Zimbabwe In The House of Stone

By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima


To prove that it is fire / Our elders used to advise / Advise us not to turn our backs
Turn our backs to a bed of fire / A bed of fire which is hot / Which is hot because of embers?


My father once told me, my son, “we may be poor, but we are not powerless. And we may be in distress, but we are not hopeless.” His words echoed in my head. He always believed that things would be better, even when the doctor said he would not survive.

I saw many long faces on the street.

Contorted and distorted faces of hungry neighbours tired of queuing for loaves of bread. They reminded me of the famished Israelites waiting for manna in the wilderness. And they rebelled against Moses when they were languishing in the desert on their way to the Promised Land. But my mother reminded me that Jesus said, “man shall not live by bread alone”.

An old man twisted his wrinkled face in an ugly grimace. He was really showing his misery on his cheerless face.

As I was walking on the street, I was humming Tuku’s Moto Moto in ChiShona.

Moto moto
Kana vunze chairo moto
Sei kumirira kuti ritange rave rimi
Kuti uti moto
Usamirire kuti ritange rave rimi
Kuti uti moto
Bva zvawausika ndiwe
Kuzvisikira mbune
Kuti zvinzi moto
Bva zvawakwenya jisa
Kuzvikwenyera mbune
Kuti zvinzi moto
Inga vakuru vakare vaiyambira
Kuyambira musapira gotsi
Kupira gotsi rufuse
Rufuse rune kakudziya
Kudziya kwakabva pavunze
Vunze rinenge rasha
Hezvo ndisu tinenge tausika
Kuusika tibike bike
Kubika kana kudziya
Kuudziya nevaranda
Navaranda tovarairwa
Pedzezvo topisa usavi.
* * * * *

Fire is fire
Even embers are fire
Why wait until it's a huge flame
To accept that it's fire
Don't wait until it's a huge flame
To accept that it's fire
You have made the fire
Making it on your own
To prove that it is fire
You lit the matches
Lighting it on your own
To prove that it is fire
Our elders used to advise
Advise us not to turn our backs
Turn our backs to a bed of fire
A bed of fire which is hot
Which is hot because of embers?
Embers, which are burning
We make the fire
For cooking or for warmth
Then we sit around the fire with servants
And we get carried away

* * * * *


I saw the long train of human traffic on the road and the long queue of vehicles at the BP Budiriro filling station. I saw human scavengers rummaging the refuse dumps with the stray dogs. What a spectacle of the wretched of the earth. They were the homeless victims of "Operation Murambatsvina". They were refugees in their own country. I thought refugees were those displaced and dispossessed of their homes and possessions during wars. But Zimba Remabwe was not at war.

I met three old men at the T-Junction. They were white priests. They turned to me and were complaining about a problem.
"We wanted to serve free rations of food to the starving millions of Zimbabweans across the country, but Pa Mugabe turned us away," one of them said.

“Go to the millions of starving Americans in Logan who throng the food pantries and soup kitchens run by Smith Chapel United Methodist Church. Over 34 million Americans live on the free rations of your soup kitchens,” he told us.
“Pa Mugabe was proud to show us his seven academic degrees, and in addition, he said he has a "degree in violence”. And he has been using his "degree in violence" brutally," said another.

“His messenger of death, Perence Shiri the 'Black Jesus' led the massacre in Matebeleland in the 1980s. Pa Mugabe has left many of his rivals and those opposed to his reign of terror in tears and blood," the third one said.

I did not say a word. I sighed and left them.

I was following an elder in black and white cassock and black shoes. He led me to a hut surrounded by anthills. And there, I met Pa Joshua Nkomo sitting on a log of wood and holding a long walking stick.

“Is this the same Great Zimba Remabwe of your dream?” I asked Pa Joshua Nkomo, the old man from Kalanga. He regarded me silently and turned to my guide, Bishop Abel Muzorewa. Both of them shook their heads.

“Since I left on July 1, 1999, I have been weeping by the Zambezi and Limpopo. I do not want anyone to see my tears. Zambezi and Limpopo know my tears and the earth knows the taste of my bitter tears. Even Lobengula Kumalo cannot console me.”

“Pa Mugabe is sick and Senile dementia is still curable,” I said.

“Come my son”, he said and led me to the peak of the Nyangani.We stood with our heads in the clouds.

“Mugabe said Shona would no longer kiss the feet of Ndebele. But does that mean Ndebele should eat the excreta of Shona? Fie! God forbid”, the old man spat.

“See there, where the sun kisses the Tanganyika; the spirit of New Zimbabwe is rising from the ripples. It was Lobengula Kumalo who showed me the future and told me to rest in peace.”

I was still looking at the place where the sun was kissing the Tanganyika and did not know that the old man was no longer with me. When I turned around, I woke up inside the Zimba Remabwe.

