“But worrying won’t change anything.”
Tuaekua Ehi laughs. “You’re right. But we can’t help it. We’re mamas.” She pauses. “You know, it’s not just you and your brothers your mama is worried about. She also is worried about her mama. I don’t know what I would do if my mama had stayed in the village.”
“Is Tjikuu in danger?” I ask quietly.
“I hope not,” she says, just as quietly. “My tjikuu is there with her.”
I feel badly for not worrying about Tjikuu and her sisters. And for not understanding Mama’s sadness. I promise myself I will do better.
Mama shoos me out of the house the next few days. I don’t want to make her sadder, so I don’t say anything. Instead, I talk with Tuaekua Ehi and play with Karemarama and the younger cousins. All they want to do is beat me in races. We run and run and run. But none of them is fast enough to beat me, even when they cheat.
I’m sitting on the ground resting when I see Tuaekua Ehi and Mama Uajoroka go into our hut. I want to go to, but Karemarama insists that I have to race again and again and again.
By time I go to our hut, I’m so worn out that all I want to do is lie down. But Mama meets me at the opening. “You can’t come in right now,” she says.
“But, Mama, I’m tired.”
“Tate should be home soon. Stay outside and wait for him,” she tells me.
I’m surprised. I didn’t think Tate would be back for several days. I sit beside the holy fire and wait. And I wonder what Mama, Mama Uajoroka, and Tuaekua Ehi are talking about that I can’t hear. I can’t wait until I’m a woman and I can be part of the grownup conversations.
My eyes close. I don’t hear Tate until he’s standing beside me. I open my eyes to see him smiling down at me. “Today is a special day,” he says.
“Why?” I ask.
“You’ll see.”
Just then Mama, Mama Uajoroka, and Tuaekua Ehi come out of our hut. They’re each holding something, and they all have big smiles on their faces. I think they have something for Tate. But they come over to me instead.
“You’ve been wanting to be a woman so much, Jahohora, we’re giving you a taste of what it is to be one.” Mama holds out beaded wrist and ankle cuffs. She bends down to tie the cuffs on my ankles.
I hold my arms out so she can tie the wrist cuffs. “They’re beautiful, Mama. Is this why I couldn’t come in the house?”
“I wanted it to be a surprise,” she says. “Mama Uajoroka and Tuaekua Ehi helped me with the beading. You helped, too.”
“I did?”
“This is the skin you helped me tan.”
I touch the smooth soft leather and finger the beading. The cuffs are beautiful.
Mama Uajoroka steps forward. She holds out a long skindress. Mama helps her tie it around my waist. I take a few steps. The ankle cuffs make me walk flat-footed and slow, like a proud Herero woman. The long skirt swishes around my legs. I feel graceful and all grown up. Mama smiles at me. Her eyes are wet.
“That’s not all,” Tuaekua Ehi says. She takes off some of her chest bangles and tries to put them over my head. “Bend down. You’re too tall.”
I bend my knees to make myself shorter. I laugh as Tuaekua Ehi puts the bangles around my neck. They feel heavy against my bare chest. Then she places a tall beaded headdress on my head. I move my head as I stand up tall. The beads jangle softly.
Mama and Mama Uajoroka bring out another surprise for me. They’ve cooked some of the cow meat. It’s like a feast. We all eat and eat until we’re full. The cow meat tastes good after all the birds and rabbits we’ve eaten.
When we’re done eating, Mama tells me to walk around more. “See how it feels to be a woman,” she says.
I walk slowly around the mountaintop, enjoying this taste of my future. Karemarama stares at me. “Let’s race,” he says. “I could beat you now. You couldn’t run fast in that.”
“You’re right,” I say. “That’s why Herero women don’t race. We don’t like losing.”
Tate and the women laugh. “You’ve already figured out one of the most important things about being a woman,” Mama says. “You’ll be quite a wife for Uapiruka when the time comes.”
