The Sunday News
Christopher Mlalazi
AS the focus this last week shifted from January disease to the “back to school” preparations, my mind flew back to the very first day I started working.
It is for ever etched in my soul, this day, as it was very poetic. Yes, can you imagine that, a poetic start to employment, salaries, and freedom from relying on the pocket of the parents.
It was not the same as my first day at primary school though, but there are many similarities here and there.
Firstly, on that first day I was wearing brand new spanking shoes, just as kids on their first day at primary school do too.
I was also wearing a new tie — well it was not so new as such as it was borrowed, but I will call it new as it was my first time to wear a civilian tie. I had borrowed it from a neighbour when I had first gone to look for the job, and did not return it until I had bought one of my own.
That is how most of us start in life — by borrowing something from the neighbour.
So you see, next time you think about fighting with your neighbour over a small thing, please remember that neighbours are not just neighbours, but they are an important cog of our lives, as they always come in handy where we have no ties to wear to our first job as was my case.
But that does not mean when you get paid you owe them something. No.
That first job was a temporary teaching one, at a country school deep in my beloved Plumtree District.
I don’t know how it happened, but I also got the job right in the middle of my rural home, at a school that my ancestors had done their education before some of them relocated to the city, and so, in a way, my going to that school was a spiritual return.
The school was small, about two blocks of buildings with a low enrolment, and situated in a valley bordered on one side with hills, and on the other with the Mlalazi spirits.
I arrived at the beginning of the first term, a day before schools opened, carrying a suitcase on my head, and a Shangani bag packed with groceries and a Primus stove in my hand.
I think you can guess what the groceries were.
Before I had bought the groceries, I had consulted with those with experience with teaching in a village school, and they had given me this advice: the food you buy had to last to the next payday if it was possible, because some supplies could not be found from country grocery stores, and you would end up begging from villagers.
And so the best food choice was cabbage, dried fish (kapenta), potatoes, dried beans, flour, canned foods, and of course mealie-meal, cooking oil, sugar and salt, but the last could be easily bought from local country stores, although with the prices a little bit inflated. With these, you could be eating for a couple of weeks without buying anything.
I especially remember the joke about the eye of a kapenta fish sticking on the tooth of a country schoolteacher that was famous in those days.
I had walked a long distance from the village bus stop to the school on that first day. Well, it was not so long, but for me it was long.
And that was one thing I had not been told when I had boarded the country bus at Renkini, that the bus did not pass at the school gate, but I would have to walk to it a bit with my luggage.
And you know in the villages when a person says “a bit” they might as well be saying “the whole day.”
Normally in the city I don’t carry stuff on my head, but on that day, faced with the curving dirt road to the school which seemed to swim in water in the heat, I had no alternative.
I think I rested twice on that heat blasted road before I finally reached the gate of the school, but I finally arrived there, sweating and tired.
I forever remember that walk, as it symbolised an arriving at a pivotal stage of my life, and it was a very good welcome into it.
I was tired, but I was triumphant. I had arrived, and soon at 18 years of age, I would be teaching some of tomorrow’s leaders how to say aeiou!
