You can take an African out of the village but you cannot take the village out of an African.
– an African saying
I was born into the Manyika tribe in Mutare, Manicaland Province, Zimbabwe, to a preacher man and a nurse. Manicaland was referred to as New England by the early settlers and missionaries who flocked there, establishing mission stations and schools. Two distinct characteristics of the Manyika tribe are their excessive consultations during roundtable decision-making processes and their belief that they possess extraordinary powers to send a bolt of lightning to their enemies.
My father – Rev. Canon Walter Tendayi Chitambo – was undergoing a three-year theological training program in South Africa at the time of my birth. In consultation with my grandmother I was named Margaret. I also have a Shona traditional name, Rudo, which means 'love.' In the colonial days, African parents gave English names to their offspring but this changed after the attainment of black majority rule in 1980, when Shona and Ndebele tribal names became expressions of pride and identity. Still, not every child is proud of his or her tribal name, especially those who grow up in the West.
Before my father joined the ministry, he was a successful high school principal and my mother – Grace Rudo Chitambo, nee Mahechani – a qualified nurse. They lived a comfortable life in rural Mutare. My father told me his family was at first opposed to him working for the church. He grew up in a polygamous family; his mother was the last of my grandfather's four wives and it was that childhood experience which influenced him tremendously to lead a Christian life. Upon successful completion of his training, my father returned home and was assigned a congregation in one of the poor black townships. Zimbabwean cities were segregated according to race, and Africans lived in townships at the edge of the city. If there was an uprising, so the colonial logic went, it would be easy to quell. In such an arrangement, Africans faced numerous restrictions and could not freely move between places without presenting a pass – a government-issued identity card containing the name and locality of one's village, and the name of one's biological father and chief or headman.
Despite living in the city, we had our share of village life by taking part in all the activities expected of an African child on a visit to the village. We worked the land, herded cattle and goats, listened to stories by the fire while roasting corn and peanuts, and bathed with other village kids in the river. We enjoyed a trip to the country store and practiced our English with the white storekeepers. In school, we received all instruction in English, the official language. These and other activities shaped our future attitudes and impressions about life without boundaries.
I recall the first time my grandmother visited us in the city. She had never come across, let alone used, a flushing washroom. She spoke no English so when on a trip to the village my father shouted at our family dog to get out, she thought its name was Out and proceeded to ask my cousin to give Out some food. We laughed so hard and told our friends about the incident for a long time after.
My family later left Mutare and moved to Chinhoyi the capital of Mashonaland West Province. In Chinhoyi, my father was assigned a seven-point charge ministering to a vibrant multi-racial and multi-cultural mining and agricultural community scattered on commercial farms and in small mining towns. We lived first in an old rural house before moving to Chinhoyi town. My parents lived under constant fear of us accidentally falling into the latrine pit that served as the communal washroom, or worse, into the village well. Such tragedies were common because of a lack of the basic needs for a safe and healthy life in the rural areas. We traveled 10 kilometres every day to town in the company of fellow students to attend a native or black African school. White children attended private schools. One such morning, we witnessed a tragic vehicle accident on the busy main highway involving a member of our group, a young girl. The images of that particular occurrence are still vivid in my mind.
Although at the time government policy reinforced complete racial segregation, whites and blacks lived side by side peacefully. Society was structured along the master and servant model. The division of labour was clear; whites ran the economy, lived in posh houses and owned the best fertile land – 70 per cent before independence in 1980 although they comprised only four per cent of the population. They used sophisticated machinery operated by poorly paid black immigrant farm workers.
White farmers grew mostly tobacco for export. Migrant workers were from neighbouring Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique. The lives of farm workers revolved around the farm compound and most of their children became farm labourers as well, with limited exposure to the world around them. Equal education and career opportunities were limited for blacks and the pay structures in every profession tipped in favour of whites. There were hospitals for whites, park benches for whites, and it was a criminal offence for an African to be caught sitting on a "whites-only" bench. However, the white farmers at the time contributed immensely to farm infrastructure by building schools, clinics and very basic crowded housing for their workers. My siblings and I spent time amongst our friends from church who lived on a farm.
On Fridays, the Chinhoyi town centre was littered with white farmers in khaki shorts, shirts and farmer shoes delivering produce and stocking up on supplies in the company of their faithful black servants. Farm workers were compelled to purchase their groceries and other goods from the farm store on credit. The markup on goods obtained at the farm was exorbitant and farmers attributed this discrepancy to the cost of transport. The system had complete control over farm workers, producing a dependency syndrome. It also meant that meager wages ended up back in the white farmer's pockets after deductions owed for the purchase of food on credit. This cycle of poverty and general illiteracy among farm workers prevented them from progressing socially and economically and would haunt them into the future.
After the infamous land reform program of 2000, when the government seized whie commercial farms, farm workers were displaced and lost the few benefits they had from living on the farms. Since most of them were of immigrant descent, the present government instituted parliamentary legislation that rendered them foreigners and denied them the right to vote. In general elections before 2000, farm workers had not been concerned with voting because of the influence of their employers. They contributed to the rejection of the Constitutional Referendum of 1999 and at that moment became enemies of the state.
