Journey to the east

Ndeipi

After a long and exhausting journey on the plane, I have finally arrived my Zim. Today is my third day in this beautiful country that already has a special place in my heart. The first few days have been quite overwhelming, yet this place feels so familiar to me that I already feel quite at home. I have learnt so much in the past days and although I would all like to share it in one single post, I figure it would be better to first introduce you to Zimbabwe and give you a little background information of the current situation here.

It is obvious that Zimbabwe is a country where the people have known extreme hardship. Pre-independence, Zimbabwe was an English colony called Southern Rhodesia. From the 1950s onwards, the mild climate attracted many European colonists, who came here to start an agricultural business. The fertile land, that had been taken away from the Black Zimbabweans at the start of the colonial era, was gradually distributed among White colonists. More than fifty percent of the land was given to about 50,000 White inhabitants, with less than thirty percent available for more than one million Black Zimbabweans. Like South Africa, Zimbabwe was - and still is, very much a racially segregated country. In the colonial era, the state was dominated by a White minority that imposed racist policies in all spheres of life. In an attempt to stop the transition to Black majority rule, which was happening across Africa in the 1950s and 1960s following decolonisation, the government declared its own independence in 1970. The state “Rhodesia”, as the government called it, was never officially recognised by the international community. After a long and bloody war, a Black majority government was finally established in 1980, and the country became formally independent under the name of “Zimbabwe”.

For a long time, Zimbabwe did really well. It was the breadbasket of Africa where education was highly valued. To this day, the Zimbabwean population is well educated, especially in comparison with other countries in the region. However, the country experienced a series of extreme crises from the late 1990s onwards, and it still has not recovered. After the Land Reformations in the early 2000s, when the farms of hundreds of White farmers were confiscated by the government and distributed among local population, the economy quickly went into decline. The farms, that once used to be very productive, were now mainly run by political allies of Mugabe who did not have any knowledge of farming, or who had no interest in it. This had huge impacts on food security and the economy in Zim.

The Land Reformations happened around the same time of the war in Congo, where Zimbabwe sent soldiers to. These two events eventually marked the onset of a rapid decline of the economy, which would later lead to crisis after crisis. In the following years, the economy completely collapsed. International sanctions against the government of president Mugabe, and Mugabe’s decision to nationalise international companies that invested in the Zimbabwean economy, further fuelled the crisis. At its peak in 2008, extreme hyperinflation made money absolutely worthless. Shops were completely empty. When I asked Sally, who I am staying with in Harare, how people coped with this, she laughed, and said “We just all were a lot thinner at that time.” Things got a little better when the local currency was replaced by the US dollar, but another meltdown followed in 2016.

Apart from the above-mentioned crises, climate change has a huge impact on the country, especially in the eastern regions. Chimanimani, the region where the Rafiki Network is active, is one of these regions that is badly impacted by the continuous droughts, floods, and cyclones. The most damaging climate shock was no doubt Cycline Idai, which struck in 2019. Brice, an employee of the Rafiki Network, is from Chimanimani, and told me about the day Cyclone Idai hit. ““All of a sudden, thousands of rocks started falling down the mountains. The noise was so loud that people thought it was thunder. When they looked up, they saw massive rocks approaching them.”

A lot of people were crushed by the falling rocks, and many of them have never been found. Apart from the falling rocks, many people were smothered by landslides. As we drove into Chimanimani, you could clearly see the marks those landslides left. All over the mountains, empty parts of land with no vegetation mark where those landslides started.

After a long journey, I arrived in Chimanimani yesterday. I am accompanied by Aoife, the founder of the Rafiki Network, and the social workers Sharlene and Courtney, who deliver workshops to the women here. According to Aoife, the cyclone severely affected the lives of the people in Chimanimani. She told me how traumatised the people are here after all the crises they have faced. Emotional abuse, gender-based violence, and substance abuse are rampant here, and have only gotten worse after Idai. Children as young as 10 cope with their sadness and fear by taking drugs. Glue and crystal meth are used, but there is also a new form of substance abuse: burning nappies.

This morning, I could see the impact of Cyclone Idai with my own eyes when Aoife took me to the golf course in Chimanimani. Here, you could clearly see the damages cased by the water, landslides, and rocks. Rocks were scattered across the golf course. But worst of all was the gorge that had been formed by the water: it was at least 6 meters deep and meandered across the valley. At the time of the cyclone, the water went so fast that it swept away hundreds of bodies. The water was so powerful that some people were found naked - the water had taken their clothes.

It is one thing to read about climate change, but to see the impact with your own eyes is something very different. When I stood at the former golf course this morning and overlooked the valley where so many people lost their lives, my heart started feeling very heavy. If anything, I learnt how incredibly resilient the Zimbabwean people are. No matter how many crises, the people here are still standing. “I don't care how many cyclones, we will never stop farming,” one of the women I met today, said. It is an example of the perseverance of the Zimbabwean people. Yet, despite their willingness to adapt, today I learnt that the price the people pay for survival is very high.