LAKE OF MY HEART – CHAPTER 11

LAKE OF MY HEART – CHAPTER 11

There was a woman whose husband was working in Germany. He had never met the husband by the time he first met her as a client. Judging by the looks of her three children the man was of pure German stock. The children had a light pigmentation to the usual for their skins. They had green eyes. Inter cultural or inter racial marriages where not his thing. He didn’t think it chic to bring home a wife with green eyes, a forked nose and a light pigmentation.

He thought it important to stay within his own black African boundaries. He never wanted to go across the border to marry a woman whose culture he could not fathom. Many a man had entertained a boyfriend in the guise of a long lost male relative from a rural home he had never been to. He had nothing against it.

“Twins?” he had asked.

He saw the similarities between two of them. They were not identical twins by they shared the same genes, both were tall and not exactly chubby. Physical features differed in some places but the likeness was there in others. They eyes, the brow, the nose, lips and mouth and chip were all similar. One seemed slightly taller than the other.

“Oh yes,” she had replied with a shy smile. She was tall and slender to a little fat addition here and there. “The first is twelve years old and these are nine. These are a handful hence I moved everywhere with them so they don’t terrorise the living daylights out of my mother.”

“Isn’t there a language problem with the grannies and ‘them’?”

“Both sets of grannies have been to West Germany more than thrice. They have an understanding of German. However, my mother being a kindergarten teacher does speak English well.”

“Oh?”

“They are very naughty. Just watch those silly little smiles on their lips. I thought it would be a girl to complement the boy. Life in Europe is such that large families are kosher. Imagine a woman finding she is pregnant only to produce twin boys.”

“I would love twins if I could have them but I don’t,” he had replied.

“There is no history of them in my or his family so it was just quirk of fate,” she replied.

“We have a rough and tumble of irking a living. At times we think you people who went overseas are better off than us here,” he suggested.

“Materially, socially and physically it just depends on your zeal. Look at how Strive Masiyiwa started a small electrical company called Enhanced Communications Network and grew it into the largest cellular services provider rebranded Econet Wireless.”

“That is a point of local entrepreneurship. I can only imagine what all those people who refused to invest in such small start-up companies as Econet, Kingdom Holdings etc. feel now that those companies are blue chip on the local bourse.”

“If he had gone to Europe as a systems engineer, where would Strive Masiyiwa be except seeking another job on LinkedIn?” she asked.

“No girls?” He smiled at the twins.

“No and never will they be. Three children are enough,” she had said. She had looked at the completed medium density houses. He took her inside one of the lot and out. “In Europe they sell the houses complete with furniture and trimmings. The builders and carpenters do their stuff and the interior decorators finish to your taste. There, they use of more carpenters than builders. All structural work is mainly wood. Even the upstairs sections are created with timber unlike here where you use brick and concrete. Where we use deformed bars and concrete they use wooden beams. Stairs made of wood, walls wood hey. This is great being home and smelling mortar and brick.”

“I have rarely sold a complete house with furniture. Not a newly constructed house certainly”, he reminisced. “I remember selling a house in Biddulph Road which came with lounge and two bedrooms’ furniture as a discount to the buyer.”

“However European house are treated differently from ours here. Once in a while, home owners find finances and refurbish their houses from the structure to furnishings updating and changing. Here because it’s brick, mortar, concrete and steel it’s rare.”

“We extend but hardly do we change the position of the lounge, dining room, toilet or kitchen unless we extend because it’s impossible.”

“Here it’s different, we always remember home,” she had said. ”I however grew up in the rural areas of Buhera so city life wasn’t for me. The nearest we ever came to timber framed houses were those round huts made of pole and dagga. That was ages ago.”

“You said your mother is a teacher?” he asked.

“She taught at a rural school in the same district where my father was an agricultural demonstrator. The fact that both were well respected civil servants did not stop me and my siblings from experiencing rural life living in a large government house. Just outside the fence and across the road were bleating sheep/goats and mooing cattle.”

“How did you end up in Germany?” he asked.

