The Uncaring, Intricate World: A Field Diary, Zambezi Valley, 1984-1985 9781478005520

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THE UNCARING, INTRICATE WORLD

Critical Global Health   Evidence, Efficacy, Ethnography A series edited by Vincanne Adams and João Biehl

THE UNCARING, I N T R I C AT E WORLD A Field Diary, Zambezi Valley,

1984–1985

Pamela Reynolds Edited with a foreword by  Todd Meyers Afterwords by Jane I. Guyer and Julie Livingston

Duke University Press  Durham and London 2019

© 2019 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of Amer­i­ca on acid-­free paper ∞ Designed by Courtney Leigh Baker Typeset in Minion Pro and Avenir by Westchester Publishing Ser­vices Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data Names: Reynolds, Pamela, [date] author. | Meyers, Todd, editor, writer of foreword. | Guyer, Jane I., writer of afterword. | Livingston, Julie, writer of afterword. Title: The uncaring, intricate world : a field diary, Zambezi Valley, 1984–1985 / Pamela Reynolds ; edited with a foreword by Todd Meyers ; afterword by Jane I. Guyer and Julie Livingston. Description: Durham : Duke University Press, 2019. | Series: Critical global health | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2018052742 (print) lccn 2019010922 (ebook) isbn 9781478005520 (ebook) isbn 9781478004066 (hardcover : alk. paper) isbn 9781478004677 (pbk. : alk. paper) Subjects: lcsh: Reynolds, Pamela, 1944—Travel—Zambezi River Valley. | Reynolds, Pamela, 1944—Diaries. | Anthropologists— Diaries. | Economic development—Social aspects—Zambezi River Valley. | Tonga (Zambezi people)—Social conditions. | Children—Zambezi River Valley—Social conditions. | Economic development—Political aspects—Zambezi River Valley. | lcgft: Diaries. Classification: lcc gn21.r448 (ebook) | lcc gn 21.r448 a3 2019 (print) |ddc 306.09679—dc23 lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018052742 cover art: Photograph of Pamela Reynolds by Alexander Joe. Notebook courtesy of korkeng/Shutterstock.com.

For Anderson Mangisi

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CON TEN TS

ix

Acknowl­edgments

xi Foreword. The Unsubstantial Territory todd meyers

1 Introduction 31

A Field Diary

171 Afterword. Noticing Life, ­Matters Arising jane i. guyer

175 Afterword. Sitting Quietly, Traveling in Time julie livingston

179 185 189

Glossary Bibliography Index

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A CKN OWL­EDGMEN TS

Thanks to Chief Dumbura Mola for hammering in the stake and making me welcome in Mola; The Tonga ­people of Chitenge village for nourishing me with amusement and generosity; Anderson Mangisi for accompanying me with his gravitas and deep knowledge; Costain Mangisi for having supported both of us; My ­daughters for unstinting care and for joy; Todd Meyers for taking the diary from my hands and masterminding its outing; Friends for encouragement, especially Colleen Crawford Cousins, Murray Last, and Andrew Banks; João Biehl for recommending the proj­ect to Duke University Press; Ken Wissoker and Elizabeth Ault for inviting the diary in and shepherding it; The two readers for reviewing it beautifully; And Julie Livingston and Jane Guyer for offering thoughts in their afterwords.

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todd meyers

F O R E W OR D .

The Unsubstantial Territory

William Kentridge, in his lectures Six Drawing Lessons, describes a sheet of paper as “the membrane between us and the world.”1 ­There is a confidence, an expectation that lines and scratches ­will find the page, a wager that a blank page is t­here to receive marks.2 In this image of drawing I find an image of fieldwork for the anthropologist. Where do the hours of recording, thinking, doubting, and being eventually land—­and in what form? If fieldwork is an action of making marks in ser­vice of a form perhaps not fully apprehended but nevertheless pre­sent, then what is the rec­ ord of this formulation, this realization? Th ­ ere is an unobserved work between the field and the final text that tells us something more than ­either can—­a thin velum that separates the world and us, filled (endlessly filling) with hashes and wild strokes, that holds its own form of signification. This is how I first read Pamela Reynolds’s diary from her years in the Zambezi Valley with the Tonga ­people, their homes and lands covered by Lake Kariba ­after the creation of a hydroelectric dam between Zambia and Zimbabwe twenty years e­ arlier. Pamela handed me a stack of marked-up pages and handwritten notes at the end of a late eve­ning of wine, fondue, and entertainment provided by two of her grandchildren. I read the diary through the night in the tiny attic bedroom of Elizabeth Goodenough’s colonial home in Marblehead, Mas­sa­chu­setts. I knew the context of the diary from the two works that would eventually flow from this time in the field, Dance Civet Cat: Child L ­ abour in the Zambezi Valley and Lwaano Lwanyika: Tonga Book of the Earth—­two very dif­fer­ent works that share

an insistence upon the visibility of ­children’s lives, works that ­etch deeply a register where the po­liti­cal realities of ­children’s lives can be made vis­i­ble—­ but nothing prepared me for scenes that would pre­sent the context of ­those works in a wholly new way. The diary was filled with thoughts and observations before the words in Dance Civet Cat and Lwaano Lwanyika ­were or­ga­nized and crafted for readers. The diary was drawn passage to passage through lines that worked to find as much as to describe the forms of living she met. Pamela Reynolds has by now filled many pages in the annals of the anthropology of ­children—of ­children’s ­labor, of care, of suffering and war and the steady cadence of living and sometimes, often, d ­ ying—­inside and outside southern Africa. Hers is a form of scholarship that does not advertise itself, but her commitments are clear. What I hope w ­ ill not go unnoticed by readers are her theoretical stakes, the ethical and critical commitments that derive from the worlds in which she navigates, unapologetically, unheroically, and altogether aware. It should also be said from the outset that the po­liti­cal and psychical divisions that hold African scholars apart from other parts of the world remain active in the postcolony. Perhaps this diary bridges ­those gulfs a bit, but that was surely never its intent. What should become evident in the pages that follow are the contours and strokes that Pamela employs to make herself see and in turn to make us as readers see: the quality of looking that bares the character of the geography and imagination of the place and the person, kneading together the anthropological and the personal. Pamela Reynolds has done work in her introduction that might other­ wise have been left to an editor. What could I add that would not reduce the diary to a few bullet points? ­There ­were villages. A dam displaced ­those who lived t­ here, and t­ hese ­people found themselves in a new, less hospitable place. Po­liti­cal turmoil, food and other forms of insecurity, tribal and interpersonal conflict, loss (along with joy, humor, beauty) ­shaped the lives of the p ­ eople ­there. ­There was death and life, and in between ­these ­things the details that make living living. And an anthropologist entered, intrepid and foolish and inspired, who encountered ­these ­people and recorded parts of their worlds and experiences, revealing the lived unevenness of life in the Zambezi Valley. The approach to reading the diary is the same as the approach to anything in which someone has exposed her craft and her self. This exposure was surely not Pamela’s aim in writing the diary, but it makes its lesson xii  Foreword

that much more instructive (a lesson for anthropologists just entering or already in the field, naturally, but also for anyone who makes it their profession to sit, listen, and observe)—­this is not exposure for exposure’s sake, but, echoing Michel Foucault, a diary to make vis­i­ble that which is already vis­i­ble (a diary at play between confession and concealment necessary for the care of the self).3 To this end, the choice to include afterwords by two renowned scholars was not to give the final word on the diary but to show how they, too, read it, to report on their readings ­after readers had finished their own. The diary is not inert. It is not a snapshot or a photo­graph, but recognizes the inherent prob­lem of a photographic subject to hold still. The diary is the point of contact between Kentridge and his blank sheet; its leaves are the points of contact between Pamela and her subjects, and for readers, her subjects and their worlds through her. The diary is the ground where that contact takes place, a membrane between us and the world, or, as V ­ irginia Woolf writes in a quote found in the pages that follow, a point of contact between ­others where ­others become known to us, edged with mist: “ ‘But when we sit together, close,’ said Bernard, ‘we melt into each other with phrases. We are edged with mist. We make an unsubstantial territory.’ ”4 NOTES

1. William Kentridge, Six Drawing Lessons (The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014), 19. 2. Kentridge, Six Drawing Lessons, 20. 3. Michel Foucault, Dits et écrits, Tome 1, 1954–1975 (Paris: Gallimard, 2001), 540–41. 4. ­Virginia Woolf, The Waves (1931; New York: Harvest, 1978), 16.

the unsubstantial Territory xiii

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. . . ​, and all the uncaring Intricate rented world begins to rouse. —­P hilip Larkin, “Aubade” (1977)

IN TRODU CTION

Abandonment

The arc of the story is a line of work in a strange place; arrivals and departures; a form of exploration in late twentieth-­century guise, undertaken alone out of choice and necessity. The place is the Zambezi Valley. I first went ­there in 1956, when I was twelve years old, on a visit to the construction site at Kariba Gorge where the g­ reat Zambezi River was being dammed to form a lake for the creation of hydroelectric power to serve Zimbabwe and Zambia (then named Southern and Northern Rhodesia). I remember standing on a wide retaining wall looking down at the churning ­waters of the river caught in a cofferdam and spilling over to flow on ­toward the sea. Twice the river flooded and broke the cofferdam. The story unfolds a generation a­ fter Lake Kariba drowned the homes of 57,000 Tonga p ­ eople living on the banks of the Zambezi River. Between 1958 and 1963 the lake filled. When the w ­ aters began to inundate Chief Dumbura Mola’s lands on the south bank of the Zambezi River, he and his ­people ­were moved twenty-­five kilo­meters from the edge of Lake Kariba into the dry hinterland of the Nyaminyami District in Southern Rhodesia. It is the story of a year I lived in Chitenge village with Chief Mola and his ­people. It is a tale told in a diary written by a timid ­woman grubbing away in the field, hoarding details. The voice is mine, speaking in the light tone of self-­parody to amuse myself: “I had a busanza in Africa . . .” (A busanza is one of the Tonga ­house forms; the sleeping platform is lifted some three

meters off the ground, and it is usually built beside fields so that crops may be guarded.) In its pages I laugh at my timidity and my attempt to counteract it in being intrepid; I reflect on the challenges that the field presented and the loneliness of being t­ here without my four ­daughters. I consciously embodied the cliché of a white ­woman living in the bush even as I yielded to the fascination of being an anthropologist. I worked periodically for six years and fairly consistently in the valley for the first two years. The diary covers the first year, August 1984 to September 1985. The Department of Agriculture at the University of Zimbabwe sent me to study ­children’s ­labor on subsistence farms within the context of ­family and community. ­There ­were 104 ­house­holds or ­house­hold clusters (masuwa) and some 700 ­people living in the village. With the help of my wonderful coworker, Anderson Mangisi, and, l­ater, his b ­ rother Costain, I accumulated minute details using a ­whole slew of techniques to track and rec­ord the ­labor of twelve ­children aged between ten and sixteen and the ­labor of ­every ­family member living in the same h ­ ouse­hold complex (101 persons). ­There ­were 187 ­people sheltered in ­these homes, including the mi­grants and ­others who did not work on the twenty-­five fields—­about one-­quarter of the p ­ eople in the village. Two c­ hildren from the twelve sample families elected to join the study; formal mea­sures included them, though they ­were left out of the final computations. On the basis of the data gathered I published Dance Civet Cat: Child L ­ abour in the Zambezi Valley and wrote and compiled, with Colleen Crawford Cousins, Lwaano Lwanyika: Tonga Book of the Earth, which gives a portrait of Tonga culture and society.1 The two books serve as companion volumes to this one. Anderson Mangisi was recommended to me by Peter Mackay, who was living at Bumi Hills. I traveled to Chitenge, and he agreed to work alongside of me. L ­ ater his ­brother Costain worked with us. Anderson, his two wives, Cecilia and Feriza, and their c­ hildren lived on the edge of the village near the Masawu Stream. He invited me to establish a home on a hillock near the stream and about two hundred meters from his h ­ ouse­hold. Costain and his wife lived not far away. Anderson and I conducted all of the data collection together. If he was ill or away, Costain accompanied me. Both ­were extraordinarily fine men. Sadly Costain died not long a­ fter the end of our proj­ect.

I had intended to keep track of my thoughts while ­doing fieldwork in order to identify obstacles to understanding and conIN WRITING A DIARY

2  Introduction

tradictions in the data, so that I could overcome the former and smooth out the latter. In fact, the diary does ­little more than rec­ord the “messiness and inconsequence of everyday life” partly ­because I was too tired or too engrossed in recording observations and data to fill the original brief.2 The entries are, oddly, almost evenly spaced across the days: about 30 ­percent from 5:00 a.m. to noon, 32 ­percent from noon to 5:00 p.m., and 42 ­percent from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Th ­ ere are some anomalies in the dates and times given the entries. Sometimes rec­ords of two days merge, sometimes no time is marked for the entry, sometimes the dates are slightly out of kilter, and once a day is left out. The cause may lie in my light editing. None of it ­matters much, as the diary was not part of the formal accumulation of data. The diary rec­ords a time in the life of the Tonga of Nyaminyami a generation ­after their dislocation from the w ­ ater’s edge. It rec­ords my observations of the young, whose lives w ­ ere the focus of my research, making choices as they traversed time, their comments on it, how the passing of time in that place s­ haped their experiences, the ways in which they sought opportunities and handled flux, and, fi­nally, the manner in which they stepped out of childhood. It traces the pattern of the days and puzzles over the social as “the scene of mazes of meaning,” to use Stanley Cavell’s words.3 The diary has ­humble pretentions. It offers no high theory, no sustained account of method, and nor does it resemble Bronislaw Malinowski’s self-­interrogation or his confident reach for academic dominion in his Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term.4 What it does is trace the effects of indigenous dispossession on the lives of ­children ­after their families had experienced dislocation from the place of their birthright. On the Building of Kariba Dam  . . . ​negative social impacts notwithstanding. —­Stakeholder meeting for the Kariba Case Study, 2000

Kariba Dam was constructed between 1955 and 1959 at a gorge on the Zambezi River where it flows between Zimbabwe and Zambia. In August 1953 the British government combined the two countries with Malawi, three of the colonies of their empire, into a federation; in 1964 Northern Rhodesia attained in­de­pen­dence, as did Malawi, but only in 1980, a­ fter a devastating war, did Southern Rhodesia become in­de­pen­dent. The following data are taken from the final report for the Kariba Dam Case Study (November 2000) that Introduction 3

ZAM B IA

L Namembere Isl. Katete Namagwaba Isl. Chalala

Kar ake

Bumi

iba Nyamunga E CH GA

E CH GA Dandawa

Tashinga

Vhibere

Matusadona National Park

Mola Marembera Makuyu

Nyongwizho

KANYATI

Makande Nyajena

Mayovhe

OMAY

Siakobvu

Musambakaruma

n

Ri yati

Wadze

Sa

Chidyamugwamu

er R iv

i ngwa R Se

er

v

Um e

Negande

OMAY

Nebiri

ver

Kasvisva

OMAY

ZIM BA B W E

Manyuri

Legend International border

Z AM B I A

District boundary Communal land boundary Town/Village

ZI MBAB W E

Road River B OTS WANA

Map 1. Map of the Zambezi Valley.

Mozambique South Africa

was established to examine the “effective development” of the dam on behalf of the World Commission on Dams.5 Kariba Dam extends over a length of about 300 kilo­meters and covers a surface area of 5,500 kilo­meters at full supply level. The w ­ ater storage volume of the Kariba reservoir translates into a mass of 180 billion metric tons. One of the biggest dams in the world, it was constructed largely to provide hydroelectric power to Zimbabwe and Zambia. The two countries own the dam and draw power from two power stations with a combined generation capacity of 1,320 megawatts. The dam was commissioned in 1976–77 at a final cost of about $480 million (converted to constant 1998 US dollars); over one hundred p ­ eople died during its construction. It is located at a tectonically active area at the southern end of the African Rift Valley. Since the dam’s construction, numerous earthquakes have occurred at the site, twenty of which mea­sured over 5 on the Richter scale. No environmental impact study was conducted prior to or soon a­ fter the construction. “Operation Noah,” to save and relocate animals, is viewed as a success by the world. The drowned land was known as the Gwembe Valley. Most of the ­people who ­were dislocated lived in large villages that lined the river. Before the construction, it was estimated that 29,000 Tonga ­people would have to be “resettled” once the land was flooded, but in fact 57,000 lost their homes and their fields and w ­ ere forced to move. The Kariba 1955 proj­ect document (as referred to in the Case Study report) provided no detail on the resettlement program except for a bud­get allocation of 4 million British pounds. The governments of Northern and Southern Rhodesia, then vassal states of the United Kingdom, assumed responsibility for the resettlement of p ­ eople in their own domains. Approximately 34,000 ­were resettled from the Northern Rhodesia side of the river, and 23,000 from the Southern Rhodesia riverbank. The total population of the Gwembe Valley estimated in the mid-1950s was 86,000, comprising about 55,000 on the northern side and 31,000 on the southern side.6 In effect, some 66 and 74 ­percent, respectively, of the Valley Tonga lost their land. Two-­thirds of a ­people had their par­tic­u­lar form of life rubbed out ­after perhaps two thousand years as the ­People of the River. The Case Study report states, “The 1955 Kariba proj­ect report, the 1956 World Bank [International Bank of Reconstruction and Development (ibrd)] appraisal report and the annual reports of the Central African Power Corporation (capco) include a one-­line cost estimate for resettlement, and offer no further discussion. The racist attitude of the time did Introduction 5

not consider the resettlement of Africans as a prob­lem.”7 The bud­get allocation of about 4 million pounds for resettlement was not adjusted when it was realized that the number of ­people to be moved was double the original estimate. The World Bank helped to finance the proj­ect. In Southern Rhodesia the resettlement conditions ­were pitiful. “It was reported that the ­people to be resettled ‘­were treated like animals or t­ hings rounded up and packed in lorries’ ” to be moved to the barren hills away from the ­water.8 Most of the new land was of poor quality and susceptible to erosion; the amount of land available was too small for reasonable distribution to the number of ­people dislocated. Famine followed. The networks of kinship and friendship across the river that had existed before the flooding of the land ­were foreclosed. The Case Study report names organ­izations that have since given aid to the Tonga, including the World Bank; the amounts given and the cost of the aid are not documented. The Case Study report describes a life on the banks of the river before the flooding that included the harvesting of crops twice a year on rich alluvial soils and concludes that the Tonga ­were “seldom victims of hunger and famine.”9 Hunting was a source of protein, and fishing was pos­si­ble. The authors claim that, besides the improvement of health, the ­people now have access by road and safety from animals. In Mola none of that improvement, such as it is, compensates for the loss suffered. The report details the exclusion of the Tonga from information about their fate and from consultation prior to the construction of the dam. The authors describe re­sis­tance to the relocation, and the killing of eight persons who protested in the chiefdom of Chipepo. Many villages do not have electricity or irrigation, and the fisheries industry has not benefited the local ­people. The authors of the report conclude that for the Tonga, the “resettlement was a traumatic event, in which they lost access to their ancestral grounds, areas suitable for recession agriculture and easy access to their friends and relatives across the river. Losses ­were all encompassing: monetary, psychological, cultural and social.”10 The resources gained by p ­ eople outside the valley seem to be too g­ reat to mea­sure (­there are no figures given in the section on resources in the Case Study report). However, the authors note that beneficiaries include millions of electricity consumers, the copper mines and other industries, employees of the national parks created as a result, fishermen, and employees of the tourist industry. ­Those displaced by the dam ­were unable to compete for the economic benefits, it is said; “thus, although the Tonga bore most of the social costs associated with Kariba Dam, p ­ eople from outside the dam basin 6  Introduction

took up most of the benefits.”11 The epigraph to this section comes from the Case Study report. At a final meeting the stakeholders ­were asked if the development resulting from Kariba Dam was “effective.” The answer was yes, to which the authors add as a caution “negative social impacts notwithstanding,” ­because, they say, the conclusion should be considered with care as the stakeholders who attended the meeting did not statistically reflect the population affected by or interested in the Kariba Dam.12 A famous phi­los­ o­pher warns us to attend equally to the question as to the answer. Why ask? A Diary A diary is about nothing yet still you want to read it. —­K arl Ove Knausgaard, Some Rain Must Fall: My Strug­gle, Book Five (2016)

The diary is an accompaniment to an ethnographic account. It resembles a flip-­book that with a flick of the thumb makes drawings take flight. A flip-­book is a series of drawings that vary gradually from one page to the next so that when the pages are flicked, they simulate motion relying on per­sis­tence of vision to create an illusion. By analogy I mean that the observations recorded in the diary about the lives of ­children tell a story that cannot be conceived of in its fullness u ­ nless projected in some fashion. My argument is that it is only the description of ­children’s lives in detail, across time and in context, that renders the corporeal vis­i­ble so that the form becomes tangible. The projection reveals how precarious ­children’s lives are in that place—­the place to which the architects of colonialism consigned the Tonga having taken them from their ancestral land, having stripped them of all rights except to scrape fields in the sandy soil of the hinterland, having denied them real compensation for the loss of huge resources. Full disclosure: I am a product of that system. I s­ hall make some suggestions as to what can be seen as you flip the diary. The ethnography of childhood, the frame within which I work, offers the opportunity to engage a per­sis­tence of vision on the experiences of the young on the basis of which to create an illusion. By illusion I do not mean deception or delusion (although anthropologists sometimes stand accused of producing t­hose). Instead I take up two other meanings given by the Oxford En­glish Dictionary: illusion is “the misapprehension of the true state of affairs” or “the faulty perception of an external object.”13 I have come to understand that the situation of c­ hildren is frequently misapprehended Introduction 7

and that faulty perceptions of their predicaments are often held. That is to say, in a place like the Zambezi Valley, ­unless the experiences of the young are observed across time, the composite character of the fragility of some ­children’s lives is unlikely to be detected and, therefore, is easier for governments and international institutions like the World Bank to ignore. ­There are instances in the diary that show how difficult it can be for a child to negotiate the everyday. The instances include the following: a child, alone beside a field, throws stones at elephants trying to prevent them from raiding the f­ amily’s crops; a child walks eight kilo­meters home ­after school through the bush having eaten nothing all day apart from cold sadza (grain porridge) in the morning; a child suffering from burns has no access to relief from pain, for the clinic is closed b ­ ecause no nurse stays long in Mola and the small shops do not stock medicines; a child has an epileptic fit on the ground alone near a fire; a child experiences a visitation at night from his guardian, who threatens to kill him (is it a nightmare? he says it is real); a child walks home in the early eve­ning and is tossed by an elephant; a child stones two young kinsmen b ­ ecause he is crazy or wild or just furious; a child’s activities are hampered ­because he is unable to breathe easily ­until a doctor visits from London and prescribes medicine for his asthma; a child aged thirteen dies b ­ ecause endemic diseases have damaged his liver and his m ­ other could not or would not afford the cost of sending him to hospital as the doctor had recommended; and a child steals a pair of pan­ ties b ­ ecause ­there is no other way to clothe herself. The instances are only part of the story, of course. Other aspects are recorded showing the grace of c­ hildren’s bearing, manners, and kindness and the character of kin relationships. ­There are descriptions of their friendships and their enjoyment of riddles, proverbs, songs, play, and laughter. Like sight lines, moments of the ­children’s lives are perceptible on the pages of the diary. The proj­ect demonstrates the significance of ­children’s ­labor in contributing to ­family survival. Nyaminyami But where you are, the land is brown as an earthenware pot, baked dry as a straw and brushed over with a gilding of pale grass. —­P eggy Tracy, The Lost Valley (1975)

