Home & Away - Stories of a Zimbabwean Exile

By Thamsanqa N. Ncube

Home & Away tells the human stories of the Zimbabwean exile, forced to be away from their motherland due to consecutive years of misrule and tyranny. It tells the story of the highly educated, qualified Zimbabwean, scrounging away at the nursing homes in England; of the women waiting for their men back in Zimbabwe, of the hundreds of fatherless children trafficked in and out of South Africa to visit long lost grandparents. It tells the stories of the ones who stayed at home; of those who constantly try to return; only to be confronted by the harsh realities of a once beautiful land, ravaged by corruption, misrule, human rights abuses and a collapsing economy. It lays bare the emotional, economic, and social destruction ravaging a country once referred to as the “bread basket” of the region, through the eyes of those that stayed at home, and those that went away!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pier View Publishing, Brighton, East Sussex, United Kingdom
• Release date: Aug 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9780620798655

Book preview

Home & Away

Stories of a Zimbabwean Exile

Thamsanqa N. Ncube

Pier View Publishing; Brighton, East Sussex, United Kingdom

June 2020

© Thamsanqa N. Ncube 2020

ISBN 978-0-620-79865-5

All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author and publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental

Cover Design: Richard P. Ncube @ 300dpi - [e-mail]

Design and Typesetting by Peter Stuckey - [e-mail]

Printed in South Africa Digital Action Printers, Cape Town, South Africa

http://www.digital-action.co.za/

This collection is dedicated to you  -  My beautiful wife Lorraine ‘Lolo’ Ncube, and to my amazing children Luiz and Sammy - You have created the warm and secure place that has become my home; away from the maddening backdrop of the country of my birth – you guys are my reasons; all my whys, for everything I do. Nithandwa ndim'!

Contents

A Moment of Madness

Advance, Protect, and Defend!

For Better, and Maybe for Worse…

For Old Times’ Sake

Kwerekwere

Masvingo ne Carpet – The Road Trip

The Builder

The Journey South

The Parcel

The Visa

A Moment of Madness

Unity Square lay below him, in its entire splendour; brightly coloured pennants of red and green and yellow, fluttering in the wind. It was an hour before the beginning of the proceedings and already the square was packed to capacity; the Party-faithful working their magic on the crowd, fists clenched, punching the air, and shouting the obligatory slogans. The Women’s League sang and ululated, and as he looked down at them he felt a tight clench in his heart...

He had been only about twenty years of age when the news of the ‘red berets’ had come from around his little village of Mgulatshani, just outside the picturesque Matopos National Park about 50 kilometres south of Bulawayo. The ‘red berets,’ it was said, had the primary objective of eradicating all trace of the ‘Ndebele dissidents’ from around the countryside, especially in the mostly-Ndebele areas of Matabeleland North and South. The dissidents, it was alleged, were a small group of people who had left the New Army for various reasons, and as the people got wind of their struggle, some young people from the region, dissatisfied with their lot, had joined them. The government had not been entirely pleased with this and had sought the help of the South Koreans in training what became known as ‘Gukurahundi’ (the rain that washes away the chaff before the spring rains come), officially known as the 5th Brigade of the New Army.

Joseph had heard news of the dissident group at the local cattle dip from Mandla, the local gossip monger;

‘They are burning down whole villages up north, eGulati and Cyrene. And people are disappearing during the night,’ Themba had started; to much ridicule from the young men gathered at the dip.

‘And where are you getting this gossip from, Themba?’

‘Okay, don’t say you were not warned. Me, I am leaving for Bulawayo on Sunday,’ an exasperated Themba concluded as the boys gathered their herds and headed to their homesteads.

That very night, as he slept in his hut, Joseph’s door was kicked down, a gun was pointed at his head and he was told, in deep Shona, to ‘join the rest of the dissidents outside. NOW!’ To encourage him, a gun-barrel was dug roughly and deeply into his rib cage; leaving him wincing in pain.

Outside, standing in the light of the army Jeep, stood the rest of his family.

