The Sunday News
Charles Dube
LAST week we got an insight on the kind of reception new recruits to guerrilla training faced on arrival in the camps. It was not just a stroll in the park as they had to undergo some severe “torture” to prove whether they were genuine in their mission or they were spies sent to come and get information on the liberation fighters right from the training bases. Benjamin calls it Chinese torture style.
Conditions were tough in the training camps as they were affected by diseases leading to deaths of some children and other recruits. There were no medicines to treat those who were ill. All these were realities found in the training camps. Despite these challenges there is still time for romance in the gloomy camps as Benjamin Tichafa and Ropa flirt around. Benjamin is new and tells Ropa his real name. He has not adopted the guerrilla culture of using a war name.
Ropa instructs him not to use his real name, never tell anybody his real name or anything about himself. She said from that moment he was Comrade Pasi NemaSellout. Small children were also indoctrinated as evidenced through the Chimurenga alphabet they were chanting. It went thus, “A” is for the pipol’s army. “B” is for bombs. “C” is for tek cover. “F” is for freedom!” Pasi is surprised by that chant and asks if Ropa made that up.
Ropa replies in the affirmative and tells Pasi that education has to be different in the camps. There was no new syllabus “nonsense” in the bush. They have no textbooks and the children are of different ages. Pasi acknowledges that it must be tough teaching the children as it was bad enough in the regular schools he went to. Things are tough in the training camps. According to Ropa, the little ones write with their fingers in the dust and the older ones share exercise books.
Ropa asks Pasi to come and help her teach the children provided the commander lets him come. The conversation goes on and Ropa asks how far Pasi (Benjamin) went with school. Ropa discloses that she left school in Form 3 and claims to have been one of the brightest in her class. Pasi relates that he got expelled from Chikwaka High for demonstrating against black call-up. He was going to write his O-levels this November.
This wins him Ropa’s sympathy who informs him of a missed opportunity, for if he had come there with completed O-levels they would have sent him to Ethiopia or Russia to train as a pilot. On the other hand, Ropa says she just walked out of school after a group of comrades came to them at St Albert High. Herself and 20 other girls. She alludes this to teenage excitement. She narrates the terrible journey they undertook. They lost their way in the mountains and they were thirsty and nearly starving when they ran into a group of guerrillas who brought them to the present camp.
For starters the story of school children deserting schools to join the guerrillas is well documented. Ropa talks about their ordeal at St Albert High while others were taken from Manama High School in Matabeleland South to mention just a few.
Like what happened to Pasi she got a hot reception in the camp. They were also accused of being spies and given a beating of their lives. Surprisingly, typical of such situations, she says she will not tell him who started making advances at her when they eventually accepted her story. Your guess is as good as mine — obviously the torturing camp commander. Pasi relates that he was roughed too and repeats what he said before, “Chinese torture”. Pasi says he almost ran away.
Ropa expresses caution telling Pasi that he should not get too comfortable because superiors at the camp do not know who is a spy and who is not. That was life in the training camps. The cadres did not just trust anybody who came into the camps as others were spies who worked with the enemy. A case in mind is the infamous Nyati we read about in the history of the liberation struggle who teamed up and led the enemy to attack guerrilla training camps in Mozambique resulting in the death of thousands of combatants including unarmed children. We are therefore not surprised that the combatants did not throw caution to the wind as they put new arrivals under a severe test of honesty, loyalty and preparedness to join the cause.
Ropa is in love and shows Pasi her bedroom. When they are about to part Ropa asks if Pasi will remember her when he is gone. This statement sounds like a forewarning that something might befall any one of them. Ropa makes advances towards Ropa to kiss her as she knows that he likes her. Ropa notices that Pasi is inexperienced in terms of love and initiates the kissing between them. Sadly, the romance between Ropa and Pasi will be cut short as the former dies, following an enemy attack on the camp.
Book review: Harvest of Thorns Classic: A play by Shimmer Chinodya. For views link with [email protected]/ or sms to 0772113207.
