The Easy Sunday Read: Tears of the Soil

(Whenever I have a moment, I attend to my past-time of story-telling. I thought I would share with you an extract from one of my stories, which is called Tears of the Soil, set during and after the war. This Chapter 11)

Chapter 11

After this episode, the war went on for a few more years. It was brutal and savage. Life in the rural areas was transformed – there was perpetual fear in the communities. People were constantly on the run. There were government soldiers on one side and the guerrillas on the other side and they were caught in the middle. It was a total nightmare. “When two bulls fight, it is the grass bears the pain”, Mhuruyembwa often said in reference to their suffering in the villages. “It does not matter that the grass is innocent”.

Mujubheki closed the farm and packed his bags soon after the killing of Shaky, his shop-keeper, at the pungwe. When he heard the news, Mujubheki and his family were shocked. Shaky was a much-loved character in the Mujubheki household. He was funny and his antics was a source of much laughter. The horrific manner in which he had met his end, as described in detail by one of the farm-workers who attended the pungwe, made it worse. Shaky had died a painful death.

Mujubheki himself, a tough man who had lived all his life on the farm and knew no other life outside of it, wanted to stay but his wife had met up her mind. It was foolish to stay when death was so near their home. Mujubheki reluctantly gave in to her demands, realising she would not change her mind. Marie did not speak a lot but he knew that when she did and had her mind set on something, she would not budge. Besides, he felt sorry for her. She was totally terrified. He arranged for his cattle and other assets to be transferred to a friend’s farm near Salisbury.

They hurriedly packed what they could fit into their truck and went to Salisbury. Most of his property was abandoned at the farm. The workers looked on in despair. They waved them goodbye. He left instructions and said he would come back but they were doubtful. This was the end, they thought. The war was raging everywhere and now it had arrived at Mujubheki’s. Most of them had arrived years before from Nyasaland. But even when Malawi got freedom, they stayed in their new home. This was home. They were utterly dependent on their boss, Mujubheki. Now they had to chart a new course without him, in the middle of a war.

Meanwhile, Mujubheki stopped at the main gate and took one last look at the farmhouse and the fields. It was painful to leave. The children cried. Their little paradise had turned into hell.

When news quickly filtered to the villages that Mujubheki had departed and left a lot of things, many people rushed to grab whatever they could get. It was one big scramble and everything from cupboards and beds to spoons and forks was taken. They took everything, even things they had no idea what they were for. They would find some use in the village, they told themselves.

And after the adults had finished, an army of children from the villages descended upon Mujubheki’s farmhouse and picked up the remains. This phase was more chaotic. Fistfights broke out over the exotic toys left by Mujubheki’s children. Two young girls were brawling over a blond-haired doll. It had blue eyes and wore a little checked dress and stockings. The doll looked very pretty. It even had underwear, a fact they would laugh about later because none of them was wearing an underwear.

A girl called Shorai won the fight and the prize of the doll which she held like a baby. She stroked her baby’s long blond hair which looked just like the hair of Mujubheki’s children. The other kids were asking for permission to touch the doll’s hair. It was soft. Shorai got a cloth and carried the doll on her back like she was a real baby. She sang lullabies for her baby and was very protective. She called her Mary, a name she had learnt at Sunday school.

But one day, Tashinga, a boy in the village challenged her.

“How can you say it’s your baby when you don’t even have hair like hers?” asked Tashinga, mockingly. At the time Shorai who was cradling her baby and singing for her.

“Do you think you can have a baby like that?” he added.

The others joined in and started laughing at Shorai.

“You are just jealous because my baby is beautiful,” Shorai shot back at the gang of tormentors.

“She’s a murungu baby and if the comrades see you with her they will say you want to be a murungu! They will say you are a sell-out! I am not going to play with you anymore!” said Maidei, one of her friends. Maidei thought her friend was now spending more time with her murungu baby than with her and she thought this was a good time to get rid of it for good.

“Remember what they did to Shaky!” warned Norest, one of the boys who was laughing at Shorai and her baby.

At first Shorai was upset, then she panicked. Her baby might get her into trouble with the comrades. She grabbed the doll and threw it into a fire. It landed on a red-hot burning log. Then they watched as it burned. The stomach popped first. Then it broke into two pieces. They saw the blue eyes dissolving in the heat. The hair burned, too. The burning produced an odour which they often smelt when they burned plastic.

