"Hut Sweet Hut"

"Hut Sweet Hut"

9/11/2010

Raw bone, yes. An elbow in my neck, a tit in my face, a knee up my ass. The Swazi public transport soundtrack plays on and I’m pretty sure there’s a chicken somewhere between my feet. “STEASH!” I scream. (Stop!)The bus driver ignores. “I said STEASH!” The bus continues on pass my bus stop. “STOP!” I yell. With the little room they have, people’s heads adjust to stare at the screaming white girl, and laugh. “STOP THE BUS NOW!” I’m carrying with me three heavy bags and there’s no way I can carry it all back if this bus does not FUCKING stop NOW. It starts to slow down and I’ve had it. Being a foreigner, I’m naturally squeezed in the very back of the bus. I wait for body parts to shift so I can squeeze mine through. Nobody moves. Dead silence and wide open eyes..gawking. Why won’t anyone move for me? I open the window I’m smashed up against and throw my bags out. Then, despite the rather long way down, I throw myself out the window while it’s still in motion. Gasps of “Umlungu!” follow. I brush myself off, and search for my wallet. Damn. I don’t have exact change and I know this driver is PISSED. I open the driver’s side window as he continues to stare, mouth open, in amazement. I throw a ten at him. “KEEP THE CHANGE!” This umlungu screams. People are shouting at me in Siswati and I don’t care. I turn to walk away. Anger rises inside me. I turn back at my audience, “Oh and by the way….. ITS MY BIRTHDAY. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!” I jump in the air and shout. A sort of pout.
It’s always a hard way home. But being my birthday, MY day, made it even harder not to have it go MY way.
Twenty seven years old and today I jump out of a moving vehicle. I drag my bags and my sorry ass back to my homestead from hell, not looking forward to the dozen demanding children and gogo’s horrific disapproving glances. The only thing I have now are my two pups waiting for me at the end of this road. I stop and exhale. Here we go.

The dry dirt of the African savannah surrounds me and I’m missing my green oasis of the north. The sun is setting against the dust and on this particular evening it causes a wedge of violet sky to shine through. How much I wish to peel back that corner of violet sky and have my family appear. To be with me on this day. I round the corner to my two smiling dogs, jumping and kicking in the air. Gogo is away at a funeral with her eldest children. The grandchildren sit lazily on the front stoop and ignore my arrival. The eldest, Nobandile, walks over to me.
“I didn’t think you’d be home today.”
“Why?” I ask her.
“Oh. No reason.” She smiles.
I turn the keys and enter my hut. Dirty. Dusty. Lizard poo all over the ground. Hut sweet Hut. I sit on the edge of my bed in a stare. Flashbacks of the past week. An oasis. An interruption. A beautiful interruption. Banish these thoughts. Now. How do I delete it? It’s always easier to just ignore. I look down at my phone. 5 missed calls. Thuli, a local girl I’ve been trying to help, has been phoning me all weekend. I just wanted a weekend to shut this whole place out. But now the guilt rises. I’ve missed the first week of school. My dogs are hungry and scratching at the door. The starving animals on my homestead are calling. I rouse myself out of my daze to feed the deranged cow outside. The chickens scowl. The goats huddle. The phone rings, another student needs helps.

IM COMING. IM COMING.

I lie in bed and stare at the cobwebs hanging from my thatch roof. In 4 hours this birthday will be over. I am officially UPPER, no LATE… twenties. I realize, of course, my mother was this age when she had me. My mother was able to fall in love, get married, be married, then have a baby ALL before 27. Did I do the right thing? Coming here? At 26? Am I at that point in my life where I need to worry about these sort s of things? Babies. Clocks ticking. Mothers nagging. It’d be nice if my future kid could actually know MY grandparents.

Peace Corps. A sea of EARLY 20 something year olds, fresh out of college or over 50 year olds done with babies and awaiting grandchildren. And me, somewhere awkwardly in the middle of it all.

8:40 PM. 3 hours and 20 minutes until this birthday is over. Come on, I think….lets just get it over with so I can officially say TODAY was a shit birthday. Nothing special. Just a shit birthday. 27.

There’s a light knock on my door. I open it and find Ndimiso, the 12 year old boy, standing there in the dark. “Please can you come to the house?” He asks. “Nobandile needs you.”
I’m shocked. I’m never been invited INSIDE the house. Ndimiso takes my hand and I am led inside THE HOUSE. As I walk in I see a table set with 7 glasses of juice. The children sit around the table, smiling up at me. The radio is playing the same seven techno songs it always plays and Nobandile stands in the middle of the room holding a sign. In big colorful block letters it shouts, “HAPPY 27th BIRTHDAY SIMPHIWE. WE LOVE YOU. WE MISS YOU.” And all of the children have signed it. I had told Nobandile weeks maybe even a few months ago about my birthday and I told her my age almost a year ago. No reminders since then.

And she remembered.

She remembered.

She walks over and hands me a poem she had written.
“I wrote this poem for you. I need a title for it. Can you help me?”
I stand there in a daze. Almost shaking.

The poem read,
“Life is a journey
If you achieve in something
You are doing means and opening a new chapter
Turning another year is taking a step in your life
Your life is precious and others lives are precious
Some people are more precious and are who they are
Because of YOU
Some people have smiles on their faces just because you are HERE
You cannot see who you are benefitting now
But know you have people’s love and trust.”

Nobandile. The girl whose first words to me, just a year ago, were “We’ll see if you last the two years.” Her arms cross every time she speaks to me. Her eyes roll every time I greet her in public. Her written words, her letters, her art, always reach out to me though. Swazi on the outside, changing in the inside.
My chin begins to quiver and I don’t know if I can hold it in.

“I’m going to go put this in my hut. I’ll be RIGHT back.” I tell them.
9pm. I sit on the edge of my bed and cry. Maybe I can’t give her a title of this poem but I can tell her how much it meant to me. I know that she doesn’t like to show emotion with words, so I write her a letter back. And I know, through our letters, this is how we will love each other for the next year I am here.
I splash some water on my face and dry my eyes. Deep breaths. I go back inside THE HOUSE. And for the rest of my birthday we dance to the same seven techno songs and play Twister until 10:30 at night.
11pm. I sit on my stoop, outside my hut in a daze. The cool night air wraps its fingers around me. I look up and watch individual stars puncture the midnight blue canvas above my head.
It’s almost midnight now. And I can officially say today was not the worst birthday I ever had.
Today was the day my hut became my home.