Adios sekuru, go well my twin

18 Mar, 2018 - 00:03 0 Views
Adios sekuru, go well my twin

The Sunday Mail

By Joseph Nyadzayo
IT’S March 7, 2018, I am at the front office of the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services, Mr George Charamba who is also the presidential spokesperson. I am chatting with Mr Charamba’s personal assistant Mrs Patience Kapembeza while office orderly supervisor Sophie Ngwenya is going about her business.
Enter Sekuru Artwell Karuru, the presidential cameraman. He is walking with the aid of a stick and without saying a word, he stands there listening to our conversation.

I notice that he is grimacing his face, clearly showing some pain. “Sekuru, are you ok?” I ask him but he does not answer me. He gazes around the room with a frowned face and we can see he is in pain.

“Ok sekuru, tomorrow do not come to work. Take a rest,” I advise him. Immediately there is a chorus; “yes, yes sekuru! You are not well. Musawuye kubasa” from Mrs Kapembeza and Sophie.

Mrs Kapembeza quickly adds: “If you come tomorrow, I will tell the permanent secretary that you are coming to work whilst sick.”

Sekuru Karuru suddenly comes alive. He thunders: “I hear you, but tomorrow I will be back with you!”

We all burst into laughter as he walks out of the office.

That was the last time Sekuru Karuru, my twin, was in the office he had worked for 19 years.

When I joined the panel that was to interview the incoming presidential cameraman some 19 years ago, I had been in the office as the presidential photographer for 4 years.

The panel relied on me to handle the technical aspects of the interview. This was not an ordinary interview. The candidate I had to interview had one eye and as the person in charge of the technical aspects of the interview, I had to ask one tricky question.

I could not ignore this question and seated there I sweated wondering how I could ask the question without sounding insensitive.

I had to frame the question very carefully and there I went: “Do you face any challenges in your work as a cameraman given that you have one eye?”

Sekuru Karuru burst into laughter. He laughed so loud that I felt embarrassed. Then came the answer, “Not at all. Actually I feel much more comfortable than you because I do not have to close one eye when focusing like you do”. Everybody laughed.

I joined in the laughter not sure whether I was doing the right thing.

For the next 19 years, this one-eyed candidate became my close buddy, my twin and my Sekuru. There is very little that I didn’t know about Sekuru Karuru.

We shared a lot and kutonyeya vanhu zvedu naSekuru vangu. We spent a lot of time together, travelling all over the world with former President Mugabe.

Sekuru Karuru enjoyed talking about his early childhood years so much.

Most who listened to him will remember his story of being brought up by his maternal grandfather who moulded his character in life. After working for a white farmer called Mr. Daisey, the grandfather was retired.

He was given a big herd of cattle which he ferried to Kajokoto near the Mozambique border. He settled there with young Artwell.

This grandfather spoke mostly Silapalapa, a language devised by white fathers to communicate with their workers.

Silapalapa was a mixture of Shona, Ndebele and English. Bald-headed and missing most of his teeth, this grandfather taught young Artwell important life lessons.

Artwell told many of these lessons, but I vividly remember two of the lessons.

The first lesson was that “never court a girl who is socially inferior to you, for your dominance maybe the source of her saying yes.”

The second lesson was that “when food is brought out at a gathering, never be among the front runners in the queue, it reduces your dignity.”

Sekuru Karuru lost his eye when he was about seven years. That must have been the beginning of his social conditioning or better still ‘hardening’.

He told of people, including grown-ups, who would mock him as ‘kakondo’ from that bird, Kondo which is said to have one eye.

Although he was very slim, Sekuru Karuru always told me that he fought these big boys like a lion, earning a reputation as a good fighter in the process.

Then there was this story about his once classmate the big-bodied Eriaby.

Sekuru narrated that Eriaby was way older than most of his classmates but still he found it difficult to spell simple words such as “amai.”

However, the teacher had to be very careful in correcting Eriaby who always warned; “Teacher, tinotokunyarai nokuti muri teacher.”

Sekuru Karuru also narrated the day he would never forget. That is the day he saw a tarred road for the first time in his life. The school had organised a trip to the museum in Salisbury.

His grandmother gave him five cents as pocket money. The transport of choice was a T35 open truck.

Little Artwell and other small kids where crammed together at the centre while giants led by Eriaby made a ring around the small ones.

The trip started before dawn. It all started well with the usual bumps of a dust road.

As they got closer to Salisbury the bumps suddenly stopped. To the surprise of little Artwell, the truck was now moving very smoothly.

Eriaby and his tribe of giants erupted shouting “tara, tara, tara, tara!” Little Artwell wondered, what was happened.

Why were they traveling so smoothly? What was this tara? He and another small little boy tried to stand and peep but their heads were quickly and firmly shoved down. “Shit down mhani! Munowa!”

The journey continued with little Artwell wondering what had just happened. To him it seemed like they were floating in the air.

When they got to the museum, they disembarked and the first thing that little Artwell came face to face with was this “tara.” Tara was a corrupted English word for tarred road.

The great day ended with little Artwel buying a small bottle of Mazoe crush. He galloped a few sips from this bottle and wondered why it was so sweet.

Anyway luck for him, this bottle had a bottle top that could be screwed back, unlike Fanta’s and Coke. He screwed the bottle and took it back kumusha.

His school was then closed because of the war. Most of his classmates went to join the liberation war, led by the great Eriaby. When asked why he didn’t join the war he always told the story of some comrades in the mountains who told him that he could not join the war because “there could be problems if the other eye got trouble.”

It took only one strong beating and overnight detention that Artwell left the rural home and came to Salisbury looking for a job.

His story is so inspiring to me – he started as a gardener and furthered his education through distance education.

At independence, he would attend classes with the likes of Madam Joice Mujuru.

For professional courses he learnt how to repair televisions and operating the camera while at the University of Zimbabwe. Further education was encouraged by Professor Walter Kamba when he worked as a Steward in the office of the Vice chancellor.

As we worked together with Sekuru Karuru, I got to know that he was diabetic. When we took flights, meals would be served and invariably we would sit together.

He would ask me what I thought about the menu in front of us. If there was anything on the menu that I wanted in his plate, I would say, “Sekuru, this is not good for you, and this and this”.

As we ate he would say “zvirisei?” and I would respond, “ndozipigwa!” He would then say, “mmmm hauna kundinyepera here muzukuru?” This was a sekuru nemuzukuru affair.

In our community of Presidential Press Co, he managed to make friends with teams from numerous countries.

I have received condolence messages from Namibia, Zambia, Tanzania, Mozambique and DRC.

Among these friends the one who will miss him dearly, is the Presidential Cameraman of President Joseph Kabila.

That gentleman does not speak English, he speaks French only. Sekuru could only speak English. However, despite these differences, they were the best of friends.

They would greet the DRC way first and typically it would be slightly knocking their heads together on both sides. “Bonjour, Bonjour, Ca va, Ca va”. That’s all.

Sekuru Karuru had a special task when interviews of former President Mugabe were being conducted.

It was his duty to attach the mic on him. Usually it involved unbuttoning a few of the President’s buttons and move the lapel mic up to his neck tie, button them back. He did his work without blemish until the end.

Sekuru Karuru had another life other than being the presidential cameraman.

He once entered the race to be a Member of Parliament – what a bold and daring attempt! So bold that until his death, at the office, he was referred to as the MP.

However his attempt did not go beyond the primaries. He always told me; “ndakatambwa tingolinko”.

In primary election parlance, it means being duped such that you really don’t know kuti tsoro yacho yatambwa sei.

After our advice for him not to come to work and rest, he indeed did not come to work on Thursday and Friday.

On Friday night, I phoned him with the intention of telling him the time was supposed to be at the office as we were going to Botswana the following Saturday.

He answered and told me that he was admitted in hospital. It seemed under control to me at the time and I thought the problem would be soon fixed.

As I went to Botswana, most members of the delegation noticed that my twin was missing. The following Monday, I went to see him in hospital. He was jovial, but when I went back on Tuesday, the situation had changed.

He looked drowsy and incoherent at times, but I still had hope that he would soon be out of hospital. As I left hospital, I never thought that was the last time seeing Sekuru Karuru alive.

When the news of his death came, my heart sank. Sekuru masiya muzukuru nani? Ko Gogo kumba nevana? What of your brothers and sisters? Inzira yamwari. Be the cameraman ikoko, kusvika ndauyawo!

Adios! Honorable MP. Fambai zvakanaka sekuru Karuru!

 

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