I walk in the grownup clothes a while longer. Then Mama says I must take off the headdress and the chest bangles. I give the bangles back to Tuaekua Ehi. Mama helps me remove the headdress. “You will have your own bangles soon,” she says. “We’ll put the headdress away until you’re fully a woman. But from now on, you can wear the long skindress and the ankle and wrist cuffs. They’ll help you learn to move like a Herero woman.”
After the others have gone to sleep, Mama sits with me by the fire. “Did you like your surprise?” she asks me.
“Oh yes, Mama. Thank you.” I give her a big hug.
“You know, Jahohora, in many ways you are already a woman. You do a woman’s work. And you think like a woman. I sometimes forget that – because your body isn’t a woman’s body yet.”
“When will that happen?” I’ve asked the question before, but Mama’s never given me a real answer. I hope tonight she will.
“When you begin to bleed,” she tells me.
“But I bleed now. See?” I point to a scratch on my arm.
She smiles at me. “This is a different kind of bleeding. It comes from between your legs. You’ll know when it happens.”
“Is that what happened when Tuaekua Ehi went away with her tjikuu and came back in the long skirt?”
“Yes,” Mama says. “Her tjikuu showed her what to do about the bleeding and told her why it was important.”
“Will Tjikuu show me what to do when my body is ready?” I ask quietly.
Mama looks at the fire. I don’t think she heard me. I start to ask the question again, but she stands up. “I’m tired,” she says. “I need to get some sleep.”
I stay outside a little longer, thinking about Mama’s surprise. I walk slowly to the edge of the mountain. I like the feel of the long skirt against my legs. Happiness fills me as I look up at the stars. I am growing up. But even better is that Mama understands.
“Not sleepy?”
I jump when Tate asks the question. I didn’t hear him come out. We stand quietly looking out over the veld, each of us filled with our own thoughts.
I break the silence. “Look, Tate, there’s the Otjikoroise Tjovaeve.” I point to the five stars.
“Do you remember how to follow them?” he asks.
I make a line between the top and bottom stars. “Is that the way home?”
He nods. “Now, where does the sun wake?”
I point to the bright star on the right.
“Very good,” Tate says.
An odd star catches my eye. It shines just above a far-off mountain. But instead of shining steady, it blinks. I close my eyes and look again. It’s gone. I look around the valley spread out below me. I see another star blinking in the distance. But it’s close to the ground where no stars live.
“Tate, what’s that strange star?” I point it out to him. Just then, the star on the mountain begins to blink again. “There’s another one,” I say.
Tate walks closer to the edge of the mountaintop. He watches the blinking stars. “Those aren’t stars,” he says softly.
“What are they?” I ask.
“It’s how the German soldiers talk to each other over long distances.”
“They talk with stars?”
Tate laughs. It’s not a happy laugh. “They use lamps. In the darkness of the night, the light can be seen across the veld.”
“What are lamps?” The only light I know that’s not in the sky comes from fire.
Tate tries to explain. “They put a small fire in a square jar that you can see through on two sides. The other sides are shiny, so they make the light of the fire look brighter.”
I wonder if he’s teasing me. Jars aren’t square. And the only jar I can see through is one with holes in it. Maybe that’s what he means. The light must shine thr
ough the holes. “But how do they talk with light?” I ask. “You need words to talk.”
“They make words with the light,” Tate says. “See how it blinks? Some blinks are short. Others are long. Each blink is a different word.”
“What are they saying?” Tate knows the strange words of the white people. So he must know their light words.
“I wish I knew,” he says. “I was with the chief when the German soldiers showed us how the lamps worked. They didn’t tell us the words, though. Their light words are different from the words they talk.” We sit down and continue our watch. The lights blink a few more times. Then they go dark. I yawn.
“You should go in so you can sleep,” Tate says.
“Are you coming?”
He stretches. “I will in a little while.”
I get up early the next morning. I am quiet as I go outside. I don’t want to wake anyone. I shiver in the early morning chill. I see Tate sitting on the edge of the mountaintop. It’s where he was last night when I left him. He’s still looking out over the valley. He seems tired and very worried.
