One evening, after dinner, Wazili shook his head. “The streets have become unpredictable lately,” he muttered. He finished wiping down his bicycle with a piece of cloth under the dim light of a bulb hanging from a wire attached to the roof pole. The shanty building had a single main switch, and tenants had to contribute to an electricity fee in addition to their rent to connect their wire to the main switch.
“Patience is key,” Idesi replied calmly, suppressing the urge to yell at him. He often repeated these sentiments during their conversations. She fanned herself with a piece of chitenje as she finished arranging the dishes on a palm wood drying rack. The room was stifling, typical of late October dry season heat. The heat, coupled with the chorus of chirping crickets, made it unbearable. She eagerly awaited the November rainy season when the floors and walls would cool down.
“You don’t understand the situation out there. Do you realize how saturated the streets have become with bicycle taxis?”
“I understand. That’s why I suggested selling boiled cassava and sweet potatoes at the construction site.”
During their courtship, Wazili worked as a skilled shoe repairman, a job that brought in good earnings in their village. He used to shower her with gifts that fueled her love for him: bangles, chitenje fabric, and East African hijabs adorned with shimmering gold. However, shortly after their wedding vows, Wazili suggested they relocate from their village to the Chikanda slum, situated at the base of Zomba City, in search of a fresh start. Despite the overcrowding in the slum, businesses of all kinds were thriving, and he convinced Idesi that if he started a bicycle taxi business and she took her trade to the streets of Chikanda, their lives would be transformed. Idesi had been selling boiled cassava and salted velvet beans on banana leaves at a local primary school. Idesi’s business did not take off in the slum, but the savings they brought from the village helped them settle in the slum.
During their first year in Chikanda, their marriage seemed promising. They rented a one-bedroom apartment in a shanty building that housed five tenants. Idesi appreciated the building’s corrugated iron roofing that gleamed in the sunlight, but she couldn’t ignore the stench from the nearby refuse dump on hot afternoons and evenings when neighbors gathered outside their yard for discussions that often extended into the night. While her husband worked, Idesi managed her wifely duties, tending to cleaning, cooking, and occasionally looking after Mama Irene’s children. Mama Irene was their landlady.
Wazili continued to add charm to their evenings when he returned from his bicycle taxi business. He would playfully instruct the neighborhood children to go to bed, declaring that it was time for adults to enjoy themselves. He often quipped about his two primary priorities: his wife and his bike, emphasizing that messing with either would lead to hardship, much to the amusement of their neighbors. Most laborers in the slum returned from their jobs and retreated to drinking joints, leaving little time for their spouses.
Those days seemed like a distant memory now. Wazili’s income had dwindled to the point where they struggled to afford three meals a day or even basic necessities like salt. In their village, Idesi could have relied on the generosity of neighbors, but in the selfish environment of the slum, people hoarded their belongings and lied about their possessions when asked by neighbors in need. What distressed Idesi most, however, was Wazili’s reluctance to provide her with money to participate in Mama Irene’s chipereganyo group, where married women pooled their resources for small-scale businesses.
“I have a plan. I want to head south,” Wazili announced one night to her in their bedroom after supper. “I’ve already started thinking about finding a job in South Africa. I have friends in the south who can help me. Their numbers are in my phone.”
His words struck Idesi deeply. They had discussed this topic before, and she had opposed his idea of going to South Africa for work.
She knew about the rumors concerning South Africa: the locals’ resistance to foreigners taking their jobs and their ability to handle tasks such as slashing, cleaning, and gardening themselves. She could envision waking up one day to the news that angry South Africans had attacked and set her husband on fire, a gruesome fate she wished to avoid.
What about the stories of love affairs that blinded immigrant men to their responsibilities back home, leaving their wives in despair? She didn’t want to end up like her friend Beatrice, whose husband had supposedly engaged in an affair shortly after arriving in South Africa, leaving her to raise two boys alone amid town gossip.
She wanted to bring up Mama Irene’s yearly chipereganyo cycle, but she went against the idea. It was an ongoing silent war between the two. Several times Idesi had pitched the idea to Wazili; it was never fruitful. From Wazili’s perspective, it wasn’t just about business. Mama hid behind small-scale businesses while instigating young women to rebel against their husbands using ideas she picked up from the radio, newspapers, and television. She was poisoning the women in this area with her thinking.
Idesi sat up on the bed as Wazili pulled the old blanket over his head, facing away from her. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, a habit she had developed whenever Wazili dismissed her dreams. She wished he could hear the sounds of Chikanda’s streets in the evenings, where tired laborers sought light snacks like velvet beans before their main meals. She wished he could see the admirable qualities in Mama Irene, but it seemed impossible.