Then Tashinga and his friends started singing a chorus.

She burned her murungu baby!

Shorai is a baby killer!

She will never have a baby!

Shorai saw that they were mocking her again. She regretted having thrown away her baby into the fire. She started sobbing. But they sang even louder, dancing around her in a circle – calling her a baby killer, singing that she had killed her murungu baby and that the ghost was so powerful that she would never sleep at night. Shorai was more upset and angry. She got up and ran home to her mother.

One day, people were woken up early in the morning by the loud noise of heavy engines. They got out of their huts and saw helicopters hovering over Gandamasungo Mountain to the east. The helicopters were dropping objects which made a loud bang and produced a ball of fire when they landed on the ground. There was smoke everywhere and it looked like the whole mountain was on fire. It was a fierce battle that lasted for more than three hours.

The village was almost deserted as most people ran away. Only the old people who could not run stayed. What is the difference, they asked. If we stay they will kill us here. But if we run we will break our bones and die. It is better to die here at home than to die out there like wild animals, they said. And so they stayed when everybody else left.

Eventually, the fighting died down. The people who had been hiding in the forests returned. The elderly men and women welcomed them back and told them stories of what they had seen. It became known as the Battle of Matafi. It would later be told and re-told again and again, I varying versions, to future generations.

Sad news soon filtered that Rambo, one of the comrades had died in battle. Rambo was one of the nice guys. He was always polite and respectful. If he saw some of his comrades doing bad things, he would admonish them. They called him The Reverend because he carried a little pocket Bible and liked to pray a lot. Rambo had been caught by one of the bombs and he lost his legs. He had severe wounds on his head. “Keep fighting, comrades. I am now going to see God and I will be fighting with you from there.” Apparently, those were his last words, according to Socrates, who was the medic of the group. Rambo was mourned in the villages like they had lost one of their own sons.

Socrates was studying for his medical degree when he left university to join the war. He was the youngest of the group and he spoke Shona with a funny accent. He had grown up in Bulawayo. People liked to be around him when he spoke because they thought he sounded very funny. The presence of fighters like Socrates who was from Matabeleland and Bismarck, a mixed race cadre who many referred to as a murungu because of his fair complexion gave people the assurance that this was neither racial nor a tribal conflict. People of all races and tribes were fighting together to dismantle an unjust system.

The next day the government soldiers drove through the villages with a dead body at the back of the truck. It was riddled with bullet wounds. All the people in the villages were ordered to come and view the body.

“This is what we do to terrorists,” said the commander of the soldiers. “And if you collaborate with the dirty animals, this is what we will do to you, too!” he bellowed.

Large flies were buzzing all over the body. One of the black soldiers stood nearby with a small branch of a tree which he was using occasionally to scare off the flies from the bloated body. It was difficult to tell who it was. But it was certainly not one of the guerrillas operating in the area.

People learnt to cope in the dire and uncertain circumstances of war. They learnt when to talk and when to keep quiet. They learnt what to divulge and what to keep in their hearts. Even the elderly men and women had learnt the tricks of war. One day, Ambuya Jojina, an elderly woman in the village met government troops on the road while she was returning from the bush where she was gathering some firewood. They asked her if she had seen any terrorists in the area. She looked at them for a moment as if she was trying to remember. Just as they were about to drive off, she suddenly remembered that she had seen them. She even thanked the soldiers for coming to save them from those wild animals. They were animals, she said. Then she said she had just seen the terrorists about half an hour before while she was gathering firewood. When the leader of the government troops asked for the direction that they had taken, she pointed to a hill towards the west. It was called Chidyamvana Hill. “They have gone in that direction”, she said whispering conspiratorially in a manner that convinced her listeners that she was telling the truth.

“That is where they usually hide for the night” she added. “They are causing us a lot of trouble those boys. They are wild animals. They have finished all our chickens because they say that is the only relish they eat. They don’t like vegetables. Someone needs to stop them”.

Convinced that they had got them, the soldiers turned and headed for Chidyamvana Hill hoping to surprise and finish the terrorists. The old woman proceeded in the direction of her home. Once she was out of sight, the old woman walked swiftly towards the east to Chematehwe Hill where she knew the guerrillas usually rested. She was met by Rwisai and other mujibhas who were playing football at a field nearby. Playing a game of football was their way of keeping guard while the fighters rested. If they saw anything suspicious, they would send a signal to the guerrillas. On this occasion they saw that the old woman had some urgent news. She had no other reason to be walking at that pace. She delivered the news that government soldiers were after the guerrillas and that she had sent them towards Chidyamvana Hill on the other side.

