Dodging bullets in the DRC: Part 2

My break was, however, extended until January 2001 and I was able to enjoy year 2000 Christmas with family. I was also able to celebrate my 21st birthday with family and friends on January 3 2001. A week after my birthday it was time to fly back to work. My second trip was somehow long and tiresome as we went through Kamina then Lubumbashi.
When we got to Lubumbashi, colleagues who were due to go home were anxiously waiting for us so that they could go and celebrate New Year with their children, wives and girlfriends.
We got onto the usual journey using the rough roads; it was the rainy season. The journey was somehow easy because as it was my second, I was a bit prepared for it in terms of entertainment. Morale was high since I was coming from a month-long break.
Upon my return we had changed position; we were now deployed on a different and more difficult front line. We were demarcated by River Luapula, which emanated from Lake Mweru — we could not see the enemy like we used to at Kapondo, but we just knew their position was along the riverbed just like ours. The river base was tricky and more dangerous because as soldiers, there was need to be vigilant, tactful and strategic.
This is the same time the news of the assassination of President Laurent Desire Kabila broke.
Our distance this time was less than a kilometre as all parties had taken advantage settling at the edge of the river bed to ensure that there were no surprise attacks. Just days after my arrival we started receiving our New Year gifts from our friends, they were not presents anyone can gladly receive but they were meant for the brave. Bombs were hitting our positions daily and we would get into our positions, we would return the bombs and the exchange would go for five good hours or more at times. We stayed on the river banks for several months with constant exchange of fire.
One day at dawn the enemy made a surprise attack as was always the case by bombing us. One of the bombs nearly killed my colleague after it destroyed his tent. The routine was the same as that of Kapondo. We were using public boats owned by civilians but they would sometimes be fully booked and our food from    Lubumbashi would fail to fit in the available ones.
We usually looked for cassava in the abandoned fields and had it for breakfast and sometimes consume it for lunch.
Meanwhile, the Lusaka peace talks then yielded   positive results and it was time to disengage. We would not leave a buffer zone which was going to be patrolled by the United Nations.
We were jubilant that the war was finally coming to an end but little did we know that the handover process to the UN forces would be a long process which would take nearly a year to implement. We were already    writing letters to relatives back home that we were returning home soon.
The disengagement day arrived and we packed our military hardware ready for the move. The buffer zone was going to be 100km apart. Just before we left heavy rains started pounding. We had nowhere to hide since we had removed all our tents. We started the journey on foot because we did not want to be detected by the enemy by using trucks. The journey took us the whole night. We finally settled at Nzwiba. This was going to be our new home far from the enemy. As time went by, we started getting used to our new “home”.
We were at “home” at Nzwiba, I was six months into my second tour of duty in the DRC then. Each day we could go about our usual duties which included fetching firewood and water for cooking our food. We also fortified our base and constantly took duties to patrol the area surrounding our base. My colleagues continued to take turns to go home on two-week breaks. I would ask them to bring back walkman batteries and latest audio cassettes from my favourite musicians.
I would count down each passing day until I could no longer do it. Our officer commanding was a good chess player so I had found a good competitor. Every day he would come to my tent since I was now entrusted with the duty of safekeeping and distributing food to the troops so I could not leave my position unattended. We would play chess daily with our officer commanding and I ended up outshining him. Frustrated, he would sometime snub coming for the game.
Just sitting, eating, cooking, patrolling started to take toll on us. My friend Edmore Chaipa really liked his food such that he ended up volunteering to be the cook for the company. He loved cooking. He was big and he still is, so cooking afforded him the opportunity to feed more than others.
I recall we formed a karate group which comprised Patrick Chiripanyanga , Wellington Mbanje and myself. Daily, we would converge at the training ground, do press-ups, stretches, sparing and kick at sand bags all in an effort to relieve stress and pass time which seemed stagnant. When we got tired we would go to our positions and sleep. We were trying to erase the frustration of staying long away from home. Shepherd Chawarura was not good at karate or chess but was good at lifting weights, I recall one morning he broke our Officer Commanding’s log weight which he could secretly use while the major was still asleep.
He was caught lifting it one day and the next morning it was found broken. The Major was furious at him and he instructed him to replace his weight immediately so Shepherd went and cut a heavy log which he moulded into a weight. Our Officer Commanding found his new weight so heavy and after a few days he dropped weight lifting. We laughed each time we reminisced the incident. We got tired of eating beef so we started going to villagers who stayed kilometres away from our base to buy chickens and goats.
Stephen Mushayavanhu and I liked goat meat and we spent all our monthly earnings on goats. We would travel to nearby villages since we were now staying closer to civilians. We would buy goats and chicken from them, sometimes we would do barter trade with the tinned foods we had and they were delighted at such deals.
Zimbabwean troops were known for having plenty of food so each time we passed through homes some civilians would ask “Habari rafiki, hapana beef nasosiso (tinned pork)” whenever we said today we do not have any they would think we were lying to them and you would hear them say “wewe rafiki unachoyo sana” meaning you are stingy.
December marked my 12 consecutive month       without going home and without any clue of when I would go. I was really frustrated as letters were now taking long to reach our side. I stayed for 15 months in the DRC on my second tour of duty that was from January 2001 to March 2002.
Counting down 15 months was no easy thing, day dreaming helped to push the time one would construct a dream house in his mind, put tenants in the house get married and have children. Some would visualise returning home and buying dream cars which they would drive to different parts of the country. I    personally had constructed so many houses in my mind and had lost count. I would visualise being a landlord and so on, that was life for us.
After having gone for months without receiving     letters from relatives one of my colleagues told us that he was going to divorce his wife and children and start living alone because they were just enjoying his money back home yet they did not care to find out how he was copying. My friend Clemence Mukena and I laughed at him. We were to laugh again the day he received letters from his family and he took back his words.
After the disengagement we stayed for a long time without knowing when the withdrawal would start. My chance to return home finally arrived in March 2002. I could really feel that I deserved to go home. In Lubumbashi, we had time to visit the social clubs. I observed that the majority of Congolese people just live for today, they leave tomorrow to chance. They would drink, wine and dine without budgeting for tomorrow. They so much loved their Ndombolo music which they would dance to all night long.
We used a Congolese civilian plane to fly to Kinshasa. That is when I realised that it is cheap to travel by plane in the DRC than using any other mode of transport.
The Congolese would board the plane with their children, goats, chicken, dogs and many other belongings. There was, however, a sad observation I realised there was no boarding manifesto for the Congolese passengers and there was no specific order which they used to board the plane. Whenever the plane crew felt their plane was full they would just come, cut the queue and close the doors.
Mothers would start crying for the children or belongings which had been left behind and no one cared to listen to them. I was pained deep down my heart as I imagined such a life. The mothers, siblings or relatives who had managed to board the plane would be weeping the  whole journey because they were probably never going to see those they had                     left again since war would not afford them the chance to choose where to live. Such                                                                                                were the effects of war to the Congolese civilians.
The few families who enjoyed protection or the privilege to travel with all their belongings where those who had husbands or relatives employed in the Congolese Armed Forces because the barrel would rule where word of mouth would not. The majority were so poor such that cellphones were only for the super rich during that time. Separated relatives had no chance of ever meeting again.
In Kinshasa we boarded a plane heading back home. I was somehow certain that the tour of duty was almost coming to an end. I had been away from home for a very long time and a lot had transpired back home in my absence, there was a lot to catch up on. The journey from Kinshasa to Harare took three hours unlike Lubumbashi which was one and half hours. When we landed at Harare International Airport domestic terminal we were quickly whisked to Manyame Air Force Base and then to 1 Commando where we would surrender our weapons then go home.
I never returned to the DRC again and the whole contingent of Zimbabwean troops withdrew in October 2002 signalling the end to a five-year conflict and to us we knew the DRC war as Operation Sovereign Legitimacy (OSL). Medals were waiting for us back home because we had achieved the aim of the mission.
It is the dream of every soldier to carry a medal as it signifies that one indeed accomplished an important mission, tour of duty. The same goes for media awards for journalists.