A Memory of Bees
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| photo by Ken Wilson |
Starting with the Bees
On August 17, 2013, I was a featured reader at the "Foam on the Mouth" poetry series in Sacramento, California. Some of the poems I read were centered on the two hills pictured above. I still have strong memories of the hills, all the things we did, the games we played when we were young. The photo was taken from the peak of Chisiya Hill, which I have characteristically called my hill, because I grew up in its shadow.
The smaller hill is called Chigorira. Our home was situated between the two hills. This allowed me to be a part of the hills as they were a part of me. I knew every cave in both hills, and ate all kinds of fruits and edible roots I could find on and around the hills. I knew some of the secrets the hills harbored. They were equally a source of joy as they were a source of fear. Like most hills in the areas, they had dangers: snakes, scorpions and the occasional hyena or wild cats and wild dogs. But on their summits, I sat consuming book after book during my days as a student at Mototi and Gwavachemai schools. Then once I left for Harare, many changes would happen which impacted the extent to which I could continue calling this location home.
The smaller hill is called Chigorira. The rocks on the eastern span of its peak enclose a massive cave. In that cave there was a popular, and scary beehive called Gonera. The hive had been there for decades, and the villagers harvested its honey with respect, like a ritual, always at the same time of the year. It's possible that there must have been a special team tasked with getting the honey, and it was rumored that they were supposed to leave some of the honey for the survival of the hive. The bees were known for their harshness; there were moments when you couldn't go to the peak of the hill just out of fear of the bees, but sometimes they descended and caused havoc in the village.
The children of Mototi went up the hills to play. The hills were great places for hide-and-seek and other games. When different fruits were in season, we went up to eat them, or to collect some that we took home. Then sometimes, one curiosity or another brought us up the hills. I remember the one time we discovered the bones of a woman who had dies many years before. We were just playing, going deeper and deeper into a cave, with a torch, then we saw the bones, which at first we didn't think much of, until we saw the skull and we ran like hell. We were warned, of course, by the elders, to stay away from deep caves. They didn't want us to uncover the mysteries of the ancient world, but we still didn't give up on caves altogether. We worried mostly about snakes, and often fell into fights with bats. Sometimes our goats hid in those caves, and we went to guide them back home. The caves, especially those of Chisiya hill, were good places to take shelter when it rained why we were up there. Then years later, when I was in secondary school, I would go up Chisiya to study. Sitting even in a shallow cave afforded me the quiet I needed to master the material. I called the caves my libraries, because there were so many of them I could choose which one I needed to sit in, preferring those which let in the most light or brightness of the day.
When we went up Chigorira hill, we sometimes provokes the Gonera bees. We got a thrill out of making them angry, but we also hoped that we would be able to escape without being attacked. So this one day, two older cousins of mine took me to the cave; they called it my initiation. I remember that the cave was dark, and that was good for hide-and-seek. You could just hide behind the person who was supposed to seek you. But after a while, the cave became lighter, as our eyes adjusted. Then we heard a familiar sound. It was a bee buzzing over our heads. Just one bee, and Chari, the older kid, said it was on patrol. So we started chasing it, flailing our arms above us. We were angering it, and that's exactly what we wanted. So when it disappeared, we knew it had gone back to tell the rest of the hive that about the nuisance we were.
"We better run!" shouted Chari, as he pulled Shami's arm and they scampered towards the narrow mouth of the cave. At first I didn't react and remained root to the same spot, so Shami glanced back and said, "Do you want to die? Run!"
I struggled behind them, holding on to roots that broke and sent me back down into the cave. And soon, I heard the sound I had dreaded.
The rumble of the bees promised something worse than death, and I went into flight, managing to squeeze my way out of the cave. But as soon as I exited, the bees had caught up with, or just simply found me. They got to work. I furiously jumped from rock to rock, swatting every spot that had been stung, feeling the cutting pain and jumping some more. I would have used some flying, but all I could do was and jump, sometimes slipping from the rock and falling, but the bees were still pursuing me. Then I got into that state when you don't really know what's happening, moments when adrenalin has taken over, and your body is just doing its best to protect itself. Somehow I progressed from the eastern peak to the western, until the steepens of the rocks stopped. Further flight would have caused me to fall, so I balanced again one rock, and stood facing the massive rock that's visible in the photo, the one on the western slope of the rock.
