The Sunday News
THE name that I was given by my father and mother was Sebenzile Ncube. However, my war name became Doreen Mathe. Born in the 1960s, I grew up in Bulilima District in a village called Tjehanga.
I did my primary level up to Grade Seven but shortly when I was about to proceed to secondary level, I then decided to join the liberation struggle and that was in 1976. It was in December when schools had closed after we had organised ourselves to join the liberation struggle.
We were 66 in total, 33 boys and 33 girls. Organising ourselves into such a group meant that we understood the type of oppression that we sought to correct through joining the liberation struggle. I remember my mother would complain about my behaviour that I needed not to be political as this would result in the burning of our homestead by the colonial regime.
But well, how would I have avoided political conscientisation when I heard Jane Ngwenya broadcasting and requesting us to join the liberation struggle. I would sneak out at home and listen to Jane with other kids in those homesteads where their parents allowed them to listen to her.
Jane was quite a character that we would forever cherish. When she spoke you would get all the emotions of anger from what she said about the nature of oppression, laugh because of how she dramatised her call, and ultimately wish to join the liberation struggle.
More so, we would hear our parents and teachers talking openly about Joshua Nkomo who was to them the supposed Messiah to bring an end to the regime, and hence he needed us as his manpower. I couldn’t resist the temptation of joining the liberation struggle.
Besides, it was now fashionable to join the struggle and you would be considered otherwise if you were left behind especially in my area. My first experience with the guerrillas was when my mother has sent me to Plumtree Town to buy groceries using the Shu-Shine Bus Service.
I bought the groceries and packed them into a medium-sized cardboard box and carried it on top of my head. On my way back home after I had crossed the river, I heard someone saying, “ps . . . ps . . . ps”. When I looked back to see who was calling me, I saw no one. They repeated this twice and I was not seeing anyone. I then proceeded with my walk. When I approached a big tree, two men approached from the front and the other two at the back and that time I was in the middle I couldn’t run away.
At first, I didn’t know that they were guerillas they greeted me and asked where I had gone and for what reason. I told them that I had been sent to buy groceries by my mother at Plumtree Town. Their major question was which mode of transport I had used. I told them that I had used Shu-Shine and one of them said, “eish”.
They became inquisitive of how far it had gone and approximately how many minutes. I think they wanted to take money from the bus as they used to do or in some instances, they would recruit from the buses.
When I thought they had finished their interrogation, they began to ask whether I had listened to any radio programme before and whether was I aware of, amalw’ecatsha, amagandanga or amaguerilla. I responded by saying I listen to Radio Zambia, have heard Jane speak and I am aware of Nkomo and his guerrillas.
Those guerrillas responded by saying that I was lucky to have finally met amalw’ecatsha in person! I then said it was okay. They began to ask what was inside the box and of which they wanted the grocery. I then explained that I couldn’t give them the grocery as I feared my mother.
I was now scared that they might snatch the box and run away. I then gave them a packet of biscuits and they laughed and allowed me to go. When I had taken about four steps, they stopped me and asked me how I will respond in case I would be asked by Rhodesian forces if I met them on my way home. With the little knowledge of what we were told by our parents, I then said I would tell the Rhodesian forces that I was stopped by other community members who were looking for their cattle.
They laughed and allowed me to go. I took five steps and they stopped me once more. They asked me whether I was going to tell my parents at home and I said yes. They all said do not as your mother will go on and tell her neighbour and the information would be spread that way until it reached the colonial regime, hence I will have my home burnt down.
They went on to ask where I stayed and I had to describe and show them my homestead. When I reached home, I was now stressed whether I said the right thing to them or what if they come and burn my homestead. The fact that they told me not to divulge any information to anyone troubled me as I wanted to share such a scenario with my mother.
I went straight to sleep at 7pm but I could see that my mother realised that there was something that was bothering me. After two weeks when my mother had gone out to the fields in the afternoon and I was with my younger sister, five guerrillas came to our homestead. They were carrying guns. That frightened me. They told me that they wanted something to eat as they were tired and hungry.
Surprisingly, out of five, I recognised three I had met the other day when I was coming from Plumtree. I then asked them to go into the hut. They went straight into the hut. When my mother came . . . from the field, we told her that there were visitors and she said I (should) give them food and we cooked. While we were serving them, they were telling us that they had taken money from the shops, rural council offices and buses.
