The story begins here : The Story of this Motley Crew – part II – TheGreatReset(of2020) (thegreatreset-thorn.com)
Elenga’s road was a long and lonesome road.
It started in 1985. It was a desiccated late winter day. They had survived the cold brutal stabbing winter, but it was not yet spring.
“They” consisted of ElengaN’s father, mother, and sister, for ElengaN was not yet in this world.
It was a young family, scraping together what they could between this village and the next, for work was scarce, and while Ndiriraro, the young father, was a very able bricklayer, work was scarce, and his young bride heavily pregnant again.
Their union was not without the strife of life at the time. Both parents had come from villages pillaged by marauding forces, and they had found a young blossoming love in the homestead of a far-off cousin, who blessed the union in the absence of any first world priest willing to travel to the deep bush.
Their girl child had escaped the trauma of burning thatched homes and was a happy toddler content to bake fat cakes in the mud of the nearby watering hole. You found the best mud late winter, when the sun was cool, and the water hole reduced to a bed of soft mud, with a small, but life sustaining pool of water.
It was only when the other children ran screaming to the village, that they had realised she could not hear, for she had not returned. She did not hear the warning shouts that there was a great herd of elephants heading towards the playing children.
The ordeal was too much for the young mother, who had lost all her family in the bush war, and it was that very same shrivelled late winter day, that Elenga was born, 1 month early.
As if to make up for the loss of a sister he never knew, and the mother who was able to give him life before she passed, Elenga was blessed from his very first breath. It is most unusual for the menfolk of the village to be involved in matters relating to childbirth, but the women were either fetching potable water from the nearest borehole 5km away, or in the nearest town, which was 4 hours by car, if you were able to flag a car from the tar road 10km away. So, it was the aid of the headman of the village, a life weary and wizened old Tate, who brought Elenga to the start of his story. And that is where Elenga got his name. Elenga being the vernacular for “boss”.
You may ask yourself, whether there is more to the story, because at this stage, he was known as Elenga, or Elle for short, but he was introduced to you as ElengaN. You are right, there is more to this story.
The sounds of guns and war seemed to retreat from their world, and through the spring, followed by a summer unlike the seven years before, the clouds above produced volleys of rain that swelled the richness of the earth. The village raised this blessed child as their own, even when Ndiriraro had to leave for unknown period, to find paying work elsewhere. But somehow, he always did find work, and he always was able to provide basic sustenance for the village raising his child.
It was this tenacity of spirit, that fed Elle’s essence, for he worked hard at school. The hour walk to the nearest mission school was filled with babbling and impish children, often taunting Elle to play hooky with them, or some other childlike mischief in the making.
His teacher, sensing a determined young man, was strict in the lessons. Afterall, what sense is there in learning something, if you aren’t going to learn it well.
Elle persevered. He was going to study, like the son of the headman, so that he could come to the village in a car, but unlike the headman’s son, instead of bringing liquor and kwaito, he would bring a borehole pump.
That was his dream. For no-one would die at the feet of thirsty giants again.
He worked hard. There was no light at night to study by, but there was radio. Elle would stay up late listening to the news of the world.
There were no desks at home at which he could study during the day, until Ndiri brought home a dilapidated old school desk. One of those where you could lift the lid and find a treasure trove of peanut butter sandwiches, cracked marbles and a prized collection of half full ball point pens from a variety of hotel chains, left by tourists travelling through the area, that Elle would never even have heard of.
That dilapidated desk served as the afterschool centre for many hours of what is now called “peer group learning”, where the children would take turns to lecture, and be lectured.
And so, Elle grew up from a blessed boy, always going to bed with a full stomach and occasionally a sweet treat, to a blessed young man who quickly found a job with his cousin in the big city. We say his cousin, but it really is a cousin by community, being the slightly older child of one of the village aunts he would live with while his father was away.
And this is where Elle’s story starts to veer in our direction. Because this is where he became a craftsman. Ironically, but perhaps because it is exactly because his father was a bricklayer, this is the trade that he excelled in. This is where he grew from Elle, that young innocent village boy, into Elenga, the village provider, when he took over his father’s role. When he was the only prodigal son to return to the village to help rebuild the headman’s abode when it was burnt down by a runaway veldfire. I say rebuild; it was, in reality, an entirely new build. A castle fit for a headman.
How does he fit in the end? –> The Story of this Motley Crew – part II – TheGreatReset(of2020) (thegreatreset-thorn.com)
