My Winter-Song to You

My Winter-Song to You

4/30/2011

The air began to move today in stagnant Siphofaneni and the heavy rains slowed down. I didn’t have Indiana maple leaves to warn me but I just knew- autumn was finally here. And winter, just around the corner.

The nights quickly become cold and I dig out my old hoodie. I find it absolutely thrilling to wait for the sun to lie her head down; then I throw on a hoodie, jump into bed, with four or five crackers in my grasp, wrap myself into a blanket cacoon and listen to the nocturnal world come to life. My curtains slap and flap as cool air passes through my tiny hut. The candle light dances with each breath this earth takes. I roll over and look at my phone. It’s midnight. For some reason, I’m awake. My phone rings.

Brook shouts through the phone, “Polile is dead Mere! She’s dead!”

Polile, Brook’s host sister we visited a month ago in the hospital. Sick with TB and AIDS. I tell Brook to hold on, “I’ll catch the first bus tomorrow. I’ll be there in six hours. Just hang on.”

The funeral is that Sunday, so all weekend we prepare the homestead for the hundreds that will come. Unfortunately, it’s Swazi custom to cook food for those that attend a funeral. So most who attend a funeral don’t know the deceased but rather enjoy the social aspect: drinking alcohol, singing and dancing with friends, and free food. Her family shrieks and holds me when I arrive. They’ve been more to a family than me than anyone. The father, who usually grabs my hand and pulls me into his arms laughing, sits on a chair in the middle of the homestead. Polile’s two year old son, Mahle, sits on his lap while his grandfather strokes his back staring into the distance, tears collecting in his eyes. I’ve never seen such emotion from an older Swazi man. I hug the sisters and mother, who are busy preparing the food inside.

Brook and I follow the neighboring women to the fields to cut grass for people to sit on during the ceremony. The men put up the tent and sit and wait for the body to arrive from the hospital. They’ll be the ones digging her grave behind the house. A graveyard already full with four, five, maybe six, other bodies and one child. But everyone seems to be in good spirits. The women joke in the kitchen and the children are playing and laughing. Mahle runs around the homestead half naked. His small uncircumcised penis shakes underneath his sweater while his laughing mouth, ringed with yogurt, yells at the other children. He has no idea his mother is gone. Will he even remember her? Her other two children, nine and eleven year old girls, will remember their mother. But the boy remains blissfully ignorant.

When the body arrives, people line up to view. Brook turns to me, “Now people are going to start falling to the ground screaming and crying. I just want to warn you.” She’s been to one of these before. And just as she predicted, like a light switch turned on, laughing immediately turned into screaming and the youth fell to the ground. It almost seemed theatrical. I’ve seen children cry in this matter before when they aren’t really crying. They raise their arm over their eyes, half bent, and shout out. Her two daughters cover their faces and cry. Brook holds them in her arms and two women quickly wisk them away. It’s not appropriate to cry in public. A lesson learned at an early age.

As Brook and I approach the body, I grab her hand. A large wooden box with a glass window to view the head, stares back at us. A tiny shrunken body, with shriveled body parts lies motionless. I don’t know this person. My brain can’t connect emotion to this unknown body. The floodgates open but nothing comes out. No tears. I look at my friend, nothing. I was expecting something, but there was nothing.

All night, until sunrise the people sing. And at seven in the morning we bury a body that only lived to be 28. My 27 year old self reaches out to her. We walk back to the homestead and serve the hundreds their chicken, lipalishi, and spinach.

When I return home my dogs aren’t there to greet me. Maybe they’re off getting into other people’s trash again. I think. When I take my keys out, no matter how far they are, this is the moment they come gallivanting towards me at the cling clang sound of opening my door. But still, nothing. And then I see Ninja in the distance. I call out his name and he stares back at me. I know these eyes. I’ve seen them many times before.

He’s dying.

I run to him and drop to my knees. He struggles so stand still, swaying, drunk- like. He looks at me as if he doesn’t know who I am then falls to the ground. His body convulsing and drool dangling out the side of his mouth. By now, I know, either he’s been poisoned or it’s distemper. I recently vaccinated him so I know either someone fed him poison or he ate something poisonious. I run to town and grab the only two “vets” in the area who specialize in vaccinating cows. They know me by now and have been dragged to my homestead many times before. When we return Ninja is exactly where I left him, trying hard to get up. The two men stand back.
“I think he has rabies.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I vaccinated him less than a year ago.” I say.
“His lower half is paralyzed Simphiwe. That’s a sign of rabies. We suggest you stay away and tie him up.”

