By Samuel Rubadiri
Love the LORD your God and serve him with all your heart, and he will send rain on your land in its season. Turn away and worship other gods, then the LORD’s wrath will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens that there will be no rain.
Deuteronomy 11:13-17
The rain was late.
The August winds raised up hands of sand in expectation of rainfall, but the days blew over without a single grey cloud in sight. The whirling dust was forced to cling to anything above ground: huts, houses, cars and foreheads. The only drops of water came from the tears of farmers whose cattle and crops succumbed to the waterlessness of the nation.
It was a terrible sight. Brittle calves collapsing by the day and sheaves of maize wilting before harvest. Tourists, too, complained to their safari guides. They had travelled across the world to see wildlife. They demanded a refund because they saw no life at all. Their game drives repeated the sightings of a wake of vultures perching over elephant skulls. The guides wept, for they knew that compensation meant redundancy.
The people of Botswana spoke of this as a dry spell. It was felt everywhere. Apostle Godsent, the nation’s leading minister, addressed the people over the radio. “The sins of the soil must offend God. It has corrupted all life the earth yields.”
When asked what sins, the minister answered in sermons: “…For too long in our land has the blood of children been offered to the ancestors; for too long has the husband’s streams of water overflown onto the streets; for too long have the oxen been muzzled before receiving their grain[i]. Why else do countries like South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe have normal rainfall but we have none?”
A listener called the radio station and questioned the apostle. “If you were truly a man of God, there would be rain in its season, for the prayer of a righteous man avails much.”
The apostle flared his nostrils, demanding this strange man make himself known.
In a firm voice, the stranger said, “Some call me the right eye of God and left ear of Jesus, but my name is hidden in the Book of Life.”
The line died straight after.
The embarrassed presenter changed the topic. “Apostle, I heard the president consulted you about this drought. What did you advise him to do?”
The minister grinned. It was his secret.
***
August wilted into December, and the rain season seemed like the far-off dream of drunkards. It got hotter, and the government responded. ‘A National Emergency,’ the press release read as it proliferated on WhatsApp and Facebook as a PDF. His Excellency the President called for a week of prayer at the national dam to start the New Year. The letter closed with an invitation to clergymen and other religious leaders to organise the event.
Churches came in droves to the jagged pool of clay that was once a vast watering hole. It cracked their hearts to see the Gaborone Dam so slimy. They all wanted to lead the nation in prayer, so much so, that the government designated days for the most influential of churches to take turns to minister: Zion’s Christian Church, otherwise known as the ZCC; the Holy Catholic Church; the Anglican Church, the Pentecostal Apostolic Church of Christ and to everyone’s surprise the Mosque of Divine Light as well as a few infamous traditional healers. This inclusive decision angered churches. They complained to Apostle Godsent once they saw the traditional healers’ stalls next to their altars.
The apostle appealed to the president through a WhatsApp message. “Entertaining idolatry from these pagan establishments will be detrimental to an already horrid state of affairs, your Excellency.”
He argued that their rituals would compromise the power of the churches’ intercessory prayer and incite the people. The apostle was blue-ticked by the president. Instead, a response from his office circulated on social media.
“It is rain that we need, not petty squabbles, men of God. Our constitution respects freedom of religion. If you are as holy as you claim, and if your revelation of God is as absolute as you hold, like your prophet Elijah, your prayers will be heard, and these ‘pagans’, as you call them, will be consumed by fire, and the fruit of their labour will be seen by all.”
The Office of the President
***
On the first day of the first week of the New Year the prayers commenced. The ZCC were first up. They came to the dam to intercede on behalf of the nation. They were easy to identify among the crowd with their colour-coded uniforms and their green brooches with a silver star of David. All the women wore blue dresses, and all the men wore green suits. Under the shade of his parasol, the president thanked the ministers for their sacrifice of taking time off work to deliver the nation. They violently shook his hand, thanking him for publicly soliciting God’s help rather than relying on man’s science.
The leader of the procession, Bishop Balebetse, looked at the dam. Seeing the clumps of mud and cracked clay, he spoke life over it. “In the mighty name of Jesus, let it rain,” he exclaimed, jumping into the heavens. He prayed passionately in the language of heaven.
The ministers behind him echoed in agreement, thanking Jesus and dancing on the boiling sand. They cried out to God so fiercely that their tears were as great as the sweat seeping through their suit jackets. Although their prayers were mighty, the sun was mightier, for it only got hotter the longer they prayed. It was only when their brooches contorted and their ties melted off that they surrendered their faith. They drove home with salty faces and hopeless expressions, and those who sped to miss traffic lost their tyres, as the friction on the scorching tar drank the rubber.
