Bride Prize

Prolog

June, 1970. The early morning fog is lifting as the rising sun crests the horizon. It promises to be a clear sunny day.

Thru spaces in the thick foliage, a man is seen pedaling his bicycle on a lone bush track. Man turns into a village settlement located in a wide, circular clearing in the middle of semi-forest vegetation.

The hamlet consists of about a dozen round mud huts and about three rectangular shaped mud buildings. The huts were built in a circular formation with an open-sided hut at the center of the compound.

This was the only hut not build with mud bricks, rather its thatched roof was supported by several wooden pillars cut from six-inch thick hard trees.

The man leaned his bicycle against a mud wall.

A young girl walks by, and two kids darted out of a close-by hut and chased each other to the back of the hut out of side, shouting as they went.

Two men were seated inside the open-sided hut, one was smoking his pipe. Both men glanced up as the stranger stepped within.

“I greet those inside the shade,” the man said as he stooped inside the open-sided large hut at the center of the settlement.

“Zasha,” the man with the pipe exclaimed when he recognized his visitor. “What bring you here this very early morning?”

“Oh no, “ the visitor called Zasha answered, gathering his loin cloth and taking a seat on one of the wooden tree trunks that lined the circumference of the open hut which served as chairs. “It’s nothing really. I only brought you invitation to a farm meet in a week’s time. The rains are here and the planting season round the corner. You heard about my illness, I have not fully recovered. I was hoping that these young able bodied men will be of assistance.”

Ugba puffed native tobacco smoke into the thatched roof.

“That is only a minor issue,” he said. “I’m going to pass the word. But you know what these young men these days want when they are invited to a farm meet, do you not?”

Zasha let a wide grin split his face from ear to ear.

“You are telling me as if I do not know already,” Zasha said and leaned forward, “I have tied a might he-goat this size.” His hand raised high above the ground to further illustrate his point.

“What?” Viheve, the man who had been sitting in the open hut with Ugba, exclaimed. “If that is what you are planning then your farm is as good as done. You have finished the boys!”

“You don’t have to worry,” Ugba said, impressed by Zasha’s offer of a big he-goat. “I will let the boys know as soon as they return from the farm.”

Zasha jumped to his feet.“That is settled then,” he said. “Let me also extend my invitation to Kwagtsee. I hope I will be able to catch him at home before he takes off for the farm.”

“I’m sure that you will meet him,” Ugba said. “Kwaghtsee don’t go to farm this early, if I remember him well.”

The men laughed, as Zasha once again stooping low, stepped out of the open-sided hut to where he had parked his bicycle.

* *   *

Zasha pedaled his bicycle onto the narrow bush track and into another settlement similar to the one he had just left. This hamlet was smaller, and did not have an open-sided hut at the center.

The only man visible in this hamlet was Kwaghtsee, the head of the household, walking across the compound with a hoe over his shoulder and a cutlass in his strong, right hand.

“Kwaghtsee!” Zasha called out in his usual loud and lively voice.

Kwaghtsee  paused in his tracks, eying Zasha suspiciously as the bicycle came to stop a few feet away and its rider dismounted.

“Good morning, my brother,” Zasha said, leaning against his bicycle as he looked around the empty compound. “Looks like everyone else has gone to the farm except you.”

“My brother, my people don’t joke with farm work. If I hadn’t gone out early to inspect my traps, you wouldn’t have met anyone at home. I am the only one that is late for farm today,” Kwaghtsee said, still eyeing Zasha suspiciously. “I can see that you are not exactly at your farm either.”

“Yesterday I caught one fat monster of a rabbit in one of my traps,” Zasha said.

“Is that right?” Kwaghtsee said. “I bet you didn’t come all the way to tell me about a rabbit.”

A noisy sound suddenly came from one of the round huts and both men turned to look.

A tall muscular young man had roughly pushed open the door of his small mud hut and stepped outside, rubbing his eyes against the glare bright daylight.

“Venda!” Kwaghtsee shouted angrily, waving his cutlass. “What are you still doing here when your age mates have already fished a row of farm work?”

Venda was Kwaghtee’s eldest son. The young man silently went into the kitchen hut and came out with a hoe and a calabash of water which he used to rinse his mouth as he hurriedly left the compound taking one of the narrow bush tracks that led to the farms.

“Just look at this boy,” Kwaghtsee turned to Zasha, a little embarrassed by his son’s display of truancy. “What brings you this way this early morning, I hope all is well?”

“What brings me here this early morning is to inform you of my far meet, coming up next week Saturday. I’ve tied a huge he-goat for all those who will be able to find time to come.”

Kwaghtsee considers this news for a few moments.

“That alone is a minor matter,” he said. “I’ll let the boys know, although I’m not sure about myself...”

“That won’t be necessary,” Zasha said hastily. “You can extend my invitation to your boys, that will be just fine.”

“That, I will do,” Kwaghtsee promised.

“In that case,” Zasha continued, turning his bicycle around, “let me not cause you any further delay in getting to your farm.” He mounted his bicycle. “Next week Saturday then.” And he rode out of the compound.