TWO young women, flanking a middle-aged man who appears to
enjoy every moment of it, stagger in a beer gut along the short road which
branches off the smooth highway connecting Harare and Murombedzi growth point.
They are each holding a quart of the popular Black Label
lager, shouting their voices hoarse, as if they have the world at their feet,
literally.
But the rest of the people walking along this road, which
leads to the late former president Robert Mugabe’s rural homestead in Zvimba,
seem to barely notice their antics.
Suddenly, a plane appears in the sky prompting one of the
women to shout: “There is Mugabe’s plane, he is here now.”
The second lady shouts back: “No, this is not him, Mugabe
is not coming back.”
And they break into a wild, frenzied laughter, in which
they are momentarily joined by some of the people in the crowds briskly walking
to the Mugabe homestead.
It turned out that it was just another plane on a scheduled
flight.
This was Wednesday evening, shortly after the former
president’s body was flown to Harare from Singapore, where he died on September
6
At the Mugabe homestead — itself an expansive institution
competing for status with the adjacent Kutama Mission — hundreds had gathered
for an evening Catholic mass presided over by a local priest who could not stop extolling Mugabe’s virtues
throughout the benediction.
“He was a great man indeed, without whom this country would
not have been what it is now.
“May God remember all the many good things he did on
judgement day, and forgive all the errors he made since he was only just human
like us all…” the priest said, as his sermon was received with passion from the hundreds.
But it would not be too long before the real reason why the
hundreds converged at the homestead became clear.
At the end of the mass, an announcer declared it was time
for the evening meal, triggering massive commotion as, helter-skelter, the
villagers rushed to queue for food.
It was clear from observation that the villagers, some of
whom pitched up barefoot and thinly clad, had for long desired to set their
feet at the imperial homestead, something which was not easy during Mugabe’s
long reign since it was tightly secured.
Some of the villagers were said to have travelled long
distances for the meal opportunity, at a time the country is staring in the
face of mass starvation in the wake of poor harvests
caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon, which saw crops
in most parts of the country failing.
Villagers have been camping at the Mugabe homestead for
several days. Some testified that they only depart after having had all
three meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner, every day.
For breakfast, they were served tea and bread with baked
beans and potatoes. Lunches and dinners came in the form of a complete balanced
diet of either rice or sadza and meat and vegetables.
For a wash-down, every villager was given a bottle of fizzy
drinks and mineral water.
For each meal, there were three long and winding queues,
which took no less than three hours to clear, in what turned out to be an
outstanding gesture of hospitality by the family.
Even pupils from a nearby primary school headed directly to
the homestead for lunch soon after they had been dismissed for the day.
A group of women was overheard admonishing a young man who
had tried his luck to jump the queue: “Don’t play games with us, we will not
allow you to jump the queue like that, go behindif you know what’s good for you. Where are your manners?”
Humbled, the youngman retreated to the tail end of the long
queue.
No sooner, commotion ensued as small boys of primary
school-going age started pushing and shoving each other until an usher came
through to restore order.
“People have been camped here since weekend. We serve them
meals throughout the day.
“Some villagers come in as early as 7am when we serve
breakfast and stay on for lunch and supper and there is enough food for
everyone,” said one of the employees at the homestead, who
declined to be identified.
After the evening meal, the more youthful villagers stayed
on for a small musical show which continued well into the night.
While 95km away in the capital, Harare, relatives tussled
with government over the control of funeral arrangements, life in Mugabe’s
rural backyard continued unabated.
At the nearby Mazunzahomwe shopping centre, grocers enjoyed
unusual brisk business from several visitors, who included uniformed police
officers providing security and secret state security agents teeming in the
area.
One could tell from the big cars parked at the business
centre that it was not business as usual.
Grocery shops, bars and butcheries were kept open even well
after midnight to cater for the apparent insatiable consumptive appetites of
the pilgrims.
Several braai stands had been erected around the business
centre, smoke billowing into the mid-air as barbeques went on.
A popular bar in the area was recording brisk business.
Music came from electro-acoustic transducers purposefully
hanging from the bar’s iron roof trusses. The noise mercilessly thudded the
revellers’ ears.
Ordering soft drinks, the writers took a vantage
observatory seat in one desolate corner of the packed bar.
No sooner, the barman, bowing to popular demand, played a
song which is currently a hit, sending the bar into rapid commotion as
revellers, young and old, took to the dancing floor as
if oblivious of the funeral just next door.
“Ava ndi Mamoyo, vanotamba madhanzi anoyera, moneredza,
mona mona, (This is a MaMoyo, she is nimble-footed, she performs sacred
dances),” so went the song.
The beat was met with matching pulsing dances, while the
majority sang along to produce an electric atmosphere.
In the middle of the melee, a flock of barely dressed young
girls suddenly stormed into the bar and raced straight to the centre, assuming
complete dominance of the dance floor.
The barman conspiringly increased the volume.
After about half an hour of serious dancing, the barman
decided that it was the right time to change the rhythm for the more relaxed
and slow beats.
Some revellers responded by retreating to their seats and
conversed in hushed tones, while others could be seen escorting the scantily
dressed girls out.
“It is not that we don’t care (about Mugabe’s death), but
life just has to go on. After all, we shall all perish,” said one of the
revellers.
A butcher, still operating late on, said the past few days
had been the best since he started the business two years ago.
“I am just happy that business is booming these days. I
have been able to sell two whole beasts in the past four days alone whereas in
the past, one beast would go for up to three
weeks.
“Of course, the circumstances of this good business are not
the most desirable, but we still have to satisfy the market while it lasts,”
the butcher, Pilate Machaya, said.
Mugabe’s body was expected in Zvimba yesterday evening,
where it was supposed to lie in state at his rural home.
Even in his own backyard, the mood is no different from the
mood elsewhere in the country; a mixture of deep sorrow from those that admired
him, detest from those that loathed him and indifference from the rest; as
adjudged by how people simply went about their normal day-to-day lives as if
nothing of that magnitude ever happened.
This sums up the man’s conflicted legacy, in which people
around the world basically agree to disagree on how they would want him
remembered in history. Standard
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