Dust in the cloud

Dumisani khumalo

A people's culture is a people economy .What Silas ate ,where he lived ,and his interest were coming down as his crop failed .

Silas hands had brought poverty on it's knees and brought up joy ,love and mercy.They raised poultry ,stock ,grew crops to eat ,trade ,and give out to others when they had more than enough.

The hole in the sky had not started by then ,and there was plenty of water for use ,and water had not become an enemy nor had it any enemies .

.Land no water to grow something,under the hot African sun. The weather was different and it was changing ,the more people talked of civilisation. It meant eating refined food ,processes food ,clean water ,,and that is what started happening when traditions started disobeying rules like in the cutting down of trees , to purify water ,cook the food or even process it ,digging deep into the ground not only to bury human souls but to cause oil erosion ,acidification and hard metals to make the water useless.

The holes were left gaping and uncovered ,like the hole in the sky ,called global warming in a Global village ,Silas loved his home,and culture and created crafts in it's honor and in honor of the nature around him, and at market more barter and less coin and notes came ,and when it did ,there were few goods left.

There came different meanings with the Town dwellers with their currency of coin and note ,and in the village, a chicken could take you to town ,and not the other round ,and plenty meant money had to look for value ,and hoarding ensued.

Like a mischievous child ,value and bred chickens ,goats and cattle whose number was low due the lack of feed were dying due to the drought ,the stock theft ,and even his drought animals like the donkey died now ,to feed Chinese curiosities ,their China belly as big to take in tortoise ,python ,elephant tusks ,and rhino horn. All seemed to disappeared from the face of the earth,since they were here ,the reason they never ate local but kept to their own culture.

The yellow fever ,then aids ,and inflation fever was cutting the country to it's knees.First fruits were eaten ripe ,now the hunger pangs ate them raw ,when the seed was still white and tender .Was not that as good as rape ,paedophiliia,and theft from the fields ?

Doomed was the one who wanted to protect coin and note in his pocket."He who claims a bag of maize ,a kg of meat in his pocket must stand up " ! Poverty once asked on those on a journey to Town where jobs were scarce and value saw more notes printed and Silas felt it in his belly ,how he had been better off  on his land. The educated and the marketeers, were running the show. All jobs needed skills and knowledge,all knowledge talent and gift. 

 African time lost and new time came in when the cattle went to drink ,or the rain birds came to pronounce the imminence of the rains ,when the termites came out of their hiding crevices ,as he himself knew he had look for the alternatives in the city , a harbinger of where jobs were,alas now scarce and breeds were exotic ,not resistant to certain diseases ,like his animals would survive from .While his own breeds found little sympathy as his crops and his seed ,that had no gene bank ,as they did not have even a currency in the village and used Barter to trade for goods and services.

The maize shortage was poor now ,the rot ,the aflotoxins ,,rats ,weavils ,were imported into the country,some as  big as beetles, were everywhere and with the new varieties of seed ,they increased ,and how they were given the alternative of rice that women loved so much ,since it was easy to prepare ,made them more like children themselves .Never wanting more challenges processing maize as they faced to fetch for water.Labour's tall and dangerous, compared to their maize staple .The mortar pounding and the cob separation ,was like their separation from what they loved most ,an easy life without harsels.

The weeds that came with the seed were as big as their crops ,waxing green and grey and clogging river banks and killing the fish ,the plankton and the algae coming in to create web nets that made water salty and hard metals coming in from industry ,a deadly pollution.

The pot had it's currency and it was the food flowing to everyone as the women cooked and knew who had none ,that is what their calling was ,to satisfy the belly and keep the devil away ,as the men provided in goods and services ,their desire for the best cooks and brewer's,and ,ust like in the town ,the village was younger and had to be given the first chance out of respect for the part it plays ,like woman and the town  old ,revitalising .Than the town and city that now had everything, wanted everything ,and nothing to do with the village .

The child cried ,like a pain in the womb of its mother and out of it because of the poverty and the pain on the land ,call them instincts.

