Kae Matundu-Tjiparuro
MANY a time, I have been wondering about the nature and purpose of the bush indaba the grey-haired usually have under trees when they converge at various social occasions in the rural areas, notably at funerals.
Accounts abound from those who have been and are usually privy if they have not been gate-crashing these gatherings, that nothing serious or interesting transpires. If anything lighthearted mind-teasers like whether female wolves bear any cubs or eggs from which the cubs are hatched characterize such gatherings.
Although any gathering is not strict and one could and may sit in, by some unwritten and hidden social etiquette one can tell such a kgotla is not an open book. If only by the dress code, normally a hat – not any kind of hat but the one known in Otjiherero parlance as Opanisa.
In the Italian underworld, this is the kind of hat one would associate with the Mafia. No, not in the Ovaherero/Ovambanderu sense of gentlemanliness. This is a status symbol of respectability denoting manhood and marital status. Add to this dress code the knobkerrie, ongwinya, and you complete a gentleman ready to join this honourable club.
The best anyone who thinks he does not belong to this coveted club is to quietly listen to the esteemed members as they cut across many issues, even poking some sophisticated cultural jokes at one another an outside would find hard to follow.
However, one can buy a temporary sit-in to any of the groups depending on what he can trade off. Either he must be a good entertainer of some kind, must be an heir to some rich departed peer or must somehow have bought his stay either through early maturity, real or perceived, marriage, circumcision or must even somehow have earned some respect through good mannerisms, bravery, obedience, you name them.
I earned the privilege of the company of these old wise men on this occasion by carrying a chair for my uncle. There, they were about 20 of them. The setting was rural Omaheke in the Epukiro Constituency. The occasion was the funeral of perhaps one of the last few ladies her age in the area, if not the region. She would turn most of us in this era, when life expectancy has been reduced to only 49 years, green with envy. She has surpassed that line twice.
By this token, the occasion did not have a dearth of some grey-haired gentlemen. They were out to console their peers who like themselves must be pushing towards 80. The exchange touched on stock theft. The focus does not fall on this subject by default but by design. As much as stock theft has been a concern among the farming community, it is more a concern at this gathering as a way of driving home a message. If not of the gravity of the scourge then the uselessness of the traditional councillors in bringing suspects to book.
But the discussion was diplomatically being driven towards its real target. One of the traditional councillors has at one point been implicated in stock theft. As may be expected in our corruption-infested, you scratch-my-back era, the councillor is off the hook. This has been beyond the understanding of these old wise men. Now, this is the chance to get own back. If this is the kind of new culture that is quickly eating away at the edifice of our traditions, a culture his traditional Excellency and other honourables seem to be embracing without blinking, not to this community.
To them, this councillor is just another villain and vice in their midst. He cannot be the quintessential member of this august club, let alone an exemplary leader the rest of the community can look up to. The fact that he may have been found innocent remains unconvincing to this lot. To them, he has just been protected by this system that protects one of its kind.
Ironically, they also pour on the councilor their myriads of problems. Not that they have much hope that anything would come off it but obviously to hammer on his futility. The intransigence of the authorities to attend to the repair of water engines year-in and year-out has become a burden to a singular seeming well-to-do farmer who has now to shoulder the brunt of the repair and maintenance of the facility.
The problems cited are many. It remains to be seen whether the councilors present, at least the one who matters officially as the recognised traditional leader, would have taken these concerns on board. For the better part of the session, he seemed in a deep slumber. Perhaps that was only a disguised slumber and he was all eyes and ears cunningly to deflect all the problems that were being showered on him. Not to speak of hiding the stock theft shame that has been hanging over him.
But back to the gathering, I was awakened to the fact that contrary to the hearsay of mumbo jumbos dominating like gatherings of this honourable club, they serve a purpose. Somehow communities have their own unconventional but practical way in which they communicate their fears and hopes. In their own subtle way, they deal with unscrupulous leaders against which other leaders do not have the courage to act. If there was a strong message coming somehow from this particular gathering, the community trust in some of its leaders and their abilities to attend to their problems is on the wane if it has not faded. Why such leaders continue to be leaders only baffles one.