This became common. Traffic jams everywhere. Men who would sit at the side of the road under the shade of the syringa tree with their thumbs up to say ‘I need work’ capitalised on this crisis. They collected tyres from the random men selling spares, threw them on their strong dark arms and then ran off to replace the tyres of victims’ cars for a small fee. This business of theirs was lucrative enough to draw the attention of the police. Tyres shops littered the roadside and the police shut down these businesses as quickly as they sprung up on the grounds that these Zimbabweans did not have papers for profit. At once, there was a crackdown on undocumented migrants, but those with powerful friends called in favours. At the holding cell, their friends said, “let my people go,” but the policemen’s hearts were hardened. They demanded compensation. These friends took walks with them, agreeing on the price to let them stay that they, too, might profit.
***
On the second day of the first week of the New Year, the Holy Catholic Church and Anglican Church led the nation in prayer. Their bishops and priests quoted creeds and scripture that addressed the crisis. They prostrated themselves and declared:
“If my people shall humble themselves and pray, I will hear from heaven and heal their land.”[ii]
Verses like these made their chests’ swell, complimenting the fine robes they wore and the tall headpieces on their bald heads. However, their prayers came with first degree burns to their knees, for the hard hot sand was unforgiving. This did not stop them. They continued to recite psalms and hymns from their books, as sweat rinsed their faces:
“To thee, Redeem-er, on thy throne of glo-ry:
Lift we our weeping eyes in holy plea-dings
Listen, O Jesu, to our supplica-tions.”[iii]
ZCC members came and joined in the refrain, singing in unison as one body under one name.
“Hear us O Lord, have mercy upon us
For we have sinn-ed a-gainst thee.”[iv]
An infernal blue sky sang back at them, with its symphony of sandy winds. It melted the melody, dirtied their clothes and exhausted the people to the point of collapsing.
Paramedics and ice-pop sellers profited immensely. They had so much business that it was as if they were under the curse of Midas. The loose coins scalded the hustler’s hand to bronze, and the coins disfigured his fingers. As for the medics, some of their unconscious patients combusted spontaneously in golden flames, clouding the dam in a deep smoke. There was no water to run from the fire hydrant, so the clergy had to improvise by sprinkling holy water. The air turned putrid with the musk of seared flesh.
Those who witnessed this – clergymen included – ran to the Tent of Meeting where the intercessors met to announce the recent developments. Horrified, the archbishop threw off his headpiece, exposing his glossy head. He poured ashes over himself and wept, ending mass immediately. As the worshipers oozed out of the gazebo, one bronzed hustler asked one of the priests why the sudden change in programme.
His answer was as firm and slimy as his handshake. “This is a devil at work, beyond our station. Let those fire churches exorcise this wicked being.”
The hustler took pity on the priest, giving him a red ice-pop from his cooler box.
***
On the third day of the first week of the New Year, the charismatic churches opened the serviceunder the leadership of the Apostolic Church of Christ. They became excited in their prayers, turning this misfortune into a song of praise. They jumped in anticipation of the miracle to come. One man was so zealous that he tied a belt around his stomach and threw himself into the dam. Since the water levels were low, he dirtied himself with the clay below. He said that in this way God had bound their request and would flood this nation with water until they were drenched. The charismatic pastors shouted amen, clapping and singing until the rock doves flying above collapsed in their worship.
When they saw this, another man of God said that this was a bad omen, and that the Holy Spirit was grieved by their iniquity. “He has lifted his finger from his anointed creatures.”
At once, all fell to the ground, rolling in the scorching sand whilst grasping the air like dying ants. They begged and begged for forgiveness, demanding a sign from heaven. The triumphant voice of God. There was only silence from above, and the cries reduced in volume, for the congregants were passing out. The paramedics hovered above them like a committee of vultures, dragging away each victim of the heat blast until Apostle Godsent lost consciousness. With this, those in the procession lost their zeal and rolled their cars home with the help of the few incognito Zimbabweans that escaped the heist of the inverse exodus.
***
On the fourth day of the first week of the New Year, the Imams came with their mats and rose water. They asked Allah to have mercy on the unworthy infidel, yet the scorch of the brilliant sun made their impressive beards melt off their faces, and they were ashamed, taking the wonder as a sign. Since the heat not only melted their tyres but also the seats of their cars, they sat on their mats and flew away. The assembly was awestruck by this mystery – that Allah would let them ride on the winds of dust but not bring water from heaven. That day the mosque grew in numbers.
