We Are All Zimbabweans Now by Kilgore James;

Author:Kilgore, James;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Published: 2013-01-07T00:00:00+00:00

Florence tells me I have to go to Matabeleland. ‘It’s all Zapu there,’ she says, ‘a different language, a different way of life.’ She has a point. My first forays into the unknown of Chitungwiza and Mt Darwin awakened me to Zimbabwe’s diversity. There is still much more to learn.

Florence contacts Nomonde Dube, her closest comrade during the war and one of the few Ndebele-speaking women in Zanla, the Zanu army. After independence, Nomonde returned to her rural home of Vukani, in Matabeleland South. She teaches science at the local high school.

‘She’s Zanu,’ says Florence, ‘but she knows all the Zapu comrades in the area. Without her you wouldn’t be talking to me today.’

‘Why is that?’

‘She’s the one who carried me to safety after I stepped on the landmine. She saved my life. She looked after Elias when I was in the uk.’

In two weeks’ time I board a second-class train to Bulawayo, the country’s second largest city. I’m lucky. I get a berth all to myself. The plastic-covered bench folds down into a bed and I rest in colonial comfort surrounded by 1940s solid steel fittings. The letters rr, for Rhodesian Railways, remain engraved in the frosted windows.

A little after sundown, a porter brings freshly laundered sheets, a pillow, and two wool blankets, all of which I rent for two dollars. I carefully tuck the sheets around the thick padding on the bench and pull the blinds over the windows. The rocking of the rails becomes my lullaby.

I wake up after sunrise and explore the train. I pass through two second-class cars until a grille gate blocks my way. The sign says ‘Forth Class’. Behind the wire, dozens of black people sit on wooden benches. Plastic bags and brown canvas carry-alls cover the floor. Little children play quiet games. Some sleep lying against the carry-alls. They don’t rent sheets and blankets in Forth Class.

From the Bulawayo train station I catch an et to the long-distance bus terminus in the location. According to the conductor, the trip to Vukani takes two hours. He’s forgotten to tell me about the roadblocks.

I’ve grown accustomed to the cursory searching by police in Harare. Unless you’re an arms smuggler or et driver, a quick wave of any piece of paper vaguely resembling identification will get you through. These roadblocks are different. Between Bulawayo and Vukani we encounter four.

Each time we all come off the bus and follow a strict routine. At the first stop a portly soldier stands us all at attention with our luggage at our feet. He passes down the line, forcing the passengers to open their bags and pull out every item. I don’t need to understand Ndebele to sense the tension. A young man next to me launches into a tirade at the soldier when he’s told to hold up a pair of underpants for inspection. More troops arrive to drag the boy away; he doesn’t rejoin us when the bus departs.

At the fourth roadblock the soldiers pull an old woman down the stairs of the bus; she apparently wasn’t exiting fast enough.

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