Tinashe Tafirenyika holds two
National Arts Merit Award (NAMA) in Spoken Word Poetry in Zimbabwe (2017, 2018) and is the first woman and youngest person to receive one. She also has a Bulawayo Arts Award (BAA) for her poetry.
We went to my aunt’s place for lunch but it inevitably turned into dinner. The power was out longer than expected and after hours of waiting for it to be restored, we gave in and used the gas stove. Naturally, the rice almost got burnt under my watch. My auntie came back from fetching water from the city council bowser just before any real damage was sustained by either me or the food.
“I hear it rained in Hwange last week, the power station was even flooded. Yet, in Bulawayo, clouds just gather with a cold wind forcing us to wear boots and coats in the summer.”
“That’s horrible. Hope no one was hurt in the floods? The weather here has grown quite unpredictable. I keep a thick jacket in the car, you know, just in case. At least some of the rural areas got a bit of rain though, for their crops.”
“It’s already January my dear, their crops are past saving. When you were younger, we knew when the rain would come, when to plant and when we would harvest. Now I don’t even bother with the maize patch. The rain can barely sustain umbhida.”
The meal was heavenly. I’d missed her cooking. We sat and talked for hours, a mini family reunion. The light bulbs came back on just after we finished eating, but the taps were still dry when we left.
We have had a drought for two years. I do not know about anywhere else, but southern Zimbabwe has held long patches of brown in December. Patches of brown where there should be maize fields. Patches of brown where the cattle should have been grazing. Patches of brown where entire rivers flowed not too long ago. Patches of brown where there should have been life. I have not danced in the rain yet this “rainy season”. Not even on days when my hair was free of braiding extensions and eco-styling gel. Not on days when I wore the right shoes for rain or on days when it would have been romantic to do so with another. I have not danced in the rain this season because the rain simply won’t come. Not here. Not this year. Not last year either. Only random drizzles that stop as soon as they start and can’t even wet the soil under the front gate.
I have a friend from Chimanimani. His mom disappeared in the cyclone last year. His father was trapped on some mountain top somewhere. Both their phones were dead. The roads were destroyed so he could not cross over to go look for them and all he had were pictures of rubble where some houses from his neighbourhood used to be and news of how a mudslide had destroyed the staff residence at the school where his mother taught. None of us said it out loud but we all feared the worst. Hundreds of kilometres away, all I could do was send Ecocash to a hotel manager who had taken in residents who were hiding from the storms and call makeshift emergency centres to ask if anyone, anywhere had seen my friend’s mother, the teacher. Hearing it on the news and hearing it from a friend who is looking for his missing parents are different. Thankfully, both were found unharmed, their house had been spared and even the dogs were safe. Many other houses, dogs and people were not so lucky; the mudslide buried my friend’s niece alive. She drowned before they got to her. She was in Grade Five.
There’s a restaurant I’ve come to like lately. It is in the nice side of Bulawayo and they use shiny metal straws. It’s pretty woke of them to avoid single use plastic. It is the responsible thing to do but I am not sure if that will make up for all the carbon emissions. I’m not sure if it will give us rain and running water next season. Honestly, I am not sure of much, except that our very lives are in grave danger.
I sometimes watch international news. I envy them. Their climate crisis starts a couple of decades from now. Ours is already here.
In 2018 she became the only person to have won a NAMA twice in the Spoken Word Poetry category. She released her first poetry video, “Sarah Baartman” that year.
When not stringing words together Tinashe practices as a Medical Laboratory Scientist in her home town, Bulawayo, where she is based.
- Nehanda – #Tinashe - October 3, 2022
- Heartbreak Hotel – #Tinashe - March 15, 2022
- There is no Such Thing as Love – #Tinashe - February 23, 2021