Apostle Godsent finally received a reply from the president over WhatsApp, but it was worrisome. He was strongly considering ending the national week of prayers. These religious organisations were mocking the severity of the drought with their circus of worship. For the president disliked the freak-show of bizarre utterances, a man rolling in mud, the ever-increasing prayer warriors on fire or unconscious, the dying doves and now the flying mats. Did they not understand the famine to follow? The harvest had failed. The cattle had collapsed. The roads were now melting. The rain had to come, and if it did not, there would be consequences. Every place of worship would permanently shut, and their ministers would have to work an honest job that bears tangible fruit like their tithe-payers. This idea of work frightened the apostle. He made concessions for the rainmakers to lead his congregation in prayer.
***
It was the fifth day of the first week of the New Year. Everyone was apprehensive at the dam. Apostle Godsent’s prayer request turned into a rumour. Ministers shivered at the thought of becoming farmers, for that is the only job they knew to produce ‘tangible fruit’. Congregants were fuming at the assembly of rainmakers and traditional healers, cursing them under their breath.
The president said to the disgruntled believers at the apostle’s Tent of Meeting: “Remember that before we had the church, we had a rainmaker, and that was none other than the chief of your village. Have you forgotten this?”
This didn’t stop Christians praying against the bag of bones they carried, the magic fabric they wielded and the ground upon which they trod. But one could not tell a traditional healer apart from any other man at the dam, for they were dressed no differently. Like Christians, they wore suits, distinguishing themselves only by their instruments of divination. Even so, the charismatic Christians insisted that their presence offended God, refusing to enter the tent.
Many eyes were on the apostle who guided the rainmaker to the pulpit. The rainmaker placed the wooden bowl on the altar and began to sing, calling the ancestors. The apostle saw the pleading eyes from the congregation to intervene.
“Get behind me Satan,” Apostle Godsent finally called out from the front pew.
He was holding his wife’s hand to emphasise the power of matrimony. It was a prophetic gesture. The president scoffed; the people ululated; the other traditional healers sighed. The rainmaker interrupted his divination to turn to the apostle, unimpressed. He looked into the eyes of the frightened wife. Her grip on her husband’s hand was loose.
“Madam, your marriage is shaky, is it not?”
She looked about herself while her husband started chanting scripture . Her green dress was swaying left and right. By this time, Christians nearby formed a pack around this rainmaker as if they were lions on a hunt. Some muttered amongst themselves whether they ought not to stone him. The hot rocks would give a fatal blow to Satan’s agent.
“The devil is a liar! I rebuke you in the mighty name of Jesus!” the apostle pronounced.
“We rebuke you, devil,” the rest of the Christians declared.
The rainmaker closed his eyes and kept still. The masses became silent. “Always works,” he thought. “Sometimes one’s silence feeds their fabrications of what they think they are doing.”
Suddenly, he started to shake violently, clasping himself by the neck. The people cheered, then he stopped, and they backed away. He laughed manically and glared at the woman again and then the man.
“Who is the real liar here? I know my gods, but do you? You chant scripture as if God will listen to a man whose goodwill donations are really payments to the bastard your wife has no knowledge of,” he announced for the entire assembly to hear.
“So it’s true!” she yelled, with her arms flailing.
“How dare you take this man’s word over mine? He is an agent of the devil, the father of lies,” Apostle Godsent said, pointing his finger at his own swollen chest before directing his dart of a finger at the rainmaker.
“The only agent of the devil I see is you,” she said before storming off, only to collapse five steps later.
The crowd became quiet while the rainmaker spoke mockingly: “He who is without sin cast the first stone[v]!” He did not have to divine their intentions but smelled them on the breath of their prayers.
“Askies, askies askies.”
There was a scuffle in the crowd as a man emerged in a silky white suit. Apostle Godsent recognised the voice but couldn’t place it.
“It’s the prophet Elijah,” someone said.
“No, it’s the Shepard, Bushiri,” another said.
There was a gasp. “Isn’t he the polyglot, the one who runs that miracle church in Block 8? I’ve heard of him. He is the right eye of God and left ear of Jesus.”
Apostle Godsent jolted, realising it was him from the radio. The man whose name was hidden in the Book of Life. The rainmaker, however, was not impressed by the chatter until he saw the stranger’s face, the darkness of the light it carried. He jerked back.
“That is enough, you devil. The Lord rebukes you,” the mysterious man said calmly.
He pulled out of his pocket a triangular bone from a goat and threw it at the rainmaker. It kissed his forehead, and he, too, collapsed, giving the paramedics another body to rescue, but they would not touch him. They were afraid of his dark magic, frothing out of his mouth.
