DUMISANI KUFARUWENGA

Decadent enjoyed dagga.
It elevated him. It made him insightful. It gave him immense powers of observing the motives that drive human nature. Under its influence, he could read the mind of man, and in this particular instance, he observed the workings of the mind of woman.
Tongogara is a tiny Growth Point which refuses to grow. When Zimbabwe got independence from oppressive British colonial rule in 1980, the Government embarked on an ambitious decentralisation program whose aim was to develop designated rural shopping centres and turn them into urban outfits.
So a rural outspot called Chirashavana situate deep in Shurugwi Communal lands was designated a growth point and was renamed “Tongogara” after the hero of Zimbabwe’s liberation war, Josiah Magama Tongogara.
Despite being named after the name of the colossal hero himself, nothing significant happened at Tongogara.
But hold your horses:
Tongogara High Sxool was built by the Government adjacent to the Growth Point.
A formidable foreman called Xanda superintended over the construction works at Tongogara High Sxool. And Decadent marvelled at Xanda’s good workmanship, and observed how he walked with an aggressive gait with his trademark hat, and how he drank and bullied everyone and fought with other patrons at Nyaguze bottle store, and how sometimes Xanda made a fool of himself.
In his dagga induced wisdom, Decadent said to himself, this is what I want to be; reckless and courageous and heroic, not giving a fiddler’s fart what society thinx.
A police station was also constructed at Tongogara. A no nonsense police boss called Mbofana was in charge of it.
Prior to the reign of Mbofana, jobless youths came down to Tongogara from the destructive goldfields of Boterekwa. Yes, Boterekwa, the spectacular mountaneous site where the unemployed youths dug for gold and destroyed the environment and made small fortunes, which small fortunes they transported to Tongogara, solely to show off how prodigals like themselves squandered their ill-gotten wealth.
They would prance and boast about their new found fortune, they would deride the elders and hit anyone who so much as questioned their behaviour and inquired into their wayward ways.
They were fierce.
Until Mbofana arrived.
Decadent observed Mbofana ‘s solitary fight against the forces of destruction.
One day, Decadent was present when a drunk and troublesome gold panner called Dhovera misbehaved in the bar, challenging everyone and anyone to a fight. The whole bar fell silent. Mbofana rose from his barstool, camly, confidently, and walked up to Dhovera. Mbofana slapped and struck Dhovera with a stern open palm across the face, and the sound of the blow was heard as far afield as Jobolinko and Juchuta.
The blow is called “mbama” in formal Shona, or “zenya” in the colloquial language of the street.
Dhovera turned and fled.
From that day going forward, the rowdy gold panners bowed down to Mbofana’s quiet authority. And there was peace.
A Grain Marketing Board (GMB) depot was also set up at Tongogara. It’s employees were paid fortnightly and they were generous with their wages and purchased liquor galore at Mudhara Svoba’s counter, and at Sly’s congenial joint.
But one of the GMB employees was odd. He didn’t drink and stayed with his wife at the blue shop which was adjacent to Decadent’s father’s shop where Decadent worked during skool holidays.
From his father’s shop, Decadent could observe, after a few puffs of Kandhlera’s potent dagga, how the odd GMB employee’s wife had a volumptous posterior, and how she shook it in her husband’s face, and how the husband always obeyed her.
And Decadent saw how every Sunday the woman of the bountiful posterior would take a bible and lure her husband, again by shaking her assets, to make him follow her to a prayer session in the woods.
Again, Decadent noted, the husband always complied.
One Sunday afternoon, Decadent secured a vaunted grade of dagga from George the Jazzman, Jazzman being the street lingo for a reputable dagga supplier. George the Jazzman’s twists were reputed to be the best of the best.
And Decadent wanted to savour George the Jazzman’s sample in solitude, which is the only the best way to test the quality of George the Jazzman’s dagga against the human intellect.
Mind over matter.
Good dagga sharpens the human intellect for the intelligent, and blunts human intelligence for the obtuse, Decadent had discovered this truism in his dagga smoking career.
So Decadent, with George the Jazzman’s twist of dagga safely ensconced in the sox he wore, descended from the rocky out crop next to the GMB depot and found a cool rock under the shade of the Mushavi tree and sat down on the smooth cool rock, happy that the dangling branches of the Mushavhi tree concealed his presence.
And there in the cool shade of the Mushavi tree Decadent withdrew George the Jazzman’s twist of dagga from his sox and expertly rolled it into a neat cigarette and lit it and dragged it vigorously, ravenously.
This is it!
And Decadent felt the potent sweetly sick smoke of the dagga hit the bottom of his lungs in pleasurable pain.
And his nerves sent a sensation to his brain, that all is well, and that good will overcome evil, no matter what happens.
So Decadent strode confidently back to his father’s shop after finishing his joint, content that justice always overcomes injustice.
But next to GMB, under the big Muchakata tree, was the odd GMB employee with his wife of the volumptous backside. The wife with the accentuated bottom was holding a bible in her hand, knocking it against her husband’s head, the way a teacher knocks the head of a dull pupil with a ruler.
In response thereto, the husband, the odd GMB employee, was nodding his head in the way the meek of the world accept subjugation.
And captivity.
And Decadent, aided by George the Jazzman’s weed, wondered whether a woman’s good outward looks are a weapon of oppression?