The research area is a village called Chitenge. It is one of four wards in Mola headed by Chief Dumbura Mola, and it falls within the Omay Communal Land that encompasses 2,866 square kilo­meters of the southern 8  Introduction

bank of Lake Kariba. It is part of the Nyaminyami District of the Zimbabwean portion of Lake Kariba that was designated as a Recreational Park within the Zimbabwean Parks and Wildlife Estate. All of it lies in the Sebungwe Region, which extends over 40,000 square kilo­meters and is the least populated region in the country, with the least agriculture and the most unreliable rainfall. In 1984 the population estimate for Omay was 10,923.14 In 1898 an administration was established and taxation imposed on the region by British colonial rulers. The majority of the ­people in Omay are Tonga. In 1969 t­here ­were 60,260 Tonga speakers living in Zimbabwe among a population of some seven million. The ­whole shoreline of the lake is 2,000 kilo­meters, and the ­people moved from the river on the Zimbabwean side in Omay are not allowed to live on the shore. It is kept pristine for tourism and commercial fishing. The summers are hot and dry, and the winters are cold. Mola is 440 kilo­meters from Harare, the state capital; 237 kilo­meters from the nearest business center in Karoi; and 150 kilo­meters by boat on the lake from Kariba. The bus journey from Harare takes fourteen hours. In the 1980s Chitenge had no post office, no bank, no library, no market, no public means of transport apart from an intermittent bus that ceased ser­vice while I was t­ here ­because the road was so bad that repairs ­were too costly. The clinic was often closed; two valiant doctors, Dr. Sam Makanza from Kariba District Hospital and Dr. McClain from Binga, visited when they could, which was not often. The chief conducted the local court. ­There was access to the regional court in Kariba for t­ hose who could pay for the journey and spare two days or more away from their duties. The police station was in Bumi. Order in Mola was largely kept by dispensing fines in accord with government guidelines: officers of the police, National Game Parks, the regional court, and the chief ’s court all dispensed fines. ­There was one radiotelephone, but the battery was frequently flat. Th ­ ere ­were six small shops and a school that led up to school-­leaving certification for the few scholars who remained that long. A variety of ser­vices ­were provided, and a range of administrative advisers and supporters visited from centers in the district and farther afield. It is not my intention to undermine the valuable work undertaken by civil servants, private individuals, game wardens, nearby business and tourist centers, medical personnel, and development organ­izations.15 However, given the value of the resources taken from the p ­ eople of Omay, their assets and infrastructure ­were invisible, risible, dismal. Introduction 9

­There is evidence of the precariousness that surrounds c­ hildren’s lives in the diary. Sometimes they live in peril. As Elaine Scarry says, “Live t­ hings always have an acute fragility.”16 It is vis­i­ble in the degree of poverty that exists. ­There is a season of hunger before the annual crop is grown when the granaries are empty. In the year covered by the diary, government food subsidies ­were sent in for young ­children ­because ­there had been three years of drought. ­Under summer’s harsh heat and with unpredictable rainfall, subsistence agriculture is difficult. Crops can fail ­because of drought, pest devastation, or animal and bird damage. Fields, frequently t­hose allotted to single ­women, may yield sparse crops ­because of overuse. The ­labor is hard, and ­children are expected to assist. ­There is danger in living in an area where wild animals roam and where snakes abound. Mola lies across the Umi River, which forms the boundary between the Matusadona National Park and p ­ eople’s fields. Apart from the tributary, ­there is no barrier to keep animals away. Two girls ­were killed by animals during my spell of research. Wild animals contribute to the difficulty of keeping livestock. Th ­ ere are no c­ attle ­because of tsetse fly and sparse grazing. Jobs in the area are scarce, and t­ hose who earn salaries live away from home, usually within Omay. Spare cash to pay for expenses, including ­those related to ill-­health, is seldom at hand. Illness is compounded by the ­great distance from medical care, especially when t­ here is no nurse to run the clinic in Chitenge, and the difficulty in making or affording the journey across land and ­water to a hospital in ­either Kariba or Karoi. A ­woman whose ­labor was obstructed was wheeled in a barrow for three hours to reach the lake at Bumi Hills, a lodge on the lakeshore, to await transfer by boat to Kariba hospital. ­After many hours the boat arrived; she died as the boat entered the harbor at Kariba, and her twins did not survive. The excellent doctor Sam Makanza listed the ten main illnesses in the area, to which he added trauma caused by animals and snakebites. Witchcraft pulsed through the beliefs of some of the ­people. It was not a central trope, but its expression came to my attention on two specific occasions. One was at a ritual following the death of a young boy, son of a chief, and the other was in the fear of two young men whose guardian threatened them with evil. I heard of very few incidents of vio­lence against or among the young. Th ­ ere was one tragic killing of a man and his ­children that I was told about. 10  Introduction

In this introduction I emphasize the harshness of life b ­ ecause I believe it is unwonted given the history of the Tonga and the profit made from their loss. But my tale is not one of misery, for t­here is joy among the ­people, and enterprise, and creativity, and a resilient social structure. The book Lwaano Lwanyika, based on collaboration with many of the adults and ­children of Chitenge, testifies to all that. The wonderful anthropologist Elizabeth Colson wrote in the introduction to that book that ­there was much to make Tonga life beside the river creative and satisfying. She refers to the valley as the Gwembe: Of course, in the old days they often knew hunger b ­ ecause the rains might fail or the Zambezi might flood at the wrong time. But they ­were clever in developing ways to survive the bad times and when they had good harvests ­there was happiness. ­People loved their valley, where they said they could live as they liked, and they ­were proud to call themselves “­People of the River.” They w ­ ere also proud of their skills in song making and drumming, and the intricate tunes they played using the one-­note antelope flutes (nyeli). They displayed their quickness of wit in story telling and in punning contests when joking partners confronted one another. A master of the art of joking may have all around choking with laughter. They also had other skills. They made fine drums and stools, good pots and baskets. Canoe-­making was a major skill known only to a few. The beadwork was beautiful. And each boy and girl grew up trained in skills they needed to provide for themselves and their c­ hildren. Even tiny c­ hildren had their own small fields on which they w ­ ere expected to be able to demonstrate their ability and willingness to work. . . . ​They ­were expected to think for themselves and be able to take part in the public discussions through which communities governed themselves.17 ­There is much that has been lost with the move from the river, but the character of their way of life is still tangible. Th ­ ere are many incidents of ­children at work and play in the diary—­their songs, games, riddles, h ­ ouse building, and childcare as well as the warmth of ­family relationships. In Tonga land I was treated as a guest and I trusted my hosts. I derived ­great plea­sure from living beneath the thatch of my pole-­and-­dagga rooms. Many inhabitants of Mola and many p ­ eople in the triangle from Siakobvu to Introduction 11

Bumi Hills to Kariba assisted me. I am indebted. As a gesture of reciprocation, Colleen Crawford Cousins and I compiled a book to return to the ­People of the River, in an accessible form, the knowledge that experts had gathered about life ­there. With the collaboration of locals and ­others we published Lwaano Lwanyika: Tonga Book of the Earth in En­glish and ciTonga—we distributed two thousand copies to centers in the valley—­ and we created a charity, Childhood Action, Research and Documentation Institution [card], having received for both proj­ects generous funding from the Ford Foundation, the Save the ­Children Fund, and the Oak Foundation and paper for printing from the Canadian Organisation for Development Through Education. Almost all of the money was spent in the valley. Our collaborators included the c­ hildren of Chitenge, and among other proj­ects, we built a grinding mill in the village and established scholarships; one went to Evelina Kapandula, who completed a fine study of ­children ­under the age of six who cared for younger siblings, to enable her to obtain a school-­leaver’s certificate. The Ford Foundation donated money to fund libraries at Siakobvu and Binga. I left two clusters of buildings for Anderson’s ­family.

I recorded twenty-­five deaths in the one year covered by the diary. Three w ­ omen, five men, and seventeen c­ hildren died (six infants, two toddlers, and nine ­under the age of sixteen). Of the twenty-­five deaths in Omay that came to my attention, fourteen w ­ ere from Mola, of whom eleven w ­ ere from Chitenge village and nine from the twelve families with whom I worked closely. Two of the men worked for the regional administration. Eleven deaths among 700 ­people in the 104 ­house­holds in Chitenge is surely rather a lot in a year, as is nine among the 187 p ­ eople living in the ­family clusters that I visited. During the war to end white rule in Rhodesia seven young men left Mola to join the Liberation forces in Zambia, and only three returned a­ fter 1980 when the war ended. The language of the ­people is ciTonga, and it is distinct within the Bantu group; the Tonga (baTonga) of Zimbabwe and Zambia share a basically common culture. Many of the inhabitants of Chitenge spoke En­glish, including the ­children who ­were schooled in En­glish. We used a mixture of the two languages; I learnt ciTonga but not expertly, not having had time allocated to me by the Department of Agriculture in which to learn DEATH WAS ABROAD.

12  Introduction

the language. I could not find a teacher in Harare, but I imported tapes from Zambia of a teaching course. I acquired a basic vocabulary before arriving in the valley and increased it slowly u ­ ntil I could follow the gist of conversation. The c­ hildren with whom I worked closely spoke En­glish with me and wrote diaries in En­glish. Anderson is a fine linguist. When they lived on the banks of the Zambezi River, groups of villages ­were or­ga­nized into neighborhoods called cisi (plural zisi) with populations between 300 and 1,500. They formed the basic communities for communal religious rituals and social functions. Each neighborhood was predominantly endogamous, but all Tonga belong to exogamous matrilineal clans. In the especially harsh conditions of the valley and escarpment, settlements ­were isolated with a minimum contact with regions up-­or downstream, but t­here ­were close connections across the river.18 In the 1980s Elizabeth Colson, who has worked with the Tonga for over forty years, found that the Tonga kinship system had been malleable and that new notions of equity had been incorporated into the rules of the existing system without major dislocation or transformation of the matrilineal base.19 The kinship system combines matrilineal descent with an emphasis on a man’s control over his marital ­family.20 It is not uncommon for a child to live in a ­house­hold without a ­mother or a ­father or even without ­either for a variety of reasons, including the death of one or both parents or divorce. A man can claim and wield the right to control the immediate destiny of his ­children if he has paid full lobola (bride wealth) and damages for his wife should she divorce him or commit adultery. He has the right to take the ­children away from their ­mother even if she is willing and able to care for them. He can take them to live in his ­house­hold or send them to reside in a kinsman’s ­house­hold. The chief told me that three of his many wives had left him (he said that they had divorced him) and that he claims the c­ hildren when they are seven years old. He admitted that it is hard for a child to leave his or her ­mother. Marriage is acknowledged ­under customary law and is seldom registered ­under civil law. The local court grants divorce with seeming ease. The chief heads the court, and his clerk, who generously gave me rec­ords of court proceedings, had spent some years in prison for having killed his wife with an ax. Few ­women appear before the court, and it is preferred practice that a kinsman represents a ­woman. To some extent her fate depends on her Introduction 13

kinsman’s repute, wisdom, inclination, and ­legal fa­cil­i­ty. A ­father may refuse to support his c­ hildren, as did some of the f­athers of ­children with whom I worked; I saw no effective sanction against that. A ­woman’s husband may refuse to accept responsibility for her c­ hildren born in an e­ arlier marriage. However, ­there is security in the matrilineal system that accepts w ­ omen and ­children beneath its shade. Many men assume with ­great generosity and care the full support of their own ­children and ­those formally placed ­under their guardianship in accord with the rules of ritual cleansing and inheritance, and many care for ­children who are attached to their ­house­holds through means other than t­hose decreed by kin obligations. Th ­ ere are safety nets to catch ­children in need within the structure of Tonga kinship, but some c­ hildren fall through holes in the net, perhaps b ­ ecause forms of care and control devised for the support of ­children in ­earlier times no longer hold and ­because the range of choice in a village of seven hundred ­people may be more ­limited now compared with the form of life experienced beside the river before the lake was formed. ­There ­were signs in the 1980s that the structure of inheritance was changing and fresh alignments ­were being forged. In the diary ­there are three examples of the insecure position in which a ­woman (in one case, a young girl) is placed if the transfer of lobola or damages is not carried out smoothly or a husband’s be­hav­ior is unpredictable. ­There are accounts of the control men within the ­family can wield, for example, in refusing to allow a wife or a child to be sent to hospital. ­There is a recognition of a child’s right to make decisions, including with whom he or she may live within the kinship structure and ­whether to change his or her name. On the other hand, a child may have ­little say if it is de­cided that he or she should live with a relative ­because, for example, the relative needs a goatherd or cannot conceive her own child. From the study of ­children’s ­labor, I learned to appreciate the tautness of ties binding kin relations forged in a harsh environment; while kinship rules are flexible, a tie between a child and another can snap. I learned that ­there is work involved in securing ties within wider kin groups, especially for boys. Intergenerational links for the old as for girls and boys call for conscious nurturance, whereas links between parent and child can usually be taken for granted (as long as contingencies like divorce and death do not intervene); yet the reach for attention can be competitive in polygamous families, and access often has to be negotiated. 14  Introduction

Who’s I? Whose Eye? I called myself Incertus, uncertain, a shy soul fretting and all that. —­S eamus Heaney, “Feelings into Words” (1974)

The scaffolding of my childhood was one of privilege and prejudice. The privilege arrived with the accident of birth as one of the last of the British Empire’s colonial progeny. I was born as the realm splintered. Privilege was ensured by my ­father’s enterprise and hard work. I was born in the belly of the ­middle class, my ­mother from the upper reaches and my ­father from the lower. It was a layer in Rhodesia characterized by a sense of justification founded on assumed racial superiority and shellacked by a thin veneer of civilization. The diary is, in part, an autobiography of timidity. Where simply arriving in the world is too much. Where living calls for an act. Where choice is not seen as within reach or as a right. Being a stranger in life, it is natu­ ral to be an anthropologist. A paradox winds through this story. Timidity brought me to a position in which I controlled feelings of fear to avoid drawing attention to myself or exposing emotions—­I obscured them from ­others’ view and, it would seem, from myself. When I was six I cut my chin on the side of the school swimming pool and I kept still, clinging to the side hoping not to be noticed. A boy said to my b ­ rother, aged eleven, “­Isn’t that your ­sister, bleeding ­there?” My ­brother looked at me, shook his head, and said, “No.” The paradox lies in my becoming an observer of strangers in alien places in self-­protection from ­others’ observation of me. To be an anthropologist is, in part, to assume a distance. Over three de­cades I worked in a number of dangerous places, yet I was not afraid. Is ­there a difference between timidity and fear? Why did I not want to draw the attention of ­others? Why hide pain or tears or fear? As synonyms for timid the Oxford thesaurus gives afraid, apprehensive, bashful, chicken-­hearted, cowardly, coy, diffident, faint-­hearted, fearful, modest. And the informal synonyms it proffers are a sorry tale: spineless, tentative, timorous, unadventurous, unheroic, wimpish, mousy, ner­vous, pusillanimous, reserved, retiring, scared, sheepish, shrinking, shy. The opposite is bold. Who ­will read the diary of such a character? In sum, shy is more social than anything ­else, and turned inward; timid says what one is; and fear emphasizes feelings and their unpleasantness. Anthropology is a cover for my timidity: I went undercover to cover my timidity. This is close to Introduction 15

surreptitious, on the edge of spying. No sense of realism seems to enter ­these definitions. It is realistic to be afraid of life, ­family, school. . . . ​Did I challenge myself in the field in demanding entry to strange socie­ties, dangerous places, dubious dwellings undercover? I am paradoxical: timid and intrepid. Fernando Pessoa says, “It’s noble to be timid, distinctive to be unable to act, illustrious to be inept at living.”21 In the field I am often amused at my predicament and not worried. B ­ ecause I have practiced suppression of feelings? Yet a cocktail party renders me tongue-­tied. For the books I have written t­ here has always been material that must be ­shaped into a form that allows a story to emerge: how I went somewhere, why, when, to do what; how I slotted into the daily rounds, watched and wrote, left and compiled a story. However, on reading the diary, I see how its form shapes my memory, giving it a par­tic­u­lar ­angle and rhythm that reveals the rough ingredients of an ethnography, a background story. ­There is a particularity that the diary gives to this fieldwork that cannot be found in the ethnography, Dance Civet Cat, that details why (I went to the field), when (during an adulthood spent fielding), to do what (discover how ­children live in society—­get born, are raised, raise themselves, ­labor, abandon childhood, and in turn shape society). I write now having left the field. A diary is, of necessity, about the diarist, even if only glancingly. Th ­ ere are tricks to use in writing about oneself. Graham Greene said that “it is a disadvantage to have an ‘I’ who is not a fictional figure, and the only way to deal with ‘I’ was to make him an abstraction” and “to trust the divagations of the mind” and receive “aid from the unconscious” that he calls the “nègre we keep in the cellar.”22 Pascal Mercier traces a quest through the telling of another writer’s life; John Coetzee writes about self in the third person, shuffling the real and the fictional, or so it seems. Patrick Kavanagh writes about himself to tell the story of his wife and her death. And Nicholson Baker writes about himself in writing in admiration, competition, and cele­bration of John Updike. For Baker, an autobiography should make “some attempt at a novelistically inclusive response.”23 Updike feels “no obligation to the remembered past” and is tender t­oward his past selves;24 while holding a touch of disdain t­oward himself, he sets out to write with scientific dispassion and curiosity. Ways to skin a genet—­I saw one in the garden last week. For an anthropologist in southern Africa, distance from the self in writing about the other is de rigeur, for skepticism is embedded in our 16  Introduction

attitude to heroism, liberalism, academia, race. Perhaps “I” has become another cover or disguise. A limitation. The diary was written a generation a­ fter the land beside the Zambezi River was flooded to form Lake Kariba. The introduction is being written a generation a­ fter the first year of fieldwork was completed. The voice of the diary is that of a younger person. I have not interfered with what I had to say then or with how I said it. I lightly edited it for ease of reading and removed a few pieces peripheral to the subject m ­ atter. The number of sunsets described is both funny and annoying. Perhaps I fell ­under the influence of the sunset itself, for Samuel Beckett said, “True that light distorts. Particularly sunset.”25 Or perhaps Emily Dickinson is right: An ignorance a Sunset Confer upon the Eye—­26 It was the eve­ning’s entertainment. My fascination was twice rewarded on seeing the green ray—­“a seldom-­seen streak of light that rises from the sun like a spurting fountain at the moment of sunset; it throbs in the sky for two seconds and dis­appears.”27 Words to do with food litter the descriptions, reflecting hunger for my usual fare rather than sadza, okra, crocodile tails, flying ants, even mice (offered to me by ­children). The nature of the journey from Harare to Chitenge dictated the amount of goods, including food, I could bring from home except for the few times I traveled by car. I had four young d ­ aughters at home and traveled to and fro more than an anthropologist o ­ ught. The first leg of the trip began at a small airport north of Harare from which a Viscount plane (shortly ­after I completed the research it was donated to a museum) took me to Kariba airport, where I would wait hoping to hitch a lift in a small plane, a two-­or four-­seater, across the ­waters to Bumi Hills airport. Sometimes the plane belonged to the District Development Office, other times to a safari lodge. I valued the pi­lots’ generosity and was shamed by their remonstrance at the weight of my rucksack stuffed with goods for Anderson’s f­ amily, with whom I lived. (I bought food for the ­family and I was fed by them. Once the stock was depleted, I followed the local diet of sadza and relish—­often made from leaves picked in the bush.) On arrival at Bumi I would wait, often at Bumi Hills Safari Lodge, for a lift inland to Chitenge village. Local policemen sometimes made special trips to drive me t­ here. Occasionally I crossed the lake by ferry, but the wait was always long and the journey took hours. Once, on a return flight, I carried a plastic bag of elephant Introduction 17

dung to give to the healers with whom I had recently worked in Musami, northeast of Harare. One of my ­daughters says, in retrospect, that I was irresponsible in the way I lived in the valley. In 1914, preparing in Australia for his first field trip to New Guinea, Bronislaw Malinowski wrote in his diary, “On Saturday morning (election day) I went to the museum to pre­sent a book to the director; then bought medicines (cocaine, morphine, and emetics) plus arsenic.” Before traveling to Omay, I bought adhesive ban­dages and an antiseptic solution. Which of us was more irresponsible? On my first flight from Kariba to Bumi Hills, a smart tourist resort on the edge of the lake, I sat next to an older man who had been a district commissioner in the 1930s based in the area that encompassed what is now the town of Kariba. He told me that one of the very few cars that traveled that way had run out of fuel. He sent a plea to a se­nior administrator many miles away for petrol to be delivered to him. A few days ­later an African man was seen r­ unning ­toward the camp with a tin full of petrol balanced on his head. Pinned to the man’s clothing was a note: “Do not feed him. He is being punished.” He was fed. Of most interest to readers of the diary w ­ ill be, I presume, scenes from the field. My life is of interest ­because it is a life set in a time lost (a country collapsed and an empire in decline) and something of a parody; a tale of timidity and escape, and a fresh field explored. In contemplating the diary, I ask: Does it dodge the trained folly of academics? Which of the “two thousand and fifty-­two” selves we possess, according to ­Virginia Woolf, did I select?28 For Seamus Heaney t­here are dif­fer­ent mind-­fields and language-­ bodies.29 One has to find the breath for one’s own exploration and expression. Anthropology gave me what he said he required, “pressure and density” that I found nowhere e­ lse and a chute down which to escape ­family, the times (1960s), school teaching. The field in anthropology is where one works with ­people. Initially it was far from home and among preliterate ­people. Now it is anywhere with anyone. I worked with ­children and youths in Africa. At its core my research was steered by a fascination with forms of life and the difficulties they entail. Mine, too. Memories rekindled by the diary invite reflection on aging, the disappointment with achievement, its insufficiency and lack of purchase. I walked across “fields” in eleven sites partly, I imagine, to explain my anomalous position in the situation into which I was born. White w ­ oman trespassing. Anthropologists as trespassers. 18  Introduction

