Two Suitcases: The Leap into Uncertainty

By Mike Bellis

European settlers in colonial Africa did not have an easy time, depending on what they came with. Theirs was a life of adventure, hardship, homesickness, disease and sometimes, war.

The title is Two Suitcases because that is what most Europeans arrived in Africa with, and subsequently left with. From Rhodesias Unilateral Declaration of Independence to the birth of Mugabes Zimbabwe, Two Suitcases - Part Two; The Leap into Uncertainty, Book Two of this compelling trilogy, continues with the tales and experiences of the Krugers and Morgans during Rhodesias UDI years, which were filled with incredible pride, happiness, sadness and tragedy. Maybe too much pride. Sanctions-busting became acknowledged business practice while the vicious Bush War became a way of life affecting everyone, from the soldier in uniform to the farmers wife fighting off a night time homestead attack. Rhodesians were proud to be Rhodesians.

For the first time the unglamorous, but vital, part the District Commissioners and their staff played in the Bush War is told.

The Two Suitcases trilogy has been inspired by authors such as Wilbur Smith, James Mitchener and Stuart Cloete.

Have you read Two Suitcases Part One, Colonialism Crumbles, covering Rhodesias birth from the Boer War to UDI? Watch out for Two Suitcases - Part Three, Descent into Darkness, covering the birth of Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe to the present day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: May 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524679545

Mike Bellis

Mike Bellis was born in the UK in the early 1950s and emigrated to Rhodesia with his parents when he was six months old. He was schooled in Umtali (now Mutare), studied agriculture, served in the Bush War, and farmed in Zimbabwe until 2003. He and his wife, Carol, have a son and daughter. This is the third book in a trilogy.

Book preview

2017 Mike Bellis. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 05/17/2017

ISBN: 978-1-5246-7955-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-7956-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-7954-5 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Introduction

MAP of Rhodesia during the UDI/Bush War years

The Main Characters

The Leap into Uncertainty

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

INTRODUCTION

Because I am what I am, this book is written from my perspective, from my experiences, what I saw and what others have told me. Had I had been affiliated to Robert Mugabe’s ZANU or Joshua Nkomo’s ZAPU, I can assure you this would have been written with different slants, bias and narratives. We are all human with different beliefs, views and aspirations and that’s what makes life interesting, saving us from being zombies. Some who read this will exclaim ‘it wasn’t like that!’ or ‘that didn’t happen!’ and they might often be right, because this is a novel.

Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain on 11 November 1965 enraged Black Africa, and tiny Rhodesia took on the form of a millstone around Britain’s neck. African leaders never missed an opportunity to bring up Rhodesia at the United Nations, where hours of debate, insults and oaths were aimed at the country’s quarter of a million whites led by their Prime Minister, Ian Smith. Comprehensive, international sanctions were imposed to bring the Rhodesian rebel regime to heel but, despite clamours from the Organisation of African Unity insisting Britain invade Rhodesia by force, that was as far as the vindictiveness went. ‘Frontline States’ was the title given to those African countries who believed themselves most affected by Rhodesia, despite the most vociferous one, Tanzania, being two countries away (hardly a ‘Frontline State’). Rhodesia was a perfect excuse and scapegoat for Africa’s self-imposed woes and misery in an increasingly politically correct world. The ‘Frontline States’ demanded more aid from Britain because of Rhodesia’s ‘intransigence’ and ‘warmongering’ and Britain couldn’t give them enough. In the UN, Rhodesia was condemned as being a ‘threat to world peace’ – not Cuba or Israel, not Palestine or America, not the Soviet Union or China, but tiny Rhodesia!

