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By Root 399 0

and journeyed and clashed like titans. And, at the end of it all, he asked me not to contact him again. Instead of giving each other some kind of peace and understanding, we had inflamed existing wounds. Far from being a story of reconciliation and understanding, this ended up being a story about what happens when you stand on tiptoe and look too hard into your own past and into the things that make us war-wounded the fragile, haunted, powerful men-women that we are. K and I fell headlong—free fall—into terror, love, hate, God, death, burial.

It’s more than a body can take.

Then, months after our journey together, as this book was on its way out of my hands, I received the following e-mail from him:

Hi Bo,

It’s been a loooong time Precious, but at last i have email. Have laughed off ever trying to get a phone. Tree fell on the last antenna. I asked you not to contact this arse for a few reasons. Number one: that you could write what you wished without you writing to ask for the odd input from the Scribbs. So everything written is yours, not mine. Number two: I needed to sort out my own shit. Number three: To water the compost, and hope a teeny bit of brain popped up. So far, lots of water but only fungus up to now.

Hey you’re still Precious and and and . . .

I Hope we see one another. This is my eeeeeemail address now and will down load every week. So if you wish To watch the new TV soap, glue yourself to the computer screen.

As Always

Scribbs

GLOSSARY

A guide to the idiosyncratic mix of slang and languages used in the text.

All of a sardine: all of a sudden

Appy: apprentice

Babalas: hangover (Zulu)

Bally: derived from mild expletive “bloody”

Blallered: hit

Benzi: crazy

Biltong: dried meat similar to beef jerky

Bareka: run

Blerry: derived from mild expletive “bloody”

Bonsella: bonus

Bog: toilet or bathroom

Bog roll: toilet paper

Braai: barbecue

Chaya: hit

Chemering: to cry (from Kuchema [Shona])

China: friend (from china crockery, something precious); see also Stone China

Chitenge: piece of cloth or wraparound in Zambia

Cool box: cooler

Cookboy: cook

Curry muncher: East Indian

Dagga: marijuana

Dambo: low-lying area, usually clay soil prone to being very wet in the rains and dry and cracked during the dry season

Deezering: running

Donnering: hit, (from the Afrikaans “donder,” meaning thunder)

Dop: drink alcohol

Dopping: drinking alcohol

Flattie: crocodile (from flatdog—as in a creature that resembles a flattened dog)

Fodya: tobacco (Shona)

Fossils: slang for old people

Fundi: expert

Goffle: person of mixed blood

Gondie: derogative term for blacks

Goolies: testicles

Gwai: tobacco

Hazeku ndaba: no problem

Henry the Fourth: HIV

Hobo: a lot

Hokoyo: beware (Shona)

Hondo: war (Shona)

Honky: white person

Hu-hoos: slang for insects

Hunering: yelling or shouting

Hunna-hunna: problem, usually long and involved

Huzzes: throws or hurls

Imbwa: dog (Shona)

Indaba: problem, from the Xhosa/Zulu meaning “meeting”

Ingutchini: to go mad; Ingutchini is the name of a mental asylum in Zimbabwe

Jesse scrub, jesse bush: a kind of vegetation characterized by thorny, scrubby shrubs

K: kilometer

K-car: gunship helicopter

Kak: shit

Kapenta: small, sardine like fish

Katundu: luggage

Kudala: far away

Kutsamwa: to sulk (Shona)

Lapa: over there

Lekker: nice (Afrikaans)

Laaities: children (Afrikaans)

Mai we: my mother! (from amai [Shona])

Mambo: king (Shona)

Maninge: a lot (Shona)

Mapenga: relating to madness (Shona)

Mawhori: whore

Mbambaira: Shona for “potatoes” but also used as slang for land mines

Moffs: homosexual, short for Moffies

Mopane: a kind of tree found in low-lying areas

Munts: people; also used by whites as derogative term for blacks

Murra: a lot

Mwari: God (Shona)

Nyama: meat or game animal (Shona)

Ooh blicksem: my goodness!

Ous: guys, men

Pamsoro: lift (Shona)

Panga: machete

Pawpaw: papaya

Pawpaw: British person (implies that the British are wimps)

Penga: mad (Shona)

Pie-eyed: drunk

Pom: Prisoner