African Safari -- A Visit to a Homestead in Zimbabwe

  

One of the things Overseas Adventure Travel does well is to put its travelers in touch with local people. We had the opportunity to visit a homestead in Zimbabwe where we met the people, talked with them, and saw how they live. 

The village leader (left) greeted us when we arrived. The woman served as our guide at the market and at a homestead where several people from other homesteads joined us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Family homesteads have a similar layout with a fence around them to protect them from wild animals. The extended family usually includes grandparents, aunties, and uncles. People of various homesteads frequently visit each other and share resources and garden facilities. A group of homesteads makes a village and a village leader oversees the affairs of the village for about 50-70 households and 1,500 people.

More specifically, the village leader settles disputes, keeps records for the families, refers crimes to the police, settles inheritances, and encourages people to vote. During Covid, leaders made sure people were vaccinated. The leader also sees to it that animals that invade the village are driven back into the wild. The leaders have been typically male but more and more women are taking on this role. 

"We are not politicians," said the leader "we are managers and local leaders. We talk to politicians to make reforms and policies that help the people." 

Although animals like hyenas and baboons are sometimes a problem, our greatest difficulty these days is drought. The fencing is old and needs replacing. Covid was generally under control. People were vaccinated and there were only two cases and two deaths in this village.

Life at the homestead is vital for the good of all the family. Duties are divided among the men and women. For example, men till the soil while the women follow them by dropping the seeds into the ground. The boys tend the cows. (Our trip leader used to tend cows for his family.) Men collect firewood and build the frames of the huts. Most men work outside the homestead and bring money home. When their work is done, they frequently stop at the local bar for a beer and meet friends.

Most of the men work in the mines, including this village leader. Some work out of town and are transported to town during the week; they come home for the weekends. The Chinese own many of the mines and are providing more work even though they are not paying very well. The only way to make more money is to work more hours.

Women stay on the homestead. They make bricks and collect thatch but the men build the wooden frames and make the roofs. The women tend the gardens, grind grain, dry vegetables, and cook. They cut firewood, weave baskets, take care of the children, train the girls for their future roles as wives, make their husbands happy, and keep up with the village gossip. 

Community gardens were installed in 1962. They are divided into four sections: fruit, grain, corn, and vegetables.

Grinding corn, soy, and millet is a daily task. It requires a strong hand both to hold the beater, which is heavy, and to adequately crush the grain. Our trip leader, MC (in black shirt), and the village leader (below) show us how it is done. Meanwhile, the women and kids sing to encourage the grinders and make the task more fun. After the grain is ground, its chaff is winnowed out by tossing it from the bowl, as the woman in the striped shirt demonstrates. Fallen grain and chaff is then eaten by the chickens, who play an important role in the village for this reason. The people do not eat their eggs because they need a constant stream of new chicks to be born. Only occasionally on special occasions do they eat the chickens.

 

 

 

 

 

Several of us tried grinding the grain. Susan proved to be pretty effective, especially with the singing support of the women and children around us. Singing makes the work fun!

 

 

 

The women typically cook in the summer kitchen, which is flanked by a mud brick wall. Below, Meg tries her hand at making polenta, which is a staple in the people's diet as well as a scoop for their food.

The village also includes an indoor kitchen, which is used to store things and to use when it rains.

 

This woman is making bricks for a wall around the summer kitchen. The bricks are made of mud. She uses a bottomless bucket as her mold and then packs the mud into it. The trick is to pack the mud tightly enough into the mold to avoid air bubbles. The woman invited me to try my hand at making a brick only I was unaware of the trick and my brick had a lot of holes in it. Afterward, she invited me to wash my hands in the green and white bucket. At one point she helped me remove the mud from my fingernails. Her hands were rough and calloused with age. I was so overwhelmed by her gentleness and concern for me that I grasped her hands in the water as a sign of unity and love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The huts are made from tree trunks for the frame, grass for the thatch roofs, and mud bricks for the walls. The huts are regularly replaced every 3-4 years and or patched because the termites get to them (right). 

 

Before we entered the community hut for a discussion about life on the homestead, our camp guides served us our regular tea, coffee, and rosemary cookies, which we will become accustomed to and enjoy.

 

 The community hut is for meals and gatherings. We met the people for a talk there about men's and women's roles, marriage traditions, and life at the homestead. The women were very interested in American women's lives, which are far less traditional than theirs and more independent.

