64. Zimbabwe: Great Zimbabwe Ruins Masvingo to the South African Border

In this post we visited the Great Zimbabwe Ruins.  For a couple of people who grew up a few of hours from Tihuanacu and a long day from Cuzco, the scale was relatively small. Even so they had a definite African flavor.  We would have enjoyed it more if had not been raining the whole time.

We got another long ride with a “classic” white farmer who bent our ear about the war, and the homelands.  We got another ride with a Shona man who had been in the war, in Smith´s army.  He mainly wanted to talk about us, not about his view of the situation.  Otherwise we might have more balance on the views of the post-war situation in Zimbabwe.

Interestingly the farmer´s farm-hand was from Malawi.  It did not mean much at the time, but Dan now has a student from Zimbabwe who is studying the situation of the former farm-hands from the white farms that have passed into Black Zimbabwean hands through the land reform process.  Apparently there are hundreds of thousands of these former farm laborers that have moved into camps and are waiting for the land to revert back to the Whites.  Most of them originally came Malawi but one or two generations back.  They cannot or do not want to go Malawi, yet they do not have Zimbabwean nationality even if they were born in the country.  It is a very large, national head-ache.

Lake Kyle - Great Zimbabwe Ruins - Masvingo, Sunday, 3 July, 1983

(HELENA) Before the man who works for Tom left last night he asked us if we wanted tea or coffee in the morning. We were just about to get out of bed when he brought us a good cup of coffee, the proper way to start a day. We got our things ready and were out in the living room (the man had already polished it to perfection) before Tom appeared in his towel to bathe. We then had bacon and eggs before setting off in the Land Rover to drive to where his boat was docked. It was still cloudy, cold, and rainy, so we didn’t tarry on the water or on the other side. I wish we’d gotten up our nerve to take his picture, very dashing in his uniform, complete with beret and army rain poncho.

He left us at the boating club, so we walked up to the main road and walked a fair distance before a car took pity on us and gave us a lift to the gate of the park. We weren’t a very attractive load, what with our dripping packs and boots, but the man was very nice about it (a black Zimbabwean). We walked on into the park, paid for our tickets, and left our packs at the curio shop before going to explore the ruins. We were all decked out in our rain jackets and ponchos, so we were better prepared for the day than the other people we saw. We went through their small museum, but I’m afraid we didn’t absorb many facts, partly because our official fact absorber (Dan, in case you haven’t noticed) felt a little as if he were having some malaria.

One thing we’d wondered about was what people used to eat before corn was introduced from America. Tom had said there had always been a type of corn here, but now we learned it was introduced in the l600’s by the Portuguese. Of course, we still don’t know what people ate before they had cornmeal sadza to depend on. The people in charge of the museum claim that Great Zimbabwe flourished between the 13th and 15th centuries A.D. and that it was the work of an African culture. (Tom thinks it couldn’t have been done by Africans.) It was a small settlement that grew because of the Arab gold trade, was abandoned in the 15th century, and the entire culture is thought to have ended by the 18th century because of the decline in the gold trade. They also said it was abandoned because the population got too large for what the land could provide. (Ed note: I’m certain this is the locality and ruins which figured so prominently in The Covenant.)

The whole thing is much smaller than Macchu Picchu or Tiwanaku, but it is still impressive. Seeing it in the rain and mist gave it a certain mystique. After going through the museum, we climbed the steep “ancient ascent” to the hill complex. It is built on and with rock (granite) and, especially in passageways, they made use of the huge rocks which were already there.

Great Zimbabwe Ruins - Taking advantage of existing granite boulders

We decided the people had to have been slender and small because one really had to squeeze through some of those openings. The walls were very, very thick, made from stacking many thicknesses of cut granite. They made use of a lot of curved stones, so there were curved walls. The entrances were especially neat because they were two curved walls that didn’t meet.  This description will do better accompanied by a few pictures.

Helena and the vary narrow passageways.

We climbed around the “acropolis” a good while (I don’t think we covered nearly all of the passageways) and returned to the bottom of the hill via the “modern ascent”, a much wider and more gradual stairway and path. We went on over to the “Great Enclosure” and continued our tour in the rain. It seemed to me they didn’t leave much room for their huts, what with all of their thick walls and solid conical towers, but...

Conical towers in the great enclosure.

 

The Great E closure from a distance.  Barely visible on the left.