After the two idiots leave I grab a blanket and carry my Ninja inside. I know he’ll be puking and shitting all night so I put down newspaper underneath his body and for the next few hours I lie next to him playing ambient music. His muscles begin to convulse again and he looks at me with horror. He’s confused. Why is my body doing this to me? He wonders. His brain is telling his muscles to move a certain way but they won’t listen. His brain is on fire. The left side is pushing up out of his skull and I hold it down as I talk sweetly to him.

“Get through today baby and I’ll find a way to get you to town tomorrow. I love you Ninja.”
I repeat his name like I always do, in my dog voice. “Ninj. Ninj.” I say, trying to fight back the tears.
And for a moment he hears me. His tail slowly moves up and down.

The shitting is becoming unbearable so I carry him outside and lie next to him. The dark wind blows and clouds cover our heads. I cover him up and decide to take a one hour nap inside.

My alarm goes off at eleven and I can hear the tiny patter patter of rain overhead. I run outside to bring Ninja in.

I don’t need to touch him to know, in the hour I left, he had passed. The clouds above open and let down on us. I lie next to him, holding him in my arms one last time. “I’m sorry.” I whisper to him. “I was supposed to protect you from all this.”

As much as I thought Ninja and Sarah needed me, I realized how much I needed them. I didn’t want to be alone on this homestead. I couldn’t bare coming home to no one. I couldn’t bare not having someone needing me. And now I was alone. No one needed me anymore. But unlike the others I had lost, this time I knew I’d be OK. “I’ll be OK.” I whisper. I thanked him for the two years we had together and I covered him with his blanket.

The next morning, I awoke with the sun at five in the morning. I knew burying my dog would be an exhausting task and I needed to get it done before the heat wave came around ten. Winter hours give way for more time in the morning to do our manual labor.

I grab a wheel barrow and push him out to our spot behind the homestead. I stand, again, under the tree that bends over his mother. Pick and shovel in hand I begin to dig. Siphofaneni soil is concrete and rock and I chisel away at this earth only putting tiny dents into the stubborn ground. I twist the heavy pick in front of me to gain momentum and swing high using my entire being exhaling loudly making awful grunting noises. Fuck. This is hard. I hammer until callouses burst open and bleed. I hold the tears inside my throat. But it feels good. I keep at it. A femur pops up from the ground and I know it’s his mother’s. I’ve dug too close to her grave.

Three hours later and I’ve digged my first very shallow grave. I put him inside, say a few words, and throw earth between my dog and I. Afterwards I sit on the rock that I used to sit on every evening, with my pups by my side. Not sure if it was for dramatic effect or just my deviant side, but I pull out a cigarette, I had found in one of my bags, and light it. I inhale slowly and exhale looking out at this flat barren earth. My sweat turns cold and tiny dust tornados twirl around us.

I walk home, alone. My sconi (A new person on our homestead. My “sister-in-law”) walks over and says to me, “I’m sorry.” I almost burst into tears. No one has ever said I’m sorry here. They usually laugh when one of my dogs die.

But today, on our homestead, a baby is born. Our cow gave birth to a beautiful male calf. He wobbles and sways with his new legs and sucks on my fingertips hoping they are the tits he seeks.

“With death comes life.” I say to Ndimiso.

I never saw Sarah again.

“We saw him Simphiwe.” The kids on my homestead tell me a few days later. “He was here yesterday while you were at school. I think he doesn’t want to come back now that his brother is dead. I think he has joined other dogs.”

Without my dogs, I become closer to the children on my homestead who were once afraid to approach me with my very extroverted dogs by my side. My door can now stay open and the children and I sit on the floor playing games instead of constantly yelling at my pups. I feed the new calf milk from a bottle and sit by the fire as my new sconi cooks. Things I could never do before.

But at night, I lie in bed thinking of them. I look over to the left of my bed. Only two years ago where their mother gave birth. I remember holding them in my arms with such pride as if I had brought life to this earth. I watched them grow up and turn into some of my closest friends here.

I listen now and I hear something familiar. It’s on these cold winter nights that I hear him calling. I listen to the pack of dogs across the canal crying out but one sticks out from the rest, and I know it’s my Sarah. And I can’t help but smile.

Winter is finally here and my dogs aren’t with me anymore, but they’re free, and maybe I’m a little bit freer as well.

This is my wintersong.