Sunset in the Morning

By Ambrose Bruce Chimbganda

Sunset in the Morning is a tragic novel whose simplicity, rare imagery, idiom and accent carries the torch of modern African literature. In the novel Ndoda, a seasoned former liberation struggle fighter, is appointed to spearhead development in Uzumba. Initially he is a hero but the trappings of power transform him into a ruthless dictator who b

• Language: English
• Publisher: Go To Publish
• Release date: Sep 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781647495794

Ambrose Bruce Chimbganda

Ambrose Bruce Chimbganda was born in Goromonzi, in the north-east of Zimbabwe, where he completed his primary education, and later went to Hartzell Secondary School, near Mutare. After completing his “O” and “A” levels, he went to the University of Zambia, where he obtained a B.A.Ed., with distinction. He later obtained a post-graduate diploma and an M.A. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Zimbabwe, an M.Sc. in ELT Management with merit from Surrey University in the UK, and a PhD in Applied Linguistics from Rhodes University in South Africa. He is a professor of English Language Education, and has published many research papers in international journals on ESL learning and teaching, and is the winner of the 2007 Thomas Pringle Award of the English Academy of Southern Africa.

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Sunset in the Morning

Copyright © 2021 by Ambrose Bruce Chimbganda

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher or author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Although every precaution has been taken to verify the accuracy of the information contained herein, the author and publisher assume no responsibility for any errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for damages that may result from the use of information contained within.

ISBN-Epub: 978-1-64749-579-4

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Contents

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Dedication

My heart is with those who died for their love of freedom,

Song writers of our freedom and midwives of our dreams,

Those who have perished in defence of liberty and justice,

Humble citizens whose dream is to live without shackles,

Our suffering urban poor following the mirage of life,

The muted shadows of our peasants yearning for a better life,

The jobless who scrounge for a living in the midst of plenty,

Dear mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, all of us,

Who have lived to taste the bitterness of contorted freedom!

Can this voice so subtle and soft prick your conscience?

To see the sun set in the morning and yet rise again

To begin the vicious cycle of mutilated liberty!

Chapter One

Two rivers mark Uzumba’s boundaries. One is the famous Mazoe River to the west and the other is Nyadire to the east. No one knows exactly which of the two rivers is bigger than the other, but legend has it that they decided to get married on their way to the mighty Zambezi River. In between these two rivers lies Uzumba; a sleepy, hidden place that has many ridges and valleys that cut across the area without a clear topographical pattern, except that the rivers and rivulets all flow to the north east. Much of the soil is sandy loam, which is now tired of cultivation and can only be persuaded to yield crops after it has been fed wi th manure.

To get to Uzumba, you drive into Enterprise Road in Harare which takes you to Newlands and Highlands. From there, you drive along the beautiful high way, dubbed ‘terylene’, which takes you to the Nyamapanda border post with Mozambique. At Murehwa, you turn to your left into the only tarred road that takes you to the heart of Uzumba.

Here, the land is punctuated by bald-headed granite mountains and hills that reverently stand still as if to guard the ancestral spirits that live in the deep caves of the mountains. From the middle to the ground level, the hills and mountains are clothed by musasa and munhondo trees, which provide fibre for roofing and thatching.

Except for a few bungalows with corrugated iron or asbestos roofs, most of the dwellings are round brick houses with grass thatch. The houses form clusters of family compounds, each demarcated by a spiked wire fence or a simple wooden enclosure. The majority of the round houses are not plastered outside and show signs of ageing, with their grass thatch partially plucked off by wind.

Walking along foot paths past each homestead, you see withered old men and women with deeply wrinkled and skeletal bodies. Here and there you see seemingly underfed children carrying plastic or khaki covered books. They chat as they wearily trudge from their dilapidated local school, which has been run down through many years of neglect.

As you move about, you see many cattle which graze along the rivers or contour ridges dug to prevent soil erosion; but you rarely see as many goats, sheep, pigs and donkeys. Almost every family has chicken, which is the main source of meat. In the valleys and ridges, the grass is short and sparse and the oxen are somewhat small and thin, showing signs of being overworked.

