“We need to take charge of our lives, Lungile – to do what we want to do, what we have a passion for, that is really living my child.” She has i-emere – a metal bucket hanging on her arm like a purse. It swings against her hip as we descend to the river.

“Hope feeds the soul and when the soul is fed the body perseveres and endures.”

We are at the water now and she has scooped out a bucketful. Then she stands straight, takes my hand and places it  against my chest. My heart beats and moves both our hands.

“Imagine life with no hope, Lungile my child, how empty would that be?”

“Is this how you are looking at me Mama?” I ask.

“A car that has no fuel jerks then stops – keep putting fuel in yourself. Keep your hope alive. Surround yourself with positive things and people. Hope is affected by experiences my son.”

“Kodwa – but Mama you said money is not needed always to realize what is hoped for.”

I am more present in this moment than I would be in a classroom. Hey, this woman, my mother, never fails to inspire me. “People with more money realize their dreams sooner – they have money and it is everything, Mama.” I fill the gap quickly before she can reply – is she about to tell me that money is not everything?

“Hope is born from an open mind my son. Hope and faith, these things are joined.

Sometimes people ask me where I get my brains from, it has to be from my mother.

“Sorry, buti, but I wish we had the time to talk more. But I must get back with the water.” But we don’t start back on the path, we stay standing, our feet in the water.

“I hear you, Mama and I am listening. But when pain makes my heart heavy and tears fill my red eyes, I think hope is just telling myself that the pain that I find myself in is just for now.”

“To find and cling to hope during this time nyana – son – may mean that the hope that is born is stronger.” Mama says, then adds. “More than anything else, hope is about you, about a promise you are able to give yourself for tomorrow.”

I see something moving between the branches of a bushy ityholo – shrub next to the river. Before I tell my mother that perhaps we need to head back up the hill I see the sole of a black broken shoe. It is Zuko. He has cardboard placed inside the shoe to stop water from going in. I put the water bucket down and reach for my rubber bird sling. Today he will pay for the things he has done to me, I think. On kneeling down and picking up a stone my mother thinks I have spotted a bird and she stands still. She is yet to see me aim and get my first kill. I pull and plant a stone on the back of his knee, I get the soft meat there and he screams jumping out of the bushy shrub. “Lungile, you are lucky your mother is here.” He shouts at me.

“Or what?” I ask cheekily, knowing he can’t get me back now. He is pointing at me fuming with anger.

“Look at what you have done, Lungile. Zuko, are you not hurt?” Mama asks, concerned. Zuko is gently rubbing a red mark left by the force of the stone on the back of his knee as mother shouts at me.

“I am fine mama ka Lungile – fine.” He is giving me that look again.

“Was that your mother reciting Shakespeare?” Zuko says, untangling himself from the shrub he has been hiding behind.

“Hey you, what are you doing here?”

“I have been following you from the village.” He says.

“You just can’t live without your friend, hey Zuko.” Mama laughs.

‘Your mother is wise,” says Zuko, “tell us more,Mama ka Lungile. I need to hear more of your words.”

“Life is fixing time,’ says Mama. “Fixing and preparing for your tomorrow. Who would truly say putting  their hand on their heart that they have finished in this world – that nothing in their lives can be bettered?”

“A few names come to mind, Mama.” I say this thinking to myself that I will tell her about a few wealthy men I know.

“Who my child, who would you say? If you see a wealthy man, it does not mean that they have achieved all they wanted.” It is like she can see the thoughts pass across my face.  She bends down and moves the water with her hand. A crab scuttles out, showing us that this is his territory. It dances sideways towards our feet and then dips back into the water and scuttles under a rock. We laugh.

“I must not keep you my child, you better go see that all the goats are in the kraal.” Mama starts back up the path and we follow with the water bucket. I am sad to be going back. It is not every day that I have a talk like this with my mother.

***

My mother used to lead isikhungo – family evening prayer every night. “Come, Lungile,” she used to call me, “it is time for isikhungo – the evening prayer.” My mother’s prayer gave me goose-bumps and lying there, a little boy, before I fell asleep I used to think, this is faith.

Sometimes we would already be asleep and my mother, a couple of times, woke us up for the evening prayer. Then her voice would turn greater and almost ‘touchable’ and I knew that the Almighty was speaking through her. After a short time I would hear the tears in that very same voice.

One night I woke in the middle of the night. Before I was completely awake, I could hear this voice. My mother was saying a prayer for a better tomorrow. Not only for he, but for all nations and people. The prayer was for those sick in hospitals. It was for the poor that may have slept on empty stomachs and for all of humankind. I lay there and felt so protected – I had, for that moment, no fears. This was faith.

***

I am lying on the floor next to Mama’s bed. We are talking. Almost my whole family is already up this early morning.  But we are having one of the conversations I love to have with my mother.

“How can we keep going, Mama? What happens if we fall off the path along the way?”

“I do not know my child, but I read something in a piece of newspaper. I found it the other day when I was cleaning the cupboards. It was used to wrap glasses in when father came last December. It was written about the life of Nonzame, a girl that grew up during the times of ‘born frees’. She lived in uMlazi. Her name Nonzame,  to persevere, was so right for that girl. Nonzame wanted to become a pilot more than anything. She knew that her parents did not have the money to send her to flight or aviation schools yet that dream remained bright in her. Some days she went to school with her mind full of the troubles in her family.

At home her mother and father fought all the time. The one time it was so bad that her father not only beat up her mother in front of her, but ripped off her clothes with his bare hands and threatened to kill her with a knife. This played in young Nonzame’s mind during class. She understood why she was at school and she stayed and gave it her best. She knew that she wanted to offer her mother a better life as well as attaining her own dreams. Nonzame passed matric with flying colors and proceeded to that flying school she always dreamt of.”

“Wow, how was that possible – did they have money?”

“No son, her parents did not have money. Through her hard work, her studies are now paid for by those that want to make a difference. Here is how hope, faith and dreams are joined to perseverance and commitment.”

I get up to make a fire – egoqweni – in the outside fireplace. Hot water is always needed in the morning. When the water is hot on the fire, Mama fetches it. “I need to make dough to have bread ready for lunchs” she says as she walks away back to the house. Today’s lunch is going to be steamed homemade bread with cabbage drenched in mana soup. We will sit together and eat this delicious meal.

***

Want to read more fiction? Try the short story The Bully by author Ros Haden.