Upon hearing this information, the guerrillas ran towards the direction where the soldiers had gone. The guerrillas laid an ambush, awaiting the soldiers’ return.

After the government troops had searched Chidyamvana Hill and found nothing, they returned. And when they did they fell straight into the trap laid by the guerrillas. The unsuspecting government troops were caught without guard. Many were shot and killed in that battle.

The war had many casualties from both sides of the divide. A shop-owner at Zairimwe, one of the local townships was killed when she refused a request to supply the comrades with cans of beef and baked beans. She had a phone line at her shop which most people used after the closure of Mujubheki’s farm and she was suspected to be the one who called the government authorities regarding the activities of the guerillas in the area. One day Rwisai and three other mujibhas were captured by the government soldiers as they were on their way to collect supplies for the guerillas. Fortunately, they were caught at a time before they had actually collected the supplies so they were able to explain that they were mere travellers on their way to a funeral. But they swore that they had seen Chegotsi, a boy from a neighbouring village, with the soldiers. The shop-owner and Chegotsi were locked up in a hut before it was set on fire. They screamed but their hands were tied and could not escape. The hut burned to ashes together with its human contents.

On another occasion, an old woman called Mbuya Rorina was fortunate to escape death. She lived alone in Matikiti village which was near the Save River. Her husband had died many years before and her children had abandoned her. At least that was the talk in the villages because none of them had ever returned since they left for the city. Occasionally, a young girl would visit her during school holidays. They said she was the daughter of her brother who lived in Hurungwe. She would help to clean up her homestead which consisted of a single hut but she never came out to play with the other girls.

Mbuya Rorina herself was reserved and rarely spoke to anyone and when she did her words were limited. Mostly it was greetings and few remarks about the weather. There was mystery around her and everyone began to believe that there it was sinister. The rumour was that she was a witch. They said she had killed her husband and that her dark art was the reason that her children had abandoned her. The young girl who came occasionally, they said, was her apprentice whom she was training and would eventually inherit the spirit of witchcraft from her. The spirit moved from one family member to another, from one generation to another and the girl had been selected as the host of the spirit when Mbuya Rorina eventually went to meet her ancestors. Many people were frightened of her and would not dare cross her path for fear of being bewitched.

Once, the village herdboys had killed a big Black Mamba near her homestead. Mbuya Rorina had chastised them for killing the snake. Did they have to kill it, she had allegedly asked, very upset. It was just a wild animal and it had done nothing wrong, she was said to have protested. That only served to cement her reputation as a sorcerer. They said the snake was her baby and that when the snake was killed she was merely crying for her baby.

When the guerrillas came, they denounced witchcraft and witches. Thy received a report that Mbuya Rorina was a witch. One night, she was hauled before a pungwe and interrogated. If it was not for Comrade Castro who intervened on her behalf and said he had read somewhere that people like her were not necessarily witches but that she might just have a psychological condition, she would have been killed right there in front of the crowd. Cde Mabhunumuchapera, who was known for his ruthlessness, was ready to douse her with kerosene and set her alight. Instead, her punishment was that she should pack her bags that very night and leave the area. Mbuya Rorina left and was never seen again.

On another occasion, an old man called Chamukwenjera and his son Zvamatohwe nearly got into serious trouble and could have died had his son not found a quick way out. Zvamatohwe had arrived home one afternoon to visit his parents from Salisbury, where he worked. Word got to the guerrillas that a man who worked in the city was in the area. It was said that he worked for the government, which immediately made him a suspect and brought him into the class of sell-outs. There was a pungwe that night and as usual everyone was supposed to attend.

Zvamatohwe joined the other men when they went to the pungwe. He was not used to these events and he wanted to enjoy the experience. He would have many tales for his friends in the city. Little did he realise that it would be a nightmare and he would be the subject of the story.

He was enjoying the music and the dancing when his name and his father’s name were called out by Bismarck. There were gasps of shock among the crowd. They had seen all this before and they knew it would not end well. Zvamatohwe almost wet himself when he was asked to come to the front. He remembered that they had been singing a song about sell-outs. Now, he feared the worst. As soon as they stood in front of the crowd, the interrogation started.