“Men of medicine, do not let this soul perish for his love of evil. I have cast the devil out of him,” the man said.
Who was this prophet? It went without saying that he was the kind of man in need of a lengthy introduction. His office commanded it.
Amongst the sons of God was a man of the people. He went by many names. Moruti to the Batswana, Baba to the Zimbabweans and Prophet to the rest. He claimed that he was anointed by God. That is why he was a master in many languages, speaking with a tongue so natural that many wondered if he grew up in their village, but when they asked him about these things, he said that he was from heaven. He dared not identify with a people or a place, because he was in the world, not of it. He was ashamed to be labelled an African on his documents because he was a citizen of Heaven. Since it is necessary in this fallen world to have a name, he told the people that he went by Samuel, heard of God.
When the appointed time came to lead the nation in prayer, Samuel stood before the dam in his regal suit and prayed vehemently. He spoke as if the heavens were his child, withholding the toy of another. He spanked the air for its greed and said in a booming voice,
“Let it rain.”
He looked back at the masses, whose jaws dropped in astonishment. They had hoped for many more words than that, uttered with more eloquence, but he raised his hands up and boomed,
“And all God’s people said…” He waited for a thunderous response.
“Amen?”
In a matter of minutes, winds of water whipped the heavens into a thick grey yolk. As it bunched up in a tremendous rush, a flash of light could be seen from inside the clouds. The people cheered. The bands played songs. The president danced indecently. Thunder clapped its hands as the party commenced.
PULA!
The president ran to the Prophet to shake his hand. He told his secretary to fetch a signet ring and a diamond necklace, the one from Orapa with the green glow.
“As of today, the land will know that truly the Lord is God. As our ancestors have from the time of Livingstone, we shall continue to worship the one true God of Israel, the Lord of heaven. And as for you, Prophet, now I know that there are men among us who truly fear God and walk side by side with him. From today, you will be only Second to me in all the land. When I talk to powerful people, you shall go before me and intercede, and I will know that all will be well,” the president said.
“Your Excellency, it is not I that hold the power but God. If I surrender the calling upon my life to commit to the work you have generously offered, I might offend the Father. It is not my station to serve as a civil servant,” the prophet said.
“What you say is good but I ask of you: How might we help you and ensure the favour of the Lord?” the president asked.
“The glory of God is payment enough, but if you should feel that such a empty-handed gift would insult your office and people’s will, I would kindly advise you of what the Apostle Paul once said: ‘If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it too much if we reap material things from you[vi]?’ In this way, we are helping each other, and the Lord would remember you the next time such an affair rises in the land,” the Prophet said.
As soon as Samuel got into his car, the rain started to pour. The jovial party ended quickly, for the fear of cold falling water arrested the crowd. They rushed back to their cars to zoom off home, except for a few charismatic Christians and Apostle Godsent who fell to his knees.
Drenched, he looked up to the murky heavens and wept, “Lord, Lord, why have you forsaken me?”
There was a blitz of light, and the wooden bowl of the rainmaker lay before him, overflowing with water. Despite their earnest requests, he would not move, until the zealot with the belt from the previous day spoke: “why are you of so little faith?”
***
The rain brought coolness, ending the fiasco of melting roads and tyres and beards, but a new problem emerged.
Flooding.
It poured and poured and poured. At first, the rain was welcomed for the parched earth had its fill as did all forms of life around the country: cattle, crops, game and gardens. But the days of rainfall turned to weeks and weeks to months, and the country was on its way to becoming Atlantis.
Some would say the rain came in bad taste. Houses leaked. Roads flooded. People swam and no longer walked. Cars were exchanged for boats, for the way of life before the drought was the dream of drunkards. What once was a blessing was now a curse as crops that wilted now drowned, cattle that once collapsed were washed away. The same went for the people in Kasane and Shakawe. Tourists there complained of the wildlife being washed up life as they sat on little boats watching elephants brave waters as high as their trunks.
None of this mattered as much as the cold that the water brought. Never had Batswana known of weather so dreary and damp. Of all the diseases to come with floods, like cholera and typhoid, it was the illness within, hypothermia, that threatened the nation. At once, the people of Botswana cursed the day the rain came. Farmers missed their bony cattle and wilted crops; businessmen missed the joy of importing and selling water to well-to-do residents of the capital. Complaints swamped Parliament.
“Why did you bring us rain? Did you want us to die?”
“We could have died peacefully with our crops. Now we cannot even bury our dead.”
