Copyright 2009
Mr Timothy Tinako Chikala was, to all intents and purposes, my father.
To my everlasting shame when I was a very young child, I was known to have referred to him as ?my boy?.
For almost 20 years I lived in a home where he was the one who made and served the food, where he saw to my comfort, killed the odd snake or two that ventured into our garden, and was never known to raise his voice in anger. My own father by contrast, was rarely present and rarely pleasant.
Tim Chikala had every right to feel angry.
At the age of 21 he had had to leave his home in a small village near Mutoko in the rocky and somewhat barren North East of Rhodesia. He left behind a young wife. Over 60 long years he returned there on a few sparse occasions for short periods of time.
During these momentary visits 5 children were conceived. Whilst he was not present for one of their births, nor through their growing up he dutifully saw to their education and their needs.
It was he who taught me the value of patience, he taught me to ride a bicycle and it was he who made for me my first catapult. Through no failing of its manufacture did I fail to do any damage with it other than the odd window. It was he who fetched me from school on occasions when I was ill.
He ? who had no chance to father his own children so that they grew up not knowing him. He who taught me the role of a man in a family?s life.
If the quality of a child?s life depends on a sense of permanence and constancy, he was my rock. His loyalty to our family knew no bounds. After one of his short holidays back home in Zimbabwe, he was forced through political disruption to find his way back to us, on foot; avoiding officials on both sides of the border. He crossed the border at night and walked through the Kruger National Park in order not to be caught. Two sleepless days and nights were spent in a tree as lions prowled around its base.
Mr Chikala was a religious man. I would always feel somewhat intimidated on entering his room in the back yard in the house where we lived. It was always quite dark in there. It smelt of Cobra polish and carbolic soap for he was meticulous in his ways.
Over his bed mounted up on high bricks to ward off the tokoloshe, was a large portrait of Jesus. A face born out of suffering and tenderness. He practiced as a Catholic, and ate only fish on Fridays, but of a Sunday morning he would head of to a Church of Zion service somewhere in the koppie behind our home. The sound of drums and the constant harmonies of ululating worshipers would drift in on the wind.
Summer evenings spent with him in the yard sharing in a delicious meal of dzadza and gravy are a favourite memory for me. We would listen to music on his wind-up gramophone as with our fingers, we dipped balls of stiff maize porridge into a thick gravy. His penchant was for the Kwela music of the townships. In particular he loved the penny whistle of Spokes Mashiyane and the exiled saxophonist, Kippie Moeketsi.
Spokes was so named for his penny whistles were fashioned out of the spokes of bicycles. Today a large portrait of Kippie is in my lounge and whenever I see it, I am reminded of balmy summer nights in a naively innocent time of my life.
In my teens I returned home one day from a trip to the Indian market at the bottom of the city with a new LP. It was Isitimela by Ladysmith Black Mambazo. It is a song that tells of young men leaving their villages and coming by steam train to the big city. Coming to lives of toil in the gold mines deep beneath the city of Egoli.
I was surprised when I first played the album to see a tear in his eye. I imagine the words were simply too close to his heart. Or perhaps he shed a tear knowing that the small boy he had raised had come, however vicariously, to recognise if not understand, the trials of Job to which he had been subjected.
He was a handsome man. He wore the most elegant homburg, which was always perfectly patted into shape. In later years he replaced the homburg with a straw boater. His jacket always sported a large decorative handkerchief, which would peek with a flourish from the breast pocket. And he always wore the very best Crockett and Jones two-toned shoes, made from real leather and perfect for people who would have to walk very long distances.
Like most black men, he would carry a large umbrella wherever he went. In later years I came to know that this was a vestige of a forgotten warrior heritage as the umbrella could serveShona as an assegai on the dangerous trains and buses which he was forced to use.
Years later, when I too had become a father of my own family, he would arrive regularly of a Sunday. Dressed in his finery, he would sit patiently, smiling as he bounced one or both my children on his knees as any grandfather would. We shared little by way of language. I spoke neither Shona, Zulu nor Sotho so our conversations were always rather halting. But like all good company, little needed to be said.
My mother left South Africa in June of 1978. But she was to return every two years or so to visit family. Her trip would involve thousands of kilometers spent driving to and from my 93 year old one-eyed aunt?s home in Ficksburg, through Johannesburg and then on to the Game Reserve.
On their way they would pass through Johannesburg and pick up Tim. It is hard to imagine how the two octogenarian?s and the one-eyed aunt managed these interminable trips. And it is equally impossible to imagine that they would ever spot any hidden animal in the deep bushveld. But the trips were always highlights of my mother?s year, however elusive the animals might have been.
A few years ago my family set out to buy for Mr Timothy Tinako Chikala, a small home in which he might live out his few remaining years in comfort. His eyesight was failing, he was too old to keep on working. In great excitement he went out to find a home suitable for a retired old man who had worked hard all his life. After some time a place was found near Krugersdorp and was duly bought.
A week before he could proudly occupy his new home, it was commandeered by squatters. And try as he might all he has to show for his new home are the keys.
The trials of Job are not yet complete.