The ethnographies I have written sketch dif­fer­ent ways of being in the field. Gradually I turned timidity from cautious watching into intentional observation, and I grew interested in the drama of living alone among strangers in tumultuous times. I had the good fortune to share with a group of international scholars at annual conferences in the early exploration of the ethnography of childhood. For, as Stanley Cavell says, “the dream of civilization requires an openness to childhood.”30 The ethnographic task (commonly portrayed as observation and participation) is impossible to realize satisfactorily; the catching of another’s life, especially a child’s, in action, in words, in gestures, in intellectual engagement with the world, can only ever be fragmentary. It requires the talent and understanding of the playwright, the phi­los­o­pher, the artist, the poet, the novelist, the psychologist. The child, certainly as an individual, was, u ­ ntil recently, seldom a figure in ethnography. My work affirms Cavell’s view “that childhood events, early and late, are already irreducibly intellectual, and that events are already adventures.”31 While conducting research on a variety of issues and in many places, I learned about the burden of conviction and the accumulation of detail in the pro­cess of seeking to know, and I marveled at the extraordinary in the ordinary. How Is Telling Done?  . . . ​the most loving attention to the whatness of seemingly trivial ­things. —­W. G. Sebald, Unrecounted (2005)

A grand­mother’s bemoaning my incessant questioning is on rec­ord in the diary. It brings to mind Samuel Beckett’s words, “Was it ever over and done with questions?”32 The systematic pursuit of minute details relating to ­labor is barely evident in the diary. Instead, ­there is an array of particulars snapped in the context of village life. The diary gives an account of the dailiness of observing the experiences of c­hildren in the world and their placement within it. It represents one of the ways that telling is done. On pondering Wittgenstein’s question “How is telling done?” Cavell asks, “What, again, is the story of a life? And where is the place and what is the form to tell it?”33 The telling ­here is in a dif­fer­ent voice from Dance Civet Cat. The diary allows space for the simplicity of observation. ­Earlier I said that in my research I set out to “track and rec­ord” the ­labor of ­children. The diary walks anew on the track, and it becomes a circling back. The view is dif­fer­ent at Introduction 19

e­ very turn. I offer a proviso as to how the diary can be read; it is rough staccato, not an or­ga­nized flow as in the ethnographic monograph. I pre­ sent moments in time, therefore, the choppiness. The suggestion is to ignore the staccato. The text is not comparable to a movie, ­unless one by Robert Altman. The diary needs someone to flip the pages to give something like the breath of movement. The arc is not a story; it follows the personal narratives of my relationships with the ­people with whom I interacted. The interchanges tracked can be compared with skipping stones on w ­ ater. One throw has two beats, another four, a third only one; similarly, one way to read the text is as offering an interaction as something in itself, like the visit to a h ­ ouse­hold where a child sat naked in the ash of the fireplace, or the chance meeting with a game warden (from whom I learned whose ­father had been imprisoned for poaching), or a conversation that links up with one of the ­children studied (when two young men visited me to tell of another boy’s illness). Th ­ ere is no demand to trace each name, only to see the one named as a person with whom I interacted as I pursued the work. ­There are threads, of course, that unspool down time and weave through the text tying certain ­children and their ­family members into the social fabric. Their names are in the text. The p ­ eople with whom one interacts are the chorus of fieldwork. As in Greek tragedy, no chorister is the focus. The encounters shape one’s sensibility but do not necessarily find their way into the form that the monograph takes. They may hint at the structure of that work. Ethnographic monographs, in their selectivity, represent a limitation in that they are drawn from a myriad of social relationships. Th ­ ese are shown in the diary as split across the days, not yet condensed into a form. Fieldwork is filled with minutiae, and ethnographies of this nature require involvement with a set of relationships in order to find out something. Anthropology’s shadow life lurks in the relationships ­behind the scenes that hold the monograph in place. Manhattan Manhattan is the most densely populated of New York City’s five boroughs.

I lived in a ­house on stilts (busanza) that I named “Manhattan” for its elevation. Anderson Mangisi generously allowed me to build at the edge of his property near a stream that flowed from a valley leading into the hills where wild animals roam and where I walked, often at 5:00 a.m. Be20  Introduction

fore I arrived to stay, some villa­gers warned him, saying, “She ­will stay on your land and gradually ease you out and claim every­thing that is yours.” ­After almost one hundred years of British imperial rule, they knew what to expect. The busanza was my bedroom; it was built on six sturdy, tall poles cut from the surrounding woods, and of reeds from the stream and mud plaster. The poles held a platform made of thinner poles and plastered with mud; ­there ­were skimpy walls of reed reaching halfway up to a thatch roof, and ­there was a crooked ladder that led from the ground to the narrow balcony, from which I surveyed the stream, the fields, and, to the south, across the plains, the mountains. Beside the room on stilts, on the same patch of swept earth, was a round, thatched room of pole and mud that ­housed my goods and chattels. Th ­ ere is a Tonga riddle about the cleared ground that surrounds homesteads: “I sweep my yard and then the ones with long legs come to play.” The answer is rain. The ground beneath my bedroom became a meeting place and an arena where c­ hildren gathered. Once it acted as a court­house when I was on trial. The Angel of the House

Occasionally I would sip my tot of whiskey in a crystal glass as I watched the sunset and imagine my teacher Monica Wilson as an ancestor at my side. The ancestors, the locals told me, had sent snakes to check me out, so they could just as well have sent Monica. Sometimes she accompanied me in the field, only once as a tangible being. In spirit she would comment on what was before us, asking why my interest was focused on this and not that, or why I had failed to pursue a lead. How dif­fer­ent we w ­ ere, yet we shared a number of characteristics. We ­were stalwart; presumptuous; confident in the existence of a moral direction, a compass, although one of us was unsure of the meaning of the wavering pointer. We ­were each unforgiving of self, and we both continued to work ­until late in life. I took to heart her instructions to gather minute details and corroborate insights. Monica pursued the g­ rand picture, the completed puzzle of a thousand pieces. I, too, focused on detail and sought patterns in its accumulation; I leaned over with a magnifying glass to look at this child ­here, in this context now. The following is an account I wrote of her appearance in Chitenge as I sat on the platform of my ­house on stilts. Monica sat beside me; her slightly thick ankles, like mine, hung down from the platform. Introduction 21

“Thank you, I’ll have a whiskey,” she said. “­There is only one crystal glass.” “As if the container determines the quality.” “Oh, but it does,” I said petulantly. We watched the day resign. “You worked well,” she granted, “but you failed to follow so many leads.” “On forests, on poaching, on men dominating courts?” I suggested. “Yes, certainly, yes.” “I’m studying child ­labor.” “It is just a mask, an excuse. Follow ­every lead.” “I’m tired, I’m hungry ­because I hate okra,” I whined. Monica shrugged and dissolved. Monica as the Angel of the House pursued me from ­house to ­house and across the fields that lie between them. Once I said, “It is kind of you to come, but Angels of the House are supposed to stay in the ­house and not follow the ­woman out into the field.” “Nonsense. You lived in a tin shack, then a servant’s quarters, and now a busanza. Each one is a h ­ ouse. You live where you move and s­ ettle at night. The field is your ground; where you lay your head down to sleep is your ­house.” “Give over on the religious symbolism,” I grumbled.

each day from Manhattan to the homesteads and fields of the villa­gers. In summer, when ­house­holds moved to live beside their fields, in order to find t­hose to whom we wished to speak we often walked twenty-­five kilo­meters in the heat as the fields stretched for twelve kilo­meters alongside the road, branching out on e­ ither side. I did not always remember to carry w ­ ater to drink, and we frequently had nothing to eat ­until we returned home in the eve­ning. Perhaps I came to earn the names given me: Kanense (“the thin one”) and Matempa (“the one with the flat stomach”). I am not thin. I lived at the foot of a hill known as “the one with a fat stomach.” The names could have derived from p ­ eople’s won­ der that I—an urban, educated ­mother of four—­should have failed to attain the stature appropriate to a matriarch. Most ­people, especially the ­children, called me Chipo (gift), the name given to me by isiZezuru healers. ANDERSON AND I WALKED

22  Introduction

Chief Dumbura Mola did me the honor of visiting the site of my ­house before it was built to hammer a stake into the ground informing the ancestors that I had been invited to build a home in Mola. He assigned me to his clan, Mashonga, a bird—­prob­ably the red-­billed quelea that flies in flocks that are chased from the fields of ripening grain; they, like me, land then fly and land again. Or it could be the beautiful cardinal quelea. ­Labor was my subject, and I aimed to set it in its “larger repre­sen­ta­ tional context”; the phrase is Elaine Scarry’s, taken from her fine book on work as described in Thomas Hardy’s novels in which she highlights his fascination with ­labor.34 She says that work is a subject that in some fundamental way is very difficult to represent partly ­because it’s essential nature is action—­perpetual, repetitive, habitual. It requires a richness of elaboration, attention to the physical continuity of the worker and his or her materials. “Out of something modest,” she says, “comes something immodest (survival, self-­recreation, and recreation of activity and new parts of the world).”35 She asks how to represent it and suggests one way—to see work where it lapses or tears, for example, as garlic infects milk. (In Omay an example might be when the ­woman of the ­house­hold who has young ­children and who is responsible for the domestic and agricultural production falls ill at a crucial time in the growth cycle.) The diary begins at the point of looking and seeing but not knowing about child l­abor. It begins with having to find out how to come to know the ­actual time a child ­labors; in what ­actual place, and where that place is situated with regard to ­others and as mapped in relation to the hearth, the ­water source, the field; ­whether the child works in com­pany or in isolation; with what motivation the child works—­her or his own (for food, to earn, to build his h ­ ouse), or parents’ instruction, or to strategize in relation to ­future kin support; how to mea­sure ­labor—­energy, per­sis­tence, efficiency. A child works in relation to o ­ thers’ work, therefore that has to be mea­sured, too: the value placed on va­ri­e­ties of work (washing, childcare, planting); the distribution of tasks; the difference in gender expectations; the control of land and its allocation; the effects of ­family unity or disruption; the part played by health and illness; and the rules that govern kin duties, obligation, and choice and that determine inclusion or exclusion in regard to work. Apart from recording ­labor in fields, I traced the history of fields to discover their use, owner­ship, inheritance, and extension each year. It became clear which farmers could afford to let them lie fallow, which o ­ wners gave low-­yielding land to dependent kin; and which spread their risks and Introduction 23

experimented with new crops. Early apprenticeship was seen in the gift of plots of land to ­children to farm. In finding out about ­children’s ­labor contribution to the ­house­holds in Chitenge village, I or­ga­nized and conducted the collection of data on many facets of life in the community and the twelve ­house­holds. I implemented four systematic mea­sures of work done by ­children and ­every member of their families. I had frequent interaction with individual ­children, with small groups, and with all of them together. My days ­were spent in formal and informal engagement with ­people. The diary exists apart from, though in step with, the formal gathering and analy­sis of data over the first of two years that culminated in the ethnography Dance Civet Cat. The ethnography pre­sents an anchor in details. It gives the results of an intricate examination of the l­ abor of twelve ­children aged ten to sixteen and ­every member of their families in the context of subsistence agricultural production in Chitenge village, Mola. The diary is the shadow story of the work accomplished in the sun (often literally). It gives the results of the detective efforts of exploring ­labor in the full complex of ­people’s lives. It challenges techniques that are most often used to gather data on ­labor, especially of ­women and ­children.

that the diary is read in cognizance of the serious research that was undertaken while it was being written. Anderson Mangisi, Costain Mangisi, and I documented in elaborate detail a year’s cycle in the ­labor of domestic, agricultural, and auxiliary activities including, for some men, wage ­labor in the district. The focus on twelve c­ hildren spiraled outward. I used a slew of techniques and collected data on a wide range of ­matters including h ­ ouse­hold composition, income and expenditure, genealogies, health, diet, marital situations, customs, riddles, songs, and proverbs, as well as information about sales at stores, use of ­water and wood, court cases, and inheritance. Careful attention was paid to e­ very aspect of farming: the history of each field farmed, the details of acquisition, their sizes and annual extensions, their use across time and the comparison of use and yields, the sources of seeds, and animal and bird damage. I could say more, but enough. The diary refers to “forms”; I use that word to describe any research instrument that draws on a variety of means to collect data, including direct questions, partly b ­ ecause my in­for­mants disliked responding to questionnaires and ­because I found them unsatisfactory. In IT IS IMPOR­TANT

24  Introduction

Dance Civet Cat ­there are many formal tracings of the place, relationships, and l­abor: ­there are three maps, twenty diagrams, and fifty-­five ­tables. I filled twelve notebooks, and more ­were filled by Anderson, Costain, and the ­children. Over the next five years much more material was collected and compiled in Lwaano Lwanyika: Tonga Book of the Earth. Meticulous recordings of ­labor ­were made over seven months that included the growing season using four mea­sures: peak ­labor rec­ords, instant rec­ords, twenty-­four-­hour recall, and observations, noting activities minute by minute for two hours. In summary, I found that in the Mola l­abor economy, c­ hildren are an adjustable input, with girls more adjustable than boys. ­Children’s ­labor time, in aggregate, is greater than w ­ omen’s. In activities devoted to work as recorded in two of the mea­sures, on average ­women are seen to spend almost 80 ­percent of their time working, girls about 67 ­percent, men 53  ­percent, and boys 15  ­percent. Th ­ ose are just two of the mea­sures, but each mea­sure shows remarkable consistency in the patterns revealed—­ that is, the relationships between the amount of work done by w ­ omen, girls, men, and boys are similar. Inevitably rec­ords, no ­matter how thorough, fail to reflect the complexity of real­ity (to plagiarize myself). However, the data unequivocally show that c­ hildren contribute substantially to the economy of their families. The data further show that girls work hard; in Africa, that is an oft-­repeated observation, but the material in the book demonstrates how hard and from what a young age girls work. Boys often work in dif­fer­ent ways for dif­fer­ent ends, and ­these are documented in the ethnography. The diary allowed for free-­form recollection of that which had caught my attention during the day. On reading it now, I notice how paying attention to the ordinary brings out the extraordinary; how knowing and not knowing rises and falls; how time, space, and contingency shape events; and how contradictions can persist in ­people’s accounts of their lives. Knowing and Not Knowing With not being able not to want to know. —­S amuel Beckett, Ill Seen Ill Said (1982)

Dispossession has profound effects over time, especially on ­children who are “insufficiently self-­announcing.”36 ­There is, too often, an obdurate refusal to know the consequences. Given the need to know, the task is how to come to know clearly. Returning to the shadow of anthropological work, it Introduction 25

is worth considering the right to know. One view, naturally Pessoa’s, is that “all outside interest in us is a flagrant disrespect,” or, as Marilyn Strathern puts it, fieldwork can be equated with “intrusive extraction.”37 Yet, following drastic dispossession, we cannot just not know. For the aggression of colonialism and of large schemes like the building of Kariba Dam that fail to ensure social equity for t­hose whose livelihoods are disrupted, t­here should be an accounting that includes the interests of c­ hildren born of ­those who have been indelibly harmed by both the loss and the denial of a just share of the resources accrued from the stolen territory. A child in Chitenge, Canaan, quoted an apt proverb, “Long ago ­can’t be far away.” In his autobiography, Cavell raises the following issues. To take the child seriously as a category of thought requires an examination of the child’s shared commonality, particularity, and inexpressiveness. The call is to bring childhood to philosophical pertinence and po­liti­cal obligation, and to do so requires a clarification of what our interest in childhood is and what conditions make it pos­si­ble.38 The precariousness of the child, he says, relates to “the organ­ization of the body politic,” which includes who produces food and how food is distributed and paid for.39 It is the isolation and deprivation of the body politic in Omay relative to the theft of their resources and the use to which subsequent earnings have been put that needs telling and action. For Joseph E. Stiglitz, in­equality among ­children is “a special moral disgrace.”40 ­There is a story about Nyaminyami, a creature of the Zambezi River, who was separated from his wife by the dam wall, and it has long been predicted that he ­will force the wall to collapse. The irony is that Lake Kariba is in danger of breaking its walls, partly ­because of neglect in making repairs. The devastation and loss of life downstream would be terrible. Efforts are being made to prevent the catastrophe. Should the wall be rebuilt utilizing international funds, t­ here ­will be a chance to make amends. Blowing in the wind? The End of Childhood We ­didn’t know the precariousness of our young powers. —­Patti Smith, Banga (2012)

The diary gives an account across a year of c­hildren’s lives unfolding ­toward their arrival at the end of childhood. This end is often elected by a child as a consequence of scant opportunities and in response to the 26  Introduction

material determination of everyday experience and obligation. It comes early for many of the young, especially for girls, in part ­because by the age of fifteen they usually carry a full load of domestic work and a fair load of agricultural ­labor and may as well take adulthood on board. Incidents that mark the end of childhood include elopement, marriage, abortion, employment (for some boys), and death. In studying the young who live on the margins of society in difficult terrain, we can come to understand more clearly the fragility of institutions, the flexibility of sociocultural frames, the complexity of the micromechanics of po­liti­cal and economic existence, the close weave of the threads that tie global sites to microsites in terms of decision-making, the tenacity of some beliefs, and the velocity of change. In order to describe the situation of ­children accurately, the focus should be on the mobile trajectories of their experiences, especially ­under conditions of poverty and neglect. While I was puzzling over the writing of this introduction, I dreamed that I was standing with my eldest and youn­gest ­daughters at a tall gate through which we wanted to pass. It was a magic gate. It was unyielding yet seemed to be flimsy, and I felt around its edges for an opening. It gave me a teaspoon and said, “Find the meaning with the teaspoon.” The dream informed me, I thought, that by attending to the daily spooning out of commonplaces I would discover magical meanings in the diary as well as the magic of having been in the Zambezi Valley then. T. S. Eliot must have triggered the dream: “I have mea­sured out my life with coffee spoons.”41

been assured that the snakes who lived with me for three months had been sent by the ancestors to check me out and ­were not poisonous, it turned out that they ­were deadly back-­fanged boom­ slang. I ­later learned that their skin is used in a Harry Potter ­recipe for making Polyjuice Potion, which allows a ­human drinker to temporarily assume the form of another person.42 Myths and magic continue. P.S. DESPITE MY HAVING

NOTES

Chapter epigraph: Philip Larkin, “Aubade,” Times Literary Supplement, December 23, 1977. Section epigraphs: Soils Incorporated (Pty) Ltd and Chalo Environmental and Sustainable Development Con­sul­tants for World Commission on Dams (wcd), wcd Case Study: Kariba Dam, Zambia and Zimbabwe, Final Report: November 2000 (Cape Town: Secretariat of the World Commission on Dams, 2000), xvii (hereafter Introduction 27

cited as wcd Case Study: Kariba Dam); Karl Ove Knausgaard, Some Rain Must Fall: My Strug­gle, Book Five, translated by Don Bartlett (New York: Vintage, 2016); Peggy Tracy, The Lost Valley (Cape Town: ­Humans and Rousseau, 1975); Seamus Heaney, “Feeling into Words” (1974), in Preoccupations: Selected Prose, 1968–1978 (London: Faber and Faber, 1980); W. G. Sebald and Jan Peter Tripp, Unrecounted: 33 Texts and 33 Etchings, translated by Michael Hamburger (London: Penguin Books, 2005); Samuel Beckett, Ill Seen Ill Said (Scranton, PA: Haddon Craftsman, 1982); Patti Smith, Banga (New York: Electric Lady Studios, 2012). 1. Pamela Reynolds, Dance Civet Cat: Child ­Labour in the Zambezi Valley (London: Zed; with Ohio University Press and Baobab, 1991); Pamela Reynolds and Colleen Crawford Cousins, Lwaano Lwanyika: Tonga Book of the Earth (Harare: Colleen Crawford Cousins in association with Save the ­Children Fund, UK, 1991; London: panos, 1993), Tonga version translated by T. Munsaka, 1991. 2. Marilyn Strathern, Partial Connections, updated ed. (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2004), 10. 3. Stanley Cavell, “ ‘Who Does the Wolf Love?’: Reading Coriolanus,” Repre­sen­ta­ tions 3 (summer 1983): 20. 4. Bronislaw Malinowski, A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967). 5. wcd Case Study: Kariba Dam. 6. T. I. Matthews, “The Historical Tradition of the ­Peoples of the Gwembe Valley, ­Middle Zambezi” (PhD diss., School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1976), 71. 7. wcd Case Study: Kariba Dam, xi. 8. wcd Case Study: Kariba Dam, xii. 9. wcd Case Study: Kariba Dam, xi. 10. wcd Case Study: Kariba Dam, xiv. 11. wcd Case Study: Kariba Dam, xiv. 12. wcd Case Study: Kariba Dam, xvii. 13. Oxford En­glish Dictionary, 9th ed. 14. See the Central Statistical Office Report, 1984 (government paper). 15. See Reynolds, Dance Civet Cat, xxi, for a description of governance and infrastructure in Omay at In­de­pen­dence in 1980. 16. Elaine Scarry, Resisting Repre­sen­ta­tion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 78. 17. Elizabeth Colson, “Introduction,” in Reynolds and Crawford Cousins, Lwaano Lwanyika, 5, 6. 18. Matthews, “The Historical Tradition of the ­Peoples of the Gwembe Valley, ­Middle Zambezi,” 348. 19. Elizabeth Colson, “The Resilience of Matriliniality: Gwembe and Plateau Tonga Adaptations,” in The Versatility of Kinship: Essays Presented to Harry W. Basehart, ed. Linda S. Cordell and Stephen Beckerman (New York: Academic Press, 1980), 364–66.