She gazed at her husband, who was snoring beside her, contemplating what she could do. Maybe she should smash the phone on the bedside table to put an end to his constant thoughts about his friends in South Africa. Or perhaps she should press a pillow over his face, ending his life and allowing her to become independent like Mama Irene. However, she knew she couldn’t bring herself to do either of those things, and she never would.
When the early November rains arrived, Idesi realized it was time to break free from Wazili’s grasp. She had been hesitating and nibbling since they got married while Wazili held onto her freedom. The rain arrived in halves, accompanied by thunder and lightning, serving as a warning to the scorching sun that had overstayed its welcome. So, when Wazili instructed her to return to their village to work on their maize garden, Idesi didn’t protest as she had done in the past. She knew there were wealthy landowners in the village, and she could find wage work there, perhaps helping with tasks like carrying red bricks. The money she earned could be used to secure a loan for her cassava and velvet bean business.
She had only been in the village for two days, not even tilling a single ridge in their garden or carrying a single red brick for the affluent builders, when Mama Irene called her. “Amwali, your husband, something is up,” Mama Irene began. In her ears, Mama Irene spoke with the familiar chipereganyo tone, one woman empowering another, rather than the landlord tone she used on some mornings. There were days when Mama Irene spoke to her tenants like a strict landlady, reprimanding them for various issues around the compound.
“Talk Ma,” Idesi held the phone close to her ears tightly as if it would slip away if she relaxed the grip.
“You better come and find out more. I don’t have the details. But something is not right…”
“Is that what you can tell me?” Idesi cut in. “Just tell me the exact thing. I am a woman and you are a woman too.”
“Since you left, I have noticed that Wazili is constantly on the phone, both in the mornings and evenings. He has been talking to someone about women not being sure of what they wanted in life and potentially being a distraction to big plans. He has mentioned that someone would pick him up and host him for a while until he could learn the ropes of Johannesburg on his own,” Mama Irene said. “But spare me, don’t let him know I told you that. I don’t want to come out nosy.”
“I am so grateful. And it’s a secret between us.” Idesi pledged to keep Mama Irene’s involvement in revealing this information a secret. “What should I do, Mama Irene?” Mama Irene was not just a landlady; she was the center of things. Her tenants and young women around sought her wisdom in marital affairs.
“Stop him, my daughter,” Mama said and clucked. “I would stop him if it were me.”
The following day, Idesi woke up at dawn, just as the sun was beginning to cast its yellow glow over the village. Chikanda was an hour’s walk from her village, and the road was relatively empty at this hour. She walked quickly but with a distracted mind, occasionally stumbling on the uneven earth road. In her town, there were abandoned wives clinging to the hope of their husbands’ return and children accustomed to the taste of orphanhood even before their fathers faced xenophobic attacks. But not Wazili, Idesi assured herself. She was ready to confront him. If Mama Irene had intercepted the idea of the impending trip based on Wazili’s phone calls, then the device was the linchpin of his plan. She needed to get hold of it, forcing Wazili to follow her to the village. These thoughts raced through her mind, making the one-hour journey feel like mere minutes.
Upon reaching the compound’s entrance, her heart pounded with anxiety. The compound fence was riddled with cracks from expansion and contraction, and her ears picked up the sounds of early risers preparing for the day. She peered through the gate and found their compound relatively quiet. Low voices could be heard from one or two houses. Wazili’s bicycle leaned against the verandah pole, indicating preparations for his usual bicycle taxi work.
Idesi cautiously entered the compound and approached their slightly ajar door, which seemed to welcome her as if her arrival had been anticipated. She stepped inside and she recognized Wazili’s hairy legs in the pit latrine, his familiar pair of blue jeans pulled around his ankles. She tiptoed, covering her mouth with one hand as if her breath might betray her presence.
She entered their house, trembling hands attempting to remove the SIM card from his old phone.
However, the card rattled loudly, causing her to resort to taking the entire cellphone. In less than five minutes, Idesi emerged cautiously, feeling like a soldier who had planted grenades in enemy territory. She made her way back to the alley she had entered through, a narrow and trash-strewn path that resembled a dark tunnel between two fences. The alley connected to the main slum road, which led to the village road. However, before she could exit the alley, the phone in her skirt pocket rang, sending a wave of fear through her. She stopped, looked back, and heard only silence in the alley, with noise from people on the main slum road. She opened the phone’s case, extracted the SIM card, and tossed the phone’s cover into the gully, where it landed silently on a bed of wet ash. These wet ash heaps often caused the slum to reek during persistent rains. The card had all the contacts he had in South Africa. Wazili would follow her. He needed them. Idesi continued along the slum road, patchy with occasional sections of tar but mostly red earth mixed with silt that turned sticky during rainy days. The road’s edges served as dumping grounds for the slum’s residents, and the rains would sweep this refuse into the nearby river, clogging it.
