(Pronounced Ma·qua·pair·nee)
The hospital kitchen was abuzz with activity when Elmarie entered it. Numerous chefs and sous chefs were all assiduously busy with preparing lunch for the hospital patients. Although the kitchen was awash in the delicious aroma of cooking food, Elmarie knew it was a deceitful fragrance. The food always tasted as bland as fibre.
“Eating cardboard would be more flavourful,” Zintle, her only best friend, often remarked when they discussed the hospital’s healthy but insipid meals.
Elmarie spotted Zintle over at the massive sink, industriously washing the breakfast pots and pans. She made a beeline for her.
“Did you see Thuleka this morning?” she asked Zintle as she took up her position next to her, reaching for a fat-encrusted saucepan to clean.
“That makhwapheni?” Zintle asked, totally confusing Elmarie.
“Makwa-what?” she asked.
“Makhwapheni,” Zintle slowly repeated, not in the least bit enlightening Elmarie as to the meaning of the word. “It’s a slang term for roll-on deodorant,” she explained.
“Why the fok would you refer to Thuleka as an underarm roll-on?” Elmarie asked before she burst into gales of laughter that echoed throughout the hectic kitchen. A few of the kitchen staff also started laughing because of the infectious nature of Elmarie’s guffaws.
“Geez, that was a really lekker laugh you gave me,” Elmarie continued once she had regained control of herself. “But tell me, man. Why call her makwa … makwu … whatever you just now called her.”
It was Lerato though who answered Elmarie. He was a flamboyant gay man who flaunted his femininity as if his life depended on it.
“I blame his parents for having saddled him with a name usually used for a female,” Zintle had once told Elmarie. “The guy had no choice but to grow into it,” she had added with a giggle.
“Girl,” Lerato squeaked, dipping his head to the side, “that’s how we Africans refer to a side chick,” he proceeded to explain, scrubbing a pot with surprising vigour for a man who exhibited exaggerated feminine gestures at all times.
“Say what?” Elmarie remarked, placing her washed saucepan with the other cleaned pans.
“Haibo! You can’t tell me that you don’t know that Thuleka’s having an affair with Zukile?” Lerato exclaimed loudly, throwing his hands up in the air and unintentionally causing soap suds to land on Zintle’s cheeks. Zintle gave the effeminate man a dirty look, but she said nothing. Instead, she addressed Elmarie.
“Yebo. Our hoity-toity supervisor is stepping out and cheating on his missus with Thuleka, the woman with more boobs and butt than brains.”
“You’re not serious! That’s really bad,” Elmarie gasped. Her eyes lit up though at the prospect of a juicy bit of gossip. “So for how long have they been doing it?” she asked eagerly.
“Doing it is right, meisie,” Lerato chirped. “In his office, in the laundry room, in the pantry, in the toilets, in his SUV. You name it, Sisi, and they’ve done it there already,” he declared with a high-pitched giggle.
“But I don’t get it. Why do you guys refer to her as a makhwapheni?” Elmarie asked, proud to have finally pronounced the word correctly.
Zintle explained, “It’s like you Whites and Coloureds have that expression of keeping something ‘under wraps’. Well, we talk about keeping something ‘under your armpit’ when you want to keep it a secret. And that’s where the roll-on reference comes from.”
Just then, Thuleka entered the kitchen, pushing her food trolley in front of her. She had come to collect the dishes for the F26 Ward that she was responsible for.
Spotting the three at the sink, she waved to them on her way towards the food station.
“Hi, guys! I’ll chat to you later; I’m already late for my Ward,” she explained as she breezed past the trio, her generous behind swaying provocatively from side to side.
“I bet it was that sashaying that made Zukile’s tool participate in a dance of its own,” Zintle quipped, enviously gazing at Thuleka’s departing butt.
“Aikhona, girl. I’m sure it’s those plump, curvaceous boobies that did it for him,” Lerato claimed.
“Eish, I suddenly feel the heat of this kitchen getting to me. I wish I had some roll-on deodorant right now,” Elmarie declared, her face a perfect study in innocence.
Image: Chil Wellness (www.unsplash.com)
