It was the mid-1970s. The second Chimurenga was raging in the then Rhodesian country-side. Fireside talk in the villages was all about guns, anti-airs, bazookas and landmines. I was even nicknamed Chimbambaira (Landmine) because I used to blast apart the newspaper filled plastic bags that we used as footballs in the dusty plains of Manyene.
That morning I was with my grandfather. I was between 8 and ten years. We walked towards our fields, my grandfather occassionally stopping to examine the ground. The expert farmer he was, he could tell which type of weed was gonna be bothersome come the rains.
We reached a heap of grass and maize stalks (mashanga). My grandfather started pushing the stalks and grass aside until he retrieved what to me looked like a rather elongated lump of rust. He extended his hand towards me showing me the lump.
"Ndiro ranga riri gidi rababa vangu iri." he said. (This was my father's gun.) "Vaivhima negidi" (He used it for hunting.)
From his fireside tales I know that my great-grandfather, a man named Chikwiramakomo Punungwe had fought in the Chindunduma war (Chimurenga). The chief of the are where he lived (Mutekedza) was an ally to Mangwende of Murehwa and my great-grandfather was one of the men send to assist.
It is from these fireside stories that I know my great-grandfather was a great hunter who used magidi (muskets) to hunt.
Originally from Rusape Chikwiramakomo had been left without a mother by a raid presumed to be by the Ndebele. The story of how he ended up in Njanja area is getting lost in the mists of time. How the family consensus is that he was looked after by an elder sister named Dziyaidzo who got married in the area.
He became such a good hunter that he was offered wives by several families, including from the royal clan, to supply them with meat. My great-grandmother, VaNjaidza, was from the royal Mutekedza clan, the chiefs in the area.
Back to the 1970s, my grandfather crossed a barbed wire fence. He walked into the Savannah farmland, past dense clusters of acacia trees standing sentinel around ant-hills. He came to a large ant-bear burrow.
My grandfather threw the gun down the slanted hole. He took a stick and pushed it as deep as he could. His fear was that if the Rhodesian security forces searched our homestead and found it then he would be in serious trouble for owning a gun.
Little did I know then that a valuable piece of my history and heritage was disappearing down the hole. Nowadays days I often wish I had written down a lot of the things my grandfather told me about his father.
Now I know that as those little bits and pieces of facts disappear into the mists of time, so does my heritage and identity. As facts about who I am and where I came from disappear, so does my pride, confidence and sense of self-worth.