28  Introduction

20. On kinship, clans, succession, and land rights, see Reynolds and Crawford Cousins, Lwaano Lwanyika, 42–51. 21. Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquietude, translated by Richard Zenith (Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1996). 22. Graham Greene, Ways of Escape (London: Vintage Classics, 1999). 23. Nicholson Baker, U and I: A True Story (London: Granta, 2011). 24. James Plath, ed., Conversations with John Updike (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1994), 27. 25. Beckett, Ill Seen Ill Said, 48. 26. Emily Dickinson, “An Ignorance a Sunset,” in Poems: Packet XVII, Mixed Fascicles, Emily Dickinson Archive, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, accessed November 24, 2017, http://­www​.­edickinson​.­org​/­. 27. Annie Dillard, “Seeing,” in The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Pre­sent, selected and introduced by Phillip Lopate (New York: Anchor Books, 1995), 695. 28. ­Virginia Woolf, Orlando, a Biography (1928; New York: Harvest, 1956), 308. 29. Seamus Heaney and Dennis O’Driscoll, Stepping Stones: Interview with Seamus Heaney (New York: Farrar, Straus, 2008), 100–101. 30. William Rothman, ed., Cavell on Film (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005), 33. 31. Stanley Cavell, ­Little Did I Know: Excerpts from Memory (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010), 461. 32. Beckett, Ill Seen Ill Said, 33. 33. Cavell, ­Little Did I Know, 60, 186. 34. Scarry, Resisting Repre­sen­ta­tion, 57–65. 35. Scarry, Resisting Repre­sen­ta­tion, 65. 36. Scarry, Resisting Repre­sen­ta­tion, 71. 37. Pessoa, The Book of Disquietude, 83; Strathern, Partial Connections, 110. 38. See Alice Crary and Sanford Shieh, eds., Reading Cavell (London: Routledge, 2006), 18–19. 39. Cavell, “ ‘Who Does the Wolf Love?,’ ” 2. 40. Joseph E. Stiglitz, “In­equality Is a Choice,” New York Times, October 13, 2013. 41. T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse (London: Harriet Monroe Chapbook, 1915). 42. J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (London: Bloomsbury, 2010).

Introduction 29

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A FIELD DIARY

Chitenge, Mola SEPTEMBER 1, 1984

5:45 p.m.

It is, I suppose, one of anthropology’s funny scenes. The sun setting, and I in ah ­ ouse that consists only of poles widely spaced, roofless, doorless, so that all I do is exposed to the eyes of twelve c­ hildren. That which I do amuses them greatly: I am sitting in a director’s chair at a folding t­ able drinking tea, with a weird assortment of goods scattered around on the bare soil. Anderson and I arrived at 3:30 p.m., having driven 440 kilo­meters from Harare and having been on the road since 6:00 a.m. with half an hour in Karoi. The journey was fine—­rather like being massaged by ­those machines that are supposed to tone your muscles and slim you down. The road varies from corrugations to potholes to deep sand with combinations of the three. Over the last 200 kilo­meters we met only two busses, one van, two trucks, three warthogs, and many kudu. On arrival and the discovery of only the bare frames of a kitchen and sleeping platform, I expressed some dis­plea­sure to Samuel, the builder, who is racing the setting sun to build a ladder to the platform of the busanza (my ­house on stilts) so that I can climb up ­there to sleep. I was a ­little scornful of his pro­gress on my ­house ­after six weeks. A small audience of c­ hildren listened in fascination. Samuel has since enjoyed getting his own back making the c­ hildren roar with laughter at my expense. It is

figure 1. Paulina and I (looking bushed) at her homestead. Photo­graph by Alexander Joe for the book Lwaano Lwanyika, © Pamela Reynolds and Colleen Crawford Cousins, circa 1985.

a fine scene, with Samuel and his mate, Shadrick, working hard yet entertaining the ­children. One boy has a fearfully distended belly; another eats cold sadza and relish beside my doorpost; yet another plays with a l­ittle girl who is in his charge. Now fourteen ­children stand and watch me. The sun goes down; ­there is a ­little light, and the scruffy ends of twine that tie the steps of the ladder are being trimmed. Who won? Not me. Return to laughter! 6:05 p.m.

I made a g­ rand gesture of climbing the finished ladder and allowed more opportunity for laughter. I gave Samuel and his mate an orange each in admiration of their effort. It had ended amicably, and I said a firm “Goodnight,” at which every­one miraculously dis­appeared. I ­shall now have a whiskey on the platform and read ­Virginia Woolf (­ought to be Shakespeare). I need a candle guard. I have bathed in the moonlight. A tub of warm ­water has been placed for me in a newly made bathing shelter of matting 32  A Field Diary

reed set around a plastered floor. Odd how many new skills one must learn—­how to take a ­little ­water in a mug, how to balance a watch on a pole, how to dress while keeping feet and clothes dry and clean. I have my whiskey and candle and book and have watched the final sun’s light go and listened to the new night noises: crickets, a child’s cry, men talking, pots banging, ­little ­children’s chatter, and my first mosquito’s whine. Difficult to keep the candle alight on my bare platform. Frogs, crickets, do I hear something more threatening? The night is mysterious beyond the circle of my flame. The bus from Harare is passing, almost empty. Anderson comes and chats for a while. What joy is the peace ­after the last two frenetic weeks. I have forgotten methylated spirits, pillows, a stretcher, and copies of photo­graphs taken on the last trip to hand out. No doubt much ­else. Oh well. Anderson’s ­uncle (­father’s ­brother) was arrested on the 21st  of last month. The National Parks game guards caught him in the bush and accused him of poaching. He denied it, but ­after some interrogation he admitted to having been seen with wire. He is the head of Anderson’s section of Chitenge. He is awaiting trial in Kariba, and as fines have been ­stopped, he is likely to spend six months in jail. Anderson told me that the young man with the wonderful crafted basket of fish that he was carry­ing from Musamba to a market in Harare, to whom we gave a lift from Musamba to Bumi in July, has been killed. An ex-­girlfriend who was living at Groebler’s crocodile farm knifed him. She, too, had been a fish trader but had recently been living with a worker at the camp. She now awaits trial in Kariba and leaves b ­ ehind three young c­ hildren. Anderson’s eldest son fetched me for supper of meat that I had brought from Karoi and sadza. I joined a delightful domestic scene with Anderson chatting animatedly with his wives and ­little Cosimos being small, vociferous, and tired. He would only eat meat and went off to bed saying, “I ­will not sleep on the mat as a rat ­will eat me. I ­shall sleep in your bed” (to his ­mother and ­father). The adults laughed. As we finished eating, a Land Rover approached with one light. I thought, “Ah, that is Bernard” (for I knew that he was passing through Chitenge that day), and I went out to the road. And sure enough it was Bernard Whaley, a friend from my school days. He was with the ­people undertaking a canoe safari being filmed by a French crew. They ­were passing en route to Bumi, A Field Diary 33

having canoed some distance down the Zambezi River from Victoria Falls. I appeared to be an apparition as I stepped into their headlights as they approached the end of a long journey through the bush. Now to sleep to the sound of drums. My ­house does look peculiar. A pristine white net hangs from a pole across the roofless top; my clothes are carefully arranged on hangers from the same pole; a white bag full of tape recorders, e­ tc., hangs beside my black handbag from a branch of the pole. My large straw hat sits like a moth against the curve. The wind plays with the mosquito net and extinguishes my candle. SEPTEMBER 2, 1984

8:00 p.m.

The night beneath my net was a delight: wake to see the half-­moon caught in my tree, wake to chart the path of the stars, wake to listen to the drums, wake to watch the dawn. The drums played all night (8:00 to 8:30) in a homestead half a kilo­meter away. Someone’s ngozi (by which the Tonga mean muzimu—­very muddling) was being called out. The muzimu, I am told, came and did not speak out; it was given a black cloth and a knobkerrie. During the night, four buffalo broke through three fences, although they had recently been reinforced with strong, closely set poles held together by grass tied in tight bundles, and consumed Feriza’s vegetable garden beside the Masawu Stream. They ate all the cabbages and rape leaving the onions and tomatoes. By 6:00 a.m. I was climbing the hill ­behind my busanza. I saw buffalo droppings and heard heavy rustling in a small valley of long grass but did not investigate. I almost walked on birds still asleep in the grass. Very peaceful and seductive. A drongo (the storytelling bird) chased a goshawk. Gray loeries chattered furiously. On return I found Samuel and Shadrick at work. By lunch the thatch is up, thick and shaggy like Abigail’s hair when she rises tousled in the morning. The poles on the platform have been bound in place with tree thongs (it took Samuel from 6:30 to 8:30), and they have begun to lay thick clay for a floor on the platform. I have just made them tea, and Anderson’s wife has given them sadza. Anderson and I ­were working in the shade of the groundsheet slung over my roofless kitchen when he was called to kill a snake that had entered Feriza’s ­house. It was long and lemon green. One ­woman called it a cobra. The Shona name is mhakure, and the Tonga, kombora. I was sorry watching it die: at least it was not my fault. 34  A Field Diary

We visited Chief Mola, who sat like a wilted flower in the shade of the veranda of his combined granary and chicken coop. A young w ­ oman, one of Chief Mola’s wives, was pounding millet and singing with her s­ ister’s child (aged about ten). So rhythmically, so prettily, so unconsciously they sang: I was born for every­one Not to marry just one person. (Anderson translated the song for me.) The chief referred me to a man called Jam on his p ­ eople’s history. He proffered the information that “long ago, if a man took the chief ’s wife, his ear was cut off and he was made to eat it.” Apropos of what, I am uncertain. However, it is on rec­ord. Out before sunrise, home ­after sunset. Twice I walked t­oday up and down three small hills that line the uninhabited valley upstream from my home. Again I disturbed birds at my feet, a ­whole flock. They wait ­until one is almost upon them. The drongo laughed. It is fun to order my ­house in five minutes, to take down the groundsheet that played roof all day and lie it on the sand to play floor all night. Some drums played listlessly at sunset, and now all is quiet. What have I learned ­today? A fair amount ­going through the census forms of some ninety-­three ­house­holds in Chitenge village that Anderson has completed. That divorce is fairly frequent, that tracing parentage is facilitated if reference is made to each ­family member’s mutupo (clan name), but as with most rules of thumb, it does not quite work, as a man may decide on a child’s birth to assign her or him the mutupo of an ancestor and not his own, which is usual. C ­ hildren may live with kin other than their parents in order to attend school. C ­ hildren are sometimes taken to live with kin other than their parents simply b ­ ecause one or other party (the adult or the child) wants to do that or b ­ ecause a child is wanted to fulfill some role. For example, in our forms we have a child who was taken to care for an older kin’s goats and has lived with him for all of his childhood. Some girls marry at a very young age but stay at home ­until they are considered to be old enough to join the husband. Some families refuse to allow a girl, married already, to go and actually live with her husband, even though she has ­children by him, ­until he is considered to have paid sufficient lobola. The lobola for a child who has lived in a ­house­hold dif­fer­ ent from the one in which her ­father lived still goes to her ­father. The c­hildren happily called “Chipo” (my name ­here, though it was given to me by Zezuru p ­ eople; it means gift) as I approached Anderson’s A Field Diary 35

homestead. ­Children are not afraid of me, which is a change, no doubt ­because ­there are no white nurses to inject them. The ­children and Anderson’s young b ­ rothers ­were dancing to the scratchy sounds of Shona m ­ usic played on 45 rpm rec­ords. I enjoyed their laughter as I bathed and did not mind the seamy noises of civilization creeping in. Back to what I learned ­today. Wait. A brandy. I learned that capturing the work of c­ hildren is difficult. For example, Stanley and Moses helped Cecilia in her vegetable garden for between one and two hours. They proffered their help. It was useful. Yet it would in all likelihood go unrecorded even on a day’s observation of l­abor focused on each boy’s f­ amily. Stanley is Anderson’s ­mother’s ­brother’s child and, therefore, has a special tie to Anderson and his wife. Moses is Anderson’s ­mother’s ­sister’s child and is called “younger ­brother” by Anderson. The builder’s ­children worked fitfully through the day; they w ­ ere too busy watching me. (So hard to eat while being stared at; I welcome night as my cloak, though goodness knows I am exposed with my candle aflame as I have no win­dows and no dagga on my pole hut.) Yet their effort was valued when it was made; for example, they carried cakes of mud to the platform, where Samuel smoothed it to make the floor. A fine action he made, hand bent so that thumb and forefinger scooped the mud flat. Called for supper. Anderson is away; I think that he has gone to see his ­father. The c­ hildren behave perfectly at meals. They sit quietly and share food from a single pot. The ­women are shy with me ­there yet accepting. Odd the choices: Should I eat my platters clean (sadza, meat, relish of cabbage) as taught or leave some knowing it ­will go to the ­children or the dog (who is called Kariba)? Should I wear a bra and suffer molten rubber around my ribs or risk being nastily bounced in the Land Rover? Should I wear takkies and sweat or sandals and risk thorns and snakebites? Very nice to reduce choice to such levels occasionally. How are my beautiful ­daughters? As I left home to come ­here, each eloquently said how she would miss me. This morning Anderson and I passed a group of teenage boys drinking mahewu (sweet, nonalcoholic beer) for breakfast (10:30 a.m.). Another fine scene; perhaps I o ­ ught to be a photographer, but perhaps it is enough to rec­ord moments. I am very aware of c­ hildren’s noises. A group is playing on the hill just south of us. They call in unison, and the sound crosses the night air. They seem to laugh a lot, play a lot, sing a lot. The ­mother’s 36  A Field Diary

breast is always available to l­ittle ones. I do not mean to romanticize, for ­there are hugely distended bellies, ­there is orange hair, and ­there are ­running eyes and much ­else to cure me of that. What ­else? One of Chief Mola’s homesteads, the one in Chitenge, has fierce dogs. One must beware on approach. Th ­ ere are two traditional healers in Chitenge. ­There is a wood-­carver in the village, the one who made my stool of mungonwa wood. The best carver in the area went mad recently, and the best historian died. Th ­ ere is a male village health worker in the village. Cecilia is one, too. Th ­ ere seem to be numerous w ­ omen ­house­hold heads, some of whom are divorcees and ­others ­widows. What is it like (in families where ­there are two or more wives or where ­children from former wives live with their f­ ather) to grow up with c­ hildren exactly one’s own age in the same h ­ ouse­hold complex, that is, of the same ­father yet dif­fer­ent ­mothers? Jealousy? Companionship? Competition? What techniques are used to ­handle relationships? How does the inheritance pattern play out? I am terrified that I ­shall pursue such questions to the exclusion of mea­sur­ing fields or yields and so not serve my masters, the agriculturalists, fairly. ­There is less wind to­night, and the candle stands still enough to enable me to write or read in its light. I left last night’s candle in the sun, and it now forms a comical question mark. Twenty-­eight of the ninety-­three ­house­holds in the census have no ­children born between 1969 and 1974—­that is, they do not have c­ hildren of the right age for the sample (­children aged ten to sixteen now)—­almost a quarter of the total. Not that ages mean much. Anderson took them from their registration books. Apparently teachers arbitrarily give birth dates to ­children, and clerks estimate age on the basis of a glance at ­faces. Our census forms throw up some funny results—­a nine-­year-­old ­woman gave birth to a child, and a child in grade one is much older than his ­sister in grade six. How much does exact age ­matter to me? A fair amount for the sample ­children if I am to compare height and weight with other groups. If I insist on exact dates of birth, am I then selecting a superior sample? This sample business dogs me—it seems of so ­little import to my real concern: the quality of the ­children’s lives. ­There are tender negotiations ­going on between the local health assistant and me over my proposed toilet. He insists, in order to set a good example, that I have a toilet modeled on the Blair vip. Fair enough, but A Field Diary 37

I forgot to bring cement. He has cement and wants to negotiate on my behalf with the health fellow in charge at Kariba to give me two bags of cement in the interests of promoting right living. I do not wish to be given anything and suggest I borrow the bags and send replacements by bus. This too must be negotiated through Kariba, he says. I reply that the toilet is to be dug on Wednesday and I ­shall build with what­ever is available. All I need is a ­little privacy. The hills are rather far to reach for a pee, and as I leave my home for that purpose I am seldom without an audience of fourteen or so ­children to watch me go. The assistant kindly pegged the pit. In the wrong place. I met Peter Mackay,* Kudo Fanwell Muyambi (the district administrator), and Mr. Cheguri Hove (an officer in the Bumi administrative post) in Karoi. Each was headed in a dif­fer­ent direction away from Mola. Dr. Sam Makanza and his wife are on leave, and so is the nurse at Siakobvu. It is not reassuring knowing that they are all out of the district should one need to seek medical attention in a hurry. On a path near my ­house I saw a round stone placed on a flat stone. Looking more closely, I saw nutshells around it—­clearly the remains of a snack. A child’s? Again, can one capture that on rec­ords? ­Women, all related to Anderson, helped clear grass around my home last eve­ning. I promised them tea t­ oday, which we had. They w ­ ere disappointed in having received no bread, but in Karoi we ­were allowed but one loaf each as ­there are rations in the country due to a shortage of flour. The older ­women have beauty scars on their ­faces and holes in their lips into which buttons had once been pressed. Anderson says that t­ hese habits ­stopped in 1976, “when civilization began to arrive.” Some younger ­women have one scar between their eyebrows. Anderson says that w ­ omen in this area never placed plugs in their noses or knocked out their front teeth, as did the Tonga upriver. He says that Chief Negande is Tonga but may have Shangwe ancestors. He was not forced to move from Lake Kariba, but Chief Sampakaruma and Chief Nebiri and their p ­ eoples ­were. Anderson was four years old * Peter Mackay (1926–2013) was a Scot who fought alongside African Liberation forces in the Zimbabwean war. He played a prominent and dangerous role; it is said that he led fighters across the Zambezi River above the falls hand over h ­ and along a rope. When I was ­doing research in Mola, he was living in Bumi working on development proj­ects. 38  A Field Diary

figure 2. Chief Dumbura knocking in a stake prior to the building of my home in order to inform the ancestors that I have been invited to live among the ­people of Mola. Photo­graph by Norman or friends for Pamela Reynolds, circa 1985.

when Lake Kariba drowned their villages and they ­were forcefully moved inland away from the shores of the lake onto the dry hinterland. He cannot remember the move. The ­children are singing on the south hill. It is 8:40 p.m. Is it an occasion? Their songs are clear. SEPTEMBER 3, 1984

7:45 a.m.

The buffalo passed my ­house last night. I climbed down the ladder in my white nightgown with my torch in hand to see if I could chase them. The torch was too weak to frighten them, and I not enough of an apparition. I did not wake anyone, like a fool (though it is a fair walk to Anderson’s ­house in the deep, dark night), and this morning I learn that all the gardens we inspected last night w ­ ere eaten. I must note size, production, e­ tc., and inform the game wardens. On waking again at 5:00 a.m., I was glad to see that the two spiders on my net w ­ ere outside of it. I enjoyed a two-­hour walk, during which I flushed a tiny buck (inysa) and collected stones and guinea feathers from a poacher’s site. I explored the catchment area of the Masawu Stream, which lies in a bowl with an almost dry riverbed apart from the odd pool surrounded by reeds. Animal paths crisscross everywhere. At home I brewed tea on my own fire. Samuel is h ­ ere and has gone to cut more trees for my kitchen roof. Did I mention the reaction of some ­people to my proposed work? Some told Anderson to be careful. They said, “Is not Mugabe the prime minister? She w ­ ill stay on your land and gradually ease you out and claim every­thing that is yours.” An accurate vision of us, the whites. Samuel’s young child is with him. He has just carried a long pole from the bush to my ­house. The child has resumed his post of watching-­the-­ anthropologist-­at-­her-­table. Samuel has two helpers. 7:00 p.m.

Hey, it gets hotter e­ very day and more flies appear. Nevertheless, it was a long and pleasant day. In an attempt to see by crooked candlelight in a flickering wind, I have spilled wax on t­hese pages. Anderson and I sat puzzling over the census forms (so complicated are p ­ eople’s lives). We spent the morning walking, checking the devastated gardens, and meeting many p ­ eople in their homes. The work begins to take on three dimensions (luckily I can see in three dimensions, unlike the Africans, 40  A Field Diary

according to my potential funders). ­Faces do swim before my eyes. We met Jorum’s ­father, who works in Musamba, in his wonderfully built and appointed home; Mainara, who insisted I grind rapoko and sorghum and declared that she w ­ ill take me to find grinding stones in the hills at 9:00 a.m. on Thursday; two girls stamping wild grass (matempa); and the potter, Keresiya Jeffrey, sorting mudyori leaves, a wild relish. Keresiya w ­ ill call me to watch her fire pots on Wednesday eve­ning and w ­ ill take me to collect clay beyond Dove village. We attended a beer party and w ­ ere out in the midday sun for three hours. Mad dogs. I wrote a note to the game warden requesting reimbursement for the buffalo damage. It is, ­after all, my vegetable supply, too, for the next three weeks that has gone, and now we ­shall eat leaves from the bushes. I gave the letter to the National Parks staff member based at Bumi. He had inspected the damage but said, “We do not have enough money to pay compensation.” The Tonga lost their river. The Tonga lost their bearings. The Tonga lost their deep knowledge of local flora and fauna. The Tonga lost their right to fish, to hunt game, and to protect their crops effectively. What have the Tonga gained? It is time for campfire and similar proj­ects. I am overwhelmed ­today by all that ­there is to learn and do. I still have not found a rational way to select my sample as the census forms throw up so many prob­lems and tangents to pursue. I am now living out of the back of the Land Rover, loaned to me by the Agricultural Department, as my kitchen is being roofed and the floor of my platform is not dry. Right now I am sitting ­under the platform by the light of the candles that are pooling their wax messily on my ­table. Heat-­exhausted candles burn away more quickly. Is ­there a moral in that? I have eaten nothing since breakfast. My doppie of brandy ­will meet ­little internal re­sis­tance. 10:00 p.m.

Anderson’s two wives, Cecilia and Feriza, and their c­ hildren come with Givemore, Anderson’s young ­brother, to visit me. Both Cosimos, Cecilia’s second son, and I are a ­little too tired to make much of the visit. SEPTEMBER 4, 1984

7:45 a.m.

A peaceful night shattered by rounds of terrifying shots as the game warden scared off the buffalo. They might warn a body. My toes tingled as I ­imagined being in the path of a stampede. My matchstick ­house would A Field Diary 41

offer ­little re­sis­tance. The five-­eighths moon stared insolently from her net in the tree at me in my net on the ground. Up at six. A walk across the Masawu Stream. Return with a smooth red stone, a patterned bird’s feather, a switch for flies, like a child with trea­ sure. And the knowledge of the Lord’s curse. I would not, of course, dare question Him in His wisdom, but now seems particularly inconvenient—­a see-­through ­house, no shelter, no bush cover, the nearest possibly secluded vale some half a kilo­meter away. It ­will be a test of my grace and ingenuity. Samuel, Shadrick, and at least eight c­ hildren are in residence. So is a fly. Shadrick brought a good-­looking stool to ask if I should like it copied. 1:15 p.m.