This book, the second of the trilogy, is essentially a tribute to Rhodesia’s military and civilians during the seventies. They (and I was one) fought for and supported what they believed was a just cause, for the most part unsullied by excessive greed, political chicanery or military self-glorification. The Rhodesian military, despite the vast majority of the white contingent being conscripts, was regarded as being one of the best in the world. The regular military probably was the best. The civil service was corrupt-free and efficient with agricultural research and extension, wildlife management and the Police being world leaders. Apart from oil, Rhodesia became self-sufficient thanks to sanctions but her Achilles heel was having no access to the sea – a problem not even Rhodesians could get around. The country’s businessmen made a mockery of sanctions, treating ‘Sanctions Busting’ as a sport and a hobby, which they excelled at. Everything worked in Rhodesia, and worked well. Rhodesians took pride in giving the world ‘the finger’.

Those Rhodesians still around thirty-five years on, now scattered like wind-borne chaff around the globe, still believe the fifteen years of ‘Rhodesia’ was a good cause despite what they went through. Of course, it is so easy to look back in hindsight and say, ‘if Smith had done that’, or, ‘if Wilson had done that’, or ‘if Carter had never got near the White House’, things would have been better. We know what we did ten years ago, or fifty years ago, but not what we will do in a minute’s time – will we yawn with boredom reading this or will an itch suddenly appear where it can’t be reached.

Rhodesians couldn’t understand what they had done so wrong to incur the wrath of the world and only now, three decades on with a social media that has no boundaries and is exposing all sorts of agendas, might the reason for this wrath be unfolding. Does ‘Globalisation’, or ‘the New World Order’ or a cartel of ‘big business’ within the ‘Washington Establishment’ not want Africa to succeed, for whatever reason? Do the world’s financiers want a failed Africa always at their mercy?

Rhodesians were a special breed and grew very close to each other. One hand, sometimes two or even three, did not have enough fingers to count off those a Rhodesian knew personally who had died during the Bush War. And still they carried on defiantly, fighting for what they believed in. The economy, already saddled with sanctions and the debilitating war, couldn’t handle white, civilian call-ups into the military of ‘six weeks in, six weeks out’. Doughty farmers and their steely wives, the toughest of the tough, started to buckle from the effects of night-time farmhouse attacks, landmines, road ambushes and staff compound burnings and murders by terrorists.

Two civilian Viscount airliners were brought down by ZIPRA surface-to-air missiles, killing over a hundred men, women and infant children in the most barbaric circumstances. But the world’s leaders from the churches to politicians to the likes of the United Nations kept a deathly silence. Everyone knows about 9/11 and Lockerbie but few know about the Viscounts. Why not? A lowly eighteen-year-old SS camp guard is hunted down for the rest of his life to pay for his part in a crime against humanity but those responsible for the obvious Viscount crimes are lauded and receive knighthoods or honoury doctorates. Why? Why was it more of a crime for a white Rhodesian to have a swimming pool on his property and employ a domestic servant than someone who brought down a planeload of innocent civilians?

Rhodesian youngsters were proud to don a uniform, unlike those in another country who were goaded into burning their country’s flag by Hollywood personalities or druggie pop stars.

Rhodesians did not holiday in Spain while claiming benefits, they worked hard and planned for their retirement and took their children’s education seriously.

Rhodesia was a bright beacon on a continent darkened by corruption, genocide, hunger and disease.

And Rhodesia was hated for it.

To bring you up to speed with the background of this tale as narrated in ‘Colonialism Crumbles’;

Abel and Lettie Kruger trek from South Africa following the Boer War and hack a farm from virgin land bordering on the Sabi River, south-west of Wedza village, Rhodesia, which they named Slagters Nek. They have three children, the first being Petrus who is a devout Afrikaans nationalist, hating everything British, their beautiful daughter, Riana, and Andries, who is an RAF pilot during World War Two and suffered serious disfigurement when his Hurricane fighter is brought down. At the end of the war, Andries marries Colleen and they settle on land adjoining his parents’ farm and start a family – Rudolf, Willem, Yvette and Suzette in that order. Petrus had spent the war years in Rhodesia dealing in black market goods and becomes a wealthy man. Lettie dies from cancer and Abel soon follows her to the grave. Andries adds their landholding to his and life is good and full of promise. Then, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan delivers his infamous ‘Winds of Change’ speech in Cape Town warning that Britain would soon be abandoning her colonies. Andries, after witnessing what went on in other newly independent African countries, joins most other Rhodesians and supports Ian Smith’s declaration of independence from Britain before London hands over their country to black nationalists.