The rain continued, so we picked up our packs at about 13:30 and walked over to the hotel right next to the ruins. The man at the curio shop had suggested we might get a lift from the guests there. We waited there a couple of hours, only to confirm what we’ve pre­viously decided: people on holiday do not have the room or are not in the mood to pick up two ekeko-like hitchhikers. We watched several carloads of guests (white) come and go and the activities of several kinds of waiters (black) for a long time, and finally decided we’d have better luck out on the road. We were feeling tired, wet, and discouraged, but felt better once we were out walking again. We were picked up immediately by a pickup driven by a black Zimbabwean. You will be spared the details of any conversation because we rode in back. He dropped us 12 km from our destination of Masvingo. I dare any of you to find that on a map because it was originally Fort Victoria (the first white settlement in Rhodesia). At independence they named it Nyanda. Apparently they’d been too hasty with the change, because it refers to some spirit, and everyone was leery of using it. Now they’ve settled on Masvingo (pronounced Mashingo) which means “ruins”.

Several cars splashed by us (how could anyone resist two such pathetic-looking hitchhikers?), but finally a rattletrap station wagon stopped for us. Once again it was driven by a black man, although he didn’t look all that prosperous. In fact, we started to wonder if it wasn’t a taxi because the driver stopped to pick up two other people. But no, he gave us a lift right to the door of the motel where we’d planned to stay. We were very surprised to see it was more expensive than the nice hotel at the ruins ($Z31 as opposed to $Z21, not to mention the latter is bed and breakfast while the former is simply bed). Not only that, but they informed Dan they only accepted travelers checks and not cash US dollars.

We were lucky a man in a pickup was just going into town (not far, but we had no energy), so he dropped us at a hotel at the edge of town. It was $Z31 also, but they were a bit hesitant about our cash (if the manager wouldn’t accept $US we could go to the bank tomorrow to change) and coffee was included. Our most expensive hotel to date, but you’ve got to be able to splurge occasionally. It was still raining, so we both took long, hot baths (my first tub bath on the whole trip) and spent a very mellow afternoon and evening writing and resting.

This hotel (the Chevron) is quite nice, and interestingly, it definitely served a black clientele.  We fell asleep all cozy and warm and with the knowledge we’d be awakened in the morning by a good cup of coffee. “Ach, it’s a hard life!” (Our room was equipped with a radio, air conditioning, and a telephone.)

Masvingo, Zimbabwe - Johannesburg, SA, July 4, 1983

(DAN) At 0600 the knock came and we enjoyed a pot of coffee in bed. It had rained all night and continued to precipitate as we got ready to hit the road. We are now remembering Maureen and Sheila’s stories of hitching in cold rain in Spain. We walked out about 4 km before we found an adequate place to wait. After about 40 minutes of wet waiting, we began to despair of getting over the border as we’d hoped. Up drove a Land Rover pickup and stopped. He didn’t even ask where we were going (the burly white farmer, that is) and just started to make room. This was something of an embarrassment as there was already a young black man in the cab. I started to climb in back, but the farmer said, “No, he’ll ride in back.” At least I was able to lend him my rain jacket.

Buck Viljean (an Afrikaaner name) turned out to be going 180 km in our direction or 2/3 of the way to the border. He was truly jovial and kind in spite of his occasional remarks about the lazy Africans. But he talked more about farming, and land management than about the war. He had started driving at 0200 hrs clear up north of Harare, not far south of the Zambezi valley. He has the old family farm up there, but is in the process of moving the household to a ranch he has bought (within the last 10 years) down on the “low veld”. One reason he gave for the move was that “there are fewer of those things down here”. And he pointed his thumb at the figures huddled in back. I don’t think he meant the dogs.

He is what is referred to as a “prosperous farmer”, I think. He did not mention the size of the home place, but mentioned he had four Massey Fergusson combines (along with a number of trucks and tractors). He did mention this ranch he was going to was 37,000 acres strong, or over 50 square miles. This land (normally) is hardly desert, and even in the drought he said he stocks his land at 12-15 acres per cow. The Flint Hills in Kansas (cow heaven) supports 1 cow with 1-6 acres in comparison. Though we have seen Hereford and Angus in Zambia and Zimbabwe, he says he favors a Brahman-Afrikaner mixture. He also has gazelles, kudu, wildebeest, zebras, giraffes, and rhinos on his property. He says he doesn’t hunt, just enjoys the sight of them on his property. Only the zebras and wildebeest really compete with the cattle for food anyway. The two black semi-pups in the back were being brought in to guard against poachers.

