The Gairesi cottages are only some 12 kilometres from the Mozambique border in the eastern highlands of Zimbabwe. Near here, in 1975, the young Mugabe was smuggled across the border by Chief Tangwena and his people. I wonder who and where the Rhodesian patrols were. It is worth including this excerpt below from Edgar Tekere's autobiography which comments on the significant role of Tangwena's wife, the 'small woman', in facilitating the safe escape:
"We stayed in the forest, looked after by Tangwena’s wife. It was misty with a light drizzle, and so she was able to light a fire to cook for us, without smoke being seen by our pursuers. Mbuya Tangwena called on us to join her in traditional prayers, and take snuff, as is the tradition in Zimbabwe. Tangwena was waiting for his wife to give the signal for us to move. She was a spirit medium, a host to Sekuru Dzeka Tangwena, her father-in-law. On the second day, at around seven in the evening, Mbuya Tangwena became possessed with the spirit, and instructed us to leave. She told Chief Tangwena to take us to Tangadza, another sub-chief of the Tangwena Dynasty, who was living on the Mozambican side of the border. She ordered her husband to take us by the most difficult path, at which he demurred, but the old lady told the great chief, “You just do it, or these people will be caught.” It was amusing to see him defer to this small woman."
We are staying in a quiet valley, just us and the caretakers here, and the rush of the Gairesi river below. The walking is idyllic and the water is crystal clear, strong enough to swim on the spot. Up on the hills there are scattered hamlets and homesteads, though not many. From there, nobody's business is private, because the landscape is open, ceding far and wide views, including of the paths by which the villagers get around in these parts. There are no other vehicles besides ours. Most people seem open and greet us in a friendly fashion. They have a good laugh when they see me going for a run. The caretaker here is confident and engaging. This morning she asked me about my work, and pushed a stray lock of hair back behind my ear in a sisterly fashion. It was a gesture that would never (or very seldom) happen in South Africa between (black and white) strangers.
This morning we drove through the hills to The Waterfall, as it is known. On an old map I spotted markings for ruins and ancient terracing, so I went off to explore. In an open grassland, the dense thickets of trees are an archaeological giveaway: trees have taken root in the damp cracks between stones that were carefully walled here in the 18th and 19th century, perhaps earlier. They are thickly grown over with creepers and vines; it feels slightly eery being there in the midday shade. The Nyanga stone pits - now just sunken depressions in the earth - are well known by archaeologists. The effort that went into their building was significant. I found four pits in total, all in close proximity, and no doubt there were more. Significant research has been done on the pit structures, and though there is still debate about their function, cattle kraaling seems to be the best founded.
I clambered up further. The hill proffered quintessential Zimbabwean scenes: isolated homes on rolling hills framed with spring msasa trees, their dark copper satin leaves so smooth and fine to touch that you wonder how they will survive the coming heat. And behind, the rocky granite debris with its lichen fields. From there one can see everything that would have needed to be seen: the scale of the clan's cattle wealth, or perhaps its dimunition in hard years; the approach of enemies or kin; beasts of prey, for lion are certain to have been many in those years; fire smoke on the horizon; and the coming storms.
Our next stop was much further north in the country: Chitake springs near Mana Pools, for the annual wildlife game count - an activity with a primarily white subscriber base and apparently more social than scientific in nature. After a flurry of unpacking, repacking and food preparation in amidst Harare power cuts, led by my camping powerhouse mother, we set off for Chitake. Our 40+ degree campsite was on the edge of a steep cliff overlooking a thread of stream formed by the only springs in a 9 kilometre radius. In true white Zimbabwean fashion, we combatted the heat with the indefatigable cooler-box-at-large (that is, several filled with ice, cold water, beers & Coke, which had to be shuffled from patch of shade to patch of shade in continuous fashion).
Chitake is well known now for being an 'extreme' wildlife experience, and it certainly lived up to expectations. The first night, after dinner, some 30 elephants came down in the almost-full moonlight, many of them babies or young with the first stubs of tusks. During the hours of sleep, all sorts of sounds of the wild: lion, elephants, hyena and then the bellowing of buffalo. Around 2am we emerged from our tents and, under the cover of darkness with the moon having sunk low, watched more than 40 buffalo nervously flocking around the water below. Quickly and with no warning, a group of 7 lions swept down the bank and across the sand. An extraordinary stampede up the steep bank opposite followed, the air so thickly drenched with fine dust and dung that we could see it even in the dim light. The fear and panic was pulpable. One lone animal was left behind, not knowing what to do. Yet it seems to have escaped, for moments later the lions had made their kill. We could not see it but the remainder of the night was filled with the sounds of meat being devoured and snarled over. By early morning the only sign of the carcass was a stretch of dark skin and a few tossed bones. This is nature in the raw.
The next night, two lionesses passed the camp 20 metres away as I stepped out of the shower tent. Me and them. We saw each other but their intentions lay elsewhere. In the morning their spoor, and that of others, showed that they had passed several times along that same close-by track. The remainder of the weekend we were swept with wind and dust, a layer of Zambezi Valley earth deposited on our faces even during sleep.
Oh this earth, this water.
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