“What about all those who drowned? Who will retrieve those bodies?”
It was not long before the president’s office commented on the matter. Through their WhatsApp and Facebook channels, people were informed that the Prophet had been summoned to pray the rain away. The anger that stirred vanished for they knew that the matter was resolved. If anyone could end the floods, it was Samuel, the right eye of God, left ear of Jesus, the one heard by God.
The Prophet arrived promptly in the country with his luxury seaplane on the sixth day of the sixth month of the New Year. He had been all over Africa, interviewed by journalists and talk show hosts, invited by religious groups to speak at conferences and frequenting crisis zones to deliver the people from the peril of their sins. This was all financed by the president’s generous paycheque to his ministries in addition to the tithes of his followers, whose gratitude enabled him to continue the work of the Lord.
The office of the president received him with a black yacht with blue strobe lights. They sailed from Seretse Khama Airport and Seaport to the National Stadium. Word of his arrival spread like algae. Soon, people were seated on the stands while others sat in their mouldy make-shift boats, with their goats grazing on the reeds. A television crew was already at the scene.
“Man of God,” the president said, “Hope you don’t mind us televising this miracle to boost the morale of the nation.”
“What wickedness is this?” the prophet hissed. “You only want to be seen next to the man of God to ennoble your own name and increase your odds at the polls. But so be it; to honour your office and the anointing of the Lord upon your life, I shall pray for you this one time.”
The prophet had outdressed the president with the splendour of his tailored clothes. When the rain fell, it skidded off his cream-coloured suit like water off a duck’s feathers. For the occasion, he wore the gifted diamond necklace and signet ring. All who saw him were mesmerised by the glory he displayed.
The president’s yacht sped to the middle of the stadium where the rain was most intense. Samuel appeared like a beacon of light amidst the darkness that was the rainfall. He looked up at the heaven with his arms spread open.
He shouted: “Rain, I command you to stop at once.”
It did. Everyone stared in disbelief, but the sun did not return. The opposite happened. The sky turned black, and darkness consumed the heavens. Frogs rose from the water. Gnats and flies swarmed the people. Cries could be heard. Some fell into the water, and the shock drowned them. The president acted promptly. He marched to the man of God and spoke firmly to him.
“It is great that you stopped the rain, Prophet, but it would be better if you could return things to as they were; to normal, please.”
Samuel scratched his head. “Of course, Mr President. But I only act on God’s behalf. I am not God. So, if he wills it, it shall be.”
The president gestured to him, reminding him of the generous funds he’d received: “You said that the Lord will remember us if we support you as we did. And if I recall correctly, those ‘priceless’ trips across Africa to help you came with a promise to help us.”
The prophet took centre stage again. He spread his arms wide to the heavens. Frogs croaked loudly. Flies decorated his fingertips. Gnats buzzed over his head. The darkness that befell the stadium seemed to consume sound when the prophet cried out to God. There was a silence from above, then there was a flash of light in the darkness.
“Darkness, I command you to vanish. Waters, I order you to recede. God the Father, Maker of day and night, I beseech you! Hear our prayer, the cries of your glorious son,” the prophet yelled.
Then the Lord answered Samuel out of the storm in an astounding voice for all to hear. “Who are you?”
At once, every eye widened in horror as the light upon the prophet revealed its true colour. “A wolf in sheep skin,” the broadcaster announced. Enraged, every man and every woman grabbed whatever was closest to them, shoes, bottles and even anchors, and aimed at the president’s yacht. The president was swiftly escorted onto a lifeboat, as his stately vessel sank into the deep. When at last he looked back, hoping to catch a glimpse of his powerful prophet, he saw no body, just a priceless suit afloat among the mess of thrown things, rippling in the water. Then an unbidden thought surfaced: what of the report of the madman with a belt?
Works Cited
“A Lent Prose.” The English Hymnal. Dearmer, P. & Williams, R. (Eds.). Oxford University Press, 1906. p.595.
King James Bible Online, www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/.
[i] 1 Timothy 5:18 (KJV)
[ii] 2 Chronicles 7:14 (KJV)
[iii] “Lent Prose”
[iv] Ibid.
[v] John 8:7 (KJV)
[vi] 1 Corinthians 9:11 (KJV)
Samuel Rubadiri works as an English teacher in his hometown Gaborone. If he is not in the classroom, encouraging his students to take up the pen, he writes poems and short stories. Some of them are inspired by his upbringing in Botswana. Many of his works can be found on his website samuelrubadiri.com but also appear in the Kalahari Review and Brittle Paper.
Petlwana Journal of Creative Literature and the Arts 