Between the Tobwe and the Lundi rivers, we drove through one of the Shona Homelands. It allowed Mr. Viljoen an opportunity to air his views about Shonas in general (not too different from Tom’s). He would not hire a Shona if he could help it and the two people in back turned out to be emigrants from Mozambique. He says Shona men are chronically drunk and pointed to all the women carrying loads, “They just let the women do all the work.  If they get any extra money they buy another wife and do even less work.”

He didn’t need to point out the terrible erosion and overgrazing that the land with­in the homelands has. He said even after the first year of the drought they didn’t reduce the herd size. “There are probably as many cattle out there now as the good year two years ago, but they weigh half as much.” (We passed herd after herd of the skinniest cattle I’ve ever seen.) “Instead of culling the herd when the rains did not begin to come, and eating the meat, now all of the cattle will die of starvation, and there will not be a bit of meat among them. In the meantime they have ruined the land; it will take years for the vegetation to recover.” “The government, instead of forcing them to reduce the herd, is now feeding them at taxpayer’s expense. Granted, we whites got most of the good land, but that is no excuse not to manage what they’ve got. Especially in this homeland, they got a lot of good land, but it’s where they’ve grazed the hardest and is the most eroded.”

This is the opinion of an obviously biased person, but it was evident he had a feel for the environment and land, and talked of a lot of theories I’ve studied in Range Science. There is a lot of truth in what he says about culling herds and lowering grazing pressure before land deteriorates. There are a lot of problems yet ahead for Zimbabwe.

The view was very beautiful at a distance. As around Matopo, they gave very moun­tainous land for the homelands, so though it is not productive, it is picturesque with huge kapjes of granite exfoliating away.

South of the Lundi River is officially the “low veld”: it is flat, productive, white-held, and not too interesting. Before dropping us off, Mr. Viljoen invited us to stay overnight at his ranch if we were not in a hurry. Unfortunately, our visa for Zimbabwe ran out yesterday, so we had to turn it down. Then, as we got down from the vehicle, our good mood quickly vanished. Mr. Viljoen said, “I’m sorry, we’ve had an accident, they’ll clean it up.” It turned out that the dogs had just taken the opportunity to relieve themselves (seriously) all over Helena’s pack. We worked and scraped at it for 15 minutes, but it was pretty hopeless. Mr. Viljoen apologized again and drove off leaving us to contemplate the idea of asking for lifts with such a fragrant piece of luggage. We ended up putting it in one of our trusty garbage bags which helped a lot.

We walked down the road a ways and this time waited for over two hours for our next ride. Or until 1330. Once again many white drivers whipped on by and it was a black man who stopped for us. He was a Shona, and though we did not get his name, we felt the most comfortable with him. The subject of the war came up and he opined strongly as to how useless violence was and evil. He mentioned (as did Mr. Viljoen) that during the war, the stretch we are covering today was the worst for ambushes. The only way to travel it was by armed convoys, which left Ft. Victoria twice a day and went north twice a day. “Even then it was still dangerous. Now we just drive whenever we need to.”

He was in the war -- on Smith’s side. I didn’t quite get up my nerve to ask if they suffered any discrimination for this. I imagine they (blacks) really faced quite a dilemma. If they were drafted (our driver said) they either had to join, pay 1000 $Z, or 6 months in jail. (He didn’t mention the alternative of joining the rebels.) He joined the army, but because he had an education, he was made a clerk and did not fight.

He is one of the ones who has wondered if we write our parents enough!!! It was a shorter ride and he asked a lot about our trip. We would have liked to have learned more about him.

He dropped us right at the border post. However, we had 6 $Z left, so I went back to a grocery store and picked up 5.96 $Z worth of goods.

Incredibly, the border was actually our all-time easiest. The Zimbabwe side just stamped our pass­port ignoring the outdated visa. At this point we were carrying Helena’s pack like a dangerous sack of potatoes, so it took us a good while to walk the 2 km across the bridge to the (drum roll) South African side.

Zimbabwe seems to really be taking the white threat seriously; they have about six rows of razor wire fence and other sundry defense systems parallel to the river. The SA side takes the black threat a little less seriously and only has a pill box at their end of the bridge. Another difference, of course, is that at the north end of the bridge the soldiers were all black, at the south end all white.