In Chinhoyi, my family travelled every Sunday to all the small farming and mining towns bordering Zambia for church services. Farmers, farm workers and their respective families worshipped together. My dad held mass in English, Shona and Chichewa. Chichewa is spoken by immigrants from Malawi and Zambia. We learned to speak the local dialect and looked forward to the long trip every Sunday. After every such excursion, we always stopped by the Chinhoyi caves for a family picnic.
Every weekend we made the short trip to the main bus depot to receive meat, vegetables, milk and fruit sent by white farmers. One Easter Sunday, my Mom decided to cook duck for dinner. In order to save electricity, she lit a fire outside to boil the duck before roasting it. When she went to check on it later, it was gone. We ended up settling for fresh groundnuts, pumpkin, fresh corn and sweet potato for Easter dinner.
As children we became accustomed to being in the company of both black and white worshippers in the city and in the rural areas. My recollection of childhood is therefore one that was non-racial, Christian and with a strong sense of community. I recall attending church services with my family in the city too and watching my dad lead worship in a congregation made up of 90 per cent white worshippers. At the completion of my father's assignment in Mashonaland West, we were taken to the top of a hill one day by two white city councillors and shown a section of the town that would be named after my father. Chitambo section in Chinhoyi township still exists up to this day in memory of my father.
After Chinhoyi, we moved to Harare, the capital city, where my father would eventually settle until his retirement. Breakfast in my family started with the children lining up for a tablespoon of cod liver oil. We hated that stuff. We attended the regular elementary and junior high public schools but upon qualifying through national examinations, the church paid for our high school education while my parents took care of the rest of the expenses. On Saturday afternoon, my father often took us on a drive in his Hillman through white residential areas and we stopped at the homes of some of his many friends and parishioners.
My eldest sister and I attended an all-girls mission boarding school in rural Mutare staffed mainly by white nuns from Britain, Italy, Canada and France. Life in boarding school was tough and basic and we missed being at home. Despite this, boarding school also offered an opportunity for building character, relationships, and continuity of friendships. My English teacher and mentor, Dr. Coutts, was Canadian, and is buried in the mission school cemetery. I recall how we girls laughed at her strange accent but she was the one who inspired my high school dream to settle in Canada someday.
Servants of Malawian origin were preferred because they had a reputation for being hardworking and obedient. The language used among servants and their masters was called Chilapalapa, a mixture of Shona, English, Afrikaans and Chichewa. We had servants too but they lived with us in the main house. Servants usually lived in the quarters situated far away from the main house. They were not allowed visitors but got Sundays off to attend church and visit their families in the townships or rural areas. Grandmothers, aunts and uncles raised the servants' children who then had nothing in common with the lives lived by their parents in the white suburbs.
I visited Zimbabwe in July last year and have many personal stories of a country at the crossroads. Access to food, water, electricity and basics that we take for granted in Canada is a daily struggle. Other countries in Southern Africa have also begun to feel the effects of the continuing political crisis and economic decline in Zimbabwe.
By the end of 2008, 45 per cent of Zimbabwe's population will be at risk of starvation. Currently, at least two million people need urgent food assistance. The United Nations has reported that maize production in Zimbabwe for 2008 was estimated at 575,000 tons – an estimated deficit of around 1 million tons. Shops are now empty of Zimbabwe's staple food, maize meal. In August 2008, Zimbabwe's central bank Chief Gideon Gono urged a six-month price and salary freeze in a bid to rein in runaway inflation. This move has angered workers and trade unions but their complaints fall on deaf ears.
By June this year, inflation stood at 11.2 million per cent (as opposed to 7,634 per cent in July 2007) although independent economists put the figure at 40 million per cent and rising. Wages cannot keep up with inflation while food and other shortages force people to spend valuable time chasing after basics like bread, milk and cornmeal. We were raised on cornmeal porridge with peanut butter, but this too has become a scarce commodity. Every day, items are added to the long list of shortages.
The historic signing of a power-sharing deal between the two factional leaders of the opposition party, Morgan Tsvangirayi and Arthur Mutambara of the Movement for Democratic Change, and President Robert Mugabe of Zanu PF on September 15, 2008 is a breath of fresh air for the Southern African region, ordinary Zimbabweans and the international community. It was a vote of confidence for South Africa's outgoing President Thabo Mbeki, the African National Congress and a boost for African nationalism and the concept that African problems should be left to African solutions. As word of the deal spread, overjoyed residents danced, sang and ululated in the streets, while messages of praise and offers of help flooded in from overseas.
Zimbabwe's future still hangs in the balance and requires the commitment of all of us to make things work. Food security is a priority and so is healing and reconciliation to be led by the churches in Zimbabwe who have been in the forefront of providing food, shelter and spiritual inspiration to an embattled citizenry.
Zimbabwe offers the international community a golden opportunity to take collective action, genuinely engage key political players from both sides, and salvage what is left of the country. It is inundated by extraordinary multifaceted challenges that call for an extraordinary approach. Most important, Zimbabwe is still blessed with some government infrastructure, educated and sophisticated citizens, resources, and the recent memory of lively and engaging politics. Time will tell if the all-inclusive transitional government can survive. For now it is the best shot and only opportunity at restoring the nation and enabling it to take its place once again on the global scene.
