Mai Rudo's Thoughts...

Mai Rudo was distracted today. She was trying to figure out what Baba vaRudo’s move back to Zimbabwe meant for her and her family. He had said something about opening a small electricals shop in town and resuming the painting. It all sounded well and good, but the business environment in Zimbabwe had become so unpredictable that starting a business at this time could go either way.

It would be great to have him home. The children missed him terribly and it would be good to have a man around the house again. Mai Rudo let out a chuckle. ‘The children missed him ...’, why hadnt she thought about how she missed him? Maybe she had gotten used to loving him from a distance. They argued less when he was away; no silly arguments about maid-cooked food and clothes left lying around. No serious discussions about the budget and how much who was spending on their hair, nails or nights out. They video-called once a day every evening and these calls were precious and not to be wasted with with petty arguments. It was easy to ‘live with him’ when he wasnt there. And now that he was coming back, Mai Rudo was feeling a bit unsettled. She had a routine now; a way of doing things that worked well for her. She was comfortable.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the guard who came to inform her that there was a parcel for her at reception. Mai Rudo made her way to the reception and found a bouquet of dark-red-almost-maroon roses waiting for her. Inside was a card that read ‘Please have dinner with me. Muza’.

‘All the way from South Sudan?’ Mai Rudo looked up and found the receptionist giving her a sarcastic smile.

‘No, they are from a girlfriend’, Mai Rudo stuttered as she walked away from the reception area.

Mai Rudo went back to her counter and grabbed her phone. She needed to nip this in the bud. Baba vaRudo was coming back at the end of the month ... Her chain of thought was interrupted by another thought. Shouldn’t she be nipping it in the bud simply because it was wrong?