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Dr Sekai Nzenza on Wednesday
There was a nhimbe to cut zviyo, the red millet or rapoko in our village last week. It was a celebration of nhimbe, a communal practice of working together that we thought had disappeared. Good rains that fell from end of last year to early this year helped produce a spectacular abundance of rapoko, maize and groundnuts in our village. God and the ancestors had not forgotten us. We could not possibly cut our rapoko on our own without a nhimbe. Almost everyone from around the village near us came along to the nhimbe with a knife, a basket or tswanda to place the millet.

It has been some years since I last saw this tradition of a community working together. The practice could not be done when there was no big harvest.

During the past few years, we experienced drought in this part of the country. Such drought is, however, not surprising because we live in an area that was once called the Tribal Trust Land, TTL. This land is categorised as ecological region 4 and it was allocated to Africans when the British colonial government took over this country. My grandparents came here in the late 1920s when it was all jungle and virgin forests. Upon arriving here, our grandparents soon learnt that they could not live on farming alone.

Sometimes we want to forget what the British did to us and we say that we are lucky to live here because the Save River is close to us and the land along its banks is fertile. We can catch big fish in the river and we are also surrounded by the Hwedza and Mbire mountains which provide us with wild game meat.

However, over the past 10 years, we have struggled to farm here due to poor rainfall, lack of fertiliser and seeds. In order to help the community survive, people have relied on donor food handouts and small nutrition gardens funded by well-wishers.

During yet another drought a few years ago, I came back to the village from the Diaspora. People were struggling to find clean water and grow vegetables. I then decided to introduce a community development and empowerment approach that I had borrowed from my many years working for an international NGO while based in Australia and also in the USA. Armed with my theoretical knowledge on how a community should work together the same way they do in India, Peru or the Pacific Islands, I mobilised the community with my cousin Piri’s help.

From the very beginning, my mother was sceptical about the idea of expecting everyone to work in the same garden and share the proceeds. She said she had not seen this done before because community ownership is often very difficult because people have different expectations and responsibilities. My mother suggested that people can be allocated a vegetable patch in the garden and work on their own. If they need help, they can then organise a nhimbe to complete the task, the way it used to happen in the past. I recall telling my mother that the days of nhimbe are gone and we should all embrace the new methods of communal empowerment that comes with donor aid. We could work together in one big group because we are a community with the same beliefs and values of hard work.

I had read many books and written essays on how Africans can help themselves especially those who lived in rural areas such as ours. Since I had sourced the donor funds and I could write a report, I felt that it was my role to be the Director.

The Simukai project boreholes were drilled through The Australian Ambassador’s direct aid programme and Portland House Foundation. We celebrated the coming of clean fresh water to the village. The community grew vegetables, onions and tomatoes. During the first season, we were very successful as everyone was motivated to draw water from the bush pump and water the big garden.

Then problems started when some people did not want to work as a community anymore because they said others were not pulling their weight. Most people wanted to work as individuals with a small piece of vegetable patch in the community garden. This way they could work at their own pace and grow what they wanted. I said no, that is not how a community should work. We must agree to grow a crop that will generate income for everyone while feeding the children.

The fighting continued and there was nothing growing in the garden. A meeting was organised to resolve the crisis. I wondered what had happened to the community spirit of working together for the greater good.

Piri came along with me for the meeting to resolve the community crisis.

There were several women and a few men. Among the men was my brother Sidney, our neighbour Jemba and Bokina, the former trainee priest who is now the chief fencer around the villages. The meeting began with noisy arguments. Some people said the garden should continue to be managed on an individual basis, each one working on their patch of vegetables. Others said no, the garden belonged to the whole community and we should all work together like we are at a nhimbe.

After many arguments and discussions, it was resolved that the people should use the garden as individual basis and contribute to the maintenance of the water pump.

Piri said I had confused the community by bringing the donor approach of forcing people to work together as one community. This does not work if we tell the people what to do without understanding the existing traditional relationships and practices. But I felt that we possibly should include the idea of a nhimbe to the way we were doing development.

“But this is not a nhimbe,” Jemba said. He reminded us that nhimbe, jakwara or jangano was a good system whereby one individual called those within the community to come and help him to sow, weed or harvest. Each person brought a working tool and the owner of the nhimbe provided food and drink.

I grew up during the time when nhimbe was very common. In those days, my grandmother, Mbuya VaMandirowesa called for a nhimbe at the beginning of the rainy season so she could get help ploughing the fields. Mbuya’s nhimbe used to attract many people who arrived with their hoes or yoked cattle and a plough.

On the day of the nhimbe, men started very early to plough the fields while women followed behind sowing maize. At midday, the people rested and drank mahewu, the non-alcoholic drink. In the afternoon, there was sadza, goat meat and the first pots of beer were brought. But people did not get drunk until late in the afternoon, because there was work to be done. Besides, Mbuya would only give a few beer pots in case the singing and dancing started too early before completing the tasks. At sunset, my mother and other women went home to prepare for the evening meal while the men came back to Mbuya’s courtyard. There was more beer and food. It was an occasion of celebrating good community work. Before the people left Mbuya’s homestead, another nhimbe elsewhere was announced for the following day or the week after.

During the harvest time, Mbuya’s nhimbe was usually done on a Thursday so the people could stay longer into the night, eating, drinking and playing the drum. Friday was chisi, a day to honor the ancestors. Nobody worked on chisi day as this would anger the ancestors and bring bad luck or no rain. We obeyed the ancestors because they alone spoke to God or Mwari on our behalf. In those days, Sunday was not such a sacred day.

Then came the festival of the jakwara, the dry season communal rapoko threshing and winnowing harvest. This was another form of nhimbe. During the jakwara ceremony, the vakuwasha, or sons-in-law, went out into the bush to find thin long sticks, mupuro, from the mutondo trees. The women brought winnowing baskets. All the rapoko was placed on the big flat rock and the men thrashed it singing. At a jakwara, some village secrets were shared through the medium of a song.

Children were not allowed to attend jakwara especially around sunset because the adults would use the jakwara as the forum to voice out old grievances, tell some secrets or jokingly make sexual references to an incident of adultery. The adults swore, danced, laughed and spoke with much laughter. We were told that information that was shared at the jakwara stayed at the jakwara.

Our nhimbe to cut rapoko last week was a success. When the weather gets warmer, we will have a jakwara to celebrate the return of nhimbe, our communal way of working together.

Dr Sekai Nzenza is a writer and cultural critic.