MAN JUNGLE LIFE

Down in the jungle, in the untapped forests of our beloved country, where birds join to produce a great symphony, I sat one day to listen, and understand.

I was back at my place of meditation, a place where I can search for my soul and find rest.

A place where I will be so far away from the crazy life of the city which is full of noise, hullabaloo and contaminated air.

Here in the woods it’s serene, and there is a fresh supply of oxygen, for the abundance of indigenous tree is a marvel to watch. No wonder it is said trees are life, please do not cut, if you do make sure you plant also.

I seat down under a big acacia tree, and take my reading book but before I read I just close my eyes and enjoy the silence and the symphony from the birds.

I am in the world of my own, until I am interrupted by an unorganised sound, it has been there all the while but my mind wasn’t concerned about it.

 It’s becoming louder, then I realise it is the acacia tree dispersing its seed.

That is the law of the jungle if you don’t disperse your seen you face extinction, though thousands of seeds are shot in all directions it is only a few that see the light.

Right then it occurs to me that it is not the trees that only disperse their seed in such manner.

I realise that even in our civilised world of talking touching and feeling. A world with a sophisticated way of procreation there are still people who believe in dispersing their seed and never get concerned about it.

The job of this acacia tree I am seating under is just to disperse the seed and that is the end of the relationship, if one of its seed grows do not think it will shed one side for the seedling to see the light. No!

From the moment the seed sprout it becomes a threat, competition and the mother tree will make sure it provide shade, real dark shade, not for comfort but to block the light which we know that it is very essential for tree growth. 

In this world there are such people who from the day they dispose their seed in different bedding grounds of innocent lives they just left them and went on their own to enjoy the sun never bothered about the off springs.

I then wondered that in this 21^st Century there are people who still lead such kind of a life which see them leave a child in almost every area they visited or worked.

I remember a funeral of one of my friend’s father. To us who knew him in the area he had four children including my friend.

On the funeral day there emerged three other faces which looked more like him than these other four children that we knew.

At first people started thinking they were his young brothers, but yet you could see the stir and commotion that these three people had already caused even before the elders inquired.

Surprisingly the three fellows, for they were boys maybe young man in their late teens or early twenties sat at their own as people started casting glances at them. One would clearly see that they were brothers, but whose children? No one could answer.

Interestingly, for them to huddle together wasn’t because they knew each other, No. They looked like each other as well as like the face on the portrait of the deceased. That seemed to be the only attraction that brought them together. That is my guess.

It emerged, though it was now a common guess that they were surely the deceased children from three different women whom he had deflowered in his prime time.

Suddenly my friend had now four elder brothers and was shifted from being second in the family to fifth but all along his father looked like he would not harm even a single fly.

From then on the testimonies about the deceased changed, if someone was going to heap praise on him, they had to check.

Would they call him a responsible parent? Would he be a fatherly figure? Could he fit to be an example in the family or community that one can sire three children out of wedlock and do not take responsibility?

What brought more headaches was the issue of distribution of his heritage. Commonly, the law because of his wedding would give his wife, my friend’s mother a huge chunk and the four children some shares, but here there are three of his sons which have been unknown, should the elders sideline them, yet they have the deceased blood flowing in their veins.

The drama then began; the tetes started shouting obscenities to the three boys’ mother who conspicuously were absent.

Muri mhunza musha, makore ese aya manga muripi. Mauya kuzoba pfuma yemuroora wedu. Ivo ana mai venyu, zvigevenga zvevanhu, mharapatatsetse chaidzo. Kutadza kuya nemi makore ese awa kumirira parufu, manje hamupabudirire. Tinopika naBaba vedu Dziva varere pachuru ...(you are home wreckers, where were you all this while. Your mothers are loose women and your scam against our brother will not succeed. Over our dead bodies)

All this while the mother to my friend was silent and said nothing. She no longer did mourn her husband; neither did she look outraged nor displeased. She had a dejected empty look. Indifferent, I mean what could she do? I later understood why she had that strange look.

All the while she knew about these children, her husband had told her when they still had the first born. What happened is that after they got married and bore their first child, she went to her family kunosungirwa, then she came late that planned and expected as her family claimed that her husband had despised them and had not finished some essential on the lobola list yet he had deflowered her already.

The misunderstanding took about two years before they reconciled and it is during the two years that these three boys were sired. All the years she knew and she had tried by all her means to persuade her husband to go and take the children since they were his seed and part of the family.

However the husband remained resolute not to take the children and at one other three boys mother he even mocked the family and stopped paying maintenance that had been ordered by the courts.

He had nothing to do with the children for they were born in a time when he said, as would the wife later reveal, a time when he was confused yet he was still young and made rashal decisions.

What I do not know is whether he was still young to make clear decision yet managing to take three different women and bedding them without protection, in the years were contraception among the youths was a taboo since it was a clear indication that they were being promiscuous, believing that he would come out safe? That I do not know.

What I know is that whenever he played his shenanigans he hit the bulls eye, fathering three strong boys. Better an acacia tree, for in the thousand seeds it dispose only one in a million sees the day, later alone sees the light ,but for him all three became young man.

Thus the widow could accept the children, she knew about them all the while though her efforts to persuade him to reconcile the children when he was alive fell on a stone.

It was now left for her to unite the children and explain that they were really children of the same father, a task which could have been made easy if the now deceased could have taken her advice.

Go and apologies to the families that you offended, take the blame for your actions and clean the mess so that no one will have to do your dirty sheets in the public!

When I heard the story I just said it is better to set your house and clan in order before you are eaten by the ground. 

All man out  there in this 21^st century be man enough to take responsibility of your actions, you know when you did the shenanigans go back and check if there is no seed. Some of you do not have to check because you already know that there are your children out there whom you forsook, yearning for your love.

Imagine a situation when your girl child is about to be married and you are happy about it only to find out later that you are the one who fathered your son in law to be. Sounds like a typical Nigerian movie, but believe you me it is happening.

Make hay while the sun shines, for you never know when it will start raining and how it will rain. With climate change it can be hailstone.

After sometime I realised that it was late, and I had not even started reading the book I have in my hand.

 My attention is drawn to a little acacia tree right about 25 metres ahead of me. It’s growing plumb straight up into the sky reaching the canopy. 

It is different from the one I am leaning on; it’s a new generation with better survival skill of exploiting the little sunlight that shines on it. I smile to myself; the shade of the mother tree won’t disturb it no more.

All I can do now is whisper a prayer and go back to the noise of the city full of hooting and honking, knowing that out there in the world, universe there is still a God who sees everything and plans everything according to HIS purpose.