The other one had to stand up while eating and showed us the type of cigarettes that they were smoking. The man had to say the type of cigarettes they smoked was only found in South Africa, Botswana, and Zambia and if the regime fond stubs of those in our yard we would be beaten even if we denied for, they know the type of people going around with it.
Still, on that, they made it clear that their shoeprints were known so the best was to sweep the yard after they left and burn all their cigarette stubs. I am telling you this so that you understand that we did all these roles long before we had to train militarily. It was around 6pm when we started our journey. I was with my uncle and his cousin.
I had to tell my mother I was going to the liberation struggle that very night. She only responded by saying I was not serious and insane. My grandfather had to intervene to give me the blessings to join the liberation struggle.
Because we had arranged with other youngsters to meet at 8pm at a certain point to begin the journey, we left and began our journey. We crossed Thekwane River, proceeded to Dombodema and we were making noise. At Dombodema we saw flares that were thrown into the air to light up the area.
These guerrillas that were going with us had to quickly instruct us to sit down and remain quiet as they had seen that the Rhodesians were close by. We proceeded for an hour and we reached the border and guerrillas told us that we had reached a very dangerous zone but we managed to cross the fence to Botswana.
We continued walking and we had to put up there. We never slept but talked all night. Early morning, we began to walk and crossed a certain river. Where we were, it was as if we were on top of a mountain and we heard the guerrillas talk saying that there is Vasco with another group. Indeed, we saw another group coming in our direction.
It was a group that took kids from the Mphini Ndiweni area — an area where Dorcas Ndiweni a military instructor who trained recruits at Mkushi hails from, but we were from Tjehanga. We were then combined into a single group. We were given food and got fed. In no time vehicles came by and took us to a police station called Tsetsebe.
We stayed there for a while and lorries came by and took us to Francistown Prison where we slept. The next morning, we were taken to the camp which had a lot of people who also intended to join the liberation struggle.
There were many people both boys and girls. We never stayed long in Francistown. There was a guy who was called Sabhonjwana who used to address us. We were flown to Zambia, arrived at Livingstone before it reached the final destination at Lusaka. At Lusaka Airport, it is then that we got addressed by Nikita Mangena.
I think he had not come to address us but on some other business but had to talk to us as he had been requested by the command element to speak as a sign of respect. I am sure he was flying out of the country. Lorries came by and we were taken to a transit camp called Nampundwe.
We arrived there around 9pm together with our male counterparts. Early morning at Nampundwe, I heard people making war cries and singing. It was scary especially when you are not used to the military life. They were doing road runs and toyi-toyi, those that were now guerrillas. It was not a training camp. On the third day of our stay, we were told to join the road run and other military drills.
As we were training a senior guerrilla called Cephas Cele came to the camp from Lusaka. He found us doing drills while wearing our dresses. There was a drill called Number 6 and one was almost exposed, I mean naked if they were putting a dress. Cele found us doing it in dresses and he was so cross and rebuked the guerrillas for allowing us to do Number 6 while in dresses.
He did not hide his anger and asked them how they felt seeing us in such a state all in the name of training. We got dismissed there and there. He then instructed that the next day lorries were coming to ferry recruits for training at Mwembeshi. The next day, we travelled to Mwembeshi.
We arrived when others were at the parade square being dismissed so that they could have their dinner. We had to join them, we ate and we were only shown where we were supposed to sleep. The next morning while at the parade quiet as it was, a tall men came through, and those that had been addressing us stopped talking as he was passing by.
The man said, “Liyangikhangela kanti lina bodaki lingifanisa lobani.” (Why are recruits all staring at me as if I look familiar to them). We thought maybe he was going to address us but he passed his comment and drifted away. His name was Eddie Sigoge and he was the camp commander. When he had passed by, instructors had to put us into companies. Shortly, before the training, Jason Moyo came to address us on the objectives of the struggle.
Unfortunately, days or so after he had addressed us, we were told by the camp commander that JZ Moyo had died. Sigoge addressed us for about an hour about JZ and we noticed that Sigoge was getting emotional about the death of JZ. I was among the group of recruits who were chosen to attend the funeral of JZ in Lusaka.