Chikd birth has its gift of life and it's blessings that made them come to see the fruits of the village and there were not as pernicious to the lack that civilisation promised.

The city ,the speed, and wide road out of heaven never failed to astound ,as an imitation made the easy way for itself to iconfound man ,

The children never blinked hoping to see what their parents could give them .A case of hope ,love ,and care. Not when there was hunger now as she said, as she bent forth ,"Hurry for someone will see us ,"That started aloud in the cities and towns .

She was away for a while and came back with something to eat ,even when he knew there had nothing and no one to give them something , failed ask hervabout the source and she had as much for children who kept quiet but keen eye on him as a failure.

The failure of the rains also meant failure of life .The maize crop was a failure ,and the staple was the currency in exchange for other goods and services in the barter life of the villagers .The battering of the weather itself making things worse .

Silas needed salt , oil ,school fees ,hospital fees and when the rains came down ,Silas was sure to have the currency of the country to smell and poverty allayed

He looked up in distaste and wondered as this created an exodus to towns by most youth. The country side now looked dry ,land and no water to grow something.

He had gone to see the prospects of cities and towns with little rains that fell in the past years and brought scarcely harvests to the town as the village .Silas had to work extra hord to put food on the table .

The heat was torrid and aflotoxins with poor storage took the grain to weevils ,and losses were incurred ,rice was imported from the east .The maize was stolen and resold to foreign countries ,or given to the partisans ,known in their areas of placement.

.The maize staple used as currency in exchange for other goods in barter .The children needed much and asked too many questions as if to find out their own way like snakelets and their cursed birth ,to crawl on the land barren of food .

Silas noticed that the more paper and coin money that came for their maize ,cattle ,meals and meat, the more left their village.

The wind must have been envious of both water and fire ,and cyclones ,hurricanes ,typhoons ,brought a new fire ,veldt fires ,forest fires and landfill fires that burnt all year round on city dumpsites.

There was a formal economy there ,an informal one ,that came on the periphery of the first ,and fast a corrupt economy .

Silas seed dwindled and he got his first help .He discovered he had bigger weevils and less grain ,with smaller seed ,yield ,and less nutrient in it.

The paper certificate women ,carrying them in their heads and not in their experiences had advice for their problems and told the women they were equal to their men .

The men saw their women as their children,and they had the first preference ,unless when they wanted the male domain as widows ,or sitting in society as chiefs ,which was granted ,but since no one had seen it ,they blamed the men willfully .

They had papers for knowledge that did not get them jobs too like their male counterparts but a claim by the women said it was marginalisation ,rightfully ,a course for marriage started at home to prepare children differently,and time had moved too fast on them to make the right adjustments to please the government in power in need of aid ,funds ,and credits.

Some did not have the practical knowledge nor knew how these changes would affect them ,help them and others ,making them have swollen heads ,the size of water melons .

At first it was the women dying to feed their children heard in the dark saying " Be quick about it !"and when it was the women with paper knowledge and money .it was quickened, they wanted their husbands .Pulling their whole society into a hole in the ground .The one above was better some said ,unless it had dust in the cloud ,and acid rain would fall on their crops.

The rise in water at the sea percolated into the land and made floods .Even the human body suffered from these in the heart, kidneys ,and well down in the groin.

They were the China men .The better cheats than the former colonial powers ,Silas wondered whether one cheat was better than the other .A cheat is a cheat ,and no thief has a better label on their back .

The wind came like a rat without a hiding place to hide ,and ran in all directions .Those easterlies ,and westerlies were good winds unlike cyclones ,hurricanes and typhoons.

The paper carrying women convinced them they could do what they liked in uncertain terms ,The men did the same ,so the two had equal motives .Both of the same charge ,they repelled each other ,no one was forgiving,and no one was letting go of the ill,and sin. That hole in the ground had no window,it was death .Death from aids ,crime ,and now from the wind ,and the corona.

The hole in the ground is the ultimate one ,and in the sky, wary looks failed to convince theknowledge,it was ,powerless ,and weak ..