We have almost checked ­every form. What complications. Age is an impossible obstacle; I may have to abandon notions of tracking height and weight meaningfully. At 11:30 the noise in my ear overwhelmed me and I had to head for the hills for half an hour despite the heat. A group of boys w ­ ere counting as high as they could in En­glish; a ­woman was banging a piece of wood on stone to amuse a child; the child was not amused and moaned constantly; ­women ­were talking in high voices. Like the bbc crackling out the news, equally monotonous and seemingly endless. Not that I suffer the bbc ­here. On returning from my walk I was, predictably, struck with guilt as I watched a line of eigh­teen ­women and ­children carry balls of clay from the pit to my kitchen beneath the midday sun. A child, about two years old, plays games with her ­mother’s breasts and laughs joyfully. The builders have worked without a break since 7:00 a.m. And the ­children watch, helping occasionally yet usefully. The forms suggest that w ­ omen most often keep their c­ hildren with them on divorce. Not always at all. Many variations turn up. A man took his s­ ister’s child to live with him as a goatherd. Another man has both his ­mother’s ­mother’s ­children and his ­mother’s ­children living with him and his wife and c­ hildren. A third has c­ hildren from a wife who died, from a wife whom he divorced, and from his current two wives living with him. 7:00 p.m.

Fatigued to­night. Some heat exhaustion, I guess. Must hunt for the salt pills. I am on my platform more exposed than ever, as it does not even have its low walls of sorghum stalks. A breeze plays up ­there, and I face 42  A Field Diary

straight into the spot where the jube-­jube sun takes his curtain call. ­There is the light of a bush fire in the sky now, as if the sun had fi­nally exploded. No tomorrow. Could be true for me if I roll off this platform. We ­shall attend a party to bring out a ngozi tomorrow night. Two ­women agreed to allow me to work with their c­ hildren this eve­ ning: Serina, the m ­ other of Canaan, and Esther, the m ­ other of Esterayi. I have, at last, made a beginning. Lovely scene at their homes with Esther and Esterayi stamping and winnowing, Serina smoking her ­bubble pipe in the doorway of her h ­ ouse, and three ­children silently sitting in a row beside her. Every­one is, of course, related to every­one ­else. We had a useful day checking data with the builders, their wives, and attendant c­ hildren. Quite a way to begin research on child ­labor with nine c­ hildren actually working on my home. For nothing, for I doubt that the se­nior builder pays them apart from the ties of kin that knit society together. The wild boy haunts me. As Anderson and I sat writing this morning, a strange trio passed along the road. In front was a young man who kept picking up stones and throwing them, not quite to hit it seemed, at two young men following him. We went to investigate. The three, I ­later learned, are close kin. A beer drink had been held at their home on the previous night, and the angry young man had claimed sixty cents from the profits. He was offered $10 from which to take change but refused. He had gone wild and had thrown pipes, ­bottles, stones at his kin. They had remained remarkably calm. The young man came up to me, asking what I wanted, and told me I could do nothing but get back to my h ­ ouse. What anger had ignited him? What frustration? Only the frogs are in full chorus to­night. Esther had a small collection of fruit from the bush outside her home. Curious fruit. Hard, they have to be banged between two rocks. Inside, the fruit has compartments like nuts with flesh like a coconut but not much of it, so that a lot of effort is demanded for small reward. They are called ngongwa. She promised to teach me about “wild” foods. I have seen three kinds being eaten already. Esterayi is composed and graceful, she is a pretty, healthy-­looking girl. Her m ­ other is more comical, with a woolen hat tucked ­behind protruding ears. Esterayi was born in December 1969 and is in grade four. She is beautiful as she winnows. We have an appointment to talk on Friday. Esther is busy cutting and combing grass u ­ ntil then. Her previous husband, from whom she is divorced, is a traditional healer in the village. The ­family is related to Samuel, the builder, and to Canaan’s ­family. A Field Diary 43

SEPTEMBER 5, 1984

8:00 a.m.

What a pity that the adjective gold is overused. It was a gold morning—­the sky, the leaves, the grass. I walked into the zebra’s bedroom and found them, of course, in their pajamas. We w ­ ere hard put to decide which of us was more surprised. It was an extraordinary sight to see the seven adults and two babies silhouetted against the dawn. They clambered off the coll and up the hill most clumsily. I flushed out some buck, too, ­those fellows with fat, white, warning tails. It is just as well I did not come across gold lions. I must procure a spear. Strange how blond the grass is in the early morning, then it glistens like brass at midday and turns quite red in the eve­ning. The night was perfect; t­here was only the unobtrusive sound of the bow. I am glad that I have watched the platform and kitchen being built, for each piece now gives me plea­sure, as much as Herbert Baker’s design of the ­house we had in Oranjezicht did.* I feel, this morning, very ignorant and rather daunted by all ­there is to know. I would I w ­ ere a geologist or naturalist and could explore my hinterland all day. 5:30 p.m.

Hotter. A mist of flies surrounded my face and one flew into my eye and a tsetse bit my ankles as I interviewed Pfumayi’s ­sister. It is still hot, and the sun has crept ­under my untidy thatch making it look like melting butter; I feel like melting butter. An upset stomach d ­ oesn’t help. I s­ hall have to remember to keep waxing lyrical. Another day attacking the Chitenge h ­ ouse­hold census results. Anderson, Samuel, Shadrick, and I got sidetracked on the history of the chief ’s “wives-­of-­the-­world” (banakazi banyika). The word nyika means “the world,” and it stands for the shades, that is, the ancestors. ­Every chief has two such wives, who are always inherited by the next chief and who are always replaced on death by young ­women from the same two families. Two men in t­ hose families inherit the task of sending w ­ omen to force the

* Herbert Baker (1862–1946), an En­glish architect, was a dominant force in South African architecture for two de­cades. He designed the small church on Robben Island. He contributed to the design of notable buildings in New Delhi. 44  A Field Diary

selected girl to attend her marriage. The enforcement is called kumanikizigwa. Unlike the amaXhosa, who have a form of forced elopement, it is the only occasion on which such force is used. The girls resist, being unprepared, it is said. The two wives are given titles, and t­ hese are Namkondwa and Namrova. Their duty is to propitiate the shades for rain. The chief and Namkondwa perform the ritual at the main shrine (malende) beneath the baobab beside the sub-­office. Namrova’s shrine, much smaller, is beneath a baobab tree not far from the first. (­There are only three sticks left from the small ­house built ­there last year, and a small pot lies tilted against the tree.) The ritual is held at full moon in November, and the beer, called lwindi, is made from the villa­gers’ contribution of rapoko and sorghum. Namrova, whose own name is Kanema, has no c­ hildren but was given her ­sister’s child when the child was about fourteen. She is grown up now and has a child of her own. Namkondwa has one or two c­ hildren within our age range. I am advised to include one of the chief ’s many c­ hildren in my sample. SEPTEMBER 6, 1984

A high wind blew last night, waking me at 3:00 a.m. to lie and watch the barley-­sugar moon set. I only left for my walk at 8:00 and returned very hot at 9:00. Three quails flew up from my feet intent on giving me a ner­ vous breakdown. Why do the creatures wait ­until I am upon them? The baboons barked from the hill. The c­ hildren are swimming in the stream, and I long to join them, damn bilharzias. Anderson’s ­family is using protected ­water from the tap that has as its source clear spring ­water in the hills eight kilo­meters away. The tap is one kilo­meter (approximately) from the h ­ ouse. They drink stream ­water when I am not ­here. We walked in the sun for over three hours hunting out the chosen ones. We met Canaan’s ­sister and Betty and Wisdom’s ­mother, but ­others ­were away. Thus far we have permission to work with Canaan, Esterayi, Betty or Wisdom, Moses, and Pfumayi. One-­third of the sample has been secured. 2:00 p.m.

Namrova, wife-­of-­the-­world, called to us from a beer party and we talked. She is round and jolly and welcoming. Luckily, I had shaken her muddy hand along with many other muddy hands as her group molded bricks for A Field Diary 45

the school the other day. At the same party, Samuel, the builder, was dancing gleefully. And I continue to keep my goods in the back of the open Land Rover ­because he has not built a roof on my round ­house. He had the grace to turn up this morning to say he was too drunk to work. I must study ­these beer parties. Anderson held one last year. It cost him some $40 (sorghum, rapoko, a few cold drinks, batteries for his gramophone), and he made a profit of $80. A man is charged twenty cents to enter, and a ­woman fifteen cents. A tin of beer that holds less than five liters costs seventy cents, and a charge of ten cents is made for a rec­ord to be played. An enchanting scene presented itself to me last night of ­women combing grass and tying it in bundles for sale (at ten cents a bundle) although it was well ­after dark. Twelve ­children had built a huge bonfire and ­were having ­great fun feeding it the grass that had been combed off the stalks. The ­women let them do as they would with no fussing and no warning—­ only Student (aged fifteen years) murmured, “They have not heard of scorpions in the grass.” They continued ­until 10:00 p.m. 5:45 p.m.

The sun is ­doing some quick-­change stuff before curtain call. I am hotter ­after my walk. As I sat almost on top of a hill I heard something just over the crest. Bravely clutching a rock, I peered over the brow and found guinea fowl cheerfully, stupidly scratching. The land takes on a scorched look. Every­thing is brittle including the grass stalks that one usually uses as dental floss. No sign of brittle tempers except that, perhaps, of the wild boy. Cecilia returns from the stream with Tariro on her back, a large tin of ­water on her head, and a basin of washing balanced on a hand. The l­ittle ­children of the ­house rush some four hundred meters to greet her, and Cosimos proudly relieves her of the basin. One of Chief Mola’s sons sold me a toy bow and arrow for fifty cents. The arrow has a biro refill end fitted with a nail. The chief has thirty-­one ­children; another nine ­were inherited along with the last chief ’s wives (three of whom came to live with him), and another eight had died. Three of his wives are divorced from him, and as soon as their ­children are of an age (about seven), he claims them; t­ here are five that he has claimed, and they have joined the twenty-­six already in residence with their ­mothers. He refused to grant that it would be pos­si­ble to allow the m ­ others to keep 46  A Field Diary

figure 3. Manhattan. Photo­graph by Norman or friends for Pamela Reynolds, circa 1985.

their ­little ­children though, as he himself said, it is very difficult for the ­children to leave their ­mothers. ­After all, the wives are at fault e­ ither for having left him or for having caused him to divorce them through bad be­hav­ior. Aye. We spent a good two hours with the chief, learning his genealogy and the line of the chiefs. One of the latter was a ­woman who resigned when she saw that the whites had come to live in the land. His story of the origin of the Tonga is funny for the remolding of the Christian myth of Noah. The hyena was sent before the dove to see if the land was dry and failed to return, having found so many bones to eat. Nice touch. Chief Mola insists that it is a story that belongs to all the p ­ eople, not just the Christians. He named nine of the chiefs before him. SEPTEMBER 7, 1984

8:00 a.m.

Strange dreams of dissolute, painted ladies at elaborate pageants filled my night. I attended a pageant and was slightly ashamed of my leathery skin and sun-­blotched arms. I also dreamed that I was pregnant and that I made a new friend, a female gynecologist. The seven zebra and I met again this morning. This time they ­were at their toilet. A ­mother groomed her baby all along the spine, and the baby did his or her best to groom m ­ other in return by grabbing tufts of mane and shaking vigorously. M ­ other was fairly patient. The zebra on guard looked like a pile of Liquorice Allsorts as he stood facing me. I also met a snake. It slithered down a tree beside me as I was walking. I ­stopped, and just as well b ­ ecause he streaked across the path where my next footfall would have landed. No won­der anthropologists are so interested in avoidance rules: self-­preservation. 3:00 p.m.

We had a good morning wandering from home to home seeking parents’ permission to work with their ­children. We are greeted with amusement and generosity. No one seems suspicious, just curious as to how we can do the job. So are we. Thus far Pfumayi’s s­ ister, Otilia’s m ­ other, Kakala’s ­father, Wisdom and Betty’s ­mother, Canaan’s ­mother, Esterayi’s ­mother, Moses’s parents, and Zvinei’s ­mother have all given us their permission. Eight ­children. [Betty’s ­brother, Wisdom, asked to be included. We said he could join but that we would not include him in formal ­trials.] 48  A Field Diary

SEPTEMBER 8, 1984

8:30 a.m.

I pay a visit to Dzikamurenga (who is often called Dzika) and Runari Muroiwa, who are the parents of Moses. They are interested, questioning, amused. Runari says, “I want you to marry Moses.” She asks what I ­will do when the c­ hildren are at school and the f­ amily is working in the bush or fields. Dzika asks, “What happens if we cannot answer the questions?” and “What w ­ ill be done with what you learn?” (Seven ­children, including Student, watch. ­Children cluster close like chickens. It would be in­ter­est­ ing to contrast ­children’s proximity to one another in dif­fer­ent socie­ties.) Dzika says, “That ­will be fine.” Both have marvelous ­faces. Carved. Humorous. She has a wide mouth, and he a balding head and marks (incisions) on his cheeks. He often laughs at what she says. She tells me that a good time to catch her at home is ­after 3:00 p.m. ­because she goes into the bush to cut grass from 9:00 to 3:00. “Moses was born in January 1973,” says his ­brother, Student. Dzika tells me about life beside the Zambezi River from which they ­were moved. It was, he says, a good place. 9:30 a.m.

Next we visit the home of Elias and Paulina Mujokere. She is bundling grass with the help of her ­sisters, Serina and Noria, and two of her four ­daughters; one of them is Zvinei. I say I have come to inquire about Taizvei and Zvinei, two of their d ­ aughters whose ages fall within our sample range. Eight ­children gather round to listen and watch; one girl has a two-­ year-­old on her back. Taizvei is washing plates at the stream. Paulina does not know their ages. “It is written 1973, eleven years, on Taizvei’s registration book,” says Naison, Noria’s child. She is in grade three. Taizvei is older than Zvinei but is in grade two as she repeated grade one. Taizvei was born when ­people ­were planting, that is, in November  1973, so she is eleven years old. Zvinei was born when p ­ eople ­were beginning to eat green cobs, that is, February 1974, so she is ten years old. We ­will include Zvinei in our sample. Pauline is the younger ­sister of Anderson’s ­mother; they have the same ­father, dif­f er­ent ­mothers. Elias is a builder of bridges ­under the District Development Fund (ddf) in Omay. He is currently posted in Siakobvu, the center of local A Field Diary 49

administration. He works for a full month and then has eight days off duty. Paulina says, “We spend most of our money on food, mealie meal, ­because of shortage of crops. You can ask about money. It w ­ ill be nice; you ­will share your ideas. We ­will not get tired of you.” Serina says, “You must bring ban­dages with you. If you are wounded, I or Paulina ­will come and ban­dage you.” Paulina says, “Anderson w ­ ill not have time to weed his fields. S­ hall we have a work party for him?” Serina adds, “No beer, only mealie meal.” We ask the child Zvinei if she is happy to work with us. She smiles shyly and says, “Mmm.” It is a big ­house­hold complex, and Paulina’s ­mother, Kuwuwete, lives ­there; she is a midwife and a storyteller, though some say Paulina’s ­sister, Noria, is even better at telling stories. Paulina says that Noria ­will tell some to me ­after dinner on Monday night. This is the complex from which I often hear the sounds of ­children’s singing and their laughter at night. Taizvei comes back. She has a pretty, bright face. She repeated a grade ­because she was ill with a swollen stomach. The ­women say Zvinei is cleverer. I visited the home of a disabled ­woman and her husband, who is said to accomplish l­ittle. It is a low, tiny platform that was begged off a blind relative. Their c­ hildren live with other families. The w ­ oman was pounding as we walked past. Every­one says that food is their greatest expenditure and that t­ here is none left over for clothes. I must estimate the contribution that drought-­ relief food makes and the p ­ eople’s reliance on it. From what I have seen thus far, few seem to have been made lazy by it (a common accusation made by outsiders). Million Mazhombe, Kakala’s ­father, has been a fisherman at Musamba for twenty-­one years. He would take his ­family to live with him if they ­were allowed fields ­there. He walks home once, sometimes twice, a week, and it takes three and a half hours one way. We met Canaan (aged twelve) walking from Groebler’s camp to Chitenge. He had been on the road for four hours. He has dropped out of school b ­ ecause, he says, “I am r­ unning out of clothes to wear.” His m ­ other is a ­widow, and his ­brother, Charles, is employed by a trader of dried fish at Musamba. The potter has invited us to watch her fire my pots and candlesticks this eve­ning. We ­shall visit the wood-­carver, Simon, soon. 50  A Field Diary

8:30 p.m.

I keep losing my pens. The potter had been called to see a sick relative at Malambera village and so suggested that we return tomorrow. We went on to meet Simon and order stools. He is a jolly fellow. I bought two deep-­black walking sticks made from the core of muhwiti wood from him, a stool for $5, and I ordered another six, four for my ­daughters. As we drove ­toward Simon’s ­house I felt decidedly ill, caused by the Land Rover’s motion on top of dried fish and sadza, I suppose, and I have felt ill since then. Moses, one of our recently assigned sample c­ hildren, kindly came to make my fire, and I had tea for supper. Odd how one’s body’s heat comes to the boil just as the sun begins to set. Weird and wonderful insects are taking up residence with me; t­ here is a huge black beetle with three-­meter-­long feelers, a hairy black-­and-­white spider, a bat, a bumblebee, sugar ants, black ants, and a drongo in a tree. Th ­ ere is even something singing in my rolled-up sleeping bag. Must remember to shake him or her out. Have thought for the last two hours about the feasibility of following fifteen families and about the need to work with Anderson on samples of our observation and interview sheets. I have de­cided to press on with fifteen c­ hildren, assuming that a few w ­ ill fall out. To prepare for the data collection to be made in September, Anderson and I w ­ ill be fully occupied for the next two weeks. We must, too, fit in eve­nings of talks with Jam the makota, the midwife, the storyteller, the n’anga, and the potter. Why do I always work u ­ nder pressure? I have been at it for about twelve hours ­today. For whom? The moon is almost full. The grass, with a l­ittle imagination, looks like snow in Vermont. It has been a long time since I saw snow. I live in the ­middle of Africa yet love the sea and the snow; roughing it in ­either is prob­ably more difficult than the Zambezi Valley. The drums are playing. SEPTEMBER 9, 1984

9:30 p.m.

Two days have passed by, and I have lost track of the date. Marshall Murphree, the head of a research unit at the University of Zimbabwe, arrived with his assistant, James Munkuli, a councillor from Binga. Together we explored the villages of Musamba and Chitenge and have met most of A Field Diary 51

t­hose to do with fishing in our sample. It has been a quiet day in terms of work. I reconsidered the forms that I had prepared and s­ hall begin to fill them in tomorrow. I dislike being straitjacketed by the need to collect a par­tic­u­lar amount of hard data on specific days over a given length of time ­because I prefer following my nose, but if the tools work efficiently, I might have time to do just that. I must think how to bring the ­children together on one or two eve­nings a week. Cook with them? Tell stories? I have not worked with c­ hildren of their age before and so have no well-­tried means on hand. My thatch is on. The round h ­ ouse looks as welcoming as a tea cozy. What a joy to store my goods properly and be able to write at night without fighting the wind. Billiard Madiro (who drives for the ddf) kindly obtained for me some methylated spirits from Karoi, and the lamp (the Coleman lamp) can now throw light. It casts a dramatic pool in competition with the moon. I become vis­i­ble to all but cannot see outside the charmed circle and so feel invisible. Therefore, I am invisible. Descartes got it wrong. The ­children of Kuwuwete’s home are singing. The moon is full and has kept me awake for some hours for the last three nights. Ungenerous moon. I begrudgingly admire her crooked smile as she sets. The w ­ ater is not coming out of the tap. What ­shall I drink? Stream ­water? Marshall’s cold w ­ ater was pure nectar. And our one beer at night much appreciated. Not essential, just appreciated. SEPTEMBER 10, 1984

Dawn with a tangerine moon headed west and lozenge sun claiming the east. A walk through zebra bedrooms, but I only saw a klipspringer. Home to tea and boiled eggs with Marshall and James. Marshall left at 8:00 a.m. I went in search of Chief Mola, who sent a message to say he wanted to see me. He was said to have gone to his field, and I followed, but he had traveled beyond the field and into the hills to a beer drink. His wives-­ of-­the-­world ­were burning the stalks on their fields, and I sat among the ash piles requesting permission to work with one of Namkondwa’s two ­children, her son, Kunyunyuka (known as Obvious), who only bothers to go to school once or twice a week, or her d ­ aughter, Mwaka. Anderson says Obvious smokes, although he is only twelve, and is rude, whereas Mwaka does not behave wildly. Namkondwa is small, slender, with a bearlike face and rings in her ears. It should be fun to work with them. 52  A Field Diary

figure 4. Anderson Mangisi and I at work watched by ­children beneath my unfinished busanza. Photo­graph by David Wilson for Pamela Reynolds, circa 1985.

We found Mr. Hungwe at the sub-­station making my hammock and Billiard stricken down with diarrhea. The w ­ ater supply has failed. What ­shall I do? Drink and swim with bilharzias. Anderson heard that his ­father’s b ­ rother’s baby had died. She had not sucked for half of her life of a month. Kariba hospital dismissed her, advising the parents to visit a n’anga. We sought, too, permission from Chigura and Kesina Banana to work with their son, John, aged eleven. Kesina is the ­sister of Samuel, the builder, and a ­daughter of the last chief, Chalivamba. They have two sons and had another son who died of “malaria, cough, and diarrhea” at age four. Kesina’s m ­ other and two of Samuel’s c­ hildren by a wife since divorced live in the ­house­hold. The ­children, aged fourteen and thirteen, have lived with them since 1972 and ­will always live with them. They say that a man has the right to his ­children even though his wife wants them and they are lodged in a home in which their ­father may not reside. A Field Diary 53

Fi­nally, we interviewed Dzikamurenga Muroiwa on his work history and income. He grew tired of my questioning and did not reveal the source of his income. He says that his son, Nylon, who is a “bedroom boy” (house cleaner) at Spurwing Island, sends home $10 or $12 twice a year. Anderson, who knows Nylon well, claims he sends as much as $100 a month. Serves me right for diving in the deep end. C ­ an’t paddle on the edge for too long though. I have forgotten to note this morning’s interview, with the ­mother of Moses and the wife of Dzikamurenga, on her child’s life history. It was a fair beginning, though hard to translate some concepts or to disentangle variations in custom from Zezuru patterns. Now it is hot. The wind blows, and if I close my eyes, I feel a layer of heat on my skin like Nivea cream. I escape from the wind into my ­house, but it is fairly hot though private, womblike. SEPTEMBER 11, 1984

2:00 p.m.

