THE clouds slowly building in the distant sky and the smell of rain, akin to a life-saving scent, could have invoked feelings of hope and anticipation in the villagers at Makhulambila and other dry parts of Lower Gweru last week.
REPORT BY PHILLIP CHIDAVAENZI ALL PICTURES BY AARON UFUMELI
But for these villagers who feel hard-done by the stroke of fate, this is too old and familiar a tale because for the last two years, their land has been turned into a barren wasteland that has refused to yield its strength to them.
Makhulambila community under Chief Sogwala is located 40km north west of the Midlands capital, Gweru, and stretches a further 50km to the west.
Almost all the rivers have long dried up and silted. The hunger that has been slowly spreading its tentacles has left villagers like 78-year–old Simon Fosi at their wits’ end.
“People are suffering here due to the widespread hunger,” he told NewsDay. “For the past two years, we have had such poor rains and harvested nothing. We don’t know what to do anymore.”
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For some time, enterprising villagers had resorted to market gardening through which they produced vegetables and tomatoes, which had become their lifeline, but this was short-lived due to drought.
“There is no water any more. It’s a serious problem now,” he said. “Even if you do gardening, how are you going to water the vegetables?”
According to Winnet Masayi (38), who had visited the village to nurse her ailing mother who later succumbed to stomach problems, the widespread hunger has pushed the price of a 20kg bucket of corn to $10, up from the average price of $6. For the majority of villagers, this is a luxury they cannot afford.
She said people in the area whose children jumped the border into South Africa on fortune-hunting expeditions were better off as they had something to cushion them from the devastation wrought by the drought through remittances from across the border.
“But for those who don’t have children in South Africa, it’s terrible. They have no choice, but to live on begging from neighbours that are better off,” she said.
Masayi said the lack of rains had seen almost all the sources of potable drinking water in the area drying up, leaving the villagers scrounging around for the precious liquid.
For most of them, an unprotected well at Fosi’s homestead whose water appears like raw sewer is now their only source.
She attributed the outbreak of stomach-related illnesses in the village to the unclean drinking water.
“Many people here, especially children, are suffering from stomach problems and I believe it’s because of the dirty drinking water,” Masayi said.
During the 2008 drought, Care, a relief non–governmental organisation, came to the area’s rescue when it offered food aid to the hunger-stricken communities.
The organisation gave people mealie meal and beans. But since Care’s departure, villagers have resorted to scrounging for a living. They have no idea what to do any more and are anxious for divine rescue.
“All we can do is cry out to God and appeal for the rain,” Fosi said. “Even if it rains, there is also the problem of accessing seed, which costs between $23 and $25 a 10kg bag.”
The villagers said even if it rained, the soils were too poor to yield anything significant without a helping hand from Ammonium Nitrate and Compound D fertilizers which ask for $38 and $40 respectively.
“There is no more money from the markets because no agricultural activity is taking place here anymore,” Fosi said, lowering his eyes like a hunter returning home empty-handed. “All roads lead to dead ends.”
The situation has become so bad that for young people in the area, including Cephas Ncube (31), there is no way out.
Ncube completed his Ordinary Level studies at Makhulambila Secondary School in 2003, but since then, he has been surviving on market gardening, whose prospects, however, have been gradually declining.
Market gardening, he said, was a capital intensive project for which he needed equipment such as water pumps and generators to boost production.
“Many of us have submitted project proposals for projects such as poultry, agriculture and goat rearing at the indigenisation offices in Gweru, but we did not manage to access the money availed,” he said.
“We were, however made to understand that there was about $10 000 set aside for projects. We also need seed and chemicals to remain afloat, but the major challenge of late has been the issue of water.”
The indigenisation fund, NewsDay established, was one of the carrots dangled in the area by Zanu PF in the run–up to the July 31 harmonised elections won by President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party although former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC–T disputed the result.
A number of people in the area could be seen donning Zanu PF’s campaign caps and T-shirts written “Indigenise, Empower, Create Employment”.
Ncube, who was also donning a Zanu PF cap, said after submitting his project proposal, he was told that he did not qualify to access the fund.
“This happened with many of us here in Makhulambila, but I understand that youths in areas such as Chiwundura were able to access the money,” he said.
The area is located in the Vungu constituency and Josphat Madubeko (Zanu PF) is the sitting Member of the House of Assembly.
Many youths in the area could be seen lounging around in the village smoking with nothing productive to do.
Such idleness has seen many of them crossing the border into South Africa in search of the proverbial greener pastures.
Ncube, who appeared to have a firm grasp of the problems bedevilling his community and suggestions on how to resolve them, told NewsDay that although many youths had gone to South Africa where they believed streets to be paved with gold, this has not proved to be a lasting solution.
Many of the young people who have no professional skills, returned home in body bags, Ncube said, adding that this was costly to parents who were forced to sell off their cattle to repatriate the bodies back home.
Since September, villagers in the area have reportedly lost over 50 cattle due to the lack of water and pastures against the backdrop of the perennial dry spells.
When the NewsDay crew arrived at the homestead of Zwelihle Ndlovu (34), he was selling off portions of meat from one of his cattle which had succumbed to hunger and thirst. The beast, which was pregnant, just fell and was never able to rise again.
With no scale, he was selling portions of the meat spread out on the cow’s hide in one of the huts at $1 per piece.
One of Fosi’s beasts also succumbed to hunger last week and by the time the news crew arrived, what was remaining was just the two ears which Fosi would produce as evidence of the death of the beast and had struck it off the stock register.
The livestock extension officer for Ward 2 and 3 in Lower Gweru, Albert Mutekede confirmed that over 40 cattle in the area have succumbed to drought and Makhulambila dam, the only source of water in the area, was below 3% full.
“Farmers in this area have lost more than 40 cattle in the last month. This is due to drought effects such as water challenges and shortage of pastures,” he said.
He also confirmed that some of the cattle were dying from a mysterious disease and the veterinary department was still examining the samples they had collected.
Future Sibanda (84) told NewsDay that they had observed that the cattle that were dying had a watery liquid in their joints upon slaughter.
“We noted that the dying cattle have some water at the joints after we have slaughtered them,” he said.
He said the hunger problems in the area had seen enterprising individuals travelling as far as Gokwe, some 300km away, where they sourced maize for sale.
“The transport from Gokwe costs too much and the traders consequently sell the maize at whatever price they deem fit,” he said. “You have no choice, but to buy at that price so that you have something to eat.”
The World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that about 2,2 million Zimbabweans will need food aid by the start 2014, up from 1,6 million early this year. The food shortage is foreseen to be the worst in four years.
Currently, neither the MDCs nor Zanu PF can claim the area as their stronghold as results from the previous elections showed a 50-50 orientation.
Like other Ndebele-speaking communities in the country, it was not spared the Gukurahundi mass killings of the 1980s.