Mom placed money in my hand and sent me to the nearby Chimujema Grocery to buy tomatoes, cooking oil, and onions. She told me not to take too long. It was a late afternoon and I told her I would be back soon, then I walked out of the compound toward the shop. The road to the grocery passed through the same place where my friends and I spent most of our afternoons. I had every intention of going straight to the shop but then I ran into Christopher, who said, “Come with me for a while.”
“Nah,” I replied. “I can’t. My mom sent me to the shop.”
“It won’t take long,” Christopher said. “We’ll go pick up Abraham at his place and watch some soccer at the community ground.”
I looked at the money in my hands. Then I put it into the back pocket of my grey cargo pants and said, “Alright, let’s go.”
When we walked by Christopher’s house he told me to wait up because he wasn’t wearing shoes.
“Wait for me here,” he said. “I need to find my shoes.”
I stood outside while he went into the house. He took longer than I expected.
After some time, he came back smiling. He told me he had been looking for the shoes under the bed in his room. When he finally found them, he put them on and came outside smiling.
They were black Nike shoes. It was the first time I had seen him wearing them. I looked at him and laughed.
“Today all the girls will be looking at you and those shoes.”
Christopher smiled even more. “That is why I took so long,” he said. “I want people at the ground to see them, especially the girls.”
We both laughed. Then we started walking to Abraham’s house. The afternoon was hot, people chatted outside their houses, kids chased each other around the compounds, and music played from radios near open windows. The neighborhood was full of movement as we made our way down the road.
As we got closer, the smell of roasting pork drifted into the road. When we reached Abraham, he was helping his elder brother roast pork on a braai for customers.
“You have come at the right time,” Abraham said with a smile on his face. “Help me out a bit, will you?”
Christopher and I began wrapping pieces of roasted pork in used newspapers and pages from old books before handing them to customers, and we helped collect money. We felt good, as though we were the ones running the business. When the last customer left and there was no more pork to sell, Abraham wiped his hands, looked at us and said, “Let’s go.”
And so the three of us headed to the community ground where boys our age and older played soccer. From the sideline we watched dust rise from the dry field whenever a player kicked the ball. Every tackle came with shouts from the spectating boys around the ground. Christopher insisted the Chawama Riders would win. Abraham argued that the Green Eagles were better, but I sided with Christopher. We copied some of the dribbling moves we had just seen, imaging ourselves playing in the same academy one day.
Time moved on so fast we barely noticed it.
Trumpets sounded from the nearby Reformed Church. “Let’s go there,” Christopher said.
We crossed the football field and quickly walked toward the Reformed Church, the sound of trumpets and beating drums became louder. We walked around the concrete brick wall surrounding the church grounds, where the older boys were playing their instruments, and found the entrance. Christopher went in first, followed by Abraham and me.
Following instructions from their leader, the boy’s brigade shouted “left, right, forward” as they marched up and down the ground, beating the drums so hard I felt it in my chest. The sound of their boots hitting the ground together echoed across the neighborhood while their trumpets rose above everything else. I admired their black trousers, their white T-shirt uniforms and red scarfs. They looked disciplined and smart. Their uniforms were clean and well ironed. I imagined myself wearing the same uniform, marching across the church ground with Christopher and Abraham beside me. I imagined myself moving my hands and legs the way the older boys did. I wanted to march like them.
When the rehearsals finished, we stuck around a while longer, talking about what we had just seen. Christopher said he would talk to his grandmother about helping us speak to the Boys’ Brigade leader so we could join them.
We talked about how well the leader marched, moving his legs and hands together.
Christopher tried imitating the way they marched, making Abraham and me laugh.
Later, without thinking, I put my hands into my back pockets. I froze when I felt the money. Then I remembered my mom and Chimujema Grocery. The tomatoes, cooking oil, and onions. I had forgotten about it all. “I have to go quickly,” I said to Christopher and Abraham. They looked at me surprised. “My mom sent me to do the groceries!” Before they could answer I was already running.
I ran as fast as I could through the neighborhood, hoping Chimujema Grocery was still open, hoping Mom had not been waiting for too long. But when I got there, the door was closed. There were other people waiting outside the shop, which had many loyal customers. Even when they did not have enough money, they could sometimes get things on credit. They told me the shopkeeper had gone to the wholesale to order some items that were missing from the shop. I stood there for a moment, realizing that I had missed my chance. Time was moving. Darkness would soon come. I was afraid of getting home after dark, so I turned around and ran home.
When I reached the compound, I found Mom sitting on a timber-made bench. Beside her was a fire brazier with a pot of water sitting on top. I stood there quietly, holding the money she had given me. The tomatoes, cooking oil and onions were there already inside the house. They were in a white Rambo plastic bag on the table.
She had purchased them herself with the little money she had left with.
She looked at me. She did not shout or get angry at me or ask where I had been. She simply smiled at me and continued what she was doing.
Looking back now, I think she knew how easily the afternoons in our neighborhood disappeared. A friend called your name, another suggested a different plan, and before you realized it, the whole day was gone. Years later did I realize those simple moments had become the richest part of my childhood.
Whenever I think about the neighborhood where I grew up, I remember so much more than the streets or our house. I remember Christopher calling my name. I remember him coming out of his house proudly wearing his black Nike shoes. I remember Abraham smiling over roasting pork. I remember football at the community ground and the sounds of drums and trumpets, drifting from Reformed Church. And I remember three boys standing there watching the Boys’ Brigade and talking about joining them. We eventually did. Above all, I remember a mother who understood that childhood can make a boy lose track of time. And while those afternoons are gone now, they never really left me.