Most of the people survive through subsistence farming by growing maize, groundnuts, beans, millet, sorghum, pumpkins and sweet potatoes. To supplement their meagre income, the villagers grow mangoes, guava, pawpaw, cotton, sun-flower and paprika. In Uzumba, the hub of village life are gardens with wells that are located at the wetlands near the rivers and rivulets. The gardens are lush with cabbage, kale, onions, peas, okra, carrots, bananas and sugar cane. Here, the villagers work all year round, especially in the afternoons. It is also here where village gossip often takes place and where secret lovers meet for their mischief.

There is a popular story which is told over and over that the late Chief Gotora, who was the first person to have established contacts with ‘the boys’, simply known in the local language as vakomana or freedom fighters had met them in the garden where he had been working until late in the afternoon. That was many years ago, probably at the beginning of the armed struggle that brought about independence. The boys had come from somewhere in the north. No one knows exactly how they had come to Uzumba, but they had come with a freedom message: to free the people from colonial oppression and to restore the black men’s dignity, equality and justice for all through one man, one vote.

The Chief, it is said, had initially expressed his doubts about the ability of the boys to fight a well-armed white minority regime which was determined to hang on to power at all cost.

‘How can you, my children, tell me that you want to fight for our freedom when all those who have previously raised their voices against white rule have been arrested and sent to jail? How will you do it?’

‘Yes, we understand your fears, Chief. But are you not the one whose cattle were impounded by the District Commissioner for not paying tax?’

‘Ah… how do you know that? Yes, I am. He even threatened to arrest me or to remove me from being a chief. The other day our head teacher was whipped by the District Commissioner, Mister Simons, for not taking off his hat while the commissioner was driving past the shops.’

‘You see, that’s what we mean by oppression. We know that white people in this country treat us like children who must obey them at all times. We also know that they are selfish and want to have everything for themselves. They’ve taken the best land in our country and are selling our gold to their countries of origin. They’ve the best schools and hospitals, and live in good houses. Look at your children. They never went beyond grade seven, and we know that many people in this village and others will never be able to send their children to secondary school. You and your people live in abject poverty and are more likely to die of diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis which can easily be treated. Is this what you want?’

‘No…. But how are you going to fight them? They can fight from the air and drop some bombs.’

‘That’s not a problem. Comrade Gazi,’ whispered Comrade Ndoda, ‘show him Mbuya Nehanda.’

The Mbuya Nehanda he was referring to was a bazooka or a machine gun that was strapped behind the back of the overcoat of the female guerrilla, comrade Gazi, whose oval face, crescent eyes and thick set body never betrayed her emotions.

The Chief was taken aback.

‘Isn’t Mbuya Nehanda the legendary spirit medium who was hanged by whites for resisting their rule when they first came into our country?’ He asked himself, wondering what the boys were talking about.

‘Here, look at this.’

‘What is it? What’s that?’ Chief Gotora asked.

‘This is one of our weapons. We can shoot down the white man’s copter like a bird. We’ve many more of these guns and others. Yes, the white men can kill us, but they won’t be able to kill our desire for freedom.’

‘But when are you going to start fighting them?’ I want you to shoot Mister Simons first. He doesn’t like Africans. He’s cruel.’

‘No, Mister Simons is simply a messenger sent by his masters. Our real enemy are the settlers who came here to take our land. They have passed unjust laws that make us second class citizens in our own country. They have pushed us, like animals, into infertile areas they call reserves, where we struggle to make a living. They are taking our minerals and selling them cheaply to their kith and kin in England and America.’

‘But do you want to kill all the whites? Will we not incur the wrath of their spirits?’ The chief asked, with some trepidation.

‘No, we will not kill all the whites. Our intention is not to kill anybody, except those who do not want Africans to rule themselves. There are some whites who support our cause because they see the injustices that are being perpetrated on our people. We welcome them to fight along with us. We also welcome Indians and Coloured people because they, too, are subjected to the same indignity as the black people. Our struggle is for freedom and justice for all our people.’

‘But my children, will this not plunge the country into a war that will consume all of us?’

‘No, we don’t think so. As soon as they see that we are determined to fight for our freedom like the Mau Mau did in Kenya, they will give up their power. But we don’t expect them to give up without putting up a strong fight. They’ll not relinquish their privileges without being forced to do so, and this is why we have to use guns to force them to talk to us so that they can hand over power to a government of the people, for the people and by the people.’