At the end of the Boer War, after leaving the military, Glynnis Morgan dabs in illegal diamond trading and then scuttles back to North Wales after he is shopped by Abel as revenge for escorting his family into an infamous concentration camp, Dipponsvlei, where they all perished. Glynnis tries his luck in America and then heeds Britain’s call to bear arms just in time for the Somme offensive where he loses a hand. After the Great War, he marries Nia, buys a small farm and they start a family, Gareth being one of their sons. Gareth gets caught up in World War Two with the elite Long Range Desert group and ends it as a POW when he witnesses the barbarity committed on a defeated, destroyed Germany by their Soviet conquerors. He marries Barbara and they head off to Southern Rhodesia to start a new family and a new life in a new country. They settle in Umtali and Gareth progresses up the slow civil service promotion ladder. Their future is promising and they turn their backs on ‘Back Home’, embracing Rhodesia where ‘Back Home’ encouraged them to settle in the first place. Then, Britain decides to cast off its colonies and the Morgans, in common with the vast majority of others who regard Rhodesia as being their home, put their full support behind Ian Smith and UDI.

‘The Leap into Uncertainty’ describes the Krugers’ and Morgans’ lives in Ian Smith’s independent Rhodesia.

For the first six or seven years after UDI, Rhodesians’ biggest concerns were the lack of good Scotch whiskey and Cadbury’s chocolate. The government schools the Morgans and Krugers sent their children to were based on British public schools and medical facilities and expertise competed with the best in the world. The petrol pumps still delivered fuel and Peugeots and Mazdas took the places of Fords and Austins. Andries’s beef and tobacco still found ready markets around the world and immigrants still flooded in.

Gareth’s son, James, attends a South African university and then enrols in Rhodesia’s elite SAS when the bush war against Mugabe and Nkomo’s terrorists heats up. James’s younger brother, Eric, attends Gwebi Agricultural College and follows on as an agricultural officer in Rhodesia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs just as District Commissioners are instructed to confine thousands of tribesmen and women in a series of ‘Protected Villages’ to separate them from nationalist insurgents. This exercise, completed in a few months, demonstrated the efficiency and commitment of Rhodesia’s civil service and military despite the lack of resources.

Suzette, Andries and Colleen’s youngest daughter, joins the BSAP as a ‘Wopo’ (Women Patrol Officer) and her and James team up. James spends much of his time in the SAS raiding terrorist camps in Mozambique and Zambia, where thousands of ‘freedom fighters’ are killed and Suzette gets caught up in the terrorist Woolworths bombing in Salisbury. Gareth, living in suburban Umtali, is spared much of the direct consequences of the war but it is different with Andries. He loses his beloved cattle herd, improved over the years by selective breeding, to stock theft and abandons his farm after a series of farmhouse night-time attacks and moves to Salisbury.

Julia, Willem’s girlfriend, loses all her family when the first Viscount airliner is brought down by terrorists’ rockets and the world says nothing. During all this time, Rhodesia is a favourite haunt for journalists and correspondents who savour the lifestyle of Salisbury while sending off damning reports about the ‘racist regime’ in Salisbury.

Petrus’s son, Wynaand is a Rhodesian Light Infantry trooper who is severely wounded, leaving him paralysed from the waist down, and he is sent to a rehabilitation centre in Inyanga, north of Umtali. Petrus revises his views of his nationalist, Afrikaans associates in South Africa, coming to the conclusion his son was used as a sacrificial lamb for their benefit, giving them time before the inevitable black government rules their country.