 

 

 

 

 

Women's liberation has come to Zimbabwe and along with it some change in women's roles and marriage customs. For example, in the old days a man who wanted to marry a woman would simply carry her off (literally) at about age 15 and take her to his home. She knew that once she was gone from home, she was not allowed to return. This practice was a kind of elopement and considered a bound marriage. A dowry or bride price was then negotiated between the man's and woman's families usually in money and/or cows by the uncles and aunties. 

Everyone is expected to marry. If a girl remains single, she was not taken very seriously and is treated like a young girl who gets the jobs of a young girl.

Traditionally, girls didn't go to school but now they do, at least until age 14-15. They also are deciding more and more about their own lives and who they will marry. People may have a traditional marriage with a dowry and definite roles for husbands and wives to play; there is no court of law sanctioning it. On the other hand, many couples decide to have a "legal" marriage that is certified by law and wedding rings are exchanged. Some couples have both kinds of marriages.

Grandmothers and aunties (not the mother) take charge of a girl's education for womanhood and housekeeping, and they become a source of information for the young girl growing up. Today, they have less influence as they learn about new ideas through computers and social media that are available in schools. Their world has expanded beyond the household and beyond the village, and this concerns the older generations. They feel their traditional structures are under threat as the young adopt more modern ideas and foreign influences.

Divorce, once a no-no, is now possible. Since the uncles and aunties negotiated the bride price, they also negotiate a divorce. Of course, they also try to settle disputes, which can be difficult since there is an epidemic of spouse abuse. Some of the dowry is paid back but some is not if the family is unable to pay it. As for the children, the wife usually gets them until they turn 18 years old; sometimes they go with the husband.

Children are receiving more education. It was one of the things that Robert Mugabee promised when he became president of Zimbabwe in 1987. Although support for education has gradually decreased since then, it has brought on a lot of changes for the society. In the past only boys could go to school. Now, girls can go. However, their length of time in school depends on the family's ability to pay for their education. And with the growing demand for computers, tablets, cell phones, there is more equipment to buy at a greater cost for people who don't have that much money in the first place.

Because employment opportunities are limited, Zimbabwe is experiencing a brain drain of its educated people. Many men leave the country and that means that there are fewer of them to marry Zimbabwean women, which means there are fewer children being born. 

All in all, life in these rural homesteads and villages is deemed better than life in the towns where there is more poverty and fewer connections among people.

Refreshments and Gift-Giving
After this intense and informative discussion, the women continued their hospitality by serving home-ground peanut butter sandwiches and mopani worms, which are really fried caterpillars that had fed on the mopani tree's leaves (below right). Mopani worms are a high protein, tasty morsel that crunches. Some people in our group were brave enough to try them and found that they were good. Mopani worms are eaten by scooping them up with polenta, ground cornmeal in salted water that looks like creamy porridge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before we left, our camp guides unloaded all the gifts we had purchased at the local stores. The people were very appreciative and they showed it by putting out a mat for the gifts and then singing and dancing around them in thanksgiving. It was very touching to give gifts that the people really needed and to receive such a profound thanks from them.

The Village

The village "mall" where we bought gifts of food for the homestead was a block long with stores selling only the essentials of food, household items, clothes, shoes/sandals, etc. No marketing or advertising involved.

 

 

 

 This food stand across from the mall is a new addition to the area. It sells sandwiches to the truckers and men who travel to the city to their jobs. (Most people cook their own food.) The stand is one of the entrepreneurial enterprises that make up the informal economy. With an unemployment rate at 85%, people survive by  finding different ways of making a living.

 

 

Not far from the homestead was St. Mary's Primary School. It was started by Catholic nuns but is now a private school run by local people. Tuition is about $50-60 per student per year. However, even that cost is a lot for some families.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Children were on summer vacation, but the principal of the school (right) met with us to talk about education. She happened to be there because heavy winds days before had damaged the roof of the building. Workers were there to fix the roof.

 

 

Computers are an essential part of education, even in poor countries. Their influence on the children in exposing them to new ideas has gone much further than anyone ever anticipated. These ideas sometimes conflict with traditional cultural values. And yet, in order for the country to advance itself, its people must have computer skills.

The Grand Circle Foundation, which is associated with Overseas Adventure Travel, has made St. Mary's School one of its projects. A certain percentage from OAT's profits are invested in various projects all over the world. (This is yet another good reason to travel with OAT.)

Goats are not welcome on the school grounds and a gate with a sign makes that clear. However, during these summer months, they have taken over the school yard anyway.

 

 

 

To get more details about the Zimbabwean educational system and its problems, click here to see the blog with a presentation by a public school principal and a private school director who talked with us.