‘What do you expect us to do in this struggle? It’s also our struggle.’

‘We don’t expect much from you, except that we want you and your people to support us by giving us some food, clothes and shelter, and to allow some of the older boys and girls to join the struggle.’

‘Is that all you want from us?

‘That’s all. But listen, I hear the sound of a vehicle coming. Comrades, retreat fast. It may be some soldiers. Retreat!’ Bellowed Comrade Ndoda.

As the comrades melted into the thicket behind the garden, Ndoda took cover in the tall sugar cane from where he could peep through a small opening. Sure enough a convoy of grey land rovers, with police reservists pointing their guns at every direction, were snaking their way round some boulders towards the village school.

Sensing impending danger, Comrade Ndoda slithered farther into the dense bush. But before he vanished, he growled to the chief: ‘never tell anyone or report to the police that we were here. If you do, I swear, you will never live to eat the next meal’.

Chapter Two

The war of liberation in Uzumba had gone on for a long time, perhaps much longer than had been expected. It had been ferocious and bloody, and so many ordinary villagers had lost their lives during the war. They had lost virtually everything they had -their houses, cattle, goats and chicken. The war had also taken a heavy toll on the freedom fighters as well as the government soldiers. Each side had lost some of their best fighters; but peace returned at last when both sides realised that when bull elephants fight, it is the grass under their feet that suffers the most.

As soon as the war was over, the people of Uzumba left the ‘protected’ villages or what were sometimes referred to as ‘keeps’. They had been forced to live in these concentration camps for three or four years when the boys had intensified the war. The idea was to prevent the freedom fighters whom the white people called ‘terrorists’, also pidginised as tororo or gandanga, from getting food and other material support from the local population.

Now, slowly, the villagers started picking up the pieces of their lives. They started first by rebuilding their destroyed houses. Some of those who had fled to Harare, the city that doesn’t sleep, came back but others decided to stay there for ever because they thought the war would start again. They tilled their lands and gardens, and the method of ploughing the land was quite simple. They first spread cattle manure on to the surface of the field, and then ploughed the soil turning over the manure to a depth of about one foot using two or four oxen to pull a single iron plough.

Farm work was done with the help of children or neighbours who were invited to give a hand. As custom demanded, those who helped to plough the land, remove the weeds or harvest the crops were given sadza or pap with meat and traditional beer or maheu. The latter is a non-alcoholic beverage brewed by fermenting ground rapoko or finger millet mixed with yeast and sugar. And for a number of years the harvests were bountiful. There was hope for the people and each new day brought about great expectations.

The villagers’ hope had been raised by the holding of an important election not so long ago based on ‘one man one vote’. Nearly everyone in Uzumba had voted for the African People’s Party, popularly known as APP. You should have been there to see for yourself how the villagers were excited. They clenched their fists as they trooped to the polling stations. Young boys and girls led the voters to the voting stations, singing one of the popular local songs:

Zuva buda Let the sun rise

Tiyende So that we can go

Kumusha Home

Tinoona To see

Hama dzedu dzose All our relatives

From the early hours of the morning, long before sun rise, women tucked their babies at their backs. They walked in a single file to the voting stations. Old men and women in their frayed clothes also stick-walked to the nearest polling station. One of the village headmen took his snuff to the ancestral tree to ask for guidance. ‘Vadzimu tungamirirai vana venyu, zwakare muvape mazano nenjere kuti vaone gwara ravo.’‘Our ancestors lead your children and give them wisdom so that they can see their way through.’

And at the voting station, the scene was electric. No one had ever seen anything like this in living memory. There were policemen and soldiers all over. Party activists milled around, casting their eyes at each voter, as if to say ‘vote for the right party or else’. At the polling station was a long and winding voters’ queue, which stretched far beyond the classroom blocks into the gravel road dividing the school and the teachers’ quarters.

A white tent was pitched up at the nearby football ground to keep some of the voting materials. In and outside the tent was a mixture of all sorts of people, including reporters and observers whom the villagers had never seen before.

Notable among these foreigners was a white police officer with a buffalo horn-like moustache wearing a white helmet. According to one of the local teachers who had spoken to him out of curiosity, the police officer was British. He spoke English with