Life in the rural areas invariably revolves around the often parched and tired land.
The majority of inhabitants are peasant farmers, who must eke out a living from the little that is available to them. The parlous state of life in these parts is not on account of the laziness of its citizens, but is in large part evidence of the cruel hand of history and a circumstance of man’s unfairness towards man and the limitations of the physical environment – all of which have an intimate connection. Colonialism condemned vast numbers of people to the weakest zones of the land. Although conditions were dire, those reserves, as they were called, became home to the majority of people.
The land is poor and the rains are sparse. But the peasants work hard to make the most of their narrow circumstances. There are generally no permanent water reservoirs and the soils do not have the proper constitution to retain water for long periods of time. They rely on the benevolence of the heavens. Sometimes, the heavens are generous. But oft-times this precious gift is withheld from them, which makes things very difficult. They do have other perennial gifts, however, such as resilience and the egalitarian character of their communities. They suffer and survive together.
This is my subject today, drawing from my days of youth in this community. I do so not only on account of nostalgia but also in memory of and as a tribute to the wonderful people among whom I spent the formative years of my life and from whom I learnt a lot of the values and principles that define me and my perspectives on life and society to this day. Some of my most loyal and enduring friendships were shaped in those earliest days. Stories of rural people are all too often trivialised and the citizens are sometimes unnecessarily ridiculed. Yet I believe there is much wisdom to be derived from the way rural communities conduct their affairs. Some of my best times in Zimbabwe are not when I’m dining with my better-heeled friends and associates in Harare, but when I’m sharing a moment with my older compatriots under a tree in the villages. What I draw from there is what I refer to as the wisdom of the village.
My grandfather was a successful farmer, at least by the standards of the peasantry. If he had been born of different stock and had been favoured with better land, I’m certain he would have yielded even more success. At the peak of his success he had a vast number of cattle, which could have been bigger had colonial laws not forced him to limit his stock. Under the Land Husbandry Act, peasant farmers were to keep stock numbers only up to a certain maximum. Apart from symbolising wealth, cattle served many other purposes. They provided draught power for working the crop fields. They provided food in the form of milk and meat. They also provided manure, the organic matter which fortified the poor soils enabling them to give more than they could manage in their natural state.
He also managed to grow a vast orchard of citrus fruits – oranges, lemons, peaches, mangoes, guavas and much more. We were privileged to pick and eat fruit straight from the tree – on those occasions when he permitted us. When it came to his beloved trees – michero yangu, as he called them – he had the mind of a businessman and guarded them jealously. He was always assured of a surplus from the crop fields and the orchard. He supplied fruit to local schools, including the big Mission establishment at Kwenda, where he was well known for his fruits and for his occasional sermons on the pulpit for he was also a lay preacher. His bicycle had a permanent carrier, in which he carried fruit for sale wherever he went. He was an enterprising man and whenever he saw a market he made the most of it. But that also meant he was a man who lived by his own means and never had to beg, which was a good for his dignity. It also earned him a respectable name in the community.
My grandmother was also a good farmer in her own right. She had her own portions of the land where she grew crops such as groundnuts (nzungu), roundnuts (nyimo) and finger millet (zviyo). Apart from its many benefits as a source of food and drink, zviyo also gave us one of the great occasions on the village calendar – nhimbe or jakwara – which is the subject of this story.
Nhimbe was one of those rare occasions which combined both work and celebration in rural life. It was a great social occasion when villagers came from all over to work and party at the same time.
Nhimbe was usually convened during the dry season after the harvest. In our community, there were two types of work that usually required a nhimbe: kupura zviyo – threshing zviyo and the extraction of manure from the cattle pens and its transportation to the fields, where it was spread to nourish the land in preparation for the next season. These were labour intensive jobs that required a large amount of manpower. People came together to help, but by way of incentive, it was also a great village party where people ate lots of food and drank copious amounts of alcohol. They sang, they danced – all without inhibition and generally had a merry time.
Apart from its important role as an ingredient in making traditional brew, zviyo is also used to make sadza, the staple food. Before white maize took over to become the staple food, zviyo and mhunga were the preferred choices among traditional communities. They are also renowned for their health benefits and these days these foods are regularly recommended by modern dieticians. These days eating establishments in the urban areas that offer sadza rezviyo or mhunga are quite popular with the well-heeled, who can afford them.
Growing zviyo is an art, the gift of which is not given to everyone. It’s a crop that requires a careful and meticulous eye. Once, when we were assigned to help grandmother in her field of zviyo, we did not last long. She politely dismissed us soon after we had started. She had realised that her entire crop was in danger of being harvested prematurely. It is notoriously difficult for the inexperienced eye to identify zviyo from weeds. This difficulty gave birth to an idiom – Rega zvikurirane zviyo nesora, zvinozopatsanurwa pakukura – let the zviyo crop and the weeds grow together, you shall soon tell the difference when the crop matures. Good and bad people may live together, but eventually it will be easy to tell the difference. But farmers cannot take chances so they start the weeding process early. Apparently, we were chopping everything and it was evident that we were ill-equipped to carry out the delicate task. That is why grandmother averted a certain disaster by sending us away to the maize field. I never entered a field of zviyo again in my life, which was also quite a relief. Grandmothers and the older women of the village had the experience and patience for this delicate task.