“Blame it on fate,” she said. “The Germany Embassy advertised scholarships and I went in. It was hard work I tell you. We were schooled in English however I did both written and spoken German. I did a degree in fuel energy and systems in four years including a year in Dresden as an attachment student with Hoechst Chemicals. That was a lovely time for a year. That is where I met this German student doing English and Communication Studies also on attachment as an English teacher. I upgraded my spoken and written German then back to college. Now I am with Aral Fuels. I didn’t come back home because by the time I was due to, I was a few months off my wedding engagement. The rest is history.”

“What do you think?” he had asked.

“I would prefer slight changes to the plan and add a carport, larger lounge, scullery, pantry,” she said. “You have none of these here. They look like matchboxes that I saw in Soweto years ago. I wanted something almost too big for a medium density and yet almost too small for light density. The other issue of differences between our European and local houses is winter weather. There it snows, you don’t have gas for heating then you won’t last the winter. There, they have heated floors because of the winter colds.”

“Our winters are cold to mild. There is hardly anyone who dies in winter though freezing is not ruled out. We have poor families that run cold during the winter however, we have extreme differences. Most Europeans wouldn’t like to be here in the Zambezi or Lowveld in October. There you can almost fry an egg on hot rocks alone.”

“I know the heat.”

“I will have to show you a blank residential stand from which I and a planner can sit with you and come up with all the requirements. That will mean maybe the sewer, electricity and road network may not be complete for about three months with electricity being the last, at times a year.”

“How long would that take?” she had asked. “I wouldn’t worry about electricity. I won’t be coming in to live that early. My funds are tight hence my need for a medium density stand within applicable local areas, not high density. I know Seke has good offers in Unit B and Ruwa has some upcoming places like ZimRe Park etc. I am not against those but I am not for them either.”

“I will have to check with the land developer of to find out which places are still untouched and unallocated on their canvas,” he had replied. “There is Letombo too and Homestead® which are all coming up not far from here.”

“What other medium density areas do you have?” she asked.

“Houghton Park, Prospect Park between Prospect and Ardbennie”, he had rumbled off the housing units. “There are many middle density areas stuck at times in between light density suburbs as land which had been open was bought and converted to residential use. These are too numerous to mention but can be found to the north, west and east of the city and down here to the south. There is Andrews Park but hardly any vacant stand there and Sunningdale.”

“No to Sunningdale and that Prospect Park, it’s too close to Mbare. Sunningdale is too synonymous with the former segregation acts.”

‘It’s close to Sunningdale rather,” he had advised. “How big do you want the stand size?”

“I want a medium density, not too big maybe between four and six hundred square metres will do,” she had replied.

He didn’t want to lose the client yet he didn’t want to lie. She knew what she wanted. He knew what he could give her if he worked well with both the developer and his set of independent construction companies.

“Tomorrow morning ten sharp at the office,” he had said.

She had agreed. Before the morrow he had done all his homework. He had contacted the developer for a thirty minute meeting over a few beers. He was the recipient. They worked on a different design with double carports that opened into the street because the stand sizes were medium density, four to five hundred metres square.

She had come in her own vehicle. It looked like a Nisan Serena which was full of about five children including the twins.

“My baggage,” she said to him. “I took my brother and sister’s children in tow.”

“That’s a bunch,” he had replied. While the children were occupied elsewhere he did business with his client.

“I know the costs will go up,” she had replied.

She looked at the plan which removed her proposed house from being a matchbox. Houses were normally constructed in a set of designs, maybe six designs for four hundred units which made Mary, Jack, John and Jill’s houses to be exactly the same slightly different in angles. Her proposed one had double carports opening into the street. It with space for two vehicles to park in between the carport doors and the tarred road.

“What I can do if you want to know the interior finishes is after all the plan changes have been done, we start the build then you and me will work with the suppliers of a quality product,” he had said. “Like a 4-plate fitted hob and a separate fitted oven plus kitchen fittings.”

“That’s correct I definitely impose a four plate fitted hob and two fitted ovens. Ceiling fans in two of the bedrooms and dining room. The main ensuite and lounge will have air conditioning units.”

