The Displaced Mother

Zimbabwe and its people are struggling. There is political, private, and civic corruption everywhere I turn. My neighbors' boreholes have dried up, and they are desperately searching for other places to obtain water. We have to stay up late to perform household chores now that the electricity only turns on from midnight to 3 am in Harare. These hardships are difficult to handle alone, so after my husband died, I didn't know how I would survive. But, my son, Kuda, came to my rescue. He invited me to live in his house with his wife. I was desperate, sad, and lonely, so I agreed, hoping his wife, Tatenda, had also agreed.

The day after moving in, I could tell that I was not welcome; they saw me as a burden, unwanted. I sought to be helpful by cleaning dishes, tending to the vegetable garden, and waking up at 1 am to utilize the electricity. Kuda and Tatenda were too busy and self-absorbed to notice or appreciate my contribution. They ran a water business together, in which they would truck water from their local borehole to other parts of the area. It consumed their time, and I was often left at home, still desperate, sad, and lonely. To gain more attention from my son, I started making these delicious meals they could come home to. Tatenda saw it as a challenge to her monopoly over her husband's affection. She started complaining to her husband that I was spending too much money on these meals - that I was trying to come between them. Kuda was caught between us, and I'll admit I did not try very hard to resolve the conflict. I did want more attention from my son, and I didn't have the energy to improve my relationship with my new daughter. I dismissed Tatenda's feelings and ignored the pain it caused the family. Looking back, I am ashamed of my behavior but didn't recognize it in time to salvage my relationships.

Kuda approached me a couple weeks later, saying "Mum, I love you, but if my marriage is going to work, you can't live here anymore. You know it and I know it. I wish it was different but nothing has changed!"

I responded with tears forming in my eyes, "I know... I know I haven't been a good mother to you or Tatenda. I have pushed you both away. But where can I go now?"

Kuda put his arms around me and said, "Why don't you go back home and live with your brother for a while? You always had a good relationship with him. Please don't cry. I want you to visit us when you can, and we'll come to you too."

Sniffling, I pulled away, hoping I could somehow regain his trust.

The next morning, I left a note for Kuda and Tatenda before I left for the bus station, promising that I will be a better mother the next time they see me.

At the bus station, I asked the worker for a one-way ticket to Mwami. Bored, he responded that they don't have a bus to that location. Thinking this was because of the small size of my hometown, I bought a ticket for the town next to it.

While the bus bumped along the potted road, I bit into the kudo biltong I brought from home, enjoying the salty dried meat as I gazed out the window. I was amazed at the beauty of my country. We passed a river that ran along a cliff face and gave life to its surroundings. Greenery clung to the side of the cliff and reached towards the banks of the river. As the sun set, the bus drove through a grassland with green trees and swaying yellow grass that reflected the brilliance of the sinking sun. Finally, we arrived at Karoi, the town next to my hometown, Mwami. Stepping off onto the pavement, I thought to myself, "Okay, this is officially the start of my quest to rediscover my motherhood. I can't let Kuda and Tatenda down again."

I walked to the house of my husband's friend to stay there for a few days before heading to Mwami. When I got there, Chi and I caught up and reminisced about our time spent with my husband, joking about his half-finished home projects and stubborn pursuit of lost languages and words. Finally, I got around to asking about the state of the area, but Chi didn't know of my hometown. I thought she was messing with me, so I said, "Chi! Be serious. What is going on in Mwami? I'm going to my brother's in a few days and want to know any news you have." Chi pinched her eyebrows together in confusion and told me that she had never heard of Mwami, that there wasn't another town for kilometers.

Not believing my friend, someone who had not grown up in the area, I decided to find someone that would take me in that direction in two days. I had a mission: I would find my brother and my hometown.

Author's Note: This retelling is based on a Swazi fairy tale, in which a mother steals from her son and his wife and becomes and "unnatural mother." The Swazi people are an ethnic group in Southern Africa that share unique cultural beliefs, traditions, and a royal lineage. Traditionally, the bridegroom's mother would live with/next to the newlywed couple. The mother became jealous of the delicious meals the wife would cook for her son, so she dressed in her son's clothes and ate his food while he worked. As a punishment, her son sends her on a quest to obtain water from a source in which no animals lived. I decided to give this story a modern twist. I changed the setting to present Zimbabwe and the motivation for the mother leaving. I wanted to make the relationship between the son, mother, and wife more complicated. I also decided to write the story in the first person to give the reader more of the mother's perspective. I based my descriptions of the landscape on personal experiences and on the pictures I found because I wanted to match the description with the pictures as closely as possible. The story on the next page will explore the mystery of the seemingly missing town, and we might come across some animals on our way!

Bibliography: The Unnatural Mother story from Fairy Tales from South Africa by Bourhill, Drake and Holloway

Image information: Zebras in a grassland; Weeping Face of Nature; Zebra in Makumi (banner image)

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