His two sisters, Thembi and Busi, in their nightdresses, hands clamped protectively over their upper bodies. His mother, her favourite blanket wrapped around her, was holding onto Granny Moyo, the matriarch of the Mbonambi family. She had been the rock of this home since their father had died several years ago. Gogo and her two sons, Matt, and Luke, had between them held the fort as Mother struggled to come to terms with the loss of ubaba, the father of the home, and now both Uncle Matt and Luke also stood there; frozen in the glare of the lights of the van.

As Joseph looked around at his shocked family, standing around, their dim shadows eerily hanging behind the lights of the Jeep and the Puma vehicle standing right there in the middle of the yard, he noticed that there was no sign of his cousin, Lindani, and his wife, Sis’ Lizzie. Lindani was Uncle Matt's only son; and was a few years older than Joseph. He was a gentle, almost timid man who generally did all he could to stay away from any form trouble or confrontation. Joseph knew that there was a huge possibility that Lindani would be hiding somewhere in his hut, probably under the bed, behind the room divider in his and Sis' Lizzie's room; and generally trying to make himself invisible. He was that kind of a man; and had been known to stay away from the local dip for days on end due to one of the herd boys shouting at him; sometimes in jest. The level of violence staring the family in the face tonight would kill him!

‘Right, vabereki,’ the apparent Commander of the soldiers began, ‘Ma-dissidents arikupi. Are you hiding any of them around here?’ he started, and as he spoke, Joseph heard a sharp scream coming from Lindani’s hut.

Out of the darkness and away from the light, one of the soldiers emerged, gun slung across his back, dragging with each hand Lindani and his wife by their ears.

‘Found them under the bed, Comrades. Don’t know if they want to show us what they were doing,’ the young soldier said, dumping both of them in the open space in the glare of the lights, to much approval and glee from his Comrades.

He continued to focus his attention on them, ordering them to take off their clothes.

‘Yes, show us what you were doing under the bed, whilst some of us are busy defending this country from ma-dissidents,’ the Commander said, egging his young protégé on. When Lindani started to protest, he was kicked in the stomach and Granny screamed.

‘Come on, show us!’ Two of the soldiers now rushed to Sis’ Lizzie, and yanked off her clothes, leaving her partially exposed. One prodded Lindani with a gun and shoved the two together. Uncle Matt began to move forward to try and assist. One of the soldiers pummelled him with the barrel of a gun. He fell down, blood oozing from a wound somewhere on his head.

Two of the soldiers began to take their trousers off as they moved towards Sis’Lizzie. Mother and Granny let out piercing, chilling screams, burying their faces in their hands.

Sis'Lizzie was roughly turned around, pushed to her knees and the soldier tore into her from behind. Lindani tried to move to protect his wife but was held back and cracked on the head violently with the barrel of the gun.

As the first soldier finished, another one pinned Sis' Lizzie down, climbing on top of her. Mother and Granny were sobbing. As Joseph shifted his glance momentarily from Sis’ Lizzie, he heard the gun go off, and Lindani fell to the ground right in front of his wife’s face. They exchanged a desperate glance before the soldier fired another shot to the back of Lindani's head. Sis’ Lizzie escaped from under the grasp of the one on top of her, leaving his manhood hanging grotesquely in front of his trousers. She was desperately reaching for Lindani's writhing body, her hands briefly touching his bloodied head. The frustrated soldier, stood up, righted himself, cursing as he pushed his still erect manhood back into his trousers. He shifted his gun from his back, pointed it at Lizzie, cocked, and pulled the trigger. The gun boomed; a deafening sound which seemed to blow the eardrums out of Joseph's eras. Mother collapsed, dragging Granny to the ground with her.

Joseph feared the worst for his mother but as soon as she had fallen, she sat up on her knees, hands to her face and began to scream, a scream of total abandon, with no care for the consequences from those pointing guns and decimating her family - nothing could scare her now. Joseph tried to move towards her, and he was rewarded with another violent blow of the gun barrel.

‘Now, vasaravacho, pick up these two and bury them far away in the hillside. Tomorrow, we will be back to collect some food, and hopefully by then you will know where we can find the dissidents,’ the Commander said.

‘Vasikana ava, we take them with us,’ he continued, pointing at Joseph’s sisters. Thembi was the older of the two; waiting anxiously at home over the past few weeks for her 'O' Level results, vibrant, full of life, and ready to tackle any challenge thrown at her. Joseph looked at