“We make an unsubstantial territory,” writes V ­ irginia Woolf in The Waves. So it seems as the midday heat drains the earth and sky of color, tricking us into assigning false horizons. And so it seems as the wind sweeps sound from the air, imposing its own tune and dance. It has blown since last eve­ning; it blew hard enough to chase me from the platform and into the round ­house, where it was hot but still enough for sleep. Last eve­ning, our ­house­hold walked to Kuwuwete’s home to hear Noria tell stories. ­Under the moon ­were gathered some forty ­children of assorted ages and about seven adults. We ranged ourselves in a circle, and Noria told three stories, which I taped. The ­children knew the stories and sang beautifully when they ­ought and laughed often. One was a story of meat that pounded food for its meal and another of a tortoise who tricked a buck. Norman, aged about sixteen, told a fine story of a hare with many clever and odd incidents and a nasty end. The audience loved it. He was still and controlled as he spoke sitting beside me, even through the interruptions of dogs barking and ­children crying. We taped ­children’s songs while two young boys (aged eleven or twelve) drummed on pots. I asked them for a traditional Tonga song, and the Kapandura c­ hildren stood formally in a group and sang in En­glish, “When ­you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.” 54  A Field Diary

They now call me Kanense—­“the thin one.” Plans went awry again. Quite funny watching an anguished painted lady from an aid agency trying to galvanize the community into building a shelter and toilets for a crèche. Her community meeting was canceled as the chief failed to turn up. The morning passed pleasantly interviewing Pfumayi’s s­ister, Rosemary, and Moses. My questions cause much hilarity. I find it hard to pursue the line of questions carefully formulated on my forms but dash off on detours and learn more that way, I am sure. This after­noon some of the ­children in the sample are coming for tea. What ­shall I do with them? I gave Rosemary’s youn­gest child blocks to play with. He clapped them like drums and rolled a small block on a large one as if grinding, and felt the shape carefully. The wind shakes me on the platform scornfully as if I am but a head of grass seed. I must walk into the wind and up the valley in order to have a pee. Moses’s ­mother says our work is easy b ­ ecause we just sit and ask questions. 6:10 p.m.

We had a marvelous after­noon, the ­children and I. Moses had invited the ­others to come for tea at 3:00 p.m. Wisdom, Canaan, Moses, Pfumayi, Zvinei and her ­sister, Taizvei, Mwaka, and Otilia arrived bringing an assortment of friends and relations. The girls ­were shy, demure, the boys bold and funny. Canaan is a character: forthright, quick, with a laughing mouth. He is very attractive. Wisdom is lively, too; he is older than the o ­ thers pre­sent and an obvious leader. He has, ­after all, been to Harare. In the fun of responding to repartee, the girls forgot to be demure. 7:50 p.m.

We had lime juice and biscuits and discussed our work. Canaan asked if they would be paid. I said no. I gave each a diary, a ballpoint, and a folder, and they requested that I write their names on the books and folders. Moses, Wisdom, and I played with the Frisbee and discussed their travels and ambitions. Wisdom wants to be a pi­lot: he says he needs form three to do that. I weighed them. We talked of other t­ hings and planned to meet again on Saturday after­noon. I ­shall enjoy their com­pany and must plan group activities. Some of them have never seen Lake Kariba, a twenty-­ five-­kilometer walk away. A Field Diary 55

They say my name should be Kanense (“the thin one”) or Matempa (“the one with the flat stomach”). I thought I had enough bumps and curves to exclude me from the Twiggy subculture. The second name fills me with shame at my privilege among so many with the distended stomachs of undernourishment and disease. I live at the foot of a hill called “Fat Stomach.” Once again, I feel tired a­ fter a few hours with ­children just as I did working with ­children in Crossroads. My concentration centers so intently on their gestures, facial expressions, relationships that I wear myself out. I walked to recoup strength and was rewarded by the proximity of a woodpecker who resembled an old man in a red nightcap pecking endlessly at his meal; a good-­looking old man, upright in bearing and nimble. I walked home as the sun dis­appeared and the valley was quiet. The wind is rising now as the blood-­orange moon claims the night. The bat is busy, and a bird, a gray loerie, calls, “Go-­away.” At night? I heard hyenas last night. ­Shall I sleep on the platform and sway in the wind or on the floor of the kitchen with no door against the hyena? I should not care for him to think me Adam’s bones. Something is fluttering in the hut—­I ­shall chance the wind. SEPTEMBER 12, 1984

1:15 p.m.

This morning’s gift was a lilac-­breasted roller on a twig near my platform. A messy morning followed. A councillor asked me to fetch the chief so that the crèche meeting could be held. I did. Th ­ ere was a short address by the representative of the foundation. The chief said very ­little and closed the meeting when the ­women began to harangue the few men pre­sent (four) for the laziness of their menfolk. They blamed t­hose who make beer all the time and said that their men no longer even work in the fields. To this last the chief replied, “Then do not feed them sadza.” It was curious, I thought, that he made no use of the platform for his office. The ­women then reluctantly began to turn the earth around the crèche that had been fired yesterday to make a communal garden. I interviewed Chakafa Wilson’s and Dickson Kapandura’s wives. Each was reluctant and demurred ­until their husbands’ permission had been granted. I hope that the former ­will soon return for a visit home from Tiger Bay, where he is a cook. Afterward I talked to Edward Kajiri, who is ill with 56  A Field Diary

fever yet gave us permission to work with Otilia and avoided setting a time for me to interview him. All the men evade our questioning if they can. Mr. Kajiri had just been to see Serina’s baby, who he said was unconscious. Serina, Canaan’s ­mother, is the ­sister of Edward’s ­father. I went to see Serina. Her baby is as tiny as my shorthand notebook. A ­little miracle of life, yet she does not seem to have long to live. She was born on September 10, 1984, two months premature. Three ­women, including Serina, ­were seated in the ­house. Serina held the naked baby in her two hands: it was no bigger. Serina’s ­mother, her ­daughter, and other kin sat outside. Charles and Canaan ­were nearby with friends. They came close to hear us talk. I brought sufficient food for the ­family for a few days. Did I interfere? Did I blunder? Who knows? Right? Wrong? Esterayi was home with a sore foot in which a large thorn is embedded. At 5:00 p.m. I s­ hall go armed with n ­ eedles, tweezers, and Dettol to see her. Fi­nally we secured Julius Kapandura’s permission to work with Matthew, only it turns out that Matthew is too old. His history is in­ter­est­ing, so it is a pity. Julius married Matthew’s m ­ other, who had been the wife of Julius’s ­brother though they had divorced prior to the ­brother’s death in 1968. Julius was given his ­brother’s name at the ritual to call back the dead man’s spirit and still sees himself as the ­children’s ­father although he has since divorced their m ­ other. Julius suggests that we select one of his own ­children; perhaps Poswet is the correct age. 9:30 p.m.

Buffalo are a hundred yards away. Two are fighting: angry red eyes glare out of the dark. The moon rises like a cracked ice cube. She has lost some of her splendor and is coldly silver. She brings but a slight breeze and that is a relief, and she complements the distant grace of the impala that I saw this after­ noon. Royal? Perhaps. Mwaka’s face beside the eve­ning fire looked regal; she is the ­daughter of a wife-­of-­the-­world and a chief. It was fun talking to her about her day, which she described as having been a long and happy one. Her m ­ other and Namrova left for the fields early and had not returned by nightfall. They must have been meandering home past a beer drink. I find Mwaka’s b ­ rother, Obvious, to be charming, and I fear for him. He smokes, he plays truant from school and home tasks, he boasts, and his claims exceed the probable, yet he has magnetism. He told us how he A Field Diary 57

killed a squirrel with a stone this after­noon and ate it, but he could not show us the skin ­because he had burned it. Esterayi avoided us. I do not think she wants to work with us. Canaan’s ­little ­sister is the same this eve­ning. She lies in my mind like a fern beginning to unfurl. Her hand is a frond on her cheek. Poswet arrived with John and a gang of friends to “sign up.” He has a broad, willing face. They played with the Frisbee and came in the Land Rover to Million’s home and beyond. Million Mashanga arrived at Manhattan in his floral pith helmet hungry, having had only beer since morning, and in search of a lift halfway to Musamba Fishing Camp. I tried the week’s ­labor interview on him (it is imperfect), then we all piled in the Land Rover. His wiles to persuade me to take him all the way ­were amusing. He even claimed fear of elephants yet walks the route e­ very week. I recall him sucking his orange with a mouth itself sucked in against toothless gums. I sought his home last Sunday, and all his neighbors denied knowledge of his existence, fearing I may be the police. I suspected as much: Anderson was not with me. It is difficult to disentangle that which is truly Tonga from that which is other—­English, Zezuru, Ndebele. Just as difficult is the attempt to disentangle which facet of life among the Tonga is firmly linked to Mola as distinct from the Tonga of Binga, the Plateau, Negande, and so on. No doubt the attempt is foolish, but t­here are variations in almost ­every ­matter—­avoidance, inheritance, greetings, the naming of birds. It is enlightening to have James Munkuli and Anderson discuss the differences and similarities between Tonga living in Binga and in Mola. This eve­ning Anderson related his ­father’s genealogy. His ­father’s ­father, Siachema, has caused to exist forty progeny down to the third generation (Anderson’s). We have yet to tackle the fourth. Almost all of t­hose still alive reside in Chitenge. Anderson says that the se­niority of wives goes according to their order of marriage. The first wife is the one to whom gifts brought from the city are given. She shares with the other wife or wives. It is she who acts as the head of ­house­hold in her husband’s absence, assigning lodging to a visitor, for instance. Should she die or leave, the ­woman married next ­after her assumes the position as the first wife. Anderson cannot conceive of a system in which a wife married ­later than another/others may be accorded se­niority ­because of her aristocratic rank. The wives-­of-­the-­world lie outside this ordering, at least when inherited. 58  A Field Diary

We talked of avoidance during the morning. James said, “It is strange that I may not talk to my ­brother’s wife, yet if he dies, it is she who ­will be my wife.” The rules differ in Binga and Mola. L ­ ittle did I imagine how much a twenty-­cent piece could symbolize (the dead man’s ­brother proffers it to his ­widow, or to one of his ­widows, if he is prepared to inherit her and her ­children and, therefore, cleanse her). What subtleties lie b ­ ehind the timing of the giving of that symbol? Does one’s brother-­in-­law withhold it ­because he is attracted or repulsed? Keen or indifferent? Why does he give it to one of his ­brother’s wives and not another? How explic­itly are such thoughts s­ haped? How curious that in one Tonga group the mother-­in-­law passes her son-­in-­ law his child as a sign that they may now greet each other, while in another Tonga group the son-­in-­law is the one to grant that familiarity by passing his child to the mother-­in-­law. ­Human rules, the stuff of anthropology, are like African paths in the long, brittle grass of early summer. Devious. SEPTEMBER 13, 1984

9:30 p.m.

I feel oddly ner­vous to­night. Was it the herd of elephants five yards from the car and the bull who played chicken with me? Or the extraordinary insect that flew to my lamp? Like a dragonfly with a long snout and two long feelers ­behind the wings that ended in black-­and-­white feathers, curls, shells—­unutterably lovely and fragile. The day was leached of color except for the grass that is the color of pale dust and the dust that is the color of pale grass. Poverty was not obscured: it had the effrontery to stand out in ­children’s shirts that cannot button over their bellies, in Serina’s baby weighing in on the clinic scale at one and a half kilograms, and in the old man’s limbs like sorghum stalks. Zebra began my day, and an ocher moon has ended it. I must not carp. I interviewed Jam, whose role, as makota, it is to ordain the chief. I was unable to strike a note that would make him ­really talk. Nor could I quite reach Sophia, Otilia’s ­mother, nor Poswet and John this after­noon, though they ­were funny and honest. I feel weighed down by the forms yet feel the need to gather that kind of ordered data. I miss my soft, rounded c­ hildren. I am consumed by inadequacy. I feel crouched down like the rock buck I saw hiding his spots in speckled shade. The c­ hildren come to me hungry, yet I do not feed them. A Field Diary 59

figure 5. Taitos Kachembere and Benson Siamaundu ­doing homework outside the h ­ ouse they live in during school term. Photo­graph by Alexander Joe for the book Lwaano Lwanyika, © Pamela Reynolds and Colleen Crawford Cousins, circa 1985.

SEPTEMBER 14, 1984

8:20 p.m.

I write to calm my mind, to remove myself and place it on paper. “The fish, the veal cutlets, the wine have blunted the sharp tooth of egotism” (­Virginia Woolf, The Waves, 1931). ­These pages are my veal cutlets. Then I can think of the next step: the work. I need someone to whom I can say, “It is hot” for the thousandth time; “I am tired”; “I am consumed by guilt, inadequacy, self-­doubt.” Having said it, I go on. E ­ ither Norman, fated man, is my sponge or this diary is. The wind still blows, so I sit to work inside the ­house and my thighs squelch in their own heat and drops gather beneath my hair. Anderson and I sat for some four hours in the sun this morning watching Namkondwa clear her field. We talked to her as she worked ­until she told us to shut up. Instead, we interviewed the chief ’s son, Timothy. His views differed from his ­father’s, adding pieces to the mosaic. 60  A Field Diary

Namkondwa called us to sit in the shade of her platform. The chief was t­ here. Namkondwa crept into a corner like a rabbit and sat smoking her hookah. We talked to the chief for an hour or so about the election of chiefs. I was confused, admitted confusion, and he dealt with me with patience. Life is so full of fiction: Where are the facts anthropologists as scientists gather? ­There are certain men who are called on to select the chief in accordance with the chiefly f­ amily’s wishes. The man selected as chief is amazed when they arrive to place the black beads of office around his neck. Two fictions: the next in line is preordained, u ­ nless the man is mad or similarly rendered unfit, so the “choice” does not exist but its possibility does. And the next in line knows he is in line: second fiction. So many inconsistencies—­the chief ’s son claims that four of his (the chief ’s) sons have been selected to learn the history of the chief ’s line, yet the chief says none of his sons ­will be taught as none are in line. The chief claims that a son of the chief rules for four years before the next chief is selected. Is this what happens? The chief claims that on election he is told the names of the former chiefs and then of their wives only once and must remember them. The makota passes his knowledge on through his ­sister’s son, who w ­ ill become the next makota. I must pursue that. Next I visited Serina Wilson’s home. I grew impatient with my set of questions on ­children’s life histories when interviewing Serina Wilson ­because the answers they elicited ­were unsatisfactory. I must put them aside. Tafirei, the child selected at that ­house, has a ­brother, Obert, who asked to be included in the research, and I said he could be (he is not formally counted as one of the twelve sample ­children). He offered to fill in the ­house­hold accounts for the week, and I gladly accepted (I require only rough estimates of ­house­hold expenditure). We visited a n’anga in the village; he is a man in late ­middle age, and he has a home full of fearfully malnourished ­children. One terribly thin young girl sat in a bed of ashes, and a boy (aged about eight or nine) sat absolutely still and twiglike on a sack. The n’anga was very suspicious of me. He showed me a letter from an association of traditional healers thinking it was a certificate of membership. In fact, the letter is an extremely libelous and distasteful demand for subscription fees. The letter obliquely threatens that ­those who fail to pay ­will be seen as witches and states that two nationally renowned healers from another association are to be distrusted ­because they have declared n’angas to be witches. Namkondwa promised to talk to us at 5:00. She returned home at nearly 6:00. Tired, having done nothing but sit and talk at her field all after­noon. A Field Diary 61

I lectured her a ­little. She promised to meet me on Monday at 5:00 and not to be tired. We completed the forms with her ­children who run the home and w ­ ater the vegetable garden. Obvious was carry­ing poles from the bush to build his own home. He had spent the after­noon watching big boys ­gamble. Esterayi says she does not have time to work with us. Chakafa Wilson’s ­family ­will tell stories and sing songs for us on Saturday (tomorrow) eve­ning. The headmaster ­will be ­here for tea in the morning, and all the sample c­ hildren, plus kin and friends, w ­ ill come for after­noon tea. No peace tomorrow. Early this morning I walked to the few pools that are not yet dry and watched the birds. A kingfisher, as beaky as an aristocrat; a black-­collared barbet, as proud as a judge; a gray loerie, as imperious as a queen. The sounds ­were liquid. They taunted me, asking why I did not sit with them all day rather than perch in bone-­dry fields watching ­others work. While I interviewed the chief near t­ hose bone-­dry fields, an ea­gle settled nearby and stayed ­until the conclusion of the interview. I do not know when to begin, continue, or end discussions. I do not know whose timescale to use. I do not know what the chief ’s “Hmm-­ mmm” means. Is ­there a learned monograph on pauses? Anderson says that he has heard that the Zambian Tonga used to call the Tonga of the ­middle Zambezi the VaWe. They do not use that term themselves. SEPTEMBER 15, 1984

2:30 p.m.

Six ­children, including a boy who is very undernourished despite the fact that his f­ather is a ddf driver in Omay, have sat u ­ nder the platform all morning talking. Like starlings. Moses is trying out the hammock that ­people at the local school for the blind made for me. A quiet, hazy morning. I had a walk followed by tea with the headmaster, who is a good man; he sees himself as a missionary. He called the men lazy and said that t­ here had been a lack of care for ­children ­until recently. He observed that most ­children come to school having had nothing to eat, and if they stay at school all day, they eat nothing ­until they go home for supper. Aw ­ oman said sadly to the headmaster about me, “She came so white and now the sun has burned her.” The c­ hildren all arrive just now. What ­shall I do with them? I ­shall talk. 62  A Field Diary

9:45 p.m.

They came (the c­ hildren, kin, and friends). We talked. It was not very fruitful. I could not bring my w ­ ill, my creative energy to bear; I need more ­things to share with them—­beads, footballs, books. In the eve­ning we went to Serina Wilson’s ­mother’s home to tape stories. However, her young ­sister’s beer sales w ­ ere being made, and her ­brother told us we could not have stories told while they ­were busy drinking. That left a disappointed horde of ­children. The night was dark, and all I could see ­were silhouettes of ­people dancing beside a small fire and shapes milling about so that it was hard to see the hands extended in greeting. L ­ ater the wind blew me off my platform, my Manhattan, into the windowless, doorless ­house. ­There is, I think, a fair amount of passive re­sis­tance among adults. Samuel not building, Namkondwa not talking, even Esterayi not joining. Not surprising given their recent, even long-­past history. The headmaster said that Mola’s p ­ eople had been offered another site, better watered, but refused, saying, “We have buried our ­fathers ­here now.” I like working in a round room. Encompassing. Canaan was gambling yesterday. SEPTEMBER 16, 1984

8:00 p.m.

The day was mine. I sipped it. A few visitors, but I smiled and went on working and they left. I walked far and passed strange birds and an auburn mongoose. The tiny buck was t­here again. Just inside the valley I came upon a boy about twelve years old who was chopping poles for the roof of his h ­ ouse with help from his f­ ather. Normally, his f­ ather said, he would not help his son build his h ­ ouse, but school is so demanding that the boy has no time to build. School is the new imperative. The p ­ eople are told to cluster together in order to be near schools, and the fisherman may not carve fields beside their camp and bring their families ­there ­because ­there is no school; the se­nior schoolchildren eat no lunch b ­ ecause school lasts all day, and ­children live in huts by themselves ­because Mola has the only form one in Omay. I have just reestablished myself on the platform hoping the wind ­will be even-­tempered. I am thirsty. ­Shall I bother to put on sandals, climb down, dismantle my barrier against hyenas, in order to find the b ­ ottle of ­water? A Field Diary 63

figure 6. Moses Muroiwa and a friend playing Tsoro, a game widely played in southern Africa. Photo­graph by Alexander Joe for the book Lwaano Lwanyika, © Pamela Reynolds and Colleen Crawford Cousins, circa 1985.

I fetched the ­water. Shaira is ill with stomach pains. O ­ ught I to set up a dispensary? But ­there is a clinic in Chitenge although it is not always operative, and ­there are two doctors who visit on an irregular basis, one from Kariba and one from Binga. I know naught of medicine. The margin of error is enormous. I am less fearful of traditional medicine; I am, a­ fter all, possessed by a healing spirit according to amaXhosa and isiZezuru healers. The day was like ­Virginia Woolf ’s image—­blue as if inside a stone. September is called jowala, “the noise birds make sucking nectar.” SEPTEMBER 17, 1984

9:00 p.m.

Still and cool. Joy. The interview this morning with Raina Mashonga was unsatisfactory. Her ­daughter, Megina, is lovely and bright. She is still a child but is said to be “married,” that is, a “deposit” of $10 has been paid by her “husband” to her parents and she w ­ ill only live with him when she is grown up. Both m ­ other and d ­ aughter say it was her, the child’s, 64  A Field Diary

figure 7. A boy pondering chickenhood. Photo­graph by Alexander Joe for the book Lwaano Lwanyika, © Pamela Reynolds and Colleen Crawford Cousins, circa 1985.

choice. The ­family has a small platform and a tiny room that is being built by the son, Kakala, for himself. Three of the five ­children sleep at the neighboring ­house­hold, one with Raina’s ­mother and two with the boys of the ­house­hold whose head is Raina’s ­brother. Raina is a slight ­woman. Million, her husband, is the one who wears the floral pith helmet. She says he owns no nets and has not fished for eight years. I have details of the hours he reportedly spent on the ­water last week and of his catch. Who is right? Anderson’s ­daughter, Shaira, is unwell, so he took her to the clinic at Siakobvu, where she was given glycerin. Anderson says the child eats dirt—­I seem to recall a reason for c­ hildren ­doing that to do with a lack of certain minerals in the diet. Costain, Anderson’s young ­brother, spent the after­noon with me. He is ­going to help with the ­water forms. He and I walked some four kilo­meters, mapping the village. Obvious accompanied us and was well informed as to who lived where. As we walked the sun stitched its way through the day’s end of cloud and heat haze, leaving silk threads in its wake. A Field Diary 65

A prostitute costs $8 to $10 a night. “­There are many,” said Costain, pointing out two camp followers of the Malaria Spraying Team. Th ­ ere are local ones, too. Current lobola prices are $250 or so, but a man may take his wife to live with him once he has paid $20 to $30. If a girl has been named ­after one muzimu or two, she must be given the same number of goats. Their cost is included in the total. Megina, Raina’s ­daughter, ­will be given a goat, and it ­will be eaten as a confirmation of the promised tie. ­There is a name for the meat on that occasion, but no name for the ritual itself. Moses combed and tied bundles of grass (each worth ten cents) for his ­mother this after­noon. Megina said she did nothing this morning but, on being questioned, had walked over two kilo­meters to collect w ­ ater and had washed the pots and dishes. It is hard to capture their work on paper, as it is not often done in long, concentrated spurts. Norman arrives on Thursday eve­ning. I have been up since 5:00, when a wind from the south rattled the poles of my Manhattan. The tap is not yielding again. The thought of drinking from the Masawu Stream is not enchanting. We watched ­people collect ­water from the stream and saw many ­children cleaning pots in the sand and then wading in to wash them off. ­Others ­were scooping ­water a meter away into their buckets and tins. Infectious raucous laughter could be heard from young men bathing downstream. The ­water is not safe, yet it ­will be a pity when communal washing and bathing is canceled. With hygiene comes a privacy, exclusion, and boundary walls. ­There is an animal downstairs. Not a ladder-­climbing species, I trust. SEPTEMBER 18, 1984

6:00 p.m.

