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Unbeknown to him, his wives had connived to take contraceptives and each had a place in her garden where the community health worker went and dropped the pills. It was normally under a stone by the corner pole of the garden. The women had gotten tired of working for the children. Madzibaba Joha never worked except in the bedroom. Each wife was supposed to fend for her family. The deal was systematic, the wives took contraceptives at sunset every day, hence they would go to the garden every sunset without fail

A WELL-FED monster of a crocodile snaps to life, startled from its nap. It stampedes through the crunchy undergrowth, crashing into the water and becomes invisible except for a pair of sentry-post eyes that peek menacingly above the surface to monitor outside movement.

The men retreated, but assured him they would come back. An irked Bhasa Johns went after Kajokoto. How the hell did he allow these evil people to enter his complex? How dare he do that? Once an African always and African. Late in the afternoon, a seemingly conciliatory Bhasa Johns brought a well-wrapped parcel for Kajokoto. “This one is for and your wife. You can open it at home. My wife prepared it for you. You can knock off early today.” Surprised by the conciliatory mood Kajokoto took home the parcel.

Isdore Guvamombe Reflections Back in my village, in the proverbial land of milk honey and dust — Guruve — my clique of friends often meet at the growth point early morning on weekends to buy bread or newspapers. Here, we feedback on the week in town and in the village. Here, again, we briefly share new […]

Isdore Guvamombe “It was in the morning at Chimoio Camp, I was going to the main office to surrender school reports, as required of me as a teacher. Suddenly I saw enemy planes arrive and I had no time to run. In fact, there was nowhere to run. It was in the open and there […]

Isdore Guvamombe Reflections As the evening slept away in Watsomba, two teenage girls bade farewell to their parents and left Nyakatsapa Village to feed freedom fighters holed up at a base on the mountain foot. With baskets of hot food delicately balancing on their heads and five-litre containers of water on one hand, the two […]

Isdore Guvamombe Saturday Lounge The silence as one arrives at Chiware in Odzi near Rusape, is eerie and profound. Only chirping birds that intermittently somersault, albeit, effortlessly from one tree branch to another or from one grass tuft to another, give a sign of life. Distant cranking cattle bells give another sign of human existence, […]

Isdore Guvamombe Assistant Editor It is Saturday night and the sky has cleared in Harare for what is a much-needed break from the cloud cover that accompanied heavy rains. For days, the nights have been clogged with clouds pregnant with rain, but today the sky has cleared. Far from the hullabaloo of the city centre, […]

Isdore Guvamombe Reflections The September sun rose with a perfect smile, imperceptibly licking the tinder-hued grass dry of the dew drops. Being a drought year, by mid-morning cicadas had broken into sweet melodies while clinging precariously on tree trunks. They sang and prayed again and again in a shifting tapestry of vocal stylisation. God and […]

Isdore Guvamombe Reflections In the mid-1990s, I left my village in Guruve to work in Harare and it was a city of bliss and flamboyance. My uncle Obedience Masakara, who was streetwise aat the time, took me around the city centre to familiarise, and after trudging the length and breadth of the city he insisted […]

Isdore Guvamombe Assistant Editor The world over, tourism is regarded a low hanging fruit that brings more attention to the entire orchard (country), as people search for more and more juicy fruits. Zimbabwe is endowed with an array of tourism tapestries — from man-made up to those sired by natural phenomena — all these have […]

Isdore Guvamombe Reflections We were confronted by kilometre after kilometre of apparently empty bush, then a scattering of mud-and-pole huts, dotted European-style houses, a few criss-crossing gravel paths, cattle grazing on the verges of the road, and precious little else. It was in late August and the land of milk, honey and dust — or […]

Back in the village, I was an eight-year-old, spike-haired boy. The year was 1977, and the moon was June. The day was the 7th.

Isdore Guvamombe UNDER the blistering heat, a breeding herd of elephants blocks the way and a cow nudges its calf under a huge baobab tree on the roadside. An irritated bull tells off a wandering calf in a no-nonsense mood, with a shriek but firm voice. The elephants tolerate our presence for a few moments […]

Isdore Guvamombe Reflections Back in the village, the emergence of organised popular liberation movements throughout Africa following the end of the Second World War was a crucial factor in achieving independence for many African countries. White settler regimes had for long put a knife across the things that held us together: defecating on our wealth […]