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Isdore Guvamombe-Saturday Lounge Reflections
Moon after moon, the guns had spat fire and death.
Our ears had become accustomed to the tot, tot, tot… tot, tot, tot… boom…silence, silence, silence. Tot, tot, tot, tot, boom… silence, silence, silence. Silence!
The gun combat almost always ended with the boom, then silence. The boom was the bazooka. The tots were from light machine guns. That is all we knew.
A wireless radio hung precariously from nail in grandmother’s kitchen and the volume was very low, for, back in the village in the proverbial land of milk honey and dust or Guruve, do elders with cotton-tuft hair not say, walls have ears?
The night was especially dangerous in transmitting sounds, so we gathered around the radio to get the news from the Zanu headquarters in Maputo.
“This is the voice of Zimbabwe, broadcasting from Maputo… Pamberi neChimurenga, pamberi nehondo!’’ shouted a voice with the thriftiness of non-relenting timbre.
We immediately left for the night vigil with the freedom fighters at Farm 28. Grandfather’s farm was number 29.
This night we walked in a single file, grandfather in front and his two wives immediately after him, then the rest of us in tow. We avoided the main road for obvious reason and took a tricky footpath.
The night was as cold as the tits of a witch but we had to go to for the vigil, without fail.
We cast our eyes on the ground scouting for stumps, stones and creepy-crawlers; we cast our eyes on the bush scouting for wildlife and the gun-toting ghostly figures; we cast our eyes on the sky for the moon and its widespread galaxy of stars to provide the much-needed light; we cast our hearts to the thrift of the creator and the ancestors. We were not in control of our lives anymore. Everything exuded an aura of war
Any minute we could be in trouble. The bullet had no respect.
Grandfather, Mr Philemon Masakara had a farm in Nyakapupu Small Scale Commercial Farming Area, ordinarily referred to in Rhodesia as purchase areas. He had purchased it with proceeds from his huge sugar plantation along Ruya River, in his birthplace in Chiweshe.
My father, a school headmaster had been arrested and jailed for supporting the freedom fighters by collecting cash contributions from his subordinates and buying satin jeans (then known as Satani that time) for the freedom fighters.
He was intercepted with 22 pairs of jeans and was jailed without trial. We therefore moved to stay with my maternal grandparents at Farm 29 Nyakapupu across the Mupinge River from Chimufombo, while he languished in the Rhodesian jail.
As we walked to Farm 28 that night, the moon rose imperceptibly from the east, firstly as a golden hued mothball, slowly morphing into a bright plate and its soft raises filtered through tree leaves to give a hodgepodge broken shadows.
In the sky, the moon continued to rise and the stars kept their distance, maybe oblivious of the fact that the moon is their superior and that terrestrial social distancing must be respected. It was indeed their world!
Indeed, the moon was their superior, for, they only shone brightly in its absence. As the moon drifted westwards, so did the galaxy of stars, shining brightly, yonder in east and dimly in the west as we neared farm28. Everything exuded an aura of war.
A spitting distance from the lawn, tree branches and leaves sang unknown rhythms of war, taking their notes from the westerly winds. We had a ting of fear, excitement and anxiety, as we approached the homestead. The farm owner was Mr Shamu, whose first name I never bothered to find out, as he was often referred to by his totem Soko or Wafawanaka. (the primates).
As we approached his homestead, a firm voice shouted from the fringes, asking for the password. Grandpa, gave out the password and we were ordered to proceed.
At the homestead, men and women sang and danced in low voices. The combatants, with guns slung on their shoulders intermittently joined the singing and dancing.
Mbuya Nehanda’s name was part of the lyrical content, and we got the impression she gave the greatest inspiration to the struggle.
Then came the time for teachings, political teaching. Cde McDuff Mandebvu was huge man, with globe eyes and bushy beard. He had thick lips and a fiery look. After an emphatic sloganeering, he started his political education.
Everyone listened attentively. The war was being worn, Nyakapupu was almost a liberated zone. Sell outs must be identified and flashed out.
“Victory is certain!’’ he said as he broke into emotional song… “Zimbabwe ndeyeropa baba… ropa remadzibaba… ndati nduidzei baba… ndiudzeyi kwakaenda vamwe…Zim…” then everyone stood up and sang along. No one danced to this song, it was sorrowful from the lyrics, the tempo and the penny-pinching.
Cde Mcduff gestured for the mass to lower their voices and sit down for more political education. It must have been mid night by now.
Then suddenly there was gunfire. Confusion. Stampede. stampede. Stampede, wailing, shouting. People ran all over, the place, others scampered for cover but this time around we did not hear the boom. The freedom fighters did not fire back. They simply tactically withdrew amid the mayhem.
I found myself and one of my uncles Ignatious Masakara on the opposite direction of grandpa’s farm. There we were, two young boys still milking behind their ears. I was 10 years old, he was 12.
When we eventually settled behind a huge tree in the Muzura mountains, the night was cold; it was silly cold.
We agreed to find our way home the following mourning. As we tried to accustom ourselves to the vulgarity of four situation gunfire broke out to the east, this time around there was a clear exchange of gunfire. It was about five minutes but very heavy. One of the guns must have been an automatic rifle. It spat bullets like mad. It must have spit death too. But it was the obscene sound of the bazooka, that silenced things for minutes.
Tot, tot, tot, tot, tot…. tot, tot, tot, tot, tot… boom, boom, silence, silence, silence. Then the sound shifted towards Mupinge River to the north west.
Tot, tot, tot, tot, tot…. tot, tot, tot, tot, tot… boom, boom, silence, silence, silence. After about two minutes of silence another gun-battle ensued.
Tot, tot, tot, tot, tot…. tot, tot, tot, tot, tot… boom, boom, boom. Boom!
It was time to move. While the moon was now tilting towards setting, it still shone brightly but it was the undergrowth that made it difficult to move fast. At the same time, we were moving to nowhere. We now had lost our bearing. By now we were just going, going and going, as far away as possible from the gun sounds.
By sunrise we were towards Raffingora in the Chihwe area and one elderly man was shocked to hear our story, offered us food and gave us directions.
Scared, scarred and tired it took us half the day to get back home and we were received with congeal feelings. Mbuya Shamu, the second wife to the owner of Farm 28 had been shot and killed during the night raid. Many people had been injured while a lot many others were still missing.
Three bodies of white Rhodesian soldiers had been found dead by Mupinge River. They had their faces painted black, to mask and disguise themselves as black people. An amputated leg of Rhodesian black soldiers had also been found a spitting distance away, and a trail of blood led to his body in the undergrowth.
Online Reporter