It is life

It was one of those days, it was a Thursday to be exact. I spent the day in Uukwanyama at Werner’s house, he was getting married the next day. 13 months earlier he had called me up, he was all excited. He was tying the knot, he told me that unless I met my end prematurely that I would be wearing a suit at the wedding. I was to be one of the grooms men. Under the cover of the desert night, I sat on top of a koppie and took it all in. I was doing my rounds on night shift at the time, how they put the geologist who can’t see in the dark on night shift is one of those things I’d like to refer to as “you got to try something at least once”. 

13 months later and true to his word, the man who taught me how to slaughter a goat and mack on girls handed me a grey suit. When someone you grew up with in the same house decides that they want to commit to another human being for the rest of their lives, it really puts things in perspective. He was setting a great example, boys will be boys but eventually you find that one girl and settle down. I’d prefer to just find the girl instead of going around being a lad, as the English would say. After I picked up the suit, I drove back home. The trousers were a bit too long, so I called my sister and she arranged for a friend of hers with a sewing machine to nip and tuck them for me. As we sat in the kind lady’s shop, a small backroom in one of the biggest bars at the village; something happened.

My older brother walked in and following him was Nekundi. I shook his hand and his eyes immediately grew large, his pupils dilated.  From his breath I could tell he had ingested a couple of alcoholic beverages and was in an elevated state of being. He was surprised, I am sure in his mind he thought “Who the fuck is this dreadlocked niggah shaking my hand?”. I said to him “Nekundi, how the heck do you forget me man? We are warriors of the same age”, and then I think it hit him and he recognised me. He was shocked, like literally his face told the story of a guy who had just had a surprise that blew his socks off. “Malima, oh! Otshili ngiini” as he shook my hand and hugged me. Nekundi is my age, he went to the same primary school as my late younger brother Natangwe. His struggles with the education struggle meant that he was only a grade above Natangwe, Nekundi was one of the first friends I made at my village when my mother and grandmother moved there next to my grandmother’s younger brother. Nekundi and I go way back, I was really happy to see him, it gave me a bit of peace. He looked at me, he uttered a phrase that drove sadness deep into my heart. “When I saw your face, I just start remembering my friend” said Nekundi with nostalgia swimming in his eyes. He was referring to my late younger brother, I could not hold a grudge against him for thinking about my brother just at the sight of my face. Nekundi is not an emotional guy, but I could see the sorrow start to overpower him. I comforted him, I said to him “it’s life, we can’t do anything about it. Natangwe in in a better place now”. It’s true that I lost a brother who was dear to me, but often I forget how equally painful it must be for his friends. For the guys he spent more time with, guys that knew him better than I did. Guys who looked forward to sharing a future with him, we all share the loss.

We shared a few jokes from back in the day, before my older brother came to get Nekundi and they disappeared off to a nearby bar. As I watched one of the few friends that I and Natangwe shared I started to drift off and emotion started suffocating me. A loss this great never gets easy, you just learn to handle it better. “It’s ready” said the lady who was fixing my trousers, she’d done a decent job of making them the right length. They were just right, all the girls would be staring at me, I thought to myself. I thanked her and carefully put my suit away and placed it in the back seat of the car, the fact that the parentals had trusted me with a car, said volumes about how responsible they think I am. I think one day they actually expect me to like get married and stuff, the pressure is immense I tell you. When I got home that day, that moment with Nekundi kept going through my mind. It is life and life must take its course, but it still doesn’t make it easy. We soldier on and live because it does not do well to dwell on the past and pass up the opportunity to live in the present.

It is life, life goes on. Coincidentally, today marks 365 days since my brother died. Seems like yesterday.

Natangwe Jafet Iiyambo, 1989-2012.