Welcome to Fifth Word's We Need New Stories.
Episode Two, Ken's Story, the Karate Master's Son
has big dreams written by Zodwa Nyoni and directed
by Anastasia Osei-Kuffour.
Hi.
Just give me a second.
Your order will be ready in a second.
Take a seat.
Would you like some Rooibos or biltong while you're waiting?
Yeah.
Help yourself.
It's on the house for the delay.
Oh, you like them?
Yeah.
People always comment on the figurines and pictures.
I am Zimbabwean, so we always have the big five
lion: elephant, buffalo, leopard, and rhino represented
some way in our houses.
This restaurant is practically my second room now.
The woman in the picture, that's my mother.
Ah, she was something special.
This restaurant is dedicated to her.
You see, my mother was a black belt in karate, like
Bruce's straight blasts.
She could knock out my nightmares for tormenting me.
Her kicks sent seismic ripples across the city.
She was the most feared fighter in all of Simba.
No men or super villain would ever think to cross a
black woman who could save the day, play a keyboard,
play a guitar, sing in the choir, touch a piece
of fabric and then zap!
Couture in African print.
She could do all this and have time to get back
home to conjure fists from seeds and drops of water
for the entire community.
You'd think she was a marvel ahead of her time
or a magical creature.
But we were both born in a town known for
myths and legends.
Extraordinary was just so ordinary to us.
I promise you, this is not hyperbole.
My life was set up like a movie.
My origin story begins in a town called Karoi.
It is known for conjuring folk, tales of witches
and wizards being thrown into the Angwa River.
Spirits rose to seek vengeance on those who cast them away.
It was said that the giant serpent Nyami
Nyami swam in Kariba Dam.
It fed on disobedient children who stayed
up past their bedtime.
The stories never scared me.
I wanted to have my own Indiana Jones Adventures.
I thought I could handle anything until I was a
hormonal teenager trying to be James Bond suave
in front of a girl at Mandevu’s Drive-In cinema.
Then I wished I was built tough, like Rambo
or the Terminator.
There are movie references for every phase of my life.
Just before my 21st birthday, I was told I would be moving
to join my aunt in England.
I thought to myself, Ken, we are shifting genres here.
The action- fantasy days of your life are about to
become fish out of water.
I had done small local flights, but this journey
was like traveling through Dr Strange’s Inter-Dimensional
Portal, the sticky heat morphed into the Siberia code.
Maybe that is an exaggeration, but for an African boy, this
was an out body experience.
London was fast and chanting zigazig-ah!.
The Spice Girls mania spun me around and around.
I didn't even have time to feel the cold for too long.
I popped on my headphones, shuffled my newly bought
HMV CDs and rode the tube in all directions.
My aunt was my Yoda, my Mr.
Miyagi who imparted wisdom.
She said the best way to get to know the place and its
people was to be of service at their most vulnerable.
She placed nursing books in my hands.
I never became a Nurse Ratchet.
More like a Greg Focker who had to keep reminding people
that nursing is not just a profession for women.
When a new job came up, I hit the road up
the M1 one and moved to Nottingham with my family
to work at City Hospital.
Not everyone gets to see humanity on the brink of
life, I cared for critical trauma patients who'd
come in on stretchers.
I'd pray that they'd walk out with extra
lives like Catwoman.
There have been plenty of moments where
make-believe and reality have bled into one for me.
You know that bit in the movie when the main
character is feeling a great transformation come.
After six years, I felt mine coming.
I realized that every person I had cared for, no matter if
they were Italian, Zimbabwean, Pakistani, or Scottish,
they had become a part of my story and I, theirs.
I was no longer a fish out of water.
I was home.
We were a community.
We were all Nottingham.
God, this is turning soppy.
Welcome to the next chapter of my story, the Motivational
and Life-Changing Genre.
In my transition, I reminded myself that I am the son
of the multi-talented karate black belt.
She taught me everything is possible and I am
forever expanding.
I pondered on how healing is more than
fixing cuts and bruises.
Food is medicine.
Food is art, food is connection.
I wanted to feed my people.
I opened Braai flavors.
Mm-hmm.
The epitome of my Zim-Nottingham identity, as
you saw at the front, is a little supermarket selling
Southern African foods.
If you miss back home and you need mazoe, chakalaka,
biltong, maputi, Romany Creams, I've got you.
If you are new to Zimbabwe cuisine and you
are just hungry, I mean really, really hangry.
Just come up to this counter and you'll
find me in the kitchen.
grilling finger licking sumu chicken, flavour punching
boerewors and mouthwatering Zambezi ranch T-steak.
Aye!
Don’t play with me!
Call me Chef Julia Childs, call me Chef Auguste.
And don't think I only do for the meat eaters.
My veggie braai will leave you unbuttoning your
clothes for your satisfied stomachs to stretch.
Sometimes I think if Hollywood were to make a
movie about my life, it would be Coach Carter-esque.
A good looking black man with wisdom stuffed in his
pockets and the contagious laugh comes to a new
place to heal and inspire.
Braai Flavors has an outreach arm.
It trains young chefs.
I keep them grilling.
Instead of being on the street with idle minds
getting in trouble, I ask them who they are and
what they want to be, just like my mother did for me.
And I saw her ask of herself.
She never let her environment limited her possibility.
She listened to her creative heart and raised a boy
whose big dreams were never made for the small screen.
To my son, I am the nurse, turned chef, turned mentor.
He's taken the creativity in our blood life.
He draws and paints.
I wonder how my life's journey to Nottingham will
inspire his origin story.
Sorry, I've talked to your ear off.
Would you like a drink with your order?
No.
Thank you.
Please come again.
Thank you for listening.
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All episodes in this series are available on major
listening platforms and on Fifth Word's website.
The next episode in this series is Thulani's Story.
The Quiet One left in the Loudest Way.