Sophie's Holiday

Sophie is a woman of ample proportion, just like these in
this Verandah  Gallery, Harare, greetings card

After a year’s hard work Sophie decided to take a month-long holiday in 2008 and visit her daughter Fiona and her grand children in Rusape.

Her only means of getting there was to take the bus which makes a run there and back once a week.

No-one knew what the bus fare was except that it was in the billions or even zillions and as withdrawals from banks are only Z$500 per day it would have taken her a couple of lifetimes to withdraw enough money for her bus fare.

The only answer was forex, money bought in from outside Zimbabwe, and then she felt afraid that she might be beaten up at the bus stop and the money stolen.

She managed to extract quite a lot of rand from me and some US dollars from the tenants in the main house, which she fearfully tucked away for her impending “fagash” or holiday.

Fortunately the whole matter was resolved for her. A relative died – another relative travelled from Rusape for the funeral in Harare. He offered Sophie a lift in his truck. Sophie is a woman of ample proportions (although not nearly as ample as they used to be), so the back of the truck might not have been too comfortable for her. She took with her a grandson born out of wedlock aged four and called Blessing.

On her return she told me the story of her holiday.

Truck to Tanda

They passed through Rusape and took the Nyanga road for some miles before turning off left onto a dust road which she said was very bad. The truck lurched and bumped and bounced its way to a little spread out village called Tanda, from which you walked towards the mountains of Nyanga.

The people of Tanda are poor but very
welcoming (pic by Pauline Battigelli)

The people of Tanda are very welcoming and whatever they have they share. The children are given their food first and the mothers eat the leftovers by scraping a finger over the plate or pot and licking off any little bits.

The mothers walk to Nyanga to work in the potato fields. For a morning’s work they receive about two kilogrammes of potatoes which they take home to their families, carrying their potatoes on their heads. If they work a full day they may take more potatoes.

“How far is Tanda from Nyanga?” I asked Sophie. “I don’t know,” she said, “I did not walk there but you go up the hills – and down the hills.”

The people are bent over from carrying loads, especially the elderly. One woman told Sophie that if you tie a tight belt around your middle you do not feel so hungry as your “matumbas” are squeezed.

The people of Tanda pray and sing praises to God and they say that when things are very bad you must stand still and say “Jesus” and he will help you. They say that he is like a very hot frying pan. He makes you sizzle.

The people of Tanda share their food

 Sophie managed to get a lift back to Harare and so she did not have to spend the forex.

“I gave it to my grandmother,” she said.

Having spent a week with her family she is now back in Harare planting mealies in any little spare space of ground she can find having brought the seed back with her from Rusape. She will have her own crop of mealies if it rains, so the remainder of the holiday will be spent tilling the fields round the Cresta Hotel.

She showed me her hands which were swollen. “Look at my hands,” she said. “I had to hang on to the truck with both hands so I did not fall out on that terrible road!”

“And what about Blessing?” I asked.

“Oh Blessing,” she said, “He was asleep!”