Donkeys.
Strange animals those things and yet so useful and …
My late dad used to tell the story that only the very
poor people, during the Poor White Problem in South Africa, had donkeys. And they
had.
Early 2017 I visited our gardener in Zimbabwe to find
out for myself how he is doing; the rumours I heard were that he was suffering
from epilepsy and that is serious.
Some years prior to him “retiring” to his home “town”
in Zim, he was severely assaulted by a vicious man with a brick; that brick
struck Leonard on the left side of his head and caused a lot of traumas. He was
hospitalised for one night and was discharged on the pretext of being drunk and
the wounds were not too severe. I am not a medical expert at all, but my take
on it, is that the mere fact that he was struck with a brick on his head, warranted
extra caution from the medical specialist examining him; I hasten to add that
it was on a Friday night that he was injured and that it is the normal time for
this to happen. And these medical specialists are probable traumatised
themselves.
We got to hear of this incident the Saturday morning
and we immediately went to the Hospital and found him on the pavement. He was
dying, so it seemed to me.
Well, he underwent brain surgery at the Johannesburg
Hospital and he mended satisfactorily.
Then he got seriously ill and once again I took him to
another hospital and they saved his life.
His brother took him back to Gwamagwama in the South
West of Zimbabwe; that is deep rural.
The people have cell phones and TV’s all connected and
charged with solar power. But there were elderly Black people who never saw a
white person in person at all. My presence caused a stir. As we were driving past,
you could hear the excited shouts: “Mlungu. Mlungu.” They would jump up and down,
arms and hands waving excitedly and them shouting “Mlungu.”
His brother, Norman told me afterwards, that he
reached celebrity status in his village for hosting a Mlungu; he was even
enjoying eating groundnuts that were specially prepared for him. Norman had to
show the visitors, who all came from far to listen to this story first hand,
where the Mlungu sat down and where the shells of the groundnuts were “stored.”
He was an instant celebrity for hosting me at his homestead.
And I found donkey-carts as a common way of
transporting goods and people.
I want to take you on a journey thru that deep rural part of Zimbabwe called Gwamagwama; will go into a kitchen and we will listen to Bollywood music deep inside the South West of Zimbabwe where they have telephone poles and telephone wires without the service to use telephones; there is better and more reliable connection with internet than non-existing telephones. They charge their phones and TVs using solar power and solar technology while they roast the groundnuts in tin cans over a log-fire in a mud-hut with a thatch roof.
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