In those days, this time around, we would be looking after cattle in low-lying planes. If it got hot, we would share the stream with our cattle and swim.
I remember the activities of various field works. The implified sounds of vehicle engines of passing near our fields take people to town for shopping for their home stores and family gifts of the season, especially after the payments for maize and cotton were done.
Each of the red hexagon shaped flowers in nearby green bushes was commonly referred to as a Xmas sign to us.
When we were done with the day’s works and cattle were securely in the kraals we sat around the red coloured two band Livingstone assembled radios sets that were powered by blue and red spark batteries and listened to “Malikopo,pochedza kumaza muro” , the voice of RSA ,and others far based radio signals on the shortwave band.
During the daytime, the Mable Mafuya composed and sung Xmas Carlos of ” Tell your father,happy new year, tell your mother happy Xmas” would be faintly heard from a distance while we were in the field with our parents.
The days when we would sit to listen to oral history from our parents telling us their stories of the whites”bamabbunu” coming to pick them in planes to go and fight in the world wars and how they returned as heroes while others lost their lives.
It was our parents’ position to encourage us to work hard in my family, that no one would be allowed to go to Lusaka for a holiday until you passed grade 7.
I miss the countryside lifestyle and the festival season.
Kumunzi nkubotu sure.
Matyola Innocent
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