A hammerkop swooped down the river course this morning; he cut a dominant figure in his brown cloak with the hood thrown back. I saw vari­ous hornbills; I have grown fond of the Tiffany-­lady sort. Anderson and I had a fruitful day (though I feel a bit like a slightly overbaked fruitcake; I remember the picnic we had near Jaisalmer in the Rajasthan desert: whiskey fruitcake from Ireland, peanuts, and hard-­ boiled eggs). Early this morning a w ­ oman told Anderson that John Sampakaruma was furious with us for having asked his wife, Megina, all t­ hose questions. We went in search of him and found him at a beer drink. He turned out to be a domestic worker in a local settlement; we met ­there in 66  A Field Diary

July. We began on a warm note, and he gave us full permission to work with Megina. He even offered to keep her diary for her. Apparently he had doubted Anderson’s intentions in relation to Megina, so the outcome of our cordial meeting was a relief. Poor Anderson arouses a lot of suspicion on my account. Anderson’s ­father and his ­mother’s ­brother ­were at the beer drink discussing ­whether or not to allow Anderson’s elder b ­ rother to move to Hwange. Apparently the m ­ other’s ­brother’s word is final on this m ­ atter. Should Samson not heed their advice, he ­will have been seen to have removed himself from their f­ amily. ­There is no age at which a man’s son or his s­ ister’s son may take a serious decision on his own. The same applies to d ­ aughters and nieces, and even to daughters-­in-­law, if one case I witnessed proves the rule. We talked, Anderson and I, of impotence and the legitimate means that can be taken to have one’s b ­ rother or ­sister’s son impregnate one’s wife (wives). Coincidentally, as we talked we ­were greeted by a ­woman whose ­father had become impotent or sterile a­ fter having procreated some ­children and had then or­ga­nized his younger b ­ rother and own wife in a successful procreative partnership. It is supposed to be secret but is, seemingly, not in this instance. ­There is a fascinating series of steps that follow the ritual during which a man’s spirit is called back from the dead. The steps concern the inheritance of the man’s wife, or wives, and ­children. Each wife is given the option of rejecting the man chosen to be her husband. Should she reject all the men in line to inherit her, she may return to her natal ­family but must leave her ­children ­behind. Before she is allowed to go she must be cleansed. One among ­those whom she has rejected is chosen by the elders to cleanse her, that is, sleep with her and have intercourse just for one night. That very night the two enter a ­house with no lights and are left alone. A ­ fter some time, an old ­woman of the ­family calls out, “Do you want fire?” If the man has successfully loved the ­woman, he replies, “Yes. You can bring fire.” If not, he says that he does not need fire. The old w ­ oman reports to the elders. If the man was unsuccessful, he is seen to have been rejected as the inheritor of the dead man’s property and ­children. Another must be chosen to cleanse the ­woman. Should she not be cleansed, she may never marry again or her husband may die. She may, once cleansed, request that her ­children live with a par­tic­u­lar man in the f­amily, and if pos­si­ble, her wish ­will be followed. A Field Diary 67

Should a man die without having paid full lobola for his wife, the wife’s f­ amily may claim the balance. One of his ­children, prob­ably a girl, ­will be given to the ­family, and they ­will receive her lobola when she marries, thus canceling the debt. The girl ­will live with her ­mother’s ­family. However, if she does not wish to be separated from her siblings, she can say as much and be allowed to live with them; the lobola w ­ ill still go to her m ­ other’s ­family. ­Women and ­children have some leeway within the rules for determining their ­future. We talked to Keresiya Mola and wrote down her genealogy. She has had four husbands: one divorced her ­because she did not conceive; one was a chief and she his thirteenth bride; and the last two inherited her. She is poor now. Her son, Edwell, earns money for clothes to wear to school by selling chickens. His chickens come from a hen (was the rooster a man about town?) given to him by his ­mother’s half ­brother. He has nine ducks, too, bred from a pair given him by his ­mother’s elder ­sister’s husband. His ­sister, Kalinda, ­stopped school in January ­because she had no clothes. Someone has just given her three dresses, and she wants to return to school but is afraid of being beaten. I suggested that Keresiya explain the position to the teacher; she replied she would. Edwell is in grade six, and Kalinda in grade two. The sun is going/has gone. Wonderful noises drift uphill to me of ­children swimming, men talking, w ­ omen calling, plus contented grunting from Moses and Naison as they draw beneath me. They have felt-­tips and paper and are drawing their self-­portraits. Moses has drawn himself “when I was young.” Shaira is still ill. Anderson drove the ­family clad in their best clothes to Bumi to catch the ferry to Kariba. I wrote a note to the hospital staff. Bath time. What a delight it is to remove the layers of dirt. I have not yet recorded our after­noon’s netting. My eve­ning walk was disappointing—­ too hot, too many midges, my skirt swished too loudly in the long grass. Strangely, the heat waits to trip one up just before sunset. Stalks one all day and lunges at day’s end. It makes the eve­ning most welcome. This after­noon we interviewed the se­nior makota, Rapson. Interviews can take curious twists; if one presses too hard, the interviewee may turn tail and offer the opposite line. Rapson confirmed James Munkuli’s view that early ward heads (sub-­chiefs) ­were originally slaves. He traces the origin of the makota to t­hese slaves who established their fiefs through 68  A Field Diary

good sound leadership. I took his genealogy. I see why anthropologists are so fond of kinship, as it is so much easier to write down the names of forebears than to probe on questions of incest or avoidance, though they, too, are kinship issues. He made the first reference to incest that I have yet heard, but only in the abstract. He told us (I won­der if he knows that I am working with Namkondwa) that she had been married to the last three chiefs and that she had caused the last two to commit breaches of conduct in that they had loved her before being officially notified by the makota of their se­lection as chiefs. No ordinary man would dare to make love to one of the wives-­of-­the-­world, as he would be risking his life. This confirms my feeling that Dumbura’s insistence on the surprise he felt on being selected was fictitious. It is, Rapson says, customary to have the chief ’s son as regent for some four years. He states that t­ here are three chiefly lines (the chief says four), and Dumbura should not have been selected as another line was next in the queue. All rather confusing. He says that the November rain ritual can be held at any time, not necessarily at full moon. We worked on Anderson’s fruitful f­ amily tree this eve­ning, and I heard more tales of madness, of claims on c­ hildren, on “owner­ship” of c­ hildren, ­etc. A curious case is one in which a man failed to support his wife and ­children for some six years and she fell in love with another man. However, the husband and the ­woman’s parents refused to accept money from her suitor to ­settle outstanding payments and so “legally” marry her. Hence he left her. It seems that neither her real interests nor her c­ hildren’s ­were considered. The husband has more than one wife and lodges some of his ­children with his ­sister and her husband. What, I ask, has all this to do with child ­labor? SEPTEMBER 19, 1984

4:30 p.m.

This morning Anderson and I sought and obtained Mr. Mangisi’s permission to ask his son, Crispin, to rec­ord sales in his store one week in ­every second month. Crispin agreed to do that and rec­ord how many beer parties ­there are each day in the vicinity. Then we traveled to the Musamba Fishing Camp on the shores of Lake Kariba to observe how the five men from Mola conduct their daily business. A Malawian spent some time talking to us and said that he had been chairman of the fishing camp but A Field Diary 69

had relinquished the post when the men would not cooperate with him “­because of the color bar,” that is, b ­ ecause he is an alien. My soul cringed at our h ­ uman frailty. What a relief to meet a straightforward man. We have had many distortions offered us, sometimes so blatant that one cannot call them lies. Messages, rather—­“Jazz off.” It turns out that Million does not fish and has no nets, his wife was correct, and that Charles does go out onto the ­water to procure fish although he said that he is too afraid to go out on the ­water. One says he does but he does not, the other says he does not but he does. Once back in Chitenge we visited Chief Mola to ask when the rain ritual in November w ­ ill be held. He has not yet de­cided but thinks that preparation ­will begin when the moon is sighted. His messenger w ­ ill collect grain from the ­people who have enough to offer some, even if only a plateful, ­until ­there is a sufficient amount for the mizimi but not for all the ­people. Three or four pots w ­ ill do. Then the grain must be prepared, allowing time for it to sprout before the beer is brewed. The pro­cess takes about two weeks in all. I said that full moon is on November 8, but it did not seem to interest the chief much. He was eating, and one of his wives was lying beside him. I asked the c­ hildren if she was ill, and they laughingly said, “No, drunk.” She kept offering a breast to her small child. She is the ­woman who sang with her ­sister’s child: I was born for every­one Not just to marry one person. Her ­sister, also a wife of the chief, asked the chief for tobacco as he was preparing to come with us to the sub-­office where registration books ­were being checked. He replied that she asks too often for tobacco yet when he tells her to do some small task, she refuses. She answered cheekily, and they bickered back and forth. The c­ hildren ­were amused. Chief Mola admonished her in funicalor (the rudimentary creole between En­glish and African languages in Zimbabwe). He grew more and more angry and was much provoked. He consoled himself with a swig of beer from a bucket hanging in the raf­ters, and we left. En route home we gave a lift to Feriza’s f­ ather. As he left us at the store, he forcefully told Anderson that Feriza, Anderson’s wife, might not attend a sewing course in Harare as she has a baby and the baby may die. Anderson did not reply but told me he would obey but it was up to his wife if she wanted to obey. She arrived just then, and her f­ ather repeated the refusal. 70  A Field Diary

As the course w ­ ill now be in Bumi, she was unconcerned. The encounter confirms that a man assumes he can have power even over a married ­daughter. Anderson says that not all men exercise that power. 8:30 p.m.

The night is alive with sound. The stream’s frogs are celebrating or mourning, I cannot decide which. The beer drink at Kuwuwete’s has turned into some sort of po­liti­cal meeting with many exhortations and shouts of pambiri. A man with a loud, hoarse voice is leading. A child cries in Serina’s ­house­hold. Anderson’s dog objects to it all, and I lie in my hammock and listen. Lightning flashed in the east, but our patch of sky is clear. Rain would turn my ­little world upside down right now. SEPTEMBER 20, 1984

12:40 p.m.

Student, Moses, Givemore, and I went through riddles and proverbs that the former and last named have collected for me. We sat happily as the sun twisted the heavens into tie-­and-­die patterns. I feel on the edge of ­things. I was in trou­ble again. Costain interviewed Rosemary, Pfumayi’s ­sister and her guardian, on the sanitation and hygiene form. Her husband was furious with the questions. More prickly tempers to smooth. I ­shall drop ­those sections for the moment. I am, I know, pushing too hard, but in a sense I need to know the limits. Serina Siansikiri answered my questions on Canaan’s life history. She was bright and cheerful. Her admiration and love for her son w ­ ere warming. Canaan ­will come to Bumi with us to collect Norman. On Saturday, he says, he made $10.00 gambling and spent $8.50 on a shirt. His initial outlay of eighty cents was lent to him by a friend. Obvious gambled and lost. Anderson has a recurrence of malaria. The headmaster generously shared his school rec­ords with us and has promised to collect further data from the ­children. The men are singing rather beautifully. The villa­gers ­were gathered at the sub-­office to have their registration books checked. Many waited hours, but the official did not turn up. Jam is a healer, Serina says. He throws hakata. ­Today’s gift was a letter from Norman. Only nine days old. The ­children are well and busy making tv commercials! A Field Diary 71

3:00 p.m.

Anderson is weak, so Costain and I set off for Matiba village to interview girls who have been secluded in the nkolola ritual. The walk was long. We talked to an el­derly man and his wife who feared us greatly at first and then to a ­woman whose married ­daughter had been secluded last week, only for a week. She has not conceived ­after two years of marriage and had been advised by a n’anga to hold the ritual. It is only held for girls who are named a­ fter a w ­ oman in the female lineage who was herself secluded. Elizabeth Colson writes about the rite among the Plateau Tonga. ­There the period of seclusion is known as ku-­vundika, “to ripen.” No educational features accompany it. It is a simplified version of the one Colson describes. Then home to read and cool down while I wait to collect Norman. My steam has evaporated for now. I heard, though, that Mafiyosi Makwerere (who is not annoyed with us for having questioned her about such ­matters, Rosemary assures me) has left for Hwange to cleanse the wife he has inherited. His ­brother died some time ago leaving two wives: Mafiyosi’s elder b ­ rother inherited the first wife, and Mafiyosi the second wife, who has six or seven c­ hildren, and he has spent the last two weeks building a ­house for her. Suddenly Rosemary, so young and jolly, ­will have an enormous ­family around her and an older co-­wife. The cleansing must occur w ­ hether or not the wife is to be inherited, Anderson says. Costain knows seven young men who left for Zambia to fight in the Liberation War, and only three returned; the o ­ thers are presumed dead. “­There was,” Costain says, “no direct impact of the war on this area.” Yet the ­people ­were displaced into villages. In Harare SEPTEMBER 26, 1984

Home again. Norman came armed with choco­lates and wine, and it was good to have him in Mola. We had a fine few days taking photo­graphs escorted by Moses, Obvious, Naison, Samson, Costain, and ­others. The ­children all came to Manhattan and ­were photographed and played games. The feeling amongst us all was good. We had a wonderful eve­ning with Obert’s ­mother, Serina, who told a fine story followed by a Chinese tale 72  A Field Diary

from Norman. Then songs. Short led a hauntingly beautiful song. My tape plays up: I must get a new one. We left for Harare. Student and Givemore ­will sleep in Manhattan. Samuel resumed work on the toilet as we drove off, and a builder was fixing the door on my ­house. The road home was long and rough. Norman took two hours less than I to traverse it. Both bushed on return but went out to dinner to celebrate a friend’s ­middle age. ­Children are in good shape though full of flu, and Talitha had to be taken to the doctor for antibiotics to cure the infection that followed the removal of a wart. I feel divided: split in two. Omay’s images are superimposed on pre­sent real­ity. Manhattan NOVEMBER 6, 1984

9:00 a.m.

I have arrived to a very spruce establishment. A mud floor complete with lip beneath my platform with ­table and chair set ready for me; a cleared area around my home; a newly mudded floor; a cupboard of mud with cups, containers, e­ tc., neatly arrayed and a stick from which to hang my goods carefully parceled up; fi­nally, a toilet. Round, roughly thatched, and within superb access. Ten c­ hildren are already playing with the tennis balls I brought, and I have been given a cup of tea. It is a cool day with clouds half promising rain and a wind. ­There has been almost no rain, and all is tinder dry. Most trees are as yet without their leaves. My attempt to reach h ­ ere yesterday was twice foiled. Th ­ ere ­were no guests at Bumi Hills H ­ otel for the first time in nine months, so no plane arrived to collect guests, leaving me and two ­others, who ­were trying to reach Chalala Fishing Camp, stranded. Th ­ ere was a promise that a plane would come to fetch, so we waited all day. At sunset Robb Finn very kindly gave us a lift to Fothergill Island, where we spent the night and ­were flown over at 7:00 this morning. The total cost was $72. A troop of c­ hildren and I set off for the village but w ­ ere waylaid by the arrival of two Land Rovers from Harare of six guests, three from the Department of Agriculture, a visiting agriculturist from the USA, and a nurse and her child. We all toured the village. I learned that on October 28 Obvious had died. So sad. So sorry. He had captured my heart, the ­little fellow. He was in the field that day, returned at nightfall, and lay down and died. Dr. Sam Makanza had investigated his recent illness and had told A Field Diary 73

figure 8. Two girls rhythmically pounding grain. Photo­graph by Alexander Joe for the book Lwaano Lwanyika, © Pamela Reynolds and Colleen Crawford Cousins, circa 1985.

his ­mother his liver was not working properly; he advised her to take him to Kariba hospital. She did not. Had I been ­here, would I have got him to hospital? I am so sorry. That small, bright face was a plea­sure in my September days. The ­house he had half built is already almost down. I went to see Namkondwa. She came sadly from her ­house with a red band tied around her forehead. She said nothing. Namrova was ­there, too, and answered for her. They do not want photo­graphs of Obvious. I am told a gift of money is in order. I saw Mwaka, who looks tall and thin. NOVEMBER 7, 1984

How’s that? Six ­people, four se­nior academics, including a professor from the USA, and one nurse and her child, to spend the night and it rains. All night. Plus fairly high winds. Th ­ ere was naught to do but laugh. Three of us slept on the platform with rain sieving in through the sorghum stalk walls and dripping through choice spots in the thatch; Professor Malcolm Blackie was awash in his tiny tent, and Alois Hungwe, his wife, and child kept dry in my round ­house. In the morning we ate boiled eggs, bread, and pawpaw for breakfast (they had brought provisions from Harare) as we stood amongst the sludge and chaos of wet katunda (belongings). Some of the guests set off for Bumi to repair a flat tire, while the rest of us went to meet ­people from the sample families. We had time to talk to Noria, Paulina, Moses’s parents, and Poswet’s ­mother before the rain chased us home. The smells, the sound, the coolth stirred by the rain are glorious, but the mess around my ­house is funny. Holes are forming in the mud of my platform, and rivers are coursing through my terrain. Th ­ ere is a snake, a gold one, in the pit of my new toilet. I am sorry for it. It cannot survive this deluge. Last night the rain came from the southeast, t­ oday from the north. The university’s Land Cruiser ­will not start. ­Will I have guests for a week? The villa­gers have greeted me warmly. I came with seeds for my families, and t­ hese ­were received happily. Moses’s ­sister, Berita, has been badly burned on her arm. Six months ago she began to have fits. Two months ­later her husband left her. Three weeks ago she was alone in her parents’ home and, while suffering a fit, rolled into the fire. She is still ill and refused to come out to see me. Alois’s wife is a nurse: I must take her over on her return from Bumi. Zvinei is ill with diarrhea.

A Field Diary 75

8:00 p.m.

The flying ants and I compete for the lamp on this long, cool eve­ning with a sun reluctant to set. Quiet. Apart from the lamp’s hiss and the crickets’ muted call. Givemore killed a five-­inch centipede just as it was about to cross my foot. A tank of a beetle has just wandered by. I put down a pole for the snake. He is long and lonely. The almost full moon keeps hiding, and lightning flashes. My guests have gone, and the night is mine. Anderson told me the woeful tale of why Pfumayi has dropped out of our proj­ect. Rosemary’s husband, Mafiyosi, and her ­brother accused her, Rosemary, of having slept with Anderson. The case has been taken by Mafiyosi before the chief ’s court, and divorce seems inevitable. Am I a direct cause for having involved Anderson in the research? Dzikamurenga refuses to allow his d ­ aughter, Berita, to go to hospital, where Betty, Alois’s wife, says she should most certainly be. The Americans left $10 for her travel, and Mr. Hove, the executive chairman of the council, has offered the f­ amily a lift to Karoi. ­There is no more that I can do. We came across a w ­ oman with a very badly swollen thumb. She refuses to go to the clinic as she has heard that ­there is measles ­there and she fears for the life of her young son. We spoke to Namkondwa and gave her seeds and money; we interviewed Otilia’s ­father and ­mother and had a crowd of ­children in Manhattan to see Norman’s photo­graphs. Poverty punches me. The ­children. Givemore, Moses, Student borrowed the books (The Hardy Boys, White Fang, ­etc.) I brought with undisguised eagerness. Edward Kajiri insists that the pattern of inheritance is altering. He expects, he says, to leave his fields to his d ­ aughters. ­Others confirm that much less is being left to s­ isters’ sons. It is hard to check as most fields and vegetable gardens in Chitenge have recently been cleared and not yet passed on. ­Ought I to put a student onto inheritance in an older, settled village? A quite cold and determined wind is up. I ­shall ascend to the platform and hide ­behind the sorghum stalks. The locals do not use fertilizer. Some time back each farmer was given fertilizer, and I have heard of none who use it. Some feared it would burn the plant; ­others, such as Nteni, simply thought it unnecessary. He digs a plant station and thinks the soil quite adequate for its task. 76  A Field Diary

NOVEMBER 8, 1984

9:00 p.m.