Towards the end of the Rhodesian Bush War, Eric decides not to live in an imminent black-ruled Zimbabwe and moves to South Africa. James and Suzette marry and James takes up a position as a learner farmer near Mount Darwin in Rhodesia’s north-east where the bush war was at its hottest and where it started in 1972. He still does time in the SAS and is involved in a planned coup d’ etat to prevent Mugabe taking power. This operation is cancelled at the last moment.

After the British-chaired Lancaster House conference, Robert Mugabe, Rhodesia’s nemesis, wins the British Commonwealth supervised elections, leaving white Rhodesians in a state of shock and despair.

MAP OF RHODESIA DURING THE UDI/BUSH WAR YEARS

image1.jpg

THE MAIN CHARACTERS

THE LEAP INTO UNCERTAINTY

‘The Rhodesian rebellion will be brought to an end in a matter of weeks rather than months’ – Harold Wilson.

‘The Cubans are a stabilising influence in Africa’ – Andy Young, Jimmy Carter’s Ambassador to the UN.

‘The British are great apes, they are spineless hyenas’. – Zambian President for Life, Kenneth Kaunda.

‘I have nothing but sadness that our churches have failed so badly to practice what they preach’ - Reverend Dean da Costa at the service for those who perished in the first Viscount atrocity.

‘Here is a Breed of Men the like of which has not been seen for many a long age’. – Former NATO Commander, General Sir Walter Walker, referring to the Rhodesian Armed Forces.

CHAPTER 1

News about Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence covered the front pages of newspapers worldwide. One iconic photograph showed Ian Smith signing the declaration flanked by Clifford DuPont and William Harper and witnessed by the rest of the cabinet. They were seated or standing under a portrait of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. This photograph made its way into international newspapers and magazines around the Western world, attracting howls of derision from hippy activists, pop stars and liberals and outbursts of foaming rage from African leaders who demanded Britain destroy Rhodesia ‘by force’. Tiny Rhodesia took no notice of these outbursts. The giants of Europe and America nervously controlled their bladders while diplomats and civil servants hurriedly arranged meetings and aid conferences to placate the Banana Republics of Africa.

The world was horrified that a little country in the middle of Southern Africa could have the affront to divorce itself from Britain, who immediately declared a trade embargo against its own people. This embargo included arms, machinery spares and tobacco. British passports issued by the Southern Rhodesian government would not be recognised any longer, and Rhodesia was excluded from the Sterling monitory area. But this did little to suppress the rabid howling from the black states of Africa who demanded British soldiers invade the ‘illegal, white, racist regime’.

This must put Wilson and his cabinet of idiots in a spot. Gareth remarked to Barbara. He just loves doing everything demanded of him by those tin-pot African states but knows he will be pushing the boat out a bit too far sending British troops to war against their own cousins.

Barbara replied, Well, he has a difficult job, doesn’t he? These new states have had so many coups, he gets confused keeping track of their latest ‘Presidents for Life’.

The liberal, ‘Mother Country’ segment of Rhodesia’s white population were deeply concerned at what Ian Smith and his party had done. They chose to ignore that he was one of the staunchest admirers of everything British and had risked his life, like many of his colleagues and other Rhodesians of all colours, many times for the causes of everything Britain stood for; two World Wars and the Malayan Emergency being the most obvious. And even as far back as the Boer War Rhodesians had supported Britain. ‘Malayan Emergency’ was so called because the British Government insisted it was a police action, not a war, in order to avoid the various international consequences and legalities associated with the word ‘war’. Rhodesians had also protected Britain’s interests in Arabia and Egypt. Now, after Rhodesians had helped extricate thousands of Belgians from the Congo debacle only three years earlier, Belgium suddenly found it right to pretend Rhodesia didn’t exist.

For Gareth and Barbara, life just seemed to go on with no change. They went to work every day – Gareth to CMED in his Zephyr and Barbara to a removal company in her Fiat 500 where she was a busy manageress. A small segment of the population were determined to return ‘back home’ to the UK, fearing the consequences of UDI, and they weren’t missed. James and Eric trekked to school every day by bicycle, or foot if their bike had a puncture, and they forgot what a great guy Ian Smith was for getting them off school early. They did not understand the significance of UDI, yet.

