A Buffalo In My Home � E Romilwe

Tumie Modise | Monday April 25, 2016 14:49

I am not sure what this Index ranking is all about, not sure of what measure they use to reach their findings, I doubt they can even tell Botswana from Rwanda or Kazakhstan. But still every year they keep releasing these standings declaring us unhappy again and again. I will speak for myself; I am hardly ever unhappy, not to say I am a happy-go-merry person, I just don’t waste my time being unhappy and miserable. Because most of the time the cause of unhappiness is usually the other person. I long swore never to let another human being be the source of my unhappiness. Some people become big-headed when they think they have an upper hand on you.

I take challenging situations head on; if I cannot contain the situation then I just let go and let nature take its course. Life goes on, monkey or no monkey on my back.

Back to this buffalo. So a week ago we all woke up to the somber news that a buffalo had been spotted in the Southern part of this country. A buffalo isn’t a strange thing, in a country where we are often teased about being outnumbered by animals; a buffalo isn’t a strange phenomenon. Admittedly though, even though we have lots of animals, apart from domestic animals, just like at other countries, most people have only seen wild animals on television or paper.

A few have gone out in the wild to national parks and seen the ‘Big 5’ live. As for domestic animals or small stock as they are sometimes called, not only have we seen them but we own them and know how they taste too.

Lamb is tastier than goat meat. In the capital city itself, though you are most likely to see chicken only at supermarkets in Braai packs, you can get a free ride to the mall on a donkey, cow even a goat.

So the official version is that two brothers encountered a Buffalo just outside my village. There is a general belief that a wounded buffalo is one of the most dangerous things on earth.  So the brother’s story is that this lone Buffalo charged on them, totally unprovoked.

I know my people; very few of them would see such large dinner meal and just walk away. So I don’t buy their ‘unprovoked’ story even one bit.  The issue made headline news. For one thing, we don’t have buffaloes in that part of the country, well until this particular one ‘showed up’. It became big news, breaking news. Naturally my people were not amused. For our folks, farming is often their only source of livehood. In most cases it’s their pride and joy.

They take this whole ‘ene ele molemi-morui’ one liner on ones obituary very seriously. Nothing matters to them than farming. So, naturally the news was very unsettling for all concerned. In the meantime, the issue was fast becoming a great amusement to other people in other parts of the country. My people and I are still not amused.

Question remains; how did a buffalo find its way to those parts? What are the odds of that happening, like one in a hundred? Of all the places in this country, this buffalo had to magically appear there. Seven years ago, an alleged serial rapist who doubled as a killer also showed up in Kanye, leaving a trail of destruction. We are told he breathed his last in a cell at Sejelo Police station in Kanye.

The whole story remains guess work, but what is not in doubt is that after his demise the spate of hair-raising crimes inexplicably stopped. Like the strange serial rapist/killer, Kanye became this buffalo’s final destination. Perhaps the irony of it all is that the current Agriculture Minister hails from Kanye. Coincidence? The buffalo is dead and dead animals can’t tell stories.

But back to the whole unhappiness theory, when you look at some of these strange occurrences, you cannot exactly dismiss the finding as hogwash. Only an angry unhappy person would let loose a wild angry buffalo near my home village. It’s my story and I am standing by it. Ene e romilwe.