Emmanuel Sairosi

Biography

My stories are about the journey across that river Limpopo. From Zimbabwe, Malawi, to South Africa, across the Limpopo. My stories capture their rapture. The tragedy of their journey is an indignity that shames humanity.

Valley 2

Yes l went to Shinge’s house down the corner of Zamalungwane street the battered cigarette stomps told the story expectancy massaging my curiosity l knocked past Sintinga Avenue but I did not see Hupenyu i ran to Simba’s house to Thabo to Bothwell, Brighton, Lovemore to Ronald, Finch Tobias, Nyamotsi Mluleki, Tsitsi, Alice, Shupikai, Keresenzia then l reality sank in, the children were all gone but l had to be sure it can not be running down to my high school friends Reason, Sherperd, Nhlanhla, Mbekezeli past Unity avenue down Independence street along Freedom way l ran they had to be there four years is a long time my friends had to know l was in town like old times sake we had to run and hurry and run and queue for bread camp in front of the grocery store spotting girls with a serious behind guess l should have stayed beyond Limpopo the silence was so deafening concealing the voices gone where are all your children my homeland who will bury you tomorrow such haemorhage to distant mountains across Limpopo how can such a tragedy be allowed when l knocked on her door yes they told me that one he went last week, last month she went last year, two years ago, she has not called l asked again how they were doing tears embraced my Sherlock Holmes ingenious, when l asked again, when the children are coming back to rejoice in the land of my forefathers the buzzing noise created by the housefly told the tale, of a nation that lies rotten and desolate abandoned by its children

Valley 4

rumbling waters readying to plunder blood stained riverbeds perforated with fresh stench of death bursting with death flooded with broken dreams tears flooding the death sands body count quadrupling hundreds keep coming never perturbed never deterred never looking back riverbed littered with bones of stolen lives skulls of lost futures riverbed decorated with tattered clothes shoes of those who walk no further wallets full of sand bags filled with emptiness limbs with no bodies bodies with no names names with no bodies fallen children hats and scarfs mementos of those that defiantly vowed life or death

Valley 36

early in the morning at 5 am the grass brooms danced lackadaisically caressing the red clay soils mothers grandmothers sisters and daughters and wives and girlfriends sweeping the red clay soils tracing the souls that have set sail gone and have not come back home those who might never come back home and those lost forever mothers singing silent prayers smiling in tears singing songs of the departed songs of those never returning tracing footprints of lost souls crying silently weeping in hope sweeping and searching crying and praying and sweeping daily

Valley 46: Brokenness

we are trying to stay home. armed with broken dreams broken hope broken future broken spirit we are trying to stay and hide our brokenness our broken country with broken sons and daughters and broken mothers and fathers. the armed men are coming gifting us with broken bones leaving us with broken doors laying bare our brokenness and opening us for broken business. we are trying to stay unbroken.

Valley 48: Huldah Sacred Text/Midwives Tales.

like the indiscriminate power of the whirlwind the surging and raging atlantic waves the scorching and blazing sun in the Sahara the impending revolution of the unchained the empowered the life bearers thunder, lightning sheer force disruptive creativity an idea whose time has come a generational mandate all forces in differing creation, science, being, nature and form continuity anchored in a single postulation. rooted in scientific quantification and summation defying inertia the Newtonian first laws of motion, hypothesizing the single constant conception bestowed therein in creation, science, being and becoming. the unstoppable force. omnipotent. omniscient. omnipresent mother nature dear Woman. embrace the gallantry and civil disobedience of Shiprah and Puah midwives who defied despotic authority and saved generations of humanity. dear Woman resist patriarchal absolutism transcend historical pigeonholing and capture new stories, new tales, new truths. her story, today, inscribe in blood and tears in History their single stories immortalise, memorialise with your wit of the word. let her story record. let the sisters be recorded. once upon a time our sisters struggled with the Al- Shabab, mothers and daughters hounded in Cabo Delgado, daughters who flew aeroplanes in the skies mother who ululated as sisters governed nations. record…archive. glorify, virtuous woman of valour. girded by the spirit of Huldah the keeper of sacred scriptures of law, write woman frailty thy name is not woman. mbokodo, the pen is mightier than the sword. when the toddler open their mouths for the first time in the beginning was the word woman.