The British National Anthem, ‘God Save The Queen’, was still played to a respectful, standing audience at the Apollo and Vaudeville cinemas when Her Majesty, perched side-saddle on a charger, appeared on the screen inspecting troops on a parade square. ‘God Save the Queen’ brought Umtali Rhodesians to their feet before the ‘Umtali Players’ performed in the Courtauld Theatre, a philanthropic gift from Stephen Courtauld, who had also built the Queens Hall in Umtali, which he donated to the nation. He lived at La Rochelle, Penhalonga, a tiny village outside Umtali, in a huge mansion amongst fifty acres of stunning gardens and a renowned orchid collection. Some thought it ‘typical’ that Courtauld, whose family had made millions from exploiting adolescent girls spinning cotton in Liverpool sweatshops, was now an active liberal, concerned about the well-being of Africans. Many believed there was no liberal as rabid as a wealthy liberal living off an inherited fortune.

Colin Bland, the pride and joy of Rhodesian cricket and hero-worshipped by the cricket fraternity for being probably the best fielder in the world, had just tied the knot with a former Rhodesian Ladies’ hockey captain. This provoked sometimes more discussion than politics amongst the country’s female gender – ‘Will it last?’ they asked each other in hushed, breathless whispers.

But this was still early days and Harold Wilson’s measures had not taken much effect yet.

Gareth and Barbara, in common with the vast majority of Rhodesian adults, were heavy smokers, and the first of Wilson’s vindictive actions was to ban British companies from importing tobacco from Rhodesia, tobacco being Rhodesia’s principle export. The Morgans were worried that this might affect their favourite smoke, British American Tobacco’s ‘Matinee Mild’, which sold for one shilling and three pence for a box of thirty. This might force them to change to other brands, maybe Springbok, a much coarser South African cigarette, which were sold in a stout box carrying fifty. Eric would have preferred his parents to smoke Springbok because the empty boxes made good pencil cases to show off at school. But the Morgan’s concerns were groundless – there were numerous cigarette factories in Salisbury and BAT, Rothmans and other tobacco companies kept churning out millions of smokes to be packaged, maybe illegally, into 30s’ and 20s’ packets of ‘Matinee’, ‘Benson and Hedges’, ‘Rothmans of Pall Mall’, ‘Peter Stuyvesant’, ‘Texan’, ‘Gunston’, Guards’, ‘555s’ and ‘Camel’ amongst many other brands. The cigarette factories were too high an investment to lie idle because of a silly thing called sanctions and British business found a way with their Rhodesian colleagues to get around Wilson’s pandering to the OAU. Rhodesian society happily continued, amongst clouds of blue smoke and glowing red ends jabbing up and down, emphasising their hatred of treacherous Harold Wilson.

The more active and fanatic supporters of UDI diverted some of their artistic talents to designing bumper stickers for motor vehicles, shop windows and anywhere else they would attach to. Two stickers, ‘I Hate Harold’, and ‘Forward Rhodesia’, were the most prolific. One of the cleverer stickers displayed on car rear bumpers or windows stated, ‘You’re behind me. I’m behind Ian (Smith). Let’s go forward together’. Gareth, Barbara, their work colleagues and friends were caught up in this tide of patriotic nationalism to the chagrin of pseudo liberals and loyal Anglophiles who were left off Christmas card lists and invitations to social functions.

The Morgans joined the independence euphoria, which extended from their country to their home and planted a sign, ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses Keep Out’ at its gate, mirroring other Rhodesians’ newly independent characters. An attitude had developed; this is our country so don’t interfere, going down the line to; this is my home, so don’t interfere. Rhodesia was a religious tolerant country although many Rhodesians were not necessarily religious in the true sense. Many joked about greedy religious hypocrites who spent Sundays praying on their knees but preyed on everyone else the other six days of the week.

