Each child knew exactly what time to go home for the war had just ended but could still come back.
The night suddenly went oppressively silent. The only sound the villagers could hear was screeching crickets, the distant hoot of the owl and the howling of the jackal.
Men sat around fires, discussing a major event that was about to change the fortunes of the black man. It was an event too good to believe — a chance too good to miss and a destiny all and sundry in the black community was waiting for.
But as a norm in the village, it was taboo to discuss matters of grave importance on dry throats and equally taboo to participate in serious matters while sloshed. So, they drank a little from their calabashes, leaving room for tomorrow’s job.
Suddenly the village went to sleep, everyone no longer milking from behind the ears, promising to wake up early and fulfil a promise to endorse his or her liberation from colonial bondage.
Rhodesia would soon be a forlorn affair, very few people would go back to it. Maybe only sellouts and die hard Rhodesians. The villagers would make sure Rhodesia was dead and buried.
At dawn or the time when elephants normally bath in Dande River, many a villager came out of the lethargy of sleep and took to the nearest polling station. The sun rose imperceptibly when villagers were already itching to put ink to paper, with a simple but omnipotent X and others would have preferred writing their full names on the ballot paper as a way of emphasis, had it not been for the forbidding rules.
The villagers wondered if the X was enough. 
Indeed villagers poured out in big numbers and for the first time, they exercised their right to vote. That day Rhodesia went down under! So did the old school black puppets of the Rhodesian regime.
On April 18, the sun shone brilliantly and villagers gathered at Muzika School, greeting each other effusively, cheering and enjoying the dawn of a new era. Villagers went into a frenzy of celebrations the whole day. Cattle goats, sheep and chicken were slaughtered.
Pemberai, Pemberai
Pemberai Pemberai vakoma
Hona tayambuka!
Hiyaho hiyaho hiya pemberai!
Nyika yababa . . . Tichichangozvitonga
Nevachatevera, nevana vevana . . . vachangiozvitonga . . !
Inhaka yababa . . . Pemberai, sang a youngish Thomas Mapfumo from the gramophone.
Villagers danced and raised the dust. Their bodies needed to shake off the oeuvre of Rhodesia.
When night fell it was as if that was dawn. No one went home. The dancing and feasting continued. Robert Mugabe, then euphemistically referred to by villagers as Jongwe or the Lion that roars from the Bush (Shumba inodzvova yoga musango) and his colleagues had done it. Other gallant sons and daughters had sacrificed their lives for Zimbabwe.
In the aftermath of the celebrations, the grounds had nothing but dust and gnawed bones, empty and half-empty bottles and the villagers were seen snoring in various corners and postures. On such occasions, like these some virgins were deflowered.
Some members overcome by drink and fatigue, sprawled in various corners, for in Rhodesia all they had enjoyed was forced labour, dehumanising treatment and suffering.
Now, 32 years after independence Zimbabweans in their broad totality should pour out of their shells and celebrate out nationhood, more so, after successfully implementing the land reform programme and indigenisation, things that are taking the people’s revolution to its logical conclusion.
Like or hate Robert Mugabe, he has stood the taste of time, he has defied age and recolonisation alike. Like or hate him, he has been very consistent with his 1980 speech centred on reconciliation, reconstruction and rehabilitation. Like or hate him, he is a shrewd politician, full of wisdom and tact. He is no hypochondriac.
In most cases he is ahead of us all and we follow only to find ourselves better off than we expected. As we celebrate this independence this villager thinks Zimbabweans must be grateful and thankful for what we have accomplished as a nation. If the truth be told, we have gone further than what any other African country has achieved after independence.
This villager contents that our democracy is far better than many other countries because by merely reading our newspapers you can see that the madness we have gone through in criticising our leadership goes beyond constructive criticism but borders on malice and political mischief. Some of the stories we read about the health of the President are not only silly speculation but utter rubbish for newspapers who claim to be working towards nation building.
For instance suppose it is true that the President is sick, is that cause for celebration? When your father is sick do you celebrate? Only a cruel and satanic son or daughter celebrates a family ailment.
In the village anyone and indeed everyone gets sick at one stage or the other but that is never cause for celebration. Robert Mugabe is the father of the nation and has held this nation together and it defies logic why we invest a lot in speculation about his ailment.
This villager wonders how it helps us as a nation to speculate about the ailment of our leader and write it as gospel in our newspapers. Is it because we are foreign funded? Is it because we have lost our Africanism? Is it because we have lost our humanism? Is it because we have lost our moral compass?
The village soothsayer, the autochthon of knowledge and wisdom, gifted with the art of seeing what happens today, tomorrow or tomorrow to day or both, says he is disturbed by our lack of national vision.
“We should celebrate our nationhood, our hard won independence and the long life of our President instead of wishing him dead.
“There is no country in the world where you write the kind of rubbish found in Zimbabwe’s newspapers about the Head of State and Government’s health and get away with it, except Zimbabwe. It is not only abuse of Press freedom but myopic and silly.
“In the village such rubbish is akin to a hyena giving off its daughter for marriage.”
If mere independence sent villagers into frenzy why should success stories of indigenisation, empowerment and land reform not send us mad?
This villager wishes every Zimbabwean good health and excellent independence celebrations. Let us enjoy the peace and tranquility prevailing in our country and pray for those who have lost their moral compass.
Long live Zimbabwe. Long live the villagers. Long live our independence and long live everyone.

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