Valley 49: Freedom Deaths

our hearts beat as one, Mandela postulated in 1994 new dawn, the first democratic elections embraced the rainbow nation. the bastion of an archaic and decadent establishment was dismantled. yet the long road to freedom will not let me sing Uhuru the Olympiad of chaotic elections in Africa is a frustration which needs no elaboration- Uganda ushered in 2021 with a violent clamping on individual rights Somalia followed suit with a postponement as Al-Shabaab wreaked havoc. Niger graced our motherland with a run-off Djibouti and Benin continued the April Fool’s joke of elections Chad exploded as sons murdered fathers and brothers hunted brothers inde lendlela as Hariet Tubman remarked: I had crossed the line. I was free. but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land. as we celebrate Freedom we dare not forget elections have bred erections men and boys, fathers and grandfathers wielding Penises indiscriminately freedom to be violated, enslaved, prostituted and murdered. freedom to be ranked first in the world f or rape per capita. freedom to be raped every 36 seconds freedom to be basking in the paradise destination of femicide. we can’t breathe. suffocating from the repugnant stench of freedom. freedom to pronounce forty-one quadrillion three hundred and thirteen billion one hundred and four million rand, ask Tokyo. where art thou madam President, madam Prime Minister. phakama bakubone Sahle-Work Zewde of Ethiopia stand even as you stand alone marooned as currently the only female out of the 54 Presidents in Africa. celebrate the engendered endangering of humanity they say. textbook chauvinism of Shakespearean proportions: frailty thy name is not woman, this is my freedom. hear my Freedom Charter i called my husband as I was preparing to drive., husband, brother, father be with me as I jog, Wait for me at the taxi-rank. a fugitive of freedom now hear listen, when you ask me to celebrate freedom, this here my Freedom Charter passed onto us from Robben Island, from Sharperville, we the People of Marikana silence. andizi.

Valley 54: die foreigner

thief stealing our women with that big phallus of yours foreign to the body stealing our jobs with your bad education speaking good English punctuated with terrible Zulu disjointed Sotho atrocious Xhosa stinking of poverty working like a slave accepting bad wages economic terrorist judas die traitor you skelem

Valley 69: Norway

where are you from Norway, i said oh! nowhere he said why are you homeless he asked again.

Valley 74: Homecoming

i saw the children lots and lots of sons and daughters coming home queues upon queues waiting to be cleared to get home finally sons and daughters heading home in droves one final journey waiting for customs waiting to be inspected like smuggled goods sons and daughters on trailers in coffins only names of their final destination Uzumba Tsholotsho Mambale Mutorashanga Gwelutshena Mhodoro, the only indicator of life lost across the Limpopo

Valley 5

casket closed funeral gothic no body found. swallowed by Limpopo. no body viewing. nobody to bury mothers weeping longing to touch lifeless bodies one final glimpse closure never ever to be

Valley 6

crocodiles of the Limpopo queens and kings plump and proper thoroughly fed, daily burping screams of fallen souls farting wailings of sons and daughters bursting with fatigue lethargy from surplus carcasses from across those cursed lands

Valley 80

so immense is the tide symphoning me for a ride thunderously threatening to terminate and trounce it wrestles rustles restlessly rendering me redundant scurrying and prying for my life purposefully l pray courage confused caresses of ceasing hope battle beyond bargaining strength surrendering surreptiously nearer my God to thee.

Valley 1

Limpopo river of death quicksand of death littered with screams inevitable demise vain defiance clutching onto death embracing extinction sands of bashed hopes decimated dreams flooded lungs stolen futures destroying nations gone forever.

Valley 40

it is rumoured that he found love across the Limpopo and lost his love for home and never came back home

Valley 47: Glory.

the words bellowed perforating the stench of patriarchal misogyny encapsulating the lived realities. glory, they sang, relieving Selma and the 1965 Montgomerry Marches glory. they sang, Rosa sat on the bus because resistance is us. resistance, perseverance embodied in the triumph of Wangari Maathai. glory Sibongile Khumalo hung up her microphone. first Lady of Song will sing no more of the glorious victories of women. songs and aspirations of the Rainbow Nation glory, i whisper to you today. two things we have a right to. liberty or death opined the abolitionist Hariet Tubman if I could not have one, i would have the other. this business of womanhood is a heavy burden lamented Dangarembga incarcerated across the Limpopo. like many shackled for shouting the glory of liberty. glory, glorious woman. we will sing songs of your glory. madam Sirleaf Johnson, Madikizela, Graca the world embraces the tales of your glory. the world forgets not the glories of my aunt and multitudes of gallant women whose hustle is looted by the authorities they lack permits. Licenses. hunger and destitution have lifelong permits. we celebrate your resilience market woman, glory to your struggles long may they persevere to the promised land. glory to you sister evading t he tentacles of death. they cannot silence you. live! woman of Kivu, endure live to laugh another day. glory. Kenyan sister, we sing songs of glory songs about your refusal of the mutilation. songs about your escape with your genitalia. Jean Jacques Muyembe may your medical brilliance embrace us tales of vaccine nationalism will not deter us. we see them. glorious tales of your Ebola triumph steers us forward unperturbed numbers don’t lie, let them vaccinate. this too shall pass. we will wear our Black Badge of Africa. afrika my beginning the cradle of mankind, africa land of my skull. let history celebrate the glorious histories of the Kingdoms of Kush and the Nubia, the architectural prowess of Giza let Africa recite explorative glories of Mansa Musa, conqueror of Ghanata, Emir of Melle let history not whitewash the glorious battle tales of your daughters the Dahomey Amazon Warriors, our Mino we will sing songs of glory songs about the resilience songs about tenacity of our people. singing Uhuru na Umoja. dzimbadzamabwe! mayibuye! Azania!

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