I saw Taurai Mandingo in my dream last night. He came to pay me a visit in a spanking new Japan-refurb Honda fit, the ones that have congested Harare and other cities. Old Tau would have fancied that kind of drive. I don’t recollect much else from the dream other than that he was happy to reunite with a young brother he had last seen a decade ago. Taurai is in his forties now and that makes a 15 year age gap between us.
This dream took me back to 2010, to the Messengers Camp quarters back in Rusape where we resided. Taurai was a bachelor living next door.
Women were his hobby. Every weekend, Taurai would walk in with different types of women, and quite astonishingly, he had an eye for the beautiful ones. At least in my own point of view. He slowly became a bad example in the eyes of our parents and we were reprimanded for going to his house. Taurai remained that brother who still passed through football playing fields and kicked the ball for a few minutes before proceeding with his wanderings.
Impregnating a girl is definitely one of those nerve wrecking experiences for boys and men. Unless it’s planned in a marital home, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. But outside of this, it’s almost a taboo and life changing fate.
The neighborhood woke up to one of the girls, Lisa, weeping in the yard outside Taurai’s one roomed cottage. In a matter of hours, we were furnished with details that Lisa was pregnant and eloped to Taurai. She had been accompanied by her aunt to the father of her child. That’s how Taurai got married as he later settled the bride price that year.
Old habits die hard, but Taurai’s seemed immortal. During the post-partum period the demons of promiscuity had this brother in a chokehold. Taurai developed an affair with one of Lisa’s friends, who frequently visited them as a family friend. Her name was Helen.
There are two things to blame here: Tau for approaching her, or the girl for allowing that affair to cement in betrayal of her friend Lisa. I was close to witness these shenanigans because I had caught them in the park one night in a compromised position and Taurai asked me to keep it a secret.
It wasn’t until one of the weekends that Taurai decided to have more space and traveled all the way to the city of Harare for a game of football which I vividly remember. The game was Caps United versus Dynamos, the Harare derby. It was excusable for him to spend the weekend in Harare away from his wife because everyone knew his love for football matched his love for women’s bodies.
Taurai went to this game with Helen. We were not there in Harare so only so much can be said, but H-Metro captured the two in the terraces, again with their hands locked in a compromising position. H-Metro dedicates a section in their paper to highlights from the weekend to cover the city’s most talked about events.
Taurai learnt about this from a friend who saw one of the copies in Harare and had asked him about it. Remember, this is the 2010s, so we relied more on newspaper than social media, so word moved a bit slower. Taurai woke up on Monday morning around 4am and rushed to the Evergreen market along the Harare Mutare highway. He was lucky to intercept the delivery van which was carrying copies of the newspaper. He purchased all the H-Metro copies. That day Rusape did not receive a single copy of the newspaper in Taurai’s effort to get rid of the evidence.