“Have you been out here all night?” I ask him as I sit next to him.
He nods quietly. “It wasn’t a night for sleep.” He doesn’t look at me. His eyes watch over the valley. “There it is again,” he says, more to himself than to me.
“The lights are still blinking?”
Tate points to the far-off mountain where I saw the blinking light last night. I see another blink of light, but this one is different. I have to look harder to see it.
“They can’t use the lamps in the day,” Tate says. “So they use the sun to make words.”
“How do they do that?”
“You know how you can see yourself in the river during rainy season?”
I nod.
“That’s a reflection. The Germans use something shiny they call a mirror to reflect the sunlight the same way they use the lamps at night,” he says.
We sit in silence, watching the lights. I think about Tjikuu and Uapiruka and all my other cousins and aunties and uncles. I miss them. I miss home.
“Tate, when can we go home?”
He turns and looks at me. “I don’t know,” he says sadly. “I had hoped we would be home by the end of the rainy season.”
“The rainy season ended many days ago,” I remind him.
He nods. “I don’t think it’s safe to go home yet.” He pauses. “Show me again which way is home.”
“That way.” I point behind us.
“Good. Do you remember how to get down the mountain?”
“Yes. The path is over there.” I point at the break in the rocks that leads to the path.
“There are other ways down the mountain. Some of them are too steep. They’re only for the rains and for wild animals. But I’ve found a few that are easier to walk.” He shows me where the different paths begin. “If you ever take any of these paths, you must watch for snakes and leopards. And you must look closely or you will lose the path.”
He looks back to the veld in front of us. He points out the Waterberg and the other mountains. He shows me where to find waterholes. “There’s Hamakari,” he says, pointing toward an area near the Waterberg. He names other Herero villages that are scattered across the veld.
“Maharero and the Herero who are with him are out there.” Tate points across the veld toward the Waterberg and where the sun wakes.
“What’s beyond there?” I ask.
“The Omaheke,” he says. “It’s a place of death. There’s little water. And the sun burns anyone who walks there.”
“Where is the land of the white people?”
Tate points to where the sun sleeps at night. “Beyond those mountains is a big river. It is so big that you can’t see the other side. The Germans come from a land beyond the river.”
I look to see if he’s teasing. There’s no smile on his face. “If they have a land on the other side of the river, why do they want our land?” I ask.
Tate shrugs. “Maybe their land is too poor for cattle.” He looks at the mountains and out over the veld. “The land Njambi Karunga gave the Herero is a beautiful place. Maybe the Germans like it better than their land.”
“J’hora!” Karemarama hollers. He’s standing near our hut with some of the cousins. “Mama says you’re supposed to help us get berries.”
I look at Tate. I want to stay here talking with him. He smiles and pats my hand. “You’d better do what Mama says.”
I decide to try one of the new paths Tate showed me. We’ve picked all the berries on the mountaintop and along the closest part of the main path. Maybe there will be more berries in the other places.
“Be careful,” Tate calls. “And don’t go too far. Stay within shouting distance.”
The path I choose is steep. And it’s a little hard to see at times. We soon find an area with lots of berries. We look around for snakes before we begin picking. We eat the first berries we pick. When we’re full, we pick as many as we can carry back up the mountain. Climbing is harder in my long skirt and ankle cuffs. But they protect my legs from bramble bushes. And I can carry more berries in my skirt.
The sun is high in the sky when we reach the top of the mountain. I’m hot and tired. After we take the berries to Mama and the aunties, I sit under the shade of a tree to rest. I see Tate still sitting at the mountain edge, watching the light blink from mountain to veld to mountain. Mama tries to get him to come and eat. But he refuses.
“You can watch with a full belly better than you can with an empty one,” Mama tells him. She takes him some of the meat left over from last night.
He eats it. But he doesn’t seem to notice what he’s eating.
