New Story by Rumbidzai Makanga (Zimbabwe)

rumbiRumbi is a recent graduate of Cambridge University. She is a consultant by day and storyteller by night. She has been writing this story since August 2008 and has made many promises that she will write it into a novel one day. She writes for youngzim.com and afropean.com.

 

 

 

You were sat in Chido’s hair salon when you first found out your husband had a mistress, because salons are places where gossip is delivered each morning like baby Moses, swaddled in countless people’s boredom, malice and the normalcy of knowing everything about everyone’s business. Privacy was a luxury that couldn’t be afforded people who scrambled 22 into a commuter omnibus and whose houses sat so close to each other that one person’s private business could easily be confused with next door’s TV or radio as evening entertainment. It was in this way that news of your husband’s mistress was delivered into the salon that evening, like a communal plate of sadza that everyone within earshot feasted on. Read the whole story here.