­ hildren arrived at 6:00 a.m. to see the photo­graphs. Then Wisdom came C with his diary, and Dzikamurenga at 7:00 to say that his son, Thomas, ­will accompany Berita to Karoi. Then a small boy came to call me to the kusonde (divination to discover the source of death) for Obvious. No pause for contemplation. We spent from 9:00 to 1:00 with Namkondwa’s ­family beneath a nsenje tree while a traditional healer from Dove divined. The after­noon was spent visiting, talking, and enjoying an eve­ning spent with visiting ­children ­here. Fi­nally, I grew too tired to bother with anyone so climbed the ladder and went to sleep. NOVEMBER 9, 1984

Anderson has been called by the district administrator’s office to Kariba. The radio message does not say why, but we presume it is to do with the case that Mafiyosi has taken beyond the chief ’s court in his attempt to divorce Rosemary and claim damages from Anderson. Anderson is accused of having slept with her, and therefore a claim for “damages” w ­ ill be laid against him. This may represent a direct impact of research on village life ­because Anderson now has a regular salary and it is worth laying an accusation against him to claim damages. The court case is to be held on Monday (or at least Anderson has been called to be in Kariba then). To reach ­there in time he must take the bus to Karoi, stay overnight, travel to Kariba on Sunday, and take as long to return. Five days of our precious time. I have sent radio messages, and a reply is promised tomorrow, which is when Anderson ­ought to be on his way. The ferry operates only on Tuesdays. The kusonde for Obvious was both sad and revelatory. Almost four hours of attention was focused on village life. Three n’anga ­were pre­sent, two other men, and fourteen ­women (two of them with babies). The verdict was death through the offices of one of the last chief ’s wives. Seven of Charivamba’s wives are still alive, one being Namrova and another Keresiya, ­mother of Edwell. The ­woman put a pubic hair wrapped in beeswax in a cup of mahewu and gave it to the child to drink. No action ­will be taken. Ntenes is the ­brother of Namrova, so she is surely not implicated. A Field Diary 77

During his divination the se­nior n’anga drew on many dreams and the sighting of snakes and strange animals, all seen in the bones and confirmed by ­those pre­sent, before he arrived at his final revelation. He warned that another death would occur, as the shades are angry at the husband of one of the ­woman’s grand­daughters for sleeping with his wife’s m ­ other’s, ­mother’s younger s­ ister. One man, who was named, was generally agreed to be the culprit. He divined which shades ­were angry over what issues and called for beer for their appeasement. The gathering discussed local gossip including the wounding by a buck of a w ­ oman and the shocking be­hav­ior of one of the chief ’s wives at Obvious’s funeral—­she was drunk and sat on the dead boy’s head. Th ­ ere was a general feeling that she was lucky not to have been accused of having killed him. Perhaps she was excused ­because the chief paid a goat on her behalf. Sixteen hakata ­were in play, and three men used them. I have drawn the kin ties of the group gathered ­under the nsenje tree near the stream. ­Later in the day we walked to Matondo, the area where Paulina, Serina, and Poswet’s m ­ other have fields; beside it is Kajeja, where Otilia’s m ­ other farms, and three kilo­meters beyond it is Mavimba, where Moses’s parents share a field. It is some three kilo­meters from Paulina’s home. As all the above families (and o ­ thers) live near their fields during the time that crops are standing, the c­ hildren walk some ten kilo­meters to and from school. As we walked and watched Paulina work, Anderson relayed local news to me including the desertion of Sophia (Moses’s elder s­ ister) by her husband. Anderson described the second dislocation of Mola’s p ­ eople. In 1976, during the war fought between the white-­controlled government and Liberation forces, the government enforced the p ­ eople to gather together in villages, causing them to leave the homes that they had built and the fields that they had tilled, with no compensation for the loss of crops, land claimed, or built structures; neither food nor assistance of any sort was offered. We met the son of the disabled ­woman and five other ­children who ­were setting off to walk to Tiger Bay to sell 284 worms for one cent each and to collect maize meal from the ­father of one of the girls. They set off at 11:00 a.m., having had no breakfast and with a three-­hour walk ahead of them. The ­father ­will feed them. The boy, who collected the worms, plans to buy soap and perhaps maize meal for his ­family with his earnings. In the hunger year of 1967, Anderson recalls being sent by his 78  A Field Diary

­ other to Chalala Fishing Camp on foot to buy maize meal. He had neim ther breakfast nor lunch, nothing to eat ­until he returned home. Only recently have some ­people begun to have breakfast. Most ­people are now eating sadza with wild relish when it can be found u ­ nless they have money to buy relish from the store. Some ­children are being given sadza and white sugar. The earth is spotted with plush red velvet beetles. Incongruous. The buffalo came close to Manhattan. Shaira, Tapiwa, and their m ­ other, Cecilia, spent three weeks in Kariba at the end of September undergoing bilharzia tests and treatment. Shaira has been better since, and all are eating heartily. 8:00 p.m.

At last alone: the cool night and I. I begin to lose track of my visitors: twenty ­children this eve­ning to look at the photo­graphs. Six boys stayed on to leaf through the magazines and play football. I interviewed Thomas on his marriage to Eunice. He has sent a negotiator to her ­family and has deposited $2. He cannot take Eunice yet to sleep at his home (though he has built a ­house for her) as she is young. He has saved $103 and expects to pay about $170 for lobola. Damages for impregnating a girl are, he says, as high as $300. No one has contributed to his costs: his ­father divorced his ­mother, and she has no ­brothers. If a man divorces a ­woman and she has ­children and it is settled that the lobola must be returned, then $20 is deducted from the original amount for ­every girl child and $10 for ­every boy child. At the sub-­office we found Thomas’s ­sister looking very woebegone with an even more swollen fin­ger. She was trying to inform her husband at Makuti, via four dif­fer­ent radio links, of her plight and to expect her arrival. Anderson, the radio operator, and I tried a variety of ruses to persuade her to visit the clinic at Siakobvu first (­there is no clinic at Makuti), and with a $2 gift/bribe, she said she would do so. I s­ hall be in trou­ble if the consequences are dire. My plea not to release Anderson so that he could obey the summons to Kariba has worked. He is to be “around” at home on Monday to see one of the da’s officials. We do not yet know if the summons is related to the court case. We saw him, Mafiyosi, drinking beer this after­noon and did not approach near enough to force a decision on ­either party as to ­whether A Field Diary 79

greetings should be exchanged. However, Anderson says he cannot greet him ­until the case is settled. Keresiya Mola was home this after­noon and talked to us for some time. She has no food and has recently begged for staples from two kinsmen. She has no relish ­unless she can find muderi leaves. If ­there is no relish, the f­ amily does not eat. Edwell sold two chickens and bought maize meal. She says that although she could sell many pots, she cannot make them as the bark for firing comes from too far away. In fact, it comes from the hills south of her home at not an impossible distance. She denied that she could gather t­here often enough or persuade any male kin to assist her. They ate nothing on two days last month. The drought-­relief food lasted but two days once pounded and sieved: she received three tins of twenty liters each of pips (maize kernels). Fi­nally, a trip to the stores then a search for Serina, Paulina, and Dzikamurenga, to no avail as each one was away from home. I interviewed the son of the last named, Thomas, about his field and was told that his crops grew well but had been consumed by elephants that had destroyed his ­mother’s crops, too. The game scouts promised on several occasions to come and shoot them, but they never arrived. Thomas dislikes living alone beside his field as he is afraid of the animals. He was unable to scare the elephants. So home and an eve­ning of guests. Anderson is cycling twenty kilo­meters to Feriza’s village tomorrow to collect sorghum seed from her ­mother. Crops ­there have yielded well and have not been destroyed by wild animals. Feriza ­will share the seeds with Cecilia, her se­nior co-­wife. Anderson is growing cotton on his field. Now to read, once more, Evans-­Pritchard’s Some Aspects of Marriage and the F ­ amily among the Nuer and enjoy his lucid writing and well-­ grounded observations. Then I s­hall sleep to recover from the lengthy walks and cycle rides that punctuated the day. The snake escaped via the pole I placed in the pit for him. Is that a good omen? NOVEMBER 10, 1984

1:00 p.m.

The morning was spent with the sons of chiefs: Edwell and Oliver, the sons of former chief Chalivamba, and Section, the son of Chief Mola. A quiet morning was had looking at photo­graphs and magazines and talking. Edwell was shaking with the cold, so I gave him a jersey (I only brought 80  A Field Diary

figure 9. A young ­woman grinding grain near a fine home. Photo­graph by Alexander Joe for the book Lwaano Lwanyika, © Pamela Reynolds and Colleen Crawford Cousins, circa 1985.

two light ones) and fed them all cornflakes. It is so difficult to have and not share, yet my stocks are small. No m ­ atter. We discussed inheritance and parental care. The ­mother’s ­brothers are still the most likely to care for boys if the f­ ather cannot or does not. Soap and school uniforms are the form gifts most often take. The boys know the rules but do not expect them necessarily to apply. When he needs to accumulate money for lobola, Edwell expects that his m ­ other’s ­brother, John, ­will assist him. Oliver expects that his ­brother (same ­father, dif­fer­ent ­mother), Jairos, w ­ ill, and Section expects that his ­father, Dumbura, ­will. All three are fine looking and beautifully well mannered. Edwell has no food to give his poultry. He usually feeds them the husks of sorghum, but as ­there is none to pound, ­there are no husks. NOVEMBER 11, 1984

Awake at 2:00 a.m. watching buffalo pass in the moonlight. Then up at 5:30 watching Meller’s mongoose, carmine bee-­eaters, a Jacobin coucal, lilac-­breasted rollers, and a host of other birds. I worked with Anderson A Field Diary 81

on the census and checked the material gathered from the chiefs’ sons. Lunch of egg and sadza then a discussion with Takemore, who is to help Feriza collect songs, riddles and clan epithets, and local medical remedies; Costain and I planned research on ­water and diet. Anderson and I rode to see the chief, who was not at home but at a beer drink. We saw the wood-­carver, who has three of my stools ready, and Serina Wilson’s ­mother, who ran to the road to greet us. She is ­going to tell stories for us tomorrow night. We visited Serina Siansikiri at her homestead, and Charles and Canaan ­were ­there. Chipo looks not much bigger: it is like holding a porcelain cup to have her in one’s hands. They have finished their store of grain and are relying on mealie meal from the stores ($3.90 for ten kilograms). They are using Charles’s money, and Serina w ­ ill sell more worms. We took rec­ords of the sale of ­these creatures—­a cent for each. Serina made $80 last month on them. Canaan earned enough for a pair of shorts and a shirt. He is now building a ­house for himself. He has spent five days, from 6:00 to 11:00 a.m., cutting and carry­ing poles and digging the foundations. He has been too busy to come and see the photo­graphs of himself. We saw Obert, who ­stopped en route from Tiger Bay to mend a puncture in his ­uncle’s (­mother’s ­brother) bicycle tire. He had just walked three-­quarters of the way from Tiger Bay (a three-­hour walk) with two bags of ten kilograms of mealie meal given to him by his f­ ather. He rode ­there yesterday morning without having breakfast and lifting by turn his three young ­brothers (one is actually a cousin). His ­mother, Serina, has walked ­there and back twice this week to carry maize meal: ten kilograms at a time. She finished her stock of grain last week and w ­ ill have to obtain maize meal from her husband at Tiger Bay for at least three months. He does not give her the money to buy it at the store in Chitenge as it costs $3.00 for ten kilograms in Tiger Bay and $3.90 in Chitenge. What is the cost in terms of energy and time? Serina and her three eldest ­children, Short, Obert, and Tafirei, ­will take it in turns to walk to Tiger Bay. Tafirei missed school on Monday in order to walk ­there and return with ten kilograms. Obert saw the pack of c­ hildren selling worms at Tiger Bay. The leader returned yesterday, having sold his worms, and the rest returned with Obert’s party ­today. Two of the girls ­were carry­ing ten kilograms of maize meal each, and the third the five containers in which the worms had been carted to the camp. 82  A Field Diary

­There is another liquid sunset to accompany my whiskey. It, too, has changed: in September the sun, a red balloon, fell directly into the heat haze and dis­appeared; now it is molten and ­every shade of yellow makes a kaleidoscope of the clouds and the proud new leaves. My valley, in which I walked for two hours yesterday, is enchanting. Red leaves on the soft soil and new ones above in khaki, olive, ocher, and mustard. The white tree trunks punctuate the fresh growth. I saw the ­little buck (Suni?) and wallowed in the silence. The sky is apple green, and that foolish bird that rattles its football twanger is aloft. Each leaf is momentarily alight. Borrowed glory? NOVEMBER 12, 1984

8:30 p.m.

A mouse in my h ­ ouse, a snake in my pit, and a bat in my belfry. Competition for Gerald Durrell.* I am in the ludicrous position of having the brilliant Coleman lamp shine beneath me (on Manhattan’s ground floor) while I use a torch to write on my platform. The lamp attracts too g­ reat a variety of insects for my liking. A fairly hot day again. Anderson and I tried to do the impossible, that is, rec­ord in detail the activities of two families, the Ntenis and Wilsons. Good ­people. I found that Wisdom has two fields of his own, Betty one, and Tafirei one—­they are in their early teens. Obert and his ­brother, Short, left for school this morning at 7:00 and returned ­after 4:30 having had nothing to eat. Their ­mother had no relish so prepared their sadza and offered them sugar to accompany it, something they had been given only once before. The boys rejected it and wandered dejectedly over to their grand­mother’s (­mother’s ­mother) home, where we w ­ ere sitting and talking to her. By then it was 5:30, and still they had eaten nothing since supper last eve­ning. I gave them eighty-­ six cents to buy a tin of beef from the store to consume with their sadza. Once more, I fool around with my raw data and another m ­ other’s ­children. Dzikamurenga did not allow his d ­ aughter, Berita, to catch the bus to Karoi in order to go to the hospital, saying that his son, Thomas, would be unable to find the building. I felt impelled to ask for my money back or look a fool. Not only have I interfered to no end but I may have fi­nally annoyed him.

* Gerald Durrell (1925–1995) was a popu­lar British naturalist and conservationist who authored many zoological texts and hosted nature programs on tele­vi­sion. A Field Diary 83

As Anderson and I walked home, a message of a stillbirth in Mangwara village was passed to us to give to kin up the road. As we walk so often and cover such distances, Anderson and I have become a reliable part of the bush telegraph. The remains of Sunday’s three beer parties in Chitenge ­were wandering drunkenly around, including Samuel. His quarrel with his older ­brother, Jairos, over the store he inherited from his f­ather, Chief Chalivamba, is the only one I have heard of to do with inheritance. I have bravely brought the lamp aloft despite the per­sis­tent attention of a bomber (a hideous, fat-­bodied insect that dives at one). The mud floor is carpeted in crisp beetles, half-­roasted. I was, I am ashamed to say, not able to eat the fish prepared for me as a delicacy to­night. Dry fish boiled is sometimes beyond my appetite’s range. The day was a good one, yet ­there was an awful lot for me to feel sorry about. Visitors included Nylon and Adam, the bakers, and Canaan and his friends. Meyer Fortes’s Oedipus and Job was my lunchtime reading. He says the difference between West African as against southern African ancestor-­ worshipping religions is characterized by “the occurrence of the notion of Fate in them.” Is he right to suggest this notion is absent h ­ ere? I think not. It is my understanding from the p ­ eople among whom I have worked in the south that many believe an individual’s life is at least partly predetermined. Perhaps the belief allows scope for the self-­determination ­children frequently evince? If Fate has partially set the path, parents do not need to oversee each footstep. Notions of sin and purity at play ­here? A magnificent insect—­a cross between a dragonfly and a butterfly—­ has flown into the lamp’s light. ­There are two pairs of wings, each differently patterned in black and white like Indian dhurries. The leaves, too, remind me of India’s craft. I missed my ­family ­today. I oughtn’t to leave them, yet it does my soul good to leave corseted Harare. NOVEMBER 13, 1984

The ­house shook in last night’s wind, but having walked many kilo­meters in yesterday’s heat, I was tired enough to sleep. We walked in the dark of the night to Serina Wilson’s m ­ other’s home to hear stories but arrived too late so had to return. It was an incongruous scene with Moses and Itai protecting me as the sky flashed with lightning and as the drunks paid us gentlemanly courtesies as they left their parties. 84  A Field Diary

I filled in the forms for the day, week, and supplementary l­ abor of Julius Kapandura’s ­family (he spent four days of last week drinking beer) and of Serina Siansikiri’s ­family. I completed a ­water and firewood use survey of one ­family; interviewed three w ­ omen; and discussed with a group of fifteen ­children, ranging from age six to age twenty, how they built their own ­houses and how they cook and care for themselves in order to attend school. They live near one boy’s ­mother’s ­sister and come from four dif­fer­ ent families. ­There is only one girl, and guess what—­she washes all their pots and plates and does the cooking for her ­house­hold of three. The younger boys w ­ ere clearing a football field on which to play with a football of paper and plastic. One of them had asked me yesterday for a book in which we keep “forms” and write stories. I gave him money for a book and a pen as I have run out of stationary. The c­ hildren walk home once a fortnight to collect food; the journey takes four and a half to five hours. So our days go. Anderson was served with a summons yesterday to appear in court in Kariba on December 7 to face charges put forward by Mafiyosi for messing up his marriage. Mafiyosi has claimed damages of $1,500. To think that had I not been ­here, Anderson would have traveled all the way to Kariba via Karoi simply to receive a summons. Erina told us that Obvious’s death had been caused by the immoral be­ hav­ior of his ­mother’s elder ­sister, who made love with her younger ­sister’s husband. The last two have died and are killing members of their families together. The spirit of the man thus accused is furious at having had to pay a gun as a fine and is demanding that the gun be returned to his f­ amily although the government confiscated it before the war. A goat would be an acceptable replacement. The elder s­ ister was at the divination last week and was vociferous in her complaints that her younger ­sister was sleeping with her ­daughter’s ­daughter’s husband. Am I tired or simply unable to untangle the logic of the tale? [No entry for November  14, 1984. It is prob­ably incorporated in the entry above.] NOVEMBER 15, 1984

6:00 a.m.

I went to sleep cross and woke up no longer bother­ing about being cross. That is good. I had been angry with Timothy, the village health worker, for stopping our storytelling session last night. He blundered drunkenly A Field Diary 85

in and said he refuses to allow “programs” in his village. Th ­ ere was silence from the ­women and ­children. I clambered onto my high ­horse, packed up, said I refused to discuss the m ­ atter with him in his current state, and suggested we meet at the chief ’s the next morning. I was furious, though my anger is ­really at the lot of ­women ­here. A ­woman with a generous, hard-­working husband may not be too badly off, but many ­women have ­little recourse before the machinations of men. I discussed Serina Siansikiri’s case with the chief. He had allowed, in his court, her ex-­husband to fine her $100 in reparation for his previous support of the ­children of her first husband. The fact that he had failed to pay lobola and, therefore, may not exercise such rights over her was not raised; nor was the fact that she left him ­because he was not caring for her or any of the ­children properly. Serina, during the proceedings, was at the mercy of her m ­ other’s ­brother’s empathy, wit, and knowledge. It is necessary for her to be represented by a male kinsman in court. It is commonly held that her ex-­husband’s intention in laying a charge against Serina in court was to discover who the ­father of her ­daughter, Chipo, is to enable him to claim damages from that man. The chief admitted the court’s misjudgment. How, in the 1980s, can a chief and an assistant have such powers over a w ­ oman’s life? Their clerk, the chief ’s son, has just emerged from four years in prison for having killed his wife with an ax. Ah, you might say, a ­woman can now appeal to a higher court. Take Keresiya Mola’s case. Her husband gives her and her three c­ hildren no food, nor does he help them farm, nor mend their homes, nor build shelters in their fields, nor buy school uniforms. He has not visited Keresiya for three months. Yet he is her husband. Yet he represents his f­amily in propitiating the shades as he did at Obvious’s divination. Keresiya cannot divorce him, as the worst fear she has in life is to be made to stand in court and speak for herself. She would be prepared to be represented, but only if ­there was not the slightest risk of her being called to speak. One ­woman is not well served by the kinsman who represented her, while another ­woman is afraid to talk in the court. Some say her husband is setting a trap; he thinks that his wife w ­ ill grow weary of living alone and w ­ ill love another. This man can then be charged damages. The chief charged one man $300 for eloping with one of his, the chief ’s, wives, yet he had paid only $100 lobola for her. My patience, last night, had been stretched rather too far by the cancellation of our storytelling eve­ning. 86  A Field Diary

6:20 p.m.

I am trying to enjoy the sunset from my upstairs platform, but ­people keep appearing. A drunk Million Mashanga, Poswet, James Mu­were and mates, Petros to change a book and show me his Tonga disease forms, and so on. All this data on which I am too tired to draw. The w ­ omen, mostly from our sample, w ­ ere ­here from 3:00 to 5:30 for our club Nkumbulo Yakwanta. We enjoyed ourselves; our laughter and the cries of babies filled the air. We talked about customs, sang songs that we recorded, threaded beads, and began to crochet. Biscuits and tea w ­ ere welcomed. We squashed a gecko by ­mistake ­under the reed mat on which we sat. Peter Mackay had coffee with me this morning. I could see his shock of white hair as he explored the buffalo trails in the valley above my home. We gathered material from Serina and Paulina and checked on some details with Dzikamurenga and Mainara. The w ­ omen and I have shared many jokes recently. Moses’s ­mother said in reply to my request that I be allowed to put questions to her on her week’s ­labor, “Yes, but not too many.” I said, “What is this? I gave you seeds for your vegetable garden. Did I open the packet and remove some saying, ‘Wait! Not too many’?” Th ­ ere ­were gales of laughter from the ­women. Perhaps one’s work only begins to be ­really serious when it can be laughed about. Serina’s ­ mother, Esnat, told Anderson this morning that she was ashamed of Timothy’s be­hav­ior last night. She has told him as much. Anderson was ashamed, too. I feel bad to have been the cause of their distress. My surrounds are clothed in an innocent green. The wind blows g­ ently, but it is gathering force and t­ here is a crocodile cloud watching over the sunset of soft colors in a rinsed sky bearing the first star. The crocodile is one of my animal guides according to a Xhosa igqira who says I am possessed by a healing spirit with two animal guides to teach me about medicinal plants. I read in Holub about a ferryman who used to carry ­people and goods across the Zambezi in the 1880s. He was said to have fed the crocodiles and to have gained their re­spect so that p ­ eople, even royalty, feared to tamper with him. Holub’s accounts of the time he spent in the valley come alive when read ­here. I am comforted to learn that he, too, had prob­lems and made ­mistakes in the field. He sensibly became a doctor before setting out to explore Africa. I get many requests each day for medicine (a boy has just come for bilharzias pills ­because ­there are none in the clinic at Siakobvu). A Field Diary 87

A kasulwe (hare) has just hopped down the quarry road, s­topped in front of me, moved on, scuttled for the bushes as an owl swooped down, emerged again, listened, then departed as Moses and one of Anderson’s kin approached. The crocodile has disintegrated. It is almost dark. 8:30 p.m.

A less than glorious eve­ning. A blindworm or a night adder wriggled across my foot as I stood in my ­house, a mouse and then a lizard frightened me, and my torch collapsed. (A man from Save the ­Children organ­ ization recently picked up what he thought was a blindworm to throw it out of the room in Karoi, where he was staying, only to be bitten by it for it was a night adder; he was rushed to hospital.) I would rather face a buffalo than this crowd of insects and small creatures. I s­ hall hide with my candle ­under my mosquito net shortly. How is one to think of high theory with all this to h ­ andle? A scorpion stung Mainara Kapandura last night. To stop the pain she tied a scrap of cloth around her ankle although she was stung on the toe. A piece of heavy brown twine tied in a thick knot with eight pieces sticking from it is lying beside me. It is so like a spider that I ­really must retire before the night grows more neurotic. Not I. I s­ hall read of Holub’s tales of deaths and calamities to soothe myself. NