I called the council office. My notebook sat open on the desk and Lisa hovered by the door waiting for any more instructions. The line crackled with tension. A committee sat on speakerphone and voices stumbled over each other. I heard someone breathing too close to the phone. Papers rustled on their end and I tapped my pen on the page as I waited for them to settle down.
“Has the water truck arrived in Somabhula yet?” I asked. My voice sounded steady but my knee bounced under the table.
“On its way, sir. Should be there in minutes.”
I wrote that down and circled the time. The sunshine poking through the window was bright but not warm enough to chase away the chill in the office. Outside a vendor pushed his cart past the window. He called out as he tried to catch the attention of someone walking by.
“And the community leader? Is the meeting set?”
“Yes, sir, they are gathering at the dip tank. The elders are already there.”
I nodded, “Keep the dialogue open with no threats and If anyone from Harare tries to take over, tell them to hold off. Local faces only.”
There was a short silence on the line. I heard a chair scrape. One of the voices nervous, tried to push for a stronger hand. “Should we send riot, just in case?”
“No,” I said quietly. “Not unless things turn. Keep the peace by listening first. The people must speak not just be managed.”
They agreed but I could feel some hesitation on the line. Someone whispered in the background but nobody argued and I asked for a full update by one o’clock. Lisa took notes and signaled a runner to send another message to the Somabhula local office. I watched the runner disappear down the corridor, shoes squeaking on the polished floor.
A moment later, the smell of boiled peanuts from outside drifted into the room. I let my eyes follow the sunbeam as it landed on the old rug by my desk. Just as I hung up, my phone buzzed again. The sound was sharp in the quiet office. Lisa peeked in, her face serious and one hand on the doorframe.
“There’s been an incident,” she said. Her voice was low. “One of the elders in Somabhula collapsed during the meeting. They say he died.”
I let the words sink in. For a long minute, the room felt too bright and the air too thin. I pressed the phone to my forehead. I closed my eyes and let my mind drift. The fan above hummed and sounded too loud in the stillness. My pen slipped from my fingers and rolled off the desk. I did not pick it up. The hum of city traffic outside carried on, untouched by the news. My chair felt stiff and my back ached. I took a slow breath and straightened up.
I remembered something I had once read. No, something I had written for myself, a hard truth that hits all of us in the end. In Zimbabwe, funerals are a big deal. People drop everything to be there. They travel from Harare, Bulawayo, Zvishavane and Gweru. There is singing, cooking and stories by the fire. The smell of sadza and goat stew drifts through the homestead. For a day or two, it feels as if the whole world stands still in your honor. But by the third day, the blankets are folded. The hired kombi is gone and your home is quiet again. The sound of laughter slowly returns as life moves forward because it always must.
Your job will be filled. Your children will return to work, maybe still raw but busy. The laughter that once seemed impossible will echo in your house again because life has no patience for mourning. Even your spouse, who wept at your grave, will one day find themselves smiling at a silly joke and wonder if it is allowed.
We live our lives worried about what people will think but the truth is, they do not think about us for long. We buy things, take jobs and make choices, always with someone else’s voice in our ear. “What will people say?” Yet, the day you are gone, the world quietly rearranges itself and everyone keeps living.
If you have ever sat under the mango trees at a rural funeral, you know how quickly grief softens. By the third day, there is laughter by the water drum and uncles are already catching up. Stories and gossip float around about everything except the dead as women gossip near the pots or the men talk cattle and politics under the shade. In the city, neighbors move on to next month’s bills, the price of mealie meal, school fees and more gossip. It is not disrespect but just how life is.
Ubuntu, togetherness, runs deep within us. We are taught to live for others, to protect the family name and to fit in which is a beautiful thing but also a trap. Too many of us spend years wearing masks and sacrificing for an audience that will not remember the performance. You play a part for so long that when your scene ends then you realize the play keeps going without you.
Ask yourself what you would leave undone if you left tomorrow. Think about which dreams you buried just because people would talk. The world forgets you faster than you expect and that truth stings. What really matters is the life you live for yourself, the risks you take and the people you touch.
Legacy is not about applause at your funeral but in the lives you changed along the way. A lesson you taught or a kindness given maybe even a chance you created for someone else. These are the echoes that last longer than any of us.
When your time comes, the world will move on but the seeds you plant and the courage you show is what remains. Live boldly, loving deeply an never let other people’s opinions write your story.
As I sat at my desk, the news of death settling quietly over the day, I remembered what really mattered. It was not the peace I had brokered in Somabhula but the lives I touched while I was here. I reached down, picked up my pen and began to write again. A pigeon landed on the window ledge and flapped its wings. I watched it for a moment, took a breath and went back to my notes. Was peace about changing lives or did it only come after death? Even preachers sounded unsure. That is why they said, “May his soul rest in peace.” The word “may” showed uncertainty and offered no assurance so where was peace?
