The ManicaPost
Freedom Mutanda and Sifelani Tonje Post correspondents
Last week’s instalment of the ‘unsung hero’ series drew some responses from avid readers. Going into the spirit realm was an experience that was both surreal and gratifying but it made one reader observe wryly that I had put aside my Christian values and exalted secular tools of research as if I was a psychic. Brother Sydney Togara has been a rock for me in my writing career as he urged me to write for a family newspaper such as The Manica Post.
However, he expressed his reservations at interviewing a spirit medium. Later, he agreed that research entails going beyond what is seen and heard.
This week, we travel the road that a canoe man used in the prosecution of the liberation struggle. Mao emphasized the importance of the ‘water’ in any revolution. Fish are only able to live when there is an abundance of water. The symbiotic relationship between guerrillas and the povo is aptly captured in the moving story of Mudzimureka Muchaiana of the Mvuu totem. Water resembled the people and the fish were the comrades, ‘vakomana,’ the boys.
Here is his story:
My family wept uncontrollably as they saw me handcuffed and they saw excruciating pain written all over my face. White Rhodesian soldiers and skuzapos paraded me through out the village in a desperate attempt to instil fear into the hearts of anyone who dared to challenge the hegemony of the white man. My crime was someone had told the Rhodesians that I helped the boys.
As I was dragged into the army truck, my wife’s wailing cut my heart into halves. Will I ever see her again? What about my children? I looked back longingly as the army truck driver changed the gears into the forward movement mode.
When did it start? I slumped onto the seat and reflected on the job I had done for my motherland. I never doubted the reason we had to be free. Our spirit mediums had told us that the white man will eventually succumb not because we had powerful weapons but because ours was a just war.
They went with me to Mutema, transferred me to Chisumbanje and finally to Chipinge where the torture was unbearable; the soldiers used a glowing cigarette to burn my buttocks. I would shriek and wince aloud in pain which drew contemptuous laughter from the sadistic soldiers who derived pleasure from my suffering.
“Where are the terrorists? What do they look like? Why did you help them cross the river?” Questions rained upon me as if the summer rainfall had started.
Any attempts to reply met a vicious clap from any direction. I thought I would die.
I was born in 1940 to Muchaiana Mbezura and Ndinaani Bindiko. Schooling for me came late as I spent the better part of my childhood herding cattle. Even when I went to school in 1956 I didn’t last, for soon thereafter, I was back in the pasturelands, herding cattle. At that time, Save River had a lot of crocodiles as siltation wasn’t there, maybe because of a low density in population.
I went to Mkhondo Mine in Bikita where I loaded coal. A white man, Whittol, whom I worked for some time, taught me the basics of canoeing. He was called Svike Svike because of the speed that he did everything that he tasked himself to do that ranged from canoeing to farming.
To build my first canoe, I bought a zinc iron sheet and made my first canoe; I made a little money from carrying the people who wished to go to the other side and vice versa. That was in the late 60’s to the early 70’s. By that time, rumours of war spread through out the country but we dared not talk about the impending war for fear that we may be caught in the crossfire.
One day, as I slept, I heard heavy knocking on the door to my house. Cautiously, I asked who it was. An unmistakable boyish voice replied, ’’Mudhara, takanzwa kuti ndiwe unoyambusa vanhu’’ (Old man, we have heard that you are able to help some people cross the river into Masvingo Province.) It was a cold winter night in 1974; a cold fear engulfed me.
I asked who it was. The comrades calmly claimed their rights to be in the land of their fathers. Only then did I gather the courage to open the door and peer outside.
I allowed them into my house and our discussions did not take long for they wanted my canoe to carry them and their provisions to the other side in Buhera. Seeing them with the heavy weapons made my heart swell with happiness.
We didn’t waste time as we carried their provisions to the place where I hid my canoe. That night, we left for the other side of the river and they went on their way after I had canoed them to the other side.
That was to be the first of many night journeys in the Save River and I carried a number of those expeditions until the ceasefire in 1979. Although we were marooned in the Protected Villages, I sneaked out time and again when duty called. Once caught, I knew I would be in soup but something in me propelled me forward. Assisting the comrades became second nature to me as the years went by.
Comrades that come easily to mind are Cdes Tsuro, Shumbayakuwara, Zex, Musa Mabunu and so forth. They commandeered me to high risk jobs when a comrade had been injured and needed to be put beyond the river which was relatively safer as it was a liberated zone. One had to have a heart of steel to undertake those breathtaking stunts to flee from the enemy. I knew that if we got caught, that would be the end of me. Still, I trudged on.
I must agree that my ancestors helped me a lot since I consulted them whenever we undertook a dangerous journey. I brewed traditional beer and told my ancestors that I was about to go on a dangerous mission that needed the spiritual guidance. I begged the spirits to look after me.
I always consulted my guardian spirit, Mukumiriweshango, to be on the look out for any impediment to our desires. I poured snuff on the ground and the rest was his job to give the comrades and me protection.
One day, things did not go according to plan in a contact between the comrades and the regime soldiers. At the Chido crossing, Rodger’s guards betrayed the comrades. Rodger owned some parts of the Save Conservancy and the guards who guarded against poaching were ambivalent. One part of their psyche told them to support the boys but then at times they sold out the comrades like they did at Mwawa in 1979.
In the ensuing battle, Cde Hardlife got hit. He went into a thicket and lay low. Two days later, Sekuru Chitanda, tasked with following up injured comrades, found him in that bush severely dehydrated and badly needing an injection of blood. Life was slowly ebbing out of him as he breathed slowly but heavily with much effort.
Joel Muvheyo, a traditional medicine man, treated him and for four months, Cde Hardlife recuperated until he was able to walk on his own.
In my work with the comrades, my wife, Jakopo Muudzwa, was a pillar of strength and Cames Khumbula helped me a lot at Masoro.
Mudzimureka Muchaiana was at it again during the cyclonic floods that ravaged the area in 2000 after heavy rains induced by Cyclone Eline which destroyed homes in Chibuwe and Masimbe areas. He worked day and night to rescue people marooned in islands as he busied himself with the canoe on a different mission then.
I remember vividly the pounding rain and the subsequent flooding of the Save River. All of a sudden, the waters came towards the township and the irrigation blocks could no longer function like they used to with the expanding river merciless in its sprint towards human beings.
Government helicopters came to help the villages who dangled in trees as their homes had been destroyed and swept away by the angry floods. Their lives hung like a thread; it was time to use my canoeing skills for a noble cause.
The then Manicaland Governor, Cde Oppah Muchinguri personally thanked me as I worked round the clock to save many villagers using my canoe. Mr Dunga, from the Ministry of Social Welfare worked side by side with me in saving the hapless villagers. So, you see, this canoe is not only used in times of war or for fishing purposes but in times of distress, it comes in handy.
Muchaiana remains unassuming although what he has done for the community and the country at large deserves recognition in the annals of history. Unfortunately, he hasn’t passed on the skills of canoeing to his peers but he hopes that some day people would be willing to learn the art of canoeing.
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