The unpromising sun had painted the sky with delicate yellow rays filtered through the curtain of leaves of towering blue gum trees lining the road, creating patches of light on the ground. Life was buzzing around, and the road was bustling with people. The little time she had spent in Chikanda, Idesi could discern the various types of people making their way along the road. Some were laborers heading to the Italian construction company that was renovating the sewer system, while others were women returning from selling farm produce in the slums, carrying empty large bamboo baskets. There were also sweepers from Asian-owned shops and security guards with knobkerries and machetes, coming back from their night shifts for farm work before the scorching sun became unbearable. A sudden urge prompted Idesi to look back, and there he was — Wazili. He carelessly discarded his bicycle as if he would never use it again. The license plate, bearing the motto of his bicycle taxi business, “Allah Is Great Bicycle Taxi,” flipped through the air before embedding itself in the ground by its sharp corner.
Wazili lunged at Idesi, causing her to stagger toward a road that led to one of the settlements along the route. Her chitenje cloth came loose from her waist. “I know what you’ve done,” Wazili declared, using his usual tactic of pinning her down while conducting an interrogation. His eyes were fixated on her cupped hand. “I am going to kill you!”
“Get off me!”
“I won’t, woman!” Wazili roared, determined to pry her hand open. As her folded fingers began to unfold, the corners of the SIM card became visible, and she could sense his intense desire for it. The item felt weightless in her hand, and she feared that once it was lost in the muddy mix of silt and polythene, retrieving it would be like searching for a needle in a haystack. “Is this all about the SIM card? What about the phone?” His coarse hands rummaged through the pockets of her skirt. “Where did you…”
“Don’t ask me,” she interrupted defiantly. “You walked past it.”
A small crowd had begun to gather around them. Some rushed from nearby houses, while others abandoned their snacks at a nearby crossroad to witness the commotion. Idesi felt no shame; public fights were not uncommon in the slum. She had witnessed many, even separating fights between prostitutes who quarreled over unpaid fees from their clients. The fights provided entertainment for the slum dwellers, as they watched men pay the price for their reckless desires. This time, it was her turn to shame Wazili before he could disgrace her by leaving her.
“What’s happening?” an elderly man among the onlookers asked. Idesi noticed his feet partially submerged in wet earth.
“Ask her. She knows what she’s holding from me,” Wazili replied without glancing at the elderly man. Idesi felt Wazili’s strength as he forcibly opened her hand, one finger at a time, until the SIM card dropped from her grasp. She swiftly dove to retrieve it.
“It’s just a SIM card!” the man with wet feet declared, observing the growing crowd.
“A SIM card?” More people approached, trying to comprehend why such a fuss was being made over a SIM card.
“Is this what you want, for all these people to witness your foolishness? Just give it to me. I am respectfully asking you! I am your husband.”
“So what? Forget about it.”
“Don’t meddle in other people’s marital affairs. Today they fight, tomorrow they’re hugging each other, like a horny rooster and a heat-ready hen. Those who pry into their fights end up looking foolish,” one of the bystanders commented.
“Such matters are best resolved by marriage counselors,” another added.
“Yes,” the crowd agreed, refraining from intervening further, as if the altercation possessed some mystical power.
“Woman, listen to your husband,” the elderly man with wet feet spoke again, standing tall. “Submit to your husband. You are a woman!” His words cut deeper into Idesi’s already wounded heart. In these parts, being a woman was no easy task, as a woman’s body bore the scars of masculinity’s sharp edges.
“A wife is not a piece of wood. We feel pain too. The blood running in your veins is no different from ours,” she shouted.
“She’s not listening,” Wazili said without even acknowledging her words.
“What’s going on?” someone from the crowd shouted. It was another elderly man. The man appeared to be one of the watchmen for the Asian stores in town, often seen with machetes strapped to their bicycles. He wore a mzuri cap.