“Here,” Nkosi said handing me a flyer.

“What is it?” I asked before looking at it.

“The Slum of all Fears, starring Ben Affleck and Pa Mugabe,” she said.

I looked at the flyer and sighed. It was another Western joke on our President. Uncle Bob would not be defeated by negative Western propaganda. Because, as he once retorted, ha’ndina basa nazvo! He did not care. And I was bored of the daily critical commentaries I was proofreading for the Zimbabwean Times. Africans must not dance to the tune of the Western media to hate our own leaders. Uncle Bob had done some horrible and terrible things, because he was listening to bad advisers. No ruler rules alone.

Most of my fellow bloggers have also joined the Muagabe haters in the mainstream media, including those who never set foot on Zimbabwe. One annoying statement online often echoed in my head. The British blogger said:, The difference between Zimbabwe today and the Rhodesia of yesterday is the difference between hell and heaven. And if I have to be honest to God, Pa Robert Mugabe looks like the devil when compared to Ian Smith.

What an irrational hyperbolic comparison. Rhodesia was hell. We were slaves in our own homeland until we overthrew the taskmasters and slave drivers of the racist Ian Smith.

My beloved Nkosi was also pessimistic and had come to comfort me and persuade me to follow her to Johannesburg.

“I had a dream. It was so real. I saw Joshua Nkomo.”

“You saw Joshua Nkomo?” Nkosi asked.

I nodded.

Part Two

“Tune me the gwan,” Nkosi said.

She sat down on the bench beside my mattress and listened as I recalled everything I saw in the dream.
She sighed at the end of it.

“Will you still go to Bulawayo?” Nkosi asked.

I looked at the bare floor and then looked at the things in our single room.

The pile of car batteries from which we have been getting our electricity, the broken shelf of my books, the wall clock, the table against the wall with the table lamp and transistor radio on it. Then I looked at Nkosi. She looked cheerless.

“Sha, I have got jack kites ek se, “ I said, and held her hands to comfort her.

Thomas Nyilika, the Zanu-PF councilor gave me Z$800,000 to join the Green Bombers. And the cash would be very useful if I agreed to follow Nkosi and head south across the Limpopo River into South Africa. But fleeing to Johannesburg would make me a coward. I did not want to leave my family in the lurch.

Nkosi always followed me anywhere I went, because she felt she would be safer with me than being left alone in my bed-sitter or with my neighbours. So, she was with me when I went to Tengenenge to visit my old uncle Pa Ludidi Ntzombone as he was whittling a purple coloured cobalt stone with a chisel and a hammer in his shed. He was squatting and his regular shake shake was in a small brown plastic keg by his side and his drinking mug was placed on a small stool beside him. My old uncle loved his Chibuku and would not sculpt without gulps of it.

“Maskati, Maswerasei?” We greeted him.

“Taswera, Maswerao,” he replied.

“Taswera,” We nodded.

He paused to pay attention to us. I looked at the stone he was working on.

“The heart of stone,” he said and rubbed it with his palms.

Nkosi stooped to look at it closely on the ground. It was about a foot high.

“I am trying to shape it into the hard face of your Uncle Bob,” he said and looked at me, to see how I would react to his uncomplimentary remark on President Robert Mugabe. But I only nodded.

“This sculpture will soon leave Tengenenge for Chapungu,” he said.

“But, I know that you won’t carve the name of Mugabe on it,” I said and smirked.

“Wait and see,” he grunted.

He knew I was not in the league of those who would even be glad to see Mugabe kick the bucket. God forbid. We sat down on a wooden bench on which he placed the sheet of paper for his drawings of the objects of his sculpture. Many young and old men and even some women were making money from Shona sculpture. Chapungu was the tourist center for stone sculpture and the foreign collectors have taken some of our accomplished Shona sculptures to America, Britain, France, and other Western countries for art exhibitions. I have seen an engineer who left his construction site for Tengenenge and an attorney who removed his wig and gown and became a stone carver, because, as Pa Ntozombone said, “Shona sculpture pays more than monthly salaries.”

He gulped some Chibuku in the mug and belched.“If not for these precious stones of our ancestors, I would be joining the long queues for bread,” he told me as he showed me one Butter Jade of six and seven hardness on Moh’s scale.

“The white woman in Chapungu said, this butter stone is 50 million years old,” Pa Ntozombone said. I looked at the rock and did not want to dispute what he said. It would be impolite to argue with him over the age of a sedimentary rock. He was already four-five years old before my mother gave birth to me.

Only God knows the age of the earth, no matter what the white people claim. I told him that Thomas Nyilika was harassing me and if I continue to rebuff him, he would accuse me of being anti-Mugabe.

“Domboramwari, you have to come to Mandluntsha, where we can discuss more,” he said.I nodded and left with Nkosi.