Wilson implemented measures for a fuel embargo preventing any imports into Rhodesia. This resulted in some panic because by European standards, Rhodesia was a vast, empty country with minimal public transport, apart from that for Africans in the urban and rural areas. Petrol coupons were issued to enforce fuel rationing, but this never bothered the Morgans and other Umtali inhabitants. Mozambique was a five-minute drive away with the only passport formalities being a glance at the document by Portuguese immigracao. Gareth or Barbara would nip over the border to the Machipanda railway restaurant for a meal of peri-peri chicken and Manica beer, fill up the Zephyr with twelve gallons of petrol, and return. Their fuel coupons were then passed onto other less fortunate friends in Salisbury. Fuel rationing was a joke to most Rhodesians with the harshest hardship being required to organise lift clubs in vehicles festooned with ‘I Hate Harold’ and ‘Forward Rhodesia’ bumper stickers.

Gareth was reading the paper and burst out laughing. Listen to this, Barbara. The French, in support of sanctions, have banned the export to Rhodesia of snowploughs. This will put the Roads Department into a spin not being able to clear snow off roads in a tropical country.

Barbara giggled until Gareth interrupted her. The bastards! he exclaimed. The British Government has stopped pension payments from the UK to pensioners living in Rhodesia. Has that man, Wilson, no limit to his spitefulness and vindictiveness? How can he do this to old people who, because of their age, are hardly responsible for UDI and might not be supporters of Smith, anyway. Some of them probably spent time in the Flanders mud and shit, machine-gunned and shelled by the Jerries to ensure Harold had a decent, comfortable childhood. Maybe some republic in West Africa with a GDP of one pineapple a year has told Wilson to do this and he fell over himself to oblige. Spineless idiot.

Barbara continued learning the delights of the Hoover washing machine Gareth had bought for her birthday and inspected the hand mangle with some concern – she must be careful her boob didn’t go near it. Maybe next year there won’t be a Hoover agency in Rhodesia because of sanctions? Where would she get spares from then?

CHAPTER 2

Jairos Mapuranka simmered with malevolent rage and hatred. He had believed the fastest and easiest way to wealth lay in politics and now Smith had declared independence, insisting that African political advancement would be based on merit and not only on the size of a majority ethnic group. In Rhodesia’s case, this was the Shona, and Jairos was Shona.

He had pinned his political aspirations on Britain handing over Rhodesia to black rule as had happened in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland when the Federation folded, and now this Smith had put a spanner in the works. He had tried a career in Salisbury as a tsotsi (thief), but the police, black police, where onto him and his gang every time and he gave that up. Sithole’s party had promised him a lucrative career in politics for causing township mayhem and he had then spent time in jail after being arrested by the British South Africa Police Special Branch for organising and participating in intimidation and arson in the Salisbury township of Highfields. He had spent a spell in ‘Kingi Georgie’ (prison – guest of King George), there being further fuelled with hatred for the white man by others of his ilk.

Jairos was born near Dotito in Kandeya Tribal Trust Land in the northeast of Rhodesia. He was one of a family of his father, his father’s two wives and ten brothers and sisters. He remembered the days of his childhood when he herded cattle in countryside abundant with wildlife, trees and fertile soil quenched by rain that seemed to fall regularly during the summer months from October to April. But the trees disappeared together with the antelope, tortoises and rabbits from where much of their meat came from. His people then supplemented their protein requirement with milk from their cows that were milked early in the morning before the starving calves had a chance to suckle from their mothers. But now, the grass was sparse, and the cows were thin and the milk was not enough for the calves to grow. In the old days, when the soil was worked out after three or four years of continuous cultivation, it was an easy matter to move on and open up another unused, virgin piece of land that had been fertilised from decades of rest and decaying leaves and grass. But no more. Now, the vacant land was all used up by others of his maKoreKore tribe and the headman was unable to allocate any more despite the size of the bribe offered to him in the form of goats or cattle or a daughter or two.

