Zimba Remabwe: Inside the Big House of Stone

The difference between Zimbabwe today and the Rhodesia of yesterday is the difference between hell and heaven. And if I have to be honest to God, Pa Robert Mugabe looks like the devil when compared to Ian Smith.

I saw the long train of human traffic on the road and the long queue of vehicles at the BP Budiriro filling station. I saw human scavengers rummaging the refuse dumps with the stray dogs. What a spectacle of the wretched of the earth. They were the homeless victims of "Operation Murambatsvina". They were refugees in their own country. I thought refugees were those displaced and dispossessed of their homes and possessions during wars. But Zimba Remabwe was not at war.

I met three old men at the T-Junction. They were white priests. They turned to me and were complaining about a problem.

"We wanted to serve free rations of food to the starving millions of Zimbabweans across the country, but Pa Mugabe turned us away," one of them said.
“ Go to the millions of starving Americans in Logan who throng the food pantries and soup kitchens run by Smith Chapel United Methodist Church. Over 34 million Americans live on the free rations of your soup kitchens,” he told us.
“ Pa Mugabe was proud to show us his seven academic degrees, and in addition, he said he has a "degree in violence”. And he has been using his "degree in violence" brutally," said another.
“ His messenger of death, Perence Shiri the 'Black Jesus" led the massacre in 'Matebeleland in the 1980s. Pa Mugabe has left many of his rivals and those opposed to his reign of terror in tears and blood," the third one said.
I did not say a word. I sighed and left them.


I was following an elder in black and white cassock and black shoes. He led me to a hut surrounded by anthills. And there, I met Pa Joshua Nkomo sitting on a log of wood and holding a long walking stick.
“Is this the same Great Zimba Remabwe of your dream?” I asked Pa Joshua Nkomo, the old man from Kalanga.
He regarded me silently and turned to my guide, Bishop Abel Muzorewa. Both of them shook their heads.
“ Since I left on July 1, 1999, I have been weeping by the Zambezi and Limpopo. I do not want anyone to see my tears. Zambezi and Limpopo know my tears and the earth knows the taste of my bitter tears. Even Lobengula Kumalo cannot console me.”
“ Pa Mugabe is sick and Senile dementia is still curable,” I said.
“ Come my son”, he said and led me to the peak of the Nyangani.
We stood with our heads in the clouds.

“ Mugabe said, Shona would no longer kiss the feet of Ndebele. But does that mean Ndebele should eat the excreta of Shona? Fie! God forbid”, the old man spat.
“ See there, where the sun kisses the Tanganyika; the spirit of New Zimbabwe is rising from the ripples. It was Lobengula Kumalo who showed me the future and told me to rest in peace.”
I was still looking at the place where the sun was kissing the Tanganyika and did not know that the old man was no longer with me. When I turned around, I woke up inside the Zimba Remabwe.
“Here,” Nkosi said handing me a flyer.
“ What is it?” I asked before looking at it.
“ The Slum of all Fears, starring Ben Affleck and Pa Mugabe,” she said.
I looked at the flyer and sighed.
“ I had a dream. It was so real. I saw Joshua Nkomo.”
“ You saw Joshua Nkomo?”
I nodded.
She sat down on the bench beside my mattress and listened as I recalled everything I saw in the dream.

Part Two

“Tune me the gwan,” Nkosi said.
She sat down on the bench beside my mattress and listened as I recalled everything I saw in the dream.
She sighed at the end of it.
“Will you still go to Bulawayo?” Nkosi asked.
I looked at the bare floor and then looked at the things in our single room.
The piles of car batteries from which we have been getting our electricity, the broken shelf of my books, the wall clock, the table against the wall with the table lamp and transistor radio on it. Then I looked at Nkosi. She looked  cheerless.
"Sha, I've got jack kites ek se, “ I said and held her hands to comfort her.
Thomas Nyilika, the Zanu-PF councilor gave me Z$300,000 to join the Green Bombers.  And that cash would be very useful if I agreed to follow Nkosi and head south across the Limpopo River into South Africa.  But fleeing to Johannesburg would make me a coward.  I did not want to leave my family in lurch.


Pa Ludidi Ntzombone said leaving was the best way to escape from Thomas Nyilika if I did not want to join the Green Bombers.
“You saw the bloodied face of Morgan Tsvangirai after they nearly killed him in detention?”
I nodded.
“Mugabe said Morgan Tsvangirai is a Marxist,” I said.
I did not join the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), because I did not want to end up like Morgan Tsvangirai and his stubborn comrades. We should not play politics with innocent lives. Countless children have died from the terrible things happening in Zimbabwe and the ruthless politicians would be judged for shedding innocent blood.
Pa Ntzombone regarded me and shook his head sorrowfully.

“That white devil Ian Smith jailed me for 11 years during our guerrilla days.  But how did Mugabe reward me after our victory?  That black devil jailed me for four years.  And when Ian Smith was in power, we had surplus maize and there was enough tobacco for my snuff.  But today, the white farmers have been robbed of their farmlands and we are starving, because my kinsfolk cannot grow enough maize and tobacco,” he said plaintively.
More wrinkles appeared as he contorted his 88 years old face.

