The deep bonds of friendship, husahwira
Prophet Ezekiel reminds us that friendship, husahwira, as sung by Mtukudzi, can be stronger than the bonds of family. In the end, real friendship is defined by caring, mutual respect and loyalty.
“Zvamunoona husahwira hunokunda hukama.” This is a lyric from one song by Oliver Mtukudzi, the famous Zimbabwean singer. I am listening to this song in the bar at Sadza Growth Point in Chikomba East. In this song, Oliver is expressing that friendship can be stronger than hukama or blood relationships. He is singing about the loss of his friend called Jeri. Jeri used to be Oliver’s band manager. Sadly he died.
As I sit in the bar, I am looking at two men locked in an embrace and dancing to the song. They are hugging so closely, as if they are lovers. If this was a bar in a Western country, you would have thought that they are somewhat in that other kind of intimate relationship. But no, these guys are just drunk. They have placed their “Scuds” on the counter so they can dance freely.
I am here in this bar with my cousin Piri. We are on our way to the village, as we always do. We are also travelling with Prophet Ezekiel, who is sitting in the car waiting for us. The Prophet lives near our village and has a large following of Christians who left the mainstream churches a few years back.
I would not normally walk into a bar and listen to music like this. But Piri wants to top up her supply of cold beer. As usual, she does not have money and wants me to transfer money from my phone to the cashier and buy the beer.
The two men continue dancing and one has his head resting on the shoulder of the other. Beer causes strange behaviours. A young 30-something-year-old woman in very tight jeans, red lipstick and a straight wig walks in. If you look at her from behind, you can almost mistake her for an Indian, a Chinese person or another nationality that is not African. These Chinese- or Korean-made synthetic hair wigs have found their way to the growth points and also to the villages in Zimbabwe resulting in billions of dollars profit to the various hair traders mostly from Asia. We pay so much money to temporarily change the way we look.
The young woman asks Piri to dance with her. Piri agrees. They are now locked in each other’s arms, just like the two men. The stereo speakers are loud. Outside on the verandah, other beer drinkers and a few women sing along loudly: “Zvamunoona husahwira hunokunda hukama.”
An older man and a young woman walk in to the bar. They start dancing too, but they do not hold each other.
I sit on the bench and watch the dancing to Oliver Mtukudzi’s song about friendship and how it is more powerful than family relationships. When you listen to this song carefully, you think of the friends in the past and those that have stayed with you over the years and others who are most recent.
When the song finishes, the woman dancing with Piri says: “Iwe ndiwe shamwari yangu yepamoyo. Nditengerewo one pint.” (You are my best friend. I say this straight from the bottom of my heart, please buy a pint of beer for me). Piri then says: “Ah, we are friends because we danced one song together?” She then extracts herself from her fellow dancer and tells me that we should leave before more people come to ask for friendship and beer.
Soon as we get into the car, Piri starts singing the song by Mtukudzi. Prophet Ezekiel says he knows the song very well because this song makes him remember many of his friends who had since died. “There was a time when a friend was more than a relative to you,” he says.
“But what has changed?” I ask the Prophet.
Sitting in the back seat, bottle of Coke in hand and eating a loaf of bread I had just offered him.
Prophet Ezekiel then explains that Sahwira or shamwari means a very close friend. A friend is the sibling you choose to have. Friendship also means having someone to rely on. You can tell this person the brutal truth, whether it’s a compliment or an insult. The friend will accept the truth because they believe in you. Friends can accept each other’s faults and laugh at each other. They share deep secrets and indecisions.
Friendship therefore is a deep bond in human life created between people based on mutual trust, faithfulness, support and selflessness. A good faithful friend stays by your side during times of grief. Sometimes words are not needed because your friend’s presence can speak many words of support.
The Prophet then quotes several verses from the Bible about friendship. He recites in particular, Job 2 verse 1: “When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.” The Prophet explains that, after some time, these friends left Job because he would not listen to their advice to forget about God. But what is really important in this particular story about the biblical Job is the strength and depth of friendship which is similar to what Oliver Mtukudzi is singing about.
In the old days, long before independence, when we lived in the village, there were many strong bonds of lasting friendship between people. Over the years, friendship between people has been affected by death and migration from the village to the city, movement from the village to the resettlement areas and migration from the city to the Diaspora. It is often difficult to maintain close friendship once you move from one place to another.
Growing up in the village, I recall that my grandmother Mbuya VaMandirowesa always said a real person, munhu wega-wega, must have a close friend to share secrets that are at the bottom of your heart. This friend must be the most trusted person in your life. Mbuya referred to various people and paired them according to their friendships. She would then joke and say some women shared everything, except their husbands while some men shared everything except wives.
In those days, Mbuya VaMandirowesa’s best friend was VaMakumbi. If Mbuya, forgot something, Mbuya VaMakumbi was her other memory. The whole village knew that Mbuya VaMandirowesa and VaMakumbi were inseparable.
Quite often, I saw Mbuya and VaMakumbi sitting under the mutondo tree drinking village beer, taking snuff, talking and laughing all day. Sometimes I sneaked behind the granary near the mutondo tree and heard everything. They often gossiped and talked about other people’s sex lives. But I understood nothing when they spoke in tsumo nemadimikira (riddles and metaphors). When I brought them pieces of roast meat and salted peanuts I saw tears of laughter in their eyes. If they were really happy or just drunk, VaMakumbi played the mbira and they sang the songs of their youth. VaMakumbi was the village tsuri, well known for her beautiful singing voice. Mbuya played the rattle, hosho and they danced, sang and laughed.
After sunset Mbuya accompanied VaMakumbi to her hut three compounds away. On the way, they stopped and talked until they got to the entrance of VaMakumbi’s hut. Then they came back together again, talking, laughing and even singing until they got to Mbuya’s hut entrance. Then they went back again. They went back and forth like this three or four times until they settled in one kitchen hut and ate sadza together. After one or two songs they danced without any coordination at all. The following afternoon they were under the mutondo tree again doing what they did yesterday. This happened almost every day during the dry season.
“Sis, do you still have friends in the village?” Piri asks as we drive along towards Chinyamungororo Heroes’ Acre.
I casually reply that I have plenty of friends and I even mention some names. Piri laughs and says that those were not friends of mine any more. “They just want a ride in your car and drink beer with money from your purse,” she says, laughing.
“Like you do?” I ask her. She laughs even more and says I was not just a friend to her; she was my cousin and my friend, making our bond even stronger.
Prophet Ezekiel reminds us that friendship, husahwira, as sung by Mtukudzi, can be stronger than the bonds of family. In the end, real friendship is defined by caring, mutual respect and loyalty. ◆ Dr Sekai Nzenza is a writer and
cultural critic.