Jairos, however, believed that his tribe and clan were getting richer and richer. There were more and more cattle and goats grazing and more and more children being born at the government clinic every year. It was common knowledge that wealth was measured in cattle and goats, and future security depended on living with your children who would look after you when you were aged. The more cattle you owned, the more ‘lobola’ (bride price) could be paid for more wives, and by having many wives, more children would be born to look after you in your dotage. Any fool could understand this simple calculation. And the government and missionaries had built schools to educate these children so they could find good jobs in Salisbury to earn money to buy cattle to buy more wives to bear more children to care for their parents later in life. The cycle was so simple to understand. But the whites insisted the population was growing too quickly and were encouraging this new thing called Family Planning. Jairos, in common with other blacks, believed this was a trick to weaken them before they overwhelmed the whites through sheer numbers.

Jairos had heard the government’s preachings for years; Kandeya TTL was finite and could only support a maximum number of cattle, goats and people, or so the white oppressors decreed. Sure, the cattle got thin and some died during the dry season but when the rains fell, they got fat again and were able to stand for the bull to produce more calves, making their owners richer.

Jairos simmered on with resentment. Then the government brought in a law forcing the maKoreKore to dip their cattle to rid them of makwekwe (ticks) and this service had to be paid for – two shillings a year per mombe (cow)! Another tax! The Veterinary Department had told them this was to prevent East Coast Fever and other diseases from decimating their herds. Stories handed down reached Jairos that, at the turn of the century, when the whites arrived, all the country’s cattle, apart from around twenty thousand, had been killed by a disease called Rinderpest. Had the whites introduced this disease to weaken the blacks by killing their cattle? It seemed the whites didn’t want blacks to own cattle. Every week the Mudzwiti’s staff (District Commissioner’s staff) would count the cattle at the dip tank to ensure they were all there for dipping and any absent cow would have to be accounted for. Who did the Mudzwiti think he was to dictate whether or not a man had to dip his own cattle? Then, after the maKoreKore had dipped the cattle to stop them from dying, the Mudzwiti instructs that there are too many cattle now for the land to support, and they must sell some to save the soil. Was he trying to tell us lies? Everyone, even women, know that mombies do not eat soil.

Jairos remembered his father saying to him, ‘Jairos, if you sell a cow for ten pounds and put that money in a pot, how much money will you have after one year?’

Jairos replied, ‘Ten pounds, Father’.

‘And Jairos, if you have a cow which is mounted by a bull, how many cattle will you have after one year?’

‘I will have one cow and one calf, Father’.

‘So what is the point of selling cows?’

Jairos’s father would only sell his livestock when it was absolutely necessary to pay school fees to the mission or government schools. Why should he sell his animals when his neighbours, with whom he shared common grazing, did not? They would then benefit from their cows eating grass that his cows could have eaten.

While Jairos’s mother prepared to plant crops of peanuts and maize, his father worked on one of the European farms in the Centenary district that shared a common boundary with Kandeya Tribal Trust Land. The Murungus (Europeans) would be planting and cultivating tobacco and maize and were always short of labour, especially at that time of the year when the rains were due to fall. That was an ideal time to steal fertiliser, seed and anything else from them because they couldn’t monitor all the farm’s activities themselves and relied on boss boys to do many jobs. If the boss boys were from Kandeya, they were easily intimidated and looked the other way when the fertiliser was being pilfered. If the boss boys were from elsewhere, a little bribe normally did the job. Less fertiliser would be placed on the Murungu’s crops. But so what? The Murungu always had lots of money. He seemed to make money whenever he put his hand in his pocket.

Jairos’s father also believed the white man had taken the best land and that was why his crops were much more bounteous than the ones grown in Kandeya. The white man had cunningly positioned the boundary fence along the dividing line, only one strand of barbed wire wide, separating the good soil of Centenary from the poor soil of Kandeya. He could not understand why the soil differential was in straight lines over many miles, but fact was fact. On one side of the wire, the crops were weak and the