“It’s a family matter!” The crowd responded with laughter. “What’s wrong with you, huh?” Another voice called out from a distance. It sounded familiar to Idesi — Mama Irene. She was making her way through the crowd, her thin legs straining to support her disproportionately heavy torso, complete with a sagging stomach. She wore black pants with a chitenje on top. “Do you want all these people to witness your foolishness? People will start saying ‘Mama Irene’s tenants this’ and ‘Mama Irene’s tenants that.’ And you want to tarnish my name, huh?” Idesi glanced at Wazili, signaling for him to release her. “This is the roadside! What’s wrong with you? She’s a woman. I’m going to call the Help Line.”
“This woman is arrogant,” commented a young bystander, likely unmarried. “You, give in to your husband. Give him his SIM card!” Idesi regarded the young man with scorn.
“This is a family matter, and you’re just a young boy,” Mama Irene chastised the young lad, then redirected her attention to the couple. The watchman had pulled Wazili away, bringing relief to Idesi as she regained her footing.
“Mayi, what’s going on?” the watchman asked her.
“He…” Idesi stuttered.
“He will end up in jail,” Mama Irene warned Wazili, her gaze unwavering. “These days, there are so many organizations for women. Be a man. Leave beating a woman to savages.”
“She…” Wazili attempted to interrupt Mama Irene.
“We live right here in Chikanda…” Idesi interrupted Wazili, brushing off the wet red earth and silt clinging to her body and clothes. A lump seemed to have lodged itself in her throat, making it difficult to speak. She began recounting everything to the crowd — Wazili sending her to the village at the start of the rainy season, his impending trip to South Africa, and his refusal in providing her money for the chipereganyo with Mama Irene. Everything poured out.
“So much happens behind the closed doors of married couples,” the young lad chimed in.
The crowd erupted in laughter.
“Quiet! Why don’t you mind your own business? This doesn’t concern you. What do you know about marriage?” Mama Irene rebuked the young lad. “What men are doing to us women these days is very unfair.”
“True, I sent her to the village,” Wazili explained the circumstances leading to her departure. His kabaaza business. The increasing number of taxi bicycles flooding the streets. The rising cost of living for a man with a wife. The devaluation of the kwacha, rendering it nearly worthless. And his plans to travel to South Africa.
“Your husband is doing his best to change the situation,” interjected the man with wet feet after Wazili had presented his side of the story. Idesi chose to disregard him, but she could hear a murmur from the gathered crowd.
“The contact details of my host in Jubeki are on that card. I am supposed to meet someone in Jubeki,” Wazili pleaded.
Idesi opened her hand and examined Wazili’s much-needed card. It remained intact and rested comfortably in the center of her palm, untouched by the recent struggle. She closed her hand again firmly.
“Please, just give me the card. I will need it to meet my contact at Park Station after my bus journey in a week.”
Wazili cast a glance at the watchman, silently imploring him to mediate on his behalf.
“She sneaked into the house this morning and took my phone. I sensed something was amiss when I noticed the items on the table were scattered and my phone was missing. I inquired with a few women at the public water kiosk behind our compound, and they mentioned seeing my wife leaving in haste. Please, ask her to return the SIM card. I need it.”
“Is that all?” the watchman inquired, turning to Idesi.
“You’ve heard him,” she replied.
“Furthermore, this is a family matter. Every marriage has its disputes. You should discuss this within your household, not on the roadside. I don’t recall you taking your marriage vows on the street, so don’t strip yourselves of dignity,” Mama Irene chimed in. She shifted her gaze between Wazili and Idesi, as if urging them to heed her words. “So, please, leave this roadside. We don’t want you airing your grievances here. If I see you here again, I won’t hesitate to call the Help Line.”
“And you,” the watchman addressed the young man, “you’re just a young boy. You know nothing about married life, not even the slightest bit. Keep your mouth shut.” Laughter and agreement rippled through the onlookers. “These are challenging times. One must exercise caution. Nowadays, people walk around already weakened in their bodies. With these frail bodies, a slap is enough to send someone to the grave.”
“Be brave, my daughter,” Mama Irene said. “Stand up for yourself when you return to your village.” Most people nodded in agreement, and Idesi acknowledged the sentiment.
Idesi retrieved her piece of chitenje from the ground, dusted it off, and tied it around her waist. The hand that held the SIM card remained closed. She made it clear that the card would only be returned after discussing the matter with their ankhoswe in the village. Wazili grumbled as he picked up his bicycle and the license plate. Idesi started walking ahead of him, uninterested in any further conversation. He trailed behind her, wheeling the bicycle. The voices of the dispersing crowd discussing the incident and the general noise of the slum gradually faded into the distance as the two walked towards the village road. They disappeared around a sharp bend where the slum road met the dusty village road.