When the sun goes to sleep, Tate leaves the mountain edge to sit with the ancestors at the holy fire. He talks to them quietly. Then he goes back to the mountain edge to continue his watch in the darkness. I stand beside him for a while. The lights are blinking again. I wonder about the lights. But I wonder more about Tate. Why is he so worried?
Mama joins us. But she isn’t interested in the lights. She’s worried about Tate. “You must sleep tonight,” she tells him. “You need to be strong. Those lights are going to blink whether you’re standing here or not. And watching them isn’t going to help you know what they’re saying.”
Tate nods and turns to me. “Jahohora, make sure Karemarama is sleeping. It’s time for you to sleep, too. Mama and I will be in soon.”
I leave them standing there in the darkness whispering to each other.
I’m tired, but I can’t sleep. I lie on the skin, waiting for Mama and Tate. Mama comes in without Tate. My eyes close before Tate comes.
Even though Tate went to sleep late, he gets up early the next morning. I hear him go outside. I get up and join him. The first rays of the sun streak the sky with ochre-colored paths of light that grow as the sun climbs over the mountains that lead to the Omaheke. I watch as the morning light chases away the shadows of night. Tate and I sit on the edge of the mountain. I look for the blinking lights.
“It’s too early,” Tate says. “The sun has to be higher in the sky before the soldiers can catch its light.”
“What’s that?” I ask, pointing to large tails of black smoke rising from many places across the veld.
“Those are Herero villages,” Tate says.
“They must have big holy fires to make all that smoke.”
Tate shakes his head. “It’s the wrong color. That smoke isn’t from a holy fire.”
We sit in silence. I wonder about the smoke and the blinking lights. Suddenly Tate stands. I start to speak, but he motions for me to be quiet.
“Do you hear that?” he asks.
I listen. But it’s strangely quiet. Not even the birds are singing. Then I hear it – a small thunder coming from the direction of the sun. And then another. And another. The thunder rolls on top of itself and echoes through the mountains. But it’s like no thunder I’ve heard before. It’s too short. And
too fast. And there are no clouds or lightning in the sky.
I look up at Tate questioningly.
“It’s begun,” he mumbles.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Those are boom sticks – German guns. They’re shooting.”
I’ve seen my uncles’ boom sticks. But I’ve never heard them shoot. I stare across the veld, trying to see what’s going on. “Where are they?”
Tate points toward Hamakari and the Waterberg. “It sounds like they’re fighting over there. But it is too far for us to see anything.”
All morning, we listen to the booming thunder. Then, as the sun climbs higher in the sky, I see a bright fire flare up across the veld. Like lightning, it’s gone as quickly as it came. But it leaves a small cloud of smoke that hugs the earth before disappearing into the sky. A loud thunder shakes the ground. Karemarama and the cousins run to us to see what’s happening. Mama and the aunties follow.
Another fire flares up and the ground shakes again with thunder. The cousins are excited. They want more “lightning and boom.” But Tate, Mama, and the aunties look worried.
“What is that?” Mama whispers.
“That’s the Germans’ big guns,” Tate says. “They’re so big that they have wheels, and oxen have to pull them. Two men are needed to fire each gun. One man feeds it bullets that are this big” – he holds his hands apart to show us the size – “and the other man puts fire to it to make it shoot.”
“I wish I could see that,” Karemarama says. “What does it do?”
Tate looks at Mama. She shakes her head. “It puts big holes in the ground. And it can knock down trees and make mountains into piles of rocks,” Tate says.
As the sun reaches the top of its journey through the sky, the lightning and booms come faster – one after the other and sometimes on top of each other. I see a big cloud of black smoke rising above the flames of lightning. I imagine a smoke-filled valley covered with holes and broken trees. I’m glad I’m not there.
At last the lightning stops and the booms fall silent. Once again, I hear the small thunder of the boom sticks. They’re still sounding in the distance when Tate sits with the ancestors that evening. Tate has a long, quiet talk with the ancestors. He’s still talking with them when I go to sleep.
Mama Namibia: Based on True Events Page 13
