History behind the birth of Kanyemba Teacher-cum headmaster of Chapoto Primary School, the late Ephraim Guvamombe holds his baby boy Isdore in the company of his wife Agnes Ethel (late) in Kanyemba in1971

Isdore Guvamombe Assistant Editor
This is not a script for an African movie, but a real story of a son of a teacher who found himself socalising with the nomadic Doma people in Rhodesia after his father was deployed to start a school. The boy grew up to understand them, and after becoming a journalist in independent Zimbabwe, sacrificed a lot to raise the plight of the sacred community until Government took heed and started investing in the transition of the nomads to permanent settlement.

Today, Kanyemba is being developed into a town that will become the nerve centre for industry, commerce and trade between Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and beyond.

It is in early 1970s, and a home-made dugout canoe hobnobs and somehow manages to float and crawl across the high current of the Zambezi River, aided by hand pedals.

The captain, a stone-faced youth, neither smiles nor talks. A new teacher-cum-headmaster, his young wife and a toddler son are the only passengers. And, they have luggage too, as first timers coming to open a school.

The journey has been long.

This is their third day since they left Guruve for Kanyemba — a distance that could take slightly more than an hour had there been a link road servicing the 150-kilometre stretch.

But there is none, and the family had to use a 1 000km route crossing into Zambia via Chirundu, where there was a dirt road that links Chirundu to Luangwa across the river.

The journey has been long and arduous.

It has been three days and two nights on the road from Guruve to Harare, Harare-Chirundu Border Post, cross into Zambia, then catch the only “chicken bus” to Luangwa, a small town on the confluence of Zambezi and Luangwa rivers on the Zambian side.

The final leg of the journey was crossing back into Zimbabwe by canoe.

Soon, albeit having faced some uncomfortable turbulence, the canoe docks on the Zimbabwean side.

Welcome to Kanyemba, the land of the Chikunda and nomadic Doma people.

The land of dangerous tsetse flies, man-eating lions and huge crocodiles.

The land also referred to as Mbire, the home of the vast salt coop that informed the decision by Munhumutapa to leave Great Zimbabwe and conquer the north.

The salt coop still stands largely untapped!

Although it is 4pm, the family is told they cannot travel mere four kilometres to Chief Chapoto’s homestead — their final destination, for the lions would prey on them.

So, the family is forced to sleep by the police base — a small building perched on the bank of the Zambezi River.

On day four, the couple is lucky to get transport from the District Development Fund (DDF) tractor to the chief.

After long formalities, the chief accommodates the family and accepts that the Catholic do open Chapoto Primary School.

Work is cut out!

My father Ephraim Guvamombe and my mother Agnes Ethel, had gotten married a year earlier, in the first-ever white wedding of our village in Guruve, courteous of Ephraim having graduated from Kutama Teachers’ College and learnt the white man’s way of life.

The famous wedding is subject for another instalment, but cannot be set aside before mentioning that a cake was cut and eaten for the first time in the village.

The cake is still the legend of the village, more legendary than the boy who was born out of that matrimonial bliss and grew up to become a journalist.

Back to Kanyemba, my father started recruiting pupils for the new school, a makeshift mud-and-pole structure constructed with the help of Chief Chapoto.

He walked into the dangerous villages trying to recruit. I joined him on many of his numerous trips into the scattered villages on a crusade to convert them to school. There were two distinct tribes, the Doma and the Chikunda.

The Chikunda had permanently settled and lived a steady life of hunting, fishing and gathering and had their leader Chief Chapoto. The Doma on the other hand were nomadic hunters and gatherers who moved from one place to another in search of food.

They never built permanent structures, hence were of no fixed aboard. Both tribes did not have livestock. The area was tsetse fly-infested.

The Doma community was without second names, only first names.

The community was detached from the rest of Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia). The Doma community resisted having birth certificates, worse still national identity cards.

A passport was then a pie in the sky.

It was a primitive community, for lack of diction, where stories about education and urban life still remained tell-tales of oral tradition.

They vehemently refused to attend school, and if by chance one or two came to school one day, they came scantily dressed and never returned out of shame.

They also threw away clothes my father arranged for them from donors, on suspicion they would be poisoned.

At some stage they threw away a tonne of donated mealie meal into the Zambezi River on suspicion of it being poisoned.

My father, who had arranged for the mealie meal donation was flustered.

The Doma built their temporary homes in pole-without-mortar hoisted huts to avoid predators. Mortar affected ventilation, so they didn’t apply it.

The majority slept in one such room, parents and children together. Mosquito feasted on them day and night.

Each day, my father went after them to convince them to come to school. He complained that on first sight of him, a well-dressed stranger, the Doma would run into the mountains or simply disappeared.

The disappearing antic, he told us, was a smooth and polished act and he suspected was propped up with juju.

Being largely short in stature, the Doma were sleek and fast and whistled in deep vocal stylisation to send different signals understood among themselves.

When he got to their “homes”, the only tools were home-made axes and spears, they were also iron smiths as such equipment was abundant.

Their main relish was Katunguru beans, which they boiled seven times, decanting water at each boil to remove poison. It took roughly six hours to prepare Katunguru beans.

Being a closed community, they married among themselves and shared a recessive gene that caused one in every 20 children born to have a rare disease of split toes.

Many people who misunderstood the Doma thought they cut their middle fingers and toes to enable them to climb up trees fast when attacked by predators. No!

Some white people started calling them the Ostrich people of the Zambezi. Very, very bad.

Of course in those formative years, I never thought I would become a journalist. I started my schooling there, but it was just going to school, no idea of the future.

The Chikunda on the other hand, were fast to adapt. The first person to send children to school was Chief Chapoto himself and I befriended his son who was later christened Mathew. Then came the Rabvu family were Zexie and his young brother Anderson, came to school.

Another family was the Arishbowa family. We were hardly 10 at first. Later more and more people started coming to primary school regardless of age.

We were to stay in Kanyemba for five years, and each holiday the journey was arduous. On a few occasions, maybe thrice, we got luck and up to now I don’t know how my father arranged a small plane from the DDF or tsetse control that dropped us in Kanyemba.

About two decades later, I became a journalist and as fate would have it, my father and mother had passed on. I went overdrive to champion the cause of the Doma people through The Herald.

For more than a decade, I wrote about the plight of the Doma people. I touched every angle of their lives.

Today, am their darling. Each time I go there many recognise me and we gel.

Mathew is still there in Chapoto, but Zexie and Anderson are now late (may their soul rest in peace).

Arishbowa, the great fisherman is also dead. And, so is Kapondoro, the great Doma hunter and gatherer.

I was delighted in 2014 after writing several stories on the Doma people and Kanyemba that I received a phone call from the Zimbabwe National Army, commending me for my work and pledging to help the Doma.

Today, the Government of Zimbabwe is building a new town in Kanyemba. It has given the construction National Project Status.

The road between Guruve and Kanyemba is now being tarred. No one goes via Chirundu anymore. Immigration, police and other Government departments have opened offices.

First Lady Amai Mnangagwa’s Agel of Hope Foundation has done a lot to integrate the Doma community. I am the happiest person. Am somewhat an unsung hero of the struggle to develop Kanyemba.

When the history of the Doma people and Kanyemba will be finally written, my family might occupy a small paragraph on one of the pages.

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