The most important role for the men, apart from preparing the land, came after the harvest, at the nhimbe. After harvesting zviyo, which involves chopping the head that holds the grains from the stem, the crop was laid out to dry. The women prepared a large drying platform – a ruware – on an open space in the compound. They mixed cowdung and water to prepare a thin paste which they plastered on the open space. When it dried, it formed a perfect ‘floor’ which ensured the crop was not tainted by the earth.
It was on this ruware that the threshing of zviyo was performed by the men. This was the threshing party to which all the men of the village and surroundings village were invited. People dropped everything they were doing and made their way to the compound where the nhimbe was being held.
The host would have made big preparations for this occasion. Seven days before the day, the women would have started preparing large quantities of traditional liquor. Alcohol was the fuel that energised the men and women at the threshing party. This free alcohol was an important incentive that attracted people from all over the community. They came to work and drink. And many imbibed the potent drink without restraint. It was not unusual to find a number of men lying all over the compound the morning afterwards, nursing the effects of the previous night’s excesses.
The beer brewing process was quite democratic, for it also produced a non-alcoholic brew which was given to the younger ones or those who found alcohol forbidding. This type of non-alcoholic beer is called biti. It’s very sweet and although it is non-alcoholic, the boys mimicked their drunken elders and pretended to be drunk as well. Although the older boys were not permitted to drink, on those occasions they managed to steal occasional gulps, particularly late in the day after the elders’ faculties had been compromised by the brew. In a way these occasions were initiation ceremonies for the older boys.
The men were responsible for threshing zviyo. Zviyo was placed on the ruware and men stood in a circle, holding big sticks which they used to beat the crop. This was done in unison, with the men singing traditional songs. One group would beat thresh the crop, then rest, to drink, while another followed and so on until the grains were separated from their heads.
But during that singing and threshing, something important also took place. The men mocked each other and exchanged banter. But in this banter and mocking, they also communicated useful messages to each other. It was probably the only occasion in village life where there was complete freedom of speech. If a man was suspected of committing adultery with a fellow villager’s wife, these things were said in a mocking manner, warning the offender that his ways were known or the husband to watch carefully what was going on in his household. If a man was suspected of stealing from others, he was warned during this banter at the rally. Oft-times this was communicated in very crude language, with men using words that would not otherwise be spoken publicly. In some ways, this was an occasion for the community to vent out and for people to unburden their hearts. We the young ones found it very funny – seeing the elders so inebriated and shouting at each other but without getting angry or fighting. In fact, this banter session was the part that most of us looked forward to. It was a comedy session in the village.
Looking back at the nhimbe with the eyes of a lawyer, it seems to me that traditional African society had devised its own platforms of free speech. It is wrong to suggest that fundamental rights and freedoms are alien to and an imposition upon traditional African society. Society knew that people needed to speak out even to authority and the nhimbe provided a good platform for it.
Later, as the men finished threshing, the boys and girls collected the grains and took them to the women. The job of the women was to do the winnowing – the process to separate the grain from the loosened chaff. Winnowing itself, like growing and weeding the zviyo field was an art that required experienced hands. Afterwards, the grain was taken to the granary, the walls of which were plastered with the same cow-dung paste. There, in cool conditions, it was stored for future use.
In between, large pots of sadza and meat would be cooking on an open fire. Lunch would have been served, with everyone getting their fair share. With drink, food and people around, it made the work lighter. It was one great village party. It would move on to the next village, where another farmer would be the host and so on. These parties went on for weeks until the harvest season was over. It was on those social occasions that boys and girls got to meet and know each other. Relationships formed and people got married, the village regenerating itself.
Sadly, with the passage of the older generations and the migration of young generation to the cities, life is no longer what it was in those days. The villages have fewer people now. The soils are poorer and are producing less and less. The fabric of rural life has been fundamentally transformed.
Still, however, I look back at those days with fond memories. Things were not easy but I admire how communities worked and stuck together. It was a simple life, probably, but it was also a beautiful life oiled by the spirit of kinsmanship, in which neighbour stood with neighbour. Sometimes, as Paolo Coehlo wrote in that most beautiful story, The Alchemist, the ordinary things are the most extraordinary.
The nhimbe is one of the symbols of that time. Hard work was made lighter through working together. Perhaps the spirit of that event is best captured by the words of one of Africa’s greatest writers, Chinua Achebe. One of his characters, an elder in Things Fall Apart says to his fellow villagers,
“A man who calls his kinsmen to a feast does not do so to save them from starving. They all have food in their own homes. When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so.”
Whenever I think of these words, I am reminded of the community spirit we had in those old days.
waMagaisa
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