Drought causing untold suffering in Matabeleland South region

February is generally a very wet month in Zimbabwe and it is that period that sweet potato farmers plant a crop they harvest in June and July. This season has already experienced a deficit in most, if not all, of the province’s chiefdoms in its districts comprising Bulilima, Mangwe, Matobo, Gwanda, Beitbridge, Insiza and Mzingwane.
Along the railway line, more or less the high veld ridge, rain fell earlier than in the province’s middle and lowvelds. It continues relatively throughout December and January but in a patchy way.
That region is greener than further away from the line of rail, an area that stretches northward past Tshankwa (kaNlembe), Bezu, Ngwana, Mzwanyane, Tekwane, Tjchanga, Matjinge, Tokwana, Nopemano, Masendu, Kungubo, Khame, Manguba, Gampu, Ndolwane, Butji and Makhulela.
That sector, including the Gwambe sector as well as the Manyangwa Mwali Shrine locality, is this year literally bone-dry. Excepting the Tekwane Mission areas, the whole region lies on the north-eastern and northern side of the Tekwane River.
Across that waterway, whose arid Kalahari sands indicate how porous the region’s soil is on its western side are Dombodema, Malalume, Madlambuzi, Hhingwe and Bambadzi.
All of them are also as dry as across the Tekwane River. In the Malalume, Mafeha, Nzwazwi parts of this area called Bulilima District, many people did not even attempt to till their fields because of lack of rain.
Those who did, and they are very few who ventured in the Sinotsi, Kandana, Mphini, Njele, Moza and Ntoli areas, have painfully watched their crops wilting.
Across the railway line, on the southern side of Plumtree, the situation is just as dismal. The region is made up of Vaka, Osabeni, Khahlu, Madabe, Embakwe and Empandeni  mission areas. Tjitji Nguwanyama (kaKuwana), Tjingababili, Tjankuluba (Sangulube) Sanzukwi, Patse, Kweneng,                           Poengs, Ngwizi, Khalanyoni, Maninji, Bango and Mambale.
This region, officially and administratively called Mangwe district, is another rainfall problem sector. It has a few granite mountains and kopjes, with the southern spur of the scenic Matopo Hills sloping towards the Ramakwebane (Tamukwebana) River which forms a part of the Zimbabwe-Botswana border.
With the exception of some isolated high veld region, including the Ngwizi irrigation project vicinity, the district has received no rain this year.
The drought seems to worsen as one gets further away from the railway line along the Mbakwe, Sanzukwi, Ngwizi and other rivers lower into the low veld.
That there is lack of food in both Bulilima and Mangwe districts is a sobering truth.
Travelling southward from Brunapeg, through Chief Bango Dube’s domain, one crosses the Simukwe River at Hhowuyawa Mountain, and enters the Matopo district, another devastatingly thirsty Matabeleland South region.
That is the St Joseph’s Mission area of Chief Bidi Ndiweni. It is dry and so are neighbouring areas of Chief Malaba, the Tjewondo, Tjelanyemba, Marinoha, Sontala, Mbembeswane, Mloyi, Zamanyoni, Manyane, Madwaleni-Donkwe Donkwe region.
So severe was the heat in September-October that there is  talk in the Madwaleni-Donkwe Donkwe locality that the well known, scenic massive flat rock which gives the place and school the name Donkwe Donkwe cracked virtually from one end to the other.
The event is rumoured to have been witnessed by about three or four boys one of whom is originally from Binga but is employed locally by one of the villagers.
Local elders are said to have been told about the incident and went to see the cracked rock. One or two Madwaleni male villagers were reported to have died after they were affected by the same intense heat wave just before the rock cracked. The rumour is quite current.
Many parts of the Matobo district sometimes wrongly called Kezi district, will not harvest anything at all because there has hardly been a drop of rain in that region where, incidentally, we find two very famous Mwali/Mwari/uNgwali shrine: Njelele and Dula.
The third, Manyangwa, is in the Bulilima district which is to the north and west of Plumtree.
The shrines are associated primarily with rain-making rituals. Their other functions are child-bearing (fertility) and healing.
This year’s drought comes hard on the heels of the national land acquisition and resettlement programme. Many newly resettled small scale farmers will be hard hit by this catastrophe.
The Matopo District’s soil is predominately the sandy type. The region has fairly large localities of lateritic soil where the mapani (mopani) trees thrive, hence the Ndebele name ‘eMaphaneni’ for the district.
Both these soils require much rain for cropping purposes.  The Sun Yet sector is particularly dry this year, so is the Tjewondo, Mahetje, Nhlupo, Humbana region.
From Matobo one crosses into the Gwanda district where the situation is just as bad, just as it is in the Insiza, Mzingwane and the Beitbridge districts.
It would be advisable for all those in a position to assist with foodstuffs to begin right away as whatever the people in that province have is undoubtedly too little to keep body and soul together.
While Matabeleland North has had a much wetter season, Tsholotsho has not been that fortunate. Some of its wards, if not many of them, received their very first rains on 29 December 2011 after which a dry spell followed and lasted until about the first week of February.
It is important for the people living in drought prone regions to do three things: till their fields in May-June; plant drought-resistant crops especially millet and sorghum (zembwe nemapfunde) peanuts and groundnuts (amazambani lendhlubu-manongo-nenyimo).
These should be regarded as the staples of Matabeleland South with maize as a few of the crops to be planted only (and only) if the season is a good one.
The third thing Matabeleland South residents should always do is to plant early to enable their crops to benefit from every rain that falls on the region.