BEING A WOMAN- extracts

Hattie stood in the middle of the road when she spotted the yellow and brown coloured bus from a distance. She stood in the middle of the road to ensure that the bus stopped. She was nearly run over had the driver not swerved to the left road verge. The driver missed her by inches. “Muchatsikwa! Mugoti kuonda kunge tsono, musoro senge demo!” the bus driver shouted. The bus had stopped on the roadside anyway as Hattie had intended. Hattie saw Rosewitta off on the tatty and puffing Birds-view Bus on the long trip to the central station in the capital city. As the bus left the road verge lifting a whirlwind of dust and taking with it Hattie’s waist wrapper, Hattie shed a tear and kept waving her thin cracked hands to Rosewitta until the bus disappeared on the bend, and engulfed in the thick fumes which it left behind. As Hattie was waving goodbye, she reminded Rosewitta to study hard, to write letters, to remember her background and behave well at school. She kept repeating this to herself and smiling long after the bus had disappeared. A group of cattle herders wearing torn clothes who were passing by stood to stare at Hattie and wondered whether she had lost her marbles. Anyway, they remembered that she came from a rather strange family. Hattie saw them staring, she plucked a whip from a nearby bush and shooed the boys off. “Voetsek” she said to them. Hattie had always been the village spectacle.

The Birds-view Bus was the only bus that Rosewitta could take en-route to her new school. The bus was so slow, Rosewitta thought it would never reach its destination. She only imagined what would happen to her for the first time at that notorious station. A school bus would collect all the students to her new school. The thought of going to that Central bus station on her own made her shiver. She was particularly worried about the pickpockets who plied that bus station and took advantage of people who looked rural and lost. Her mother had tied the few dollars that she was to use for pocket money in a piece of dirty cloth. She made a long string out of several pieces of cloths to make a string long enough to go around her waist. Hattie tied that string around Rosewitta’s hip, and told Rosewitta to tuck the knot with money under her groin where she was sure no-one would reach. The cloths were so dirty that Rosewitta left a trail of foul smell as she walked. Rosewitta felt embarrassed by this, but Hattie had insisted so she had no choice but to comply. Rosewitta did not have a purse to keep her money safe. She could not afford one. At Harare Central Bus Station, a very polite man approached Rosewitta and offered to help her with her suitcase. Rosewitta was grateful for the help. She did not even bother to look at the man closely. She was shy to look at him that close. A well mannered African girl never looked a man in the eye. Rosewitta remembered her manners. The man helped to carry the suitcase and accompanied her to her school coach. He was so kind she even saw him handing over the bag to another man on the roof of the school bus. Rosewitta smiled at such kindness on such a busy place and among such a hive of activity at the Station. She clapped her hands respectfully, thanking the man for his help. She was satisfied that she was now safe. Rosewitta then showed her vouchers to the driver's assistant and quickly boarded the bus to get herself a comfortable seat. She was happy that her journey had been comfortably safe and did not believe that the station was a haven for pickpockets.