A Girl Named Disaster

20

All day Nhamo toiled, with pauses to rest and eat. When she stopped, the boat very gently drifted east. She wore a basket on her head when the sun bothered her. On and on she went, singing to pass the time, or talking to Mother, Crocodile Guts, and the njuzu. Eventually, she got so tired she couldn’t do anything except doggedly move the paddle, first on one side, then the other.

She had hoped to find land before sundown, but she didn’t. It was difficult to see when she was crammed down next to the water with all her stores. “I wish I could climb a rock,” she grumbled. The light reflected off the lake and hurt her eyes. Sometimes the horizon disappeared in a confusing glimmer that seemed to be neither earth nor sky. Nhamo found this extremely disturbing. “I think it’s the opening to the njuzu country,” she told Mother. “I don’t care what Crocodile Guts says; I intend to stay away from it.” Fortunately, no matter how vigorously she paddled, the opening never got any closer.

When it was too dark to be sure of her direction, she brought the oar inside and wriggled down between the baskets of food. She ate peanuts, roasted yams, and tomatoes. The boat gently floated back the way she had come.

Before dawn, Nhamo began again. At midmorning, she found a line of trees protruding from the water. They must have grown on top of a hill before the river was dammed. She stayed there the rest of the day, resting and treating herself to baths. She could see a definite shadow now to the north.

It was far away, hardly a smudge on the horizon, but clearly something other than water. “That must be the north shore of the lake,” Nhamo decided. “I ought to keep going west, though.” She debated the problem for the rest of the day. “It can’t make any difference whether I follow the north or south shore. I’ll still be heading for Zimbabwe.”

You’d be safer close to land, Mother agreed.

You forgot to bail out the boat again, complained Crocodile Guts. Next time I’ll lend it to someone else.

Nhamo hurried to placate the irritated fisherman.

The smudge had disappeared in haze by morning, but she soon found it again. Nhamo pressed on, watching the smudge grow into a definite strip of land. By nightfall it was still too far to reach. “Stupid water!” she shouted at the lake. “Why can’t you flow in that direction for a change?” Her legs ached with the need to walk on solid ground. Her body was hot and sticky, and she was beginning to feel hysterical.

Nhamo spent half of the next day recapturing the distance she had lost. When she still hadn’t reached the land by nightfall—it stretched away from a headland and was covered with tall trees—Nhamo burst into noisy sobs. “Nobody wants me to reach Zimbabwe. Nobody cares what happens to me!” Between fits of weeping, she ate cold cooked yams, which were beginning to taste moldy, and peanuts. Some of the peanuts had worms. She chewed them up before she realized it.

“Horrible!” she screamed, spitting out the vile mix. “Oh, I wish I was dead!” She threw herself down, beating the hull of the boat with her fists and howling insults at the lake. Eventually, she fell asleep in the remains of a tomato basket, with the juice soaking into her dress-cloth. Sometime during the night, she awoke with a strange feeling of peace.

“I don’t really think your lake is nasty,” she assured the njuzu. She didn’t want to anger them when they had been keeping the water calm.

The land was farther away at sunrise, but it looked reachable. Nhamo had something far more momentous to deal with, though. Her legs were streaked with blood. During the night she had become a woman.

“I’m a mhandara, just like Masvita,” she told Mother. She smiled at the shining water and tantalizing strip of land. She was someone important now, a future ancestor. She had proven her willingness to bear children. She wouldn’t have a party, but that didn’t take away from the importance of what had just happened. When a girl became a mhandara in the village, they said she had crossed the river into womanhood.

“I’m the only girl who ever crossed a whole lake,” Nhamo boasted. She tore the red marriage cloth into three wide strips and folded them around grass from her bedding to make pads. She held them in place with twine tied around her waist. Later she would hunt for wild cotton to use instead of grass. She began paddling with new spirit. On the way she made up a song:

“I am Nhamo, a tree full of fruit,

Not a weed.

Pay attention, little girls!

I am now a woman

And allowed to scold you.

My pots will be stronger, my baskets finer.

The roofs of my houses will not fall in.

I am Nhamo, a mighty woman

For whom crossing a measly river was not enough!”

By midday she neared the land. It should have stretched east and west, but it extended north instead. The view south was blocked by a headland. This was somewhat puzzling. “I’m probably at the mouth of a river,” Nhamo decided. She tied up to a convenient tree on a small island offshore.

Maiwee! It felt good to stretch her legs. She squatted by the water to douse herself with the calabash and to wash out her dress-cloth. Then she touched her toes and wriggled her shoulders to take the stiffness out of her body. She spent the afternoon lounging in the shade of a tree. Before dark, Nhamo hunted for a sleeping site. The lakeward edge of the island was steep enough to discourage hippos, but the landward side sloped gently into the water. As Nhamo climbed over a rock, she saw something rise from the ground and hurl itself into the lake. It was a crocodile!

She hastily retraced her steps. She had felt safe in the deep water. Now things were back to normal. She had been extremely lucky the crocodile hadn’t been watching her bathe.

Feeling irritated, she resigned herself to another uncomfortable night on the boat. The yams were definitely moldy now, and she was sick of peanuts. But she had come to land safely. And become a woman.

“All in all, it hasn’t been a bad day,” Nhamo told Mother.