The name
Under the muhacha.
paMuhacha means "under the muhacha tree". Ask anyone who grew up in the rural south and they will tell you: there was a tree where lovers met. In Zimbabwean culture it was popularised as the muhacha - a known place, in the open, under a wide canopy.
You could meet her at the muhacha. That part was warm, and it is warm here too. But it was never only the two of you.
Before a young man walked to that tree, something happened first. Someone asked properly - where do you come from, who are your people, what are you here for. That asking was the aunt's work. In any southern African family, you do things through your aunt. She takes the background. She stands between the two and brings a settledness that neither of them can bring alone.
Why we ask for your totem
We ask for your totem because that is how we know who you are. Long before a surname on a form, the totem placed a person - their people, their line, who they may and may not marry. It is not decoration and it is not a preference setting. It is the oldest identification we have, and the aunt reads it the way she was taught to. If you do not know your totem, ask at home before you go further, because the asking starts there.
What we are bringing back
Somewhere the tree got replaced by a screen, and the aunt got replaced by nothing at all. So people meet strangers, guess from photographs, and discover far too late that they never really knew who they were talking to.
paMuhacha puts the aunt back in the middle. The tree is still the promise - two people, meeting well. But the asking comes first, and a real person does it. That is the whole idea, and it is a very old one.