Nkosi was with me that night as I sat with the old warrior in front of his dilapidated house in Mandluntsha.
“But Johannesburg is not paradise,” I said.
Nkosi eyed me in disapproval of my statement.
“But Johannesburg is heaven compared to the hell of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe,” the old warrior said.
Nkosi nodded affirmatively.
“But I am yet to get my passport, “ I said.
Pa Ntzombone winced and smirked.
“So, you need a passport to enter Azania?  What a lame excuse.  You are lucky you even have the fortune of a God sent daughter, Nkosi, who is offering you her home in Johannesburg,” he said.
Nkosi nodded and I swallowed a lump of saliva.
“Only the enemies of Mugabe are suffering,” I said.
“Biti, you disappoint me!”  Pa Ntzombone said curtly, raising his husky voice for the first time.
“Even Thomas Nyilika told me that over 300,000 people have been waiting for their passports, because there was no ink or paper to print new copies.  No, harvest of maize this year and no export of tobacco.  Our best doctors and tutors have left since 1999.  And thousands are leaving daily for South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Angola and just anywhere to escape from suffering and dying in misery and penury in Zimbabwe.  When Ian Smith was ruling, there were enough rations for all, whether Mashona or Matabele. Thousands are dying daily in our hospitals from lack of common drip and the mortuaries are filled up with corpses abandoned in the corridors,” Pa Ntzombone lamented and shook his bald head.
He rose from his wooden chair and that meant he had given me enough time.
The foreign press reported that Life expectancy in Zimbabwe was 34 years for women and 37 years for men. I couldn’t deny the horrible and terrible things in my country.
   
“Robert Mugabe cruises through Harare in his bulletproof limousine, Mugabemobile, a seven-tonne Mercedes-Benz S600L. It was custom-built in Germany at a cost of 550,000 US dollars. I heard the armour can withstand AK-47 bullets, rocket-grenades and landmines, and with his juju, he feels 100% secured  “ Nkosi said.

The old warrior was just shaking his head. 
“Goodnight Sir, “ I said.
Nkosi also said goodnight.
“God bless you my daughter,” Pa Ntzombone said and patted her right shoulder.
“Goodnight, Biti. I know you are not Dwass, so you are wise enough not to make a terrible mistake. Fambai zvakanaka,” he said and I nodded.

It was a humid night. And it was a long trek back to my place, because there was no public transport in sight.
“Nkosi, Ek se, I have to see my mother before I make up my mind,” I said as we walked hand-in-hand along a sidewalk.
“Alright Biti. Everything will be fine,” she said.
I was restless in bed as I thought of the dangers of running away with Thomas Nyilika's money.

The following day, as Nkosi was cooking our breakfast, one of Thomas Nyilika’s errand boys was knocking at our door. He said the councilor was waiting for me in town.
“I would be there after my breakfast,” I said.
“Let me wait for you, so that you will come with me,” he said.
“No. Just go and tell him what I said,” I insisted.
He left reluctantly and Nkosi hissed in contempt.
My mind was made up to leave for Johannesburg after seeing my mother.
But who would provide for her in my absence?

When we got to my mother’s home, she was not in. But my only brother Chenjerai was there.
“Where is amai vedu?” I asked.
“Come and see,” he said rising from a wooden seat and looking in the direction of the nearby cemetery.
Chenjerai was only seven and would be glad to add some flesh here and there, because he was thin.
He led us into the cemetery and we saw my mother and another woman digging.
What were they digging?
“Amai ,” Chenjerai called her.
She looked up and stopped digging.
As we got closer, I saw that they were digging a grave.
“Amai,” I hugged her.
“Biti,” she held me wholeheartedly.
“What is wrong Amai?” I asked.
“Mbira is dead,” she said in tears and I turned to look at the other old woman I knew was the grandmother of Mbira. But Mbira was only seven and was alright the last time I visited our village. And that was a week ago. His parents died of AIDS in 2003 and his grandmother had to care for him.
The grieving mother broke down weeping and clutching the shovel in her hands.
My mother said Mbira died from diarrhoea.
There was no medicine to treat him at home and when they wheel-barrowed him to the health center, there was no more drip there. Mbira  died on their way back home. 
“But why do you have to dig the grave? Where are the gravediggers,” Nkosi asked.
I saw that she was shocked.
“The gravediggers left when we could not pay them,” my mother said.
I took the shovel from my mother, rolled up my long sleeves and my trousers.
I could dig faster and deeper.
I was digging with annoyance.
“Sha, that evil Mugabe going to peg," my mother cursed.
How the terrible things happening in Zimbabwe have changed my mother who fondly sang songs in praise of Uncle Bob at pungwes, and when Mugabe was elected the President of Zimbabwe. But she now wished him dead. Because, their former liberator was now their tormentor.

Nkosi wanted to join me with the other shovel.
“No. I can finish it,” I said.
It was not a six feet grave. Graves for the thousands of the kids dying weekly in Zimbabwe were shallow graves. But the one I dug for Mbira was deep enough for a seven-year-old child.
I heard the voices of women singing nearby.
They were coming with a small coffin. Another child was going to be buried. They were chanting in Shona.

‘Oh grandmothers,
Oh mothers, oh boys,
There’s a snake in the forest,
Mothers take hoes,
Grandmothers take hoes,
Boys take axes.’

The snake was Mugabe.


It was around 8.30 am and most of the young people were gone. Millions were hustling for survival in Bulawayo and Highfield and millions of others were in self exile in South Africa and other neighbouring countries. Only the aged were left. But most of the old folk were widows. My mother and her friend were among the oldest widows in the village.

I dug the grave aggressively, because I wanted to get over it and leave.
Nkosi and I had an appointment with a cab driver named Wakatama, who would drive us to the Limpopo waterside. Then we would join others taking boats across the river and trek across the border into South Africa,  So, we did not wait to witness them say "Azorora" over the grave of Mbira. Over four thousand people were dying weekly in Zimbabwe. And most of them were innocent children.




By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima
July 11, 2007.
Bonny Kingdom, Nigeria.

A preety good novel.

ladebi:

A preety good novel.

Thank you.

I have to see things as they really are inside Zimbabwe to tell the true story. So, I must visit Zimbabwe to complete it. Historical fiction requires investigation.
I have been reading reports and taking lessons in Shona to develop it.