The old man Chamukwenjera, was asked why he had never declared that he had a son who worked for the government. Old Zvamatohwe said he did not know that his son worked for the government. He just knew that he worked in city.

He was told to stop lying otherwise he would receive a severe beating. Old Chamukwenjera insisted that he had no idea where his son worked. He was looking very pitiful with his head tilted, his hands together as if he was clapping them. This period of interrogation of his father gave the terrified Zvamatohwe some time to think of a way out. When they turned on to him he had a ready response which pleased them and turned him from perceived villain to hero.

“Right tell us – we heard that you work for the white man’s government. Is that correct?”

“Yes, that is correct, mukoma” he responded firmly and with a voice of confidence. He had told himself not to look or sound terrified although his heart was pounding with fear. Indeed, even a slight touch by any of the guerrillas would have caused him to wet himself.

“So you have been sent here by the white man to spy on us? How much have they promised you? You are a Judas, aren’t you?” The anger in the voice of the interrogator was evident. He was not sure which of the quick-fire questions to answer first. But he remained composed.

“No, mukoma. I have come to visit my father. On the contrary, I am also playing my part in this liberation effort. I can explain if you want me to”

“How? Explain how? Come and listen to this man, Comrades ha ha ha!” his interrogator said laughing mockingly at Zvamatohwe and what he had just said.

“This brother works for the white government, the same regime that is oppressing and fighting us and yet he says he is also fighting in the war! What did you say to do for the white man?!”

The others’ laughed too and shouted that Zvamatohwe was mad. They advised him to warn Zvamatohwe that he must not think that the guerrillas were small kids who could be lied to.

“I am a prison guard” said Zvamatohwe.

Bismarck laughed louder and scowled. Then his face got angrier.

“Ha ha ha! He says he is a freedom fighter and yet he is a prison guard! He is helping the white man to detain us and yet he thinks in his mind that he is a freedom fighter! Ha ha ha! Come and listen to this fool! Tonight I will make sure you sing and whistle with your anus!”

Zvamatohwe went down on his knees and pleaded, “I can explain, mukoma. But not here. I cannot do it in front of all these people. But if you give me a chance, I can explain to you and the other comrades”

“Ok ok, but if you waste our time then you won’t see any of these relatives of yours”

They took him and went to the side where some of the guerrillas joined them. Those who remained were now whispering to each other. Everybody feared the worst.

When he started speaking to the small group of guerrillas, he calmly explained that in fact he and his fellow prison guards had remained in their job in order to help the liberation effort. They had actually wanted to quit when the war started but they had been encouraged to stay in their jobs by the leaders of the liberation war who had been detained without trial by the regime.

These leaders, said Zvamatohwe, had said that the prison guards were the crucial link between them and the outside world. They would regularly take letters from them out of the prison to send to the leaders who were outside and their families. They would also bring back letters from there to the leaders inside. Without them, the leaders would have been cut out and isolated from the rest of the world. So the leaders had asked them to remain in their jobs. Sometimes they also brought them extra rations of food and things that they needed whilst in prison. They were messengers fighting the war wearing the uniforms of the prison guards, he explained. He was an insider and every war needed insiders on the other side.

This saved his life. What Zvamatohwe had said was true. But he was also lying. He was not one of those who performed this function. It was a story that he had heard before he joined the prison service. Now it was convenient. It saved his life and that of his father’s. The guerrillas were proud of him. They respected him and he walked away feeling like a hero. When they returned to the crowd, they explained that this man was actually a hero. Fellow villagers began to look at him and his father in a different light.

The war was nasty and brutal. No one was safe. Anyone could report that you were a spy, a sell-out of the struggle. And as always it was much harder to prove that you were not. “If people say that I am a woman when I am not, must I run around naked to prove that I am a man?” one old man called Dzvinyu once protested when he was being interrogated by the guerrillas. He had been accused of selling out information to the police. It turned out that his accuser, a sly fellow called Nyika had been involved in an altercation with Dzvinyu and he had reported him to exact revenge. When they found out, Nyika himself was beaten to a pulp by the guerrillas. He was also expelled from the village and never came back. As the war intensified, everyone was always looking over their shoulder. It was impossible to trust anyone.