Pa Ludidi Ntzombone said leaving was the best way to escape from Thomas Nyilika if I did not want to join the Green Bombers. “You saw the bloodied face of Morgan Tsvangirai after they nearly killed him in detention?” I nodded.

“Mugabe said Morgan Tsvangirai is a Marxist,” I said.I did not join the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), because I did not want to end up like Morgan Tsvangirai and his stubborn comrades. We should not play politics with innocent lives. Countless children have died from the terrible things happening in Zimbabwe and the ruthless politicians would be judged for shedding innocent blood.

Pa Ntzombone regarded me and shook his head sorrowfully.”I should remind Mugabe that when he named his late baby boy, Nhanodzenyika, which means "our country has problems", things were even better then than now. The white devil Ian Smith jailed me for 11 years during our guerrilla days. But how did Mugabe reward me after our victory? That black devil jailed me for four years. And when Ian Smith was in power, we had surplus maize and there was enough tobacco for my snuff. But today, the white farmers have been robbed of their farmlands and we are starving, because my kinsfolk cannot grow enough maize and tobacco. Mugabe, anopenga,” he said plaintively.
More wrinkles appeared as he contorted his 88 years old face.

Nkosi was with me that night as I sat with the old warrior in front of his dilapidated house in Mandluntsha.
“But Johannesburg is not paradise,” I said.
Nkosi eyed me in disapproval of my statement.
“But I am yet to get my passport, “ I said. Pa Ntzombone winced and smirked. “So, you need a passport to enter Azania? What a lame excuse. You are lucky you even have the fortune of a God sent daughter, Nkosi, who is offering you her home in Johannesburg,” he said.

Nkosi nodded and I swallowed a lump of saliva. “Only the enemies of Mugabe are suffering,” I said.
“Domboramwari, you disappoint me!” Pa Ntzombone said curtly, raising his husky voice for the first time.
“Even Thomas Nyilika told me that over 300,000 people have been waiting for their passports, because there was no ink or paper to print new copies. No, harvest of maize this year and no export of tobacco. Our best doctors and tutors have left since 1999. And thousands are leaving daily for South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Angola and just anywhere to escape from suffering and dying in misery and penury in Zimbabwe. When Ian Smith was ruling, there were enough rations for all, whether Mashona or Matabele. Thousands are dying daily in our hospitals from lack of common drip and the mortuaries are filled up with corpses abandoned in the corridors,” Pa Ntzombone lamented and shook his bald head.

He rose from his wooden chair and that meant he had given me enough time.

The foreign press reported that Life expectancy in Zimbabwe was 34 years for women and 37 years for men. I could not deny the horrible and terrible things in my country.

“Robert Mugabe cruises through Harare in his bulletproof limousine, Mugabemobile, a seven-tonne Mercedes-Benz S600L. It was custom-built in Germany at a cost of 550,000 US dollars. I heard the armour can withstand AK-47 bullets, rocket-grenades and landmines, and with his juju, he feels 100% secure,“ Nkosi said.

The old warrior was just shaking his head.
“Goodnight Sir,” I said. Nkosi also said goodnight.
“God bless you my daughter,” Pa Ntzombone said and patted her right shoulder.
“Goodnight, Domboramwari. I know you are not Dwass, so you are wise enough not to make a terrible mistake. Fambai zvakanaka,” he said and I nodded.

It was a humid night. And it was a long trek back to my place, because there was no public transport in sight. “Nkosi, Ek se, I have to see my mother before I make up my mind,” I said as we walked hand-in-hand along a sidewalk.

“All right Domboramwari, everything will be fine,” she said.I was restless in bed as I thought of the dangers of running away with Thomas Nyilika's money.

The following day, as Nkosi was serving our usual breakfast of sadza with some smoked fish, one of Thomas Nyilika’s errand boys was knocking at our door. He said the councilor was waiting for me in town.

“I would be there after my breakfast,” I said.
“Let me wait for you, so that you will come with me,” he said.
“No. Just go and tell him what I said,” I insisted. He left reluctantly and Nkosi hissed in contempt. My mind was made up to leave for Johannesburg after seeing my mother. But who would provide for her in my absence? When we got to my mother’s home, she was not in. But my only brother Tafadzwa was there.

“Where is Amai vedu?” I asked.

“Come and see,” he said rising from a wooden seat and looking in the direction of the nearby cemetery. Tafadzwa was only seven and would be glad to add some flesh here and there, because he was thin. He led us into the cemetery and we saw my mother and another woman digging. What were they digging?

“Amai,” Tafadzwa called her. She looked up and stopped digging.As we got closer, I saw that they were digging a grave.

“Amai,” I hugged her.
“Domboramwari,” she held me wholeheartedly.
“What is wrong Amai?” I asked.


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