Ovalodi, Chapter 1 APOLOGIES, the content in this text is not for sensitive readers. We are all different people, from different homes who have different beliefs perceptions and values instilled in us from a very young age. Our parents have a huge effect on how we look at life today. But overall we all want to be seen the same, we all want to be called normal and I am not normal. I grew up in a strict house with very confusing rules and riddles, don’t do this don’t do that and we could never ask why all we had to do was nod and comply. The rules I am talking about are not the day to day normal parent rules but what I mean is we were not allowed to pour water out once the sunset, before sunset we were all to be in bed or before addressing my grandfather we had to call to him three times. Those are just some of the rules we had to obey without question and growing up that was our normal. Growing up my sister and i never had kids come over to visit in the holidays mainly because of the rumors that were circulating in the village and I think mostly because once when we had one of our cousins come over and her visit ended abruptly. She had managed to pour water in the tomato bushes next to the cooking hut after the sun had set and we were all getting ready to go to bed, a huge fat snake had appeared from them which my grandmother managed to somehow frighten away with a harsh glare and mumble of words in a language I’ve never heard off to this day or at least a day ago. We were all stunned and freaked out but my grandmother was furiously fuming angry and the following day our cousin’s father came to pick her up and to this day I have not seen her back or front. I’m sure most of you who grew up in the village know or have heard of a certain house that is rumored and speculated to practice witchcraft well the only difference between you and me is that I was from that house and didn’t have the privilege to see it from the other end but I guess now you are all in luck because you will hear it from the horse’s mouth and not the usual hearsay stories you all tend to. I know you are all wondering who I am and what my story is, I don’t really know much about myself, scratch that I don’t understand myself at all. I consider myself to be an orphan; my sister and I have been staying with our grandparents ever since we were babies and everything was going great until on our 10th birthday when the nightmares and sleep walking started. Our grandmother Mkwaanyoka asked my sister and I to move in her hut with her so she could ‘observe’ us when we went through our episodes and after a month of that routine and no results I guess she sent us to go live with our auntie. But not before she took us ‘poshivanda’ by the road from the cuca-shops when it was almost midnight stripped us stalk naked and did a cleanse routine on us. She warned us to never walk close to or eat sand from just any ‘Oshivanda’. Our auntie had a beautiful big house in Oluno with very expensive furniture and ceramic tiles. Even with the rumors of us circulating, she still managed to turn a blind eye and take us under her wings. She lived with her maid and had no children of her own or a husband to warm her bed. I think maybe part of the reason she took us in was because she was lonely despite her success in life. Which I always felt was cruel because she had the purest heart and was always sweet to us. She was the mother we never had. Because of matters I don’t want to get into right now because I was partly at fault she passed on and this broke our little hearts. We were then shipped off to other extended family members in Windhoek even after I begged my grandmother to take us back in with tears. I promised to behave and stop having nightmares but all she said was “when the time was right she will be with us physically” whatever the hell that meant. My conclusion was Mkwaanyoka wanted nothing to do with us that’s why she was sending us away to live with people we didn’t know. The family we stayed with detested us, they had a shack in Ombili and we shared a room with the lady that was hired to work in their bar were we helped every day after school and in the weekends which I am not complaining about as I was very thankful for having a warm bed. The woman was rude, always angry and lashing out at us but the man was even worse always making passes at my sister and I undressing us with his red eyes which always made me so angry but not wanting to risk him chasing us out into the street I bit my tongue and couldn’t wait to move out. On our 20th birthday which was the year we matriculated we got a summon (and I say summon because it was a request) from my grandmother that we should go for the holiday after our exams. After 10 years of not hearing from mkwaanyoka I was shocked and somehow relieved because I missed her and the scary stories that she would often share with us when we were younger. The house was still the same nothing had changed at all; even the hut behind mkwaanyoka’s room which we were not allowed to go in was still there and the same. Except my grandfather couldn’t walk anymore and just sat by the fire place starring into the flames not that he was much of a speaker 10 years ago either, he always kinda scared me but he and my sister had a relationship I cannot begin to explain. Most people cannot tell us apart but he always knew who was who. My sister was the only kid he ever let sit on his lap and was not surprised when she dropped her things and ran straight to him but it was still good to see him. The following months at home opened my eyes wider so to say or maybe it’s because I was not a child anymore. The house rules and the rumors spread by the villagers were starting to make more sense to me now and it hit me the scary stories mkwaanyoka used to tell us during story time were not fiction but things she had done to people. All the stories about some woman taking away peoples unborn babies from women who were unfaithful to their husbands or the woman who turned into a snake to bite the girl that was bullying others at school were not just inspirational stories to be faithful and not bully others but facts and terrible things that happened to real breathing people. She had bit one of the girls that used to call her daughters names and accusing them of witchcraft and the unborn babies were results from my grandfather’s infidelity. But I couldn’t confront her. What would I say? How would I even ask her? For all I know there were lying and besides she kinda scared me a little. But I was not naive enough to pretend like nothing was up. Mkwaanyoka spent the entire holiday monitoring us trying to figure out why the nightmares stopped and never sharing any information with us. I always got the feeling that she was hiding something from us. So the night we were leaving for school, we were accepted at poly by the way (which made me so happy) and got space in the hostel. My friend from school who’s P O Box we had used got our admission letters. That evening mkwaanyoka told me that there was darkness following and within us and that I should be careful and take care of my sister. But because she always said things like that to me I rolled my eyes and hugged her. Despite what you might think and what I think I might know about her I loved her a lot. Mkwaanyoka was scary and weird and a little un appealing to the eye but I liked to think she had a heart despite how dark and cold it might be she still had one and obviously had deep affectionate feelings towards my sister and I. The following day we took a taxi to Ondangwa so we could go take a bus to Windhoek, were ever we went people stared at us not that I was surprised I was just rather annoyed especially when the taxi driver insisted on making small conversation with us which I replied to with the hope of being polite but my sister put on her headsets and stared out the window completely ignoring him as she rolled her eyes at him. With my grandmother’s warnings still ringing in my head I tried not to worry. When we finally found a bus, we took the middle seats; I was playing crossword puzzles in my magazines killing time as they got more passengers while My sister was talking to the guy sitting next to her and whatever he was saying to her was either funny or she was being polite because she was giggling non-stop. When it was finally take of time I put my magazine away and was looking out the window as I exhaled to the journey waiting before us and drifted off into a crazy part in my head.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 11:53:10 +0000
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