They had come up with two ensuite bedrooms, two medium bedrooms sharing a bathroom plus shower and toilet all with built in closets for clothes larger in size than built in wardrobes. The other two larger bedrooms had walk in wardrobes. The lounge was sunken with a separate dining room. The kitchen had a scullery. There was a laundry room. There were ceiling fans in the lounge, kitchen, and the two ensuite bedrooms. There was a wide veranda.

Trevor roped in a security guard to help keep an eye on the children. By the time he waved her goodbye, the two guards had a packed lunch courtesy of the client and their names were being called from five different directions.

Four months later, he had delivered the product. He had used the hammer and chisel against the builder. He had married the architect’s drawings with the exact product becoming a site supervisor or project manager. He and she had worked on the interiors that including the enamel bath tubs, toilet seats and cisterns. He had worked with her on the floor and wall tiles, geyser and stuff until finish.

For his hard work, she rewarded him. The aspect of being a site manager or project manager now interested him. It did not matter from which side his bread was buttered. As long as it gave him bread and butter without interfering with his professional responsibilities, he would sink his hungry teeth in.

He remembered collecting his surprise present at Harare International Airport from a male German national wearing Lufthansa uniform. He was so tall and broad. Trevor was a few inches shorter. In an aircraft, passengers found it hard to shuffle past him.

“My wife sent you this from Dresden. She says you are to rent out our property as instructed in the envelope contained within. Minor details are contained therein including re-investment of the rent.”

Real estate was a nest egg that afforded good investors free holidays into the country to wine and dine at the greatest establishments using part of their rent proceeds.

“Thank you,” he had said. “I got a year‘s lease, the property and it’s kind are on demand.”

“We will work out something about maintenance,” he had said.

“My pleasure to meet you”, Trevor had said that before hands helped him load the 29 inch colour television into his truck.

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He had walked a male client, his wife and three children aged between sixteen and eight along a set of houses newly completed in Belvedere. The section was using the name of Ridgeview. The houses were big with lounges that could be used by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May to negotiate in and out with a Toyota Raum, Spacio, Fun Cargo, Daihatsu Charade or Subaru Forrester. They each had three standard bedrooms with built in wardrobes, main ensuite and other aspects. The verandas could be used to park Toyota Town Aces broadsides.

The male had a sack full of humour.

“Honey”, he had said. He saw a set of gum boots in the passage of the four bedroom house. “If we buy this unit we get a set of used gum boots. They will come in handy when the rains start and stop.”

“Freddy!” she had chided. “Those are someone’s personal issue.”

“Brownish in colour”, Freddy was not deterred. “If they were in white one would suppose we were inspecting a meat packing area. And a free inspection ladder.”

Fred had shown his wife a ladder being used to finish the ceiling.

“How many rats or mice did you find in there guys?” Fred had asked.

“The ceiling is still so new there are no mice droppings senior,” one of the workmen had replied. “There is too much noise for those rodents.”

“You always see the funny side, sorry about him, he didn’t take his coffee this morning,” the wife had said to him.

“And workmen in overalls too. Sweetie, you wouldn’t worry about someone tending the garden with all these workmen. Then I will be able to play tennis until sundown not having to come back and mow the lawn. Last time I drove all the way, switched on the mower and the electricity utility decided there and then to switch off power. Is that fair?”

“Let me show you more,” Trevor had said. “Just check out the lounge and its hugeness. The kids can play tennis save the French windows. Now as for the main bedroom, you can play ball room dance in the walk in wardrobe.”

“Pretty big and smart. Is that a Jetmaster® fireplace that looks like a black pot my grandmother used to have in Chilimanzi?” asked Fred.

“Yes and ready for a log fire,” replied Trevor. “Those winter nights are not far away.”

“How many bedrooms?” the wife asked.

“Four including an impressive ensuite one which has its own private door out of the bedroom,” Trevor had shown them inside and out. He impressed on the about nine hundred square metres of land available. “No one would see at what time Fred came in.”

“I would have to change the keys to that ‘door’,” the wife suggested.

“We could build a rural tenement there complete with three round huts and a four roomed house. Do they give licences for keeping cattle here?” No price for guessing whose question was that but he had sold the house to the family.

© Copyright tmagorimbo 2014