They stung. I know I fought. Fortunately, I was wearing a jersey (what's called a sweater here). It was an ugly brown jersey the pattern of whose must have looked like that of a beehive. The brownness at least met part of the criteria. Or I could have looked like some type of sunflower surface. But I know too that the bees didn't have to have a reason beyond that they were out to sting me as an enemy. They landed on my sweater, I squeezed them to death, but the swarm launched more, and my hands kept working, squashing them, rubbing them off, squeezing them.
Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, they left. They must have taken me for dead. The bees left. That's what has always intrigued me, the fact that they just left me there. And the fact that I recovered within two days. I didn't pass out, and to the surprise of many, I didn't die. The swelling was gone by the second day...
I have written about this incident in many poems. The one I read last night is entitled "Gonera Bees", which was first published by Witness magazine, and later appeared in the book State of the Nation.
I have also published a short story entitled "The Day I Became the Bee-man". Images of bees is dominant in my poetry, and I have at one point contemplated starting a series of stories called "The Bee Man" along the lines of Batman or Spider Man.
Back to childhood. Mother was famous for her home-brewed beer, and so the home between the two hills was always crowded nearly every weekend by people who came to enjoy the brew. Part of the money raised from beer brewing would help with my tuition at the newly established government secondary school, which was called an Uppertop. It was very cheap, perhaps less than $35 a term, but it was hard to come by for rural folks, so my Big brother's wife brewed beer, baked bread, or sold grain to help with the fees, and Mother stepped in every now and then. Because money didn't always find an easy route from the cities where the brothers worked. It had things it needed to cover there as well, such as rent and...of course...other things.
Back to the brews or just simply, the booze. Mother's booze in particular. That little hill, Chigorira, was central in the announcement of the brews. I would be sent up there around 5 AM to shout that there was beer at Mother's. I would should until I couldn't, or until sunrise, when the voice stopped travelling to far distances. I would shout and would be heard as far as Chivi and Chakavanda, and other villages. At least that's what I thought happened, because when others were announcing similar brews, we often heard them from a great distance. The science was that that early in the morning, shouting from a hill carried the voice and its echoes far afield. And we had the proof; people always came to the beer gathering, although word of mouth also helped with the process.
Chigorira hill was also our clinic somehow. We got our herbs there, herbs for the treatment of all kinds of ailments, physical, mental or spiritual. Murumanyama tree, on the eastern slope of the hill, the slope facing the home visible on the right, helped with the treatment of stomach ache. I was often sent to collect its bark, then I would crush it with a rock and put the residue in water. It produced a bitter liquid, but if you wanted to feel better, you drank it with your eyes pinched shut.
The smaller hill is called Chigorira. The rocks on the eastern span of its peak enclose a massive cave. In that cave there was a popular, and scary beehive called Gonera. The hive had been there for decades, and the villagers harvested its honey with respect, like a ritual, always at the same time of the year. It's possible that there must have been a special team tasked with getting the honey, and it was rumored that they were supposed to leave some of the honey for the survival of the hive. The bees were known for their harshness; there were moments when you couldn't go to the peak of the hill just out of fear of the bees, but sometimes they descended and caused havoc in the village.
The children of Mototi went up the hills to play. The hills were great places for hide-and-seek and other games. When different fruits were in season, we went up to eat them, or to collect some that we took home. Then sometimes, one curiosity or another brought us up the hills. I remember the one time we discovered the bones of a woman who had dies many years before. We were just playing, going deeper and deeper into a cave, with a torch, then we saw the bones, which at first we didn't think much of, until we saw the skull and we ran like hell. We were warned, of course, by the elders, to stay away from deep caves. They didn't want us to uncover the mysteries of the ancient world, but we still didn't give up on caves altogether. We worried mostly about snakes, and often fell into fights with bats. Sometimes our goats hid in those caves, and we went to guide them back home. The caves, especially those of Chisiya hill, were good places to take shelter when it rained why we were up there. Then years later, when I was in secondary school, I would go up Chisiya to study. Sitting even in a shallow cave afforded me the quiet I needed to master the material. I called the caves my libraries, because there were so many of them I could choose which one I needed to sit in, preferring those which let in the most light or brightness of the day.
When we went up Chigorira hill, we sometimes provokes the Gonera bees. We got a thrill out of making them angry, but we also hoped that we would be able to escape without being attacked. So this one day, two older cousins of mine took me to the cave; they called it my initiation. I remember that the cave was dark, and that was good for hide-and-seek. You could just hide behind the person who was supposed to seek you. But after a while, the cave became lighter, as our eyes adjusted. Then we heard a familiar sound. It was a bee buzzing over our heads. Just one bee, and Chari, the older kid, said it was on patrol. So we started chasing it, flailing our arms above us. We were angering it, and that's exactly what we wanted. So when it disappeared, we knew it had gone back to tell the rest of the hive that about the nuisance we were.
"We better run!" shouted Chari, as he pulled Shami's arm and they scampered towards the narrow mouth of the cave. At first I didn't react and remained root to the same spot, so Shami glanced back and said, "Do you want to die? Run!"
I struggled behind them, holding on to roots that broke and sent me back down into the cave. And soon, I heard the sound I had dreaded.
The rumble of the bees promised something worse than death, and I went into flight, managing to squeeze my way out of the cave. But as soon as I exited, the bees had caught up with, or just simply found me. They got to work. I furiously jumped from rock to rock, swatting every spot that had been stung, feeling the cutting pain and jumping some more. I would have used some flying, but all I could do was and jump, sometimes slipping from the rock and falling, but the bees were still pursuing me. Then I got into that state when you don't really know what's happening, moments when adrenalin has taken over, and your body is just doing its best to protect itself. Somehow I progressed from the eastern peak to the western, until the steepens of the rocks stopped. Further flight would have caused me to fall, so I balanced again one rock, and stood facing the massive rock that's visible in the photo, the one on the western slope of the rock.
They stung. I know I fought. Fortunately, I was wearing a jersey (what's called a sweater here). It was an ugly brown jersey the pattern of whose must have looked like that of a beehive. The brownness at least met part of the criteria. Or I could have looked like some type of sunflower surface. But I know too that the bees didn't have to have a reason beyond that they were out to sting me as an enemy. They landed on my sweater, I squeezed them to death, but the swarm launched more, and my hands kept working, squashing them, rubbing them off, squeezing them.
Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, they left. They must have taken me for dead. The bees left. That's what has always intrigued me, the fact that they just left me there. And the fact that I recovered within two days. I didn't pass out, and to the surprise of many, I didn't die. The swelling was gone by the second day...
I have written about this incident in many poems. The one I read last night is entitled "Gonera Bees", which was first published by Witness magazine, and later appeared in the book State of the Nation.
I have also published a short story entitled "The Day I Became the Bee-man". Images of bees is dominant in my poetry, and I have at one point contemplated starting a series of stories called "The Bee Man" along the lines of Batman or Spider Man.
Childhood Haunt
The ruins of our home are not visible, since they are blocked by the rocks to the right. Our home were directly opposite that homestead on the left. I say homes because there was the central compound, which belonged to Mother, then the homes of her married sons, there of them, arranged in strategic positions from Mother's compound and from each other. At first, I lived in one of the brothers' home, but as I was growing older, I went back to Mai's compound, but I already knew on which piece of land I would build my home once I established that I was old enough by getting married and starting a family. As I was pursuing school, the marriage thing never happened soon enough, and when it finally happened, it was happening worlds away from Chisiya, from my assigned piece of land.Back to childhood. Mother was famous for her home-brewed beer, and so the home between the two hills was always crowded nearly every weekend by people who came to enjoy the brew. Part of the money raised from beer brewing would help with my tuition at the newly established government secondary school, which was called an Uppertop. It was very cheap, perhaps less than $35 a term, but it was hard to come by for rural folks, so my Big brother's wife brewed beer, baked bread, or sold grain to help with the fees, and Mother stepped in every now and then. Because money didn't always find an easy route from the cities where the brothers worked. It had things it needed to cover there as well, such as rent and...of course...other things.
Back to the brews or just simply, the booze. Mother's booze in particular. That little hill, Chigorira, was central in the announcement of the brews. I would be sent up there around 5 AM to shout that there was beer at Mother's. I would should until I couldn't, or until sunrise, when the voice stopped travelling to far distances. I would shout and would be heard as far as Chivi and Chakavanda, and other villages. At least that's what I thought happened, because when others were announcing similar brews, we often heard them from a great distance. The science was that that early in the morning, shouting from a hill carried the voice and its echoes far afield. And we had the proof; people always came to the beer gathering, although word of mouth also helped with the process.
Chigorira hill was also our clinic somehow. We got our herbs there, herbs for the treatment of all kinds of ailments, physical, mental or spiritual. Murumanyama tree, on the eastern slope of the hill, the slope facing the home visible on the right, helped with the treatment of stomach ache. I was often sent to collect its bark, then I would crush it with a rock and put the residue in water. It produced a bitter liquid, but if you wanted to feel better, you drank it with your eyes pinched shut.
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