We loved Thursdays

My grandmother was a devout Christian. Of the seven days of the week, she would visit the church, on average four times a week. I don't forget the sweet hymnal practices from a hymn book called Ngoma which was written in some deep Ndau language.

In my infancy, she would carry me on her back and take me to church along with her. As I pen this note, I can hear the sweet chorus of these devout ladies, practising for Sunday:

Munangisei, hama dzangu,

Muna Muponesi zvino,

Uyo anotenda iye apone,

Munangisei, hama dzangu mwese

It was just good and sweet, so harmonies and everlasting. Of course, the chorus was the sweetest. It didn't make sense to me then, but it was just that nice.

As I grew heavier, I began to be left at home with fellow cousins and my frequency to moving with grandma became confined to only Sunday or special leadership meetings to Gweru, our then provincial capital and rarely Harare, for major church conferences.

Then came the school going age. I became more detached. Now, I could be left at home and be given certain responsibilities like watering the garden, putting together maize stalks as fodder for livestock or ploughing with grandpa.

During school holidays, I especially like Thursdays. Grandma would attend Women's Thursday meetings at church. If grandpa was also not around, waal, that was our field day. We would play and dust heartily. With my cousins, on the small yard at grandma's house, we would mark our soccer field and play ??. The size of the teams didn't matter - 2 against 2, 3 against 5, 4 against 4. Because we might be of different ages, combinations we defined accordingly. Our grandpa's house ?? under corrugated iron sheets had its windows ?? smashed; it was the product of our soccer endeavours. Usually, this was a plastic ball tightly secured by some hard strings knit around it.

We all loved Thursdays! When the cat is away, the rats ?? are at pleasure. Grandpa only needed us to know when to stop playing and get to bring cattle and goats ?? into the pens. Sometimes, the sun would sink into its sheathe and we were still playing. Reporting that a cow ?? was missing after failing to stop playing on time would make the evening uncomfortable especially for me; others might have by now dispersed to their mothers' homes.

The other nightmare was discovering that the claypot had relish burnt due to too much heat and it happened in the heat of hard play. My grandma was a soft spoken and pious granny but who never tolerated nonsense. I don't remember a single day she hit me by a stick, slap of anything but I remember her strong words of rebuke and instruction. I hated disappointing her. But that was inevitable in the event the cooking pot decided burning ?? relish as I played. When that happened, you would try all tricks, including washing the burnt pieces of meat ??, washing the pot and reorganising them to cook afresh.

The other difficult news was to report that the goats ?? or herd of cattle had broken into the vlei garden and mauled all vegetables. The question would be: how did it happen and where were you?

But we loved Thursdays anyway! Especially school holiday Thursdays!