adminLiberationWar Files Bekizwe Hlatshwayo
Let me begin by saying you never cease to amaze me Mr Mtisi at all the thought and bliss you give to your work, more so making the English language green with envy as you take us through journeys of grammar and story.
I am a man in my mid-forties, which means I also have a story to tell of my experiences during such a time as Tendai Pfepferere may have encountered.
But I don’t want to be misconstrued as such issues are not similar to Essay Competitions at which students vie for an award for having scribbled the best and most sensible essay. I am not even daring to make commentary of the horrific events that some of us encountered during the few years of The Chimurenga war that young men and women of my era lived to witness.
Some saw more, some never saw anything. Such was the nature of the benumbing effects of Chimurenga.
I grew up in a remote area of Chipinge, a farm in Chinyaduma popularly known as Thembekani Farm number 53, paMbuya Amudazveshe , this was her Num de plume which in our Ndau language means “ a non selective Grandmother “ and May Her Soul Rest In Peace. Every single school holiday, all her Vazukuru’s including this writer, would be whisked by our parents to this farm or homestead to grow under the nurturing powers of this wonderful granny. It was during these days that my story is centred on, just like Pfepferere’s story is centred around Tsambe .
Mr Mtisi, you did not awaken the Old St Augustine’s memoirs alone, but to anyone who is still alive but was alive to witness the good, the bad and the ugly of the Chimurenga war, this story awakens their own different “Pfepferere’s” from their various vantage points of the then war.
The making of the intended film, to me is a gem. Many a hero will come and go, but to live such a moment as the Tsambe students did, and still have someone like you Mr Mtisi, one able to hold such story telling abilities not only on paper, neither orated nor narrated, would be wonderful to capture the visual part of such issues.
The later generation who came after the war, only have abstract visions of what is being talked about. Let me use the pun, they all have a different ‘of a pinion’ of the Chimurenga war. Such depictions as intended in the in the suggested film will certainly assist in wiping out the different “pinions” the later generations may have about our fallen Heroes.
At Mbuya Amuda’s farm as we still call it, Sekuru Hlatshwayo by then as we grew up had already passed on, therefore the infrastructure on the farm was solely woman managed. The farm lies within the outskirts of Chirinda Forest but as we were growing up we called it our Amazon due to the Tarzan bioscopes we watched then, which depicted jungles of a similar nature.
The freedom fighters, favoured so much the cover of this serene forest, as they would appear and disappear, vanish at will if you want, from and into the forest in ‘magical’ flashes. PaMbuya Amuda was and is still a few hundred metres from this Tarzan jungle- Chirinda Forest.
VanaMukoma as we called them would pay visits to the farmlands within the forest peripherals. It was easy.
The occupants were all Makhorwa, in Ndau meaning Religious Followers of the then overall Church of the United Church of Christ , which was brought into Chipinge by the American Board Mission.
Mbuya Amuda had worked as a maid-servant for many a missionary at the then Mount Silinda Mission. She knew how to “lapa-lapa” and probably sing a few English lullabies’.
Many a time, the Comrades would come-by, ask for anything, and if it was there Mbuya would give. Why she did so, for some of us at that time never understood, because whenever she donated things, it left us with nothing, and we hated Mbuya for that. Kwainga kutsonga. We did see vanaMukoma Fids, Ndinani and Sharpshooter, I remember very well. They would come and never harassed us, but on one fateful day, a Kwela Mahala drove to a gathering with a carriage full of bodies, proclaiming they had slaughtered our brothers-vanamukoma.
Then one day we faced the wrath of the Rhodesian Army. It was one unforgettable day during a school holiday. They came and brutalised Mbuya over a question, “Magandanga ari pari?” Little did we know about what this animal they were asking for looked like! One of us kids at that moment mistook the word Magandanga for Magwada, a word in Ndau which means shoes. So we said Ari Mumhatso,(they are in the house) which left our Mbuya receiving a thorough beating in her desperate bid to explain the conflict of language in such a simple twist of words. Definitely, shoes were there but not Gandanga.
What is the relevance of this anecdote?Many people suffered during the war of the Chimurenga for things that were true, false, misunderstood and generally just were a matter of “pinion “ as to who the punisher or doer was.
Mr Mtisi, I believe there are so many forlorn cries of our fallen heroes in the air or the wind, so succinct, if we listen carefully, tracing back to things that were happening then. We deserve to have mentors like you, writing and publishing stories as they happened. That will help our children to understand our heritage and honour our war heroes and heroines.
The later-day child is hooked onto technology, and producing liberation war films is surely priceless to the nation. We will support your vision and film project for Zimbabweans within and without our borders.
Harry Potter, a legend in his own culture is still being produced in Movies, but if we ask ourselves as to why we marvel at a witch surfing the air on a broomstick and never at a Comrade who gave His own Life for our lives, I am left only baffled in awe and veneration.
The name Pfepferere is also onomatopoeic of the action the bullets acted on his bold Soul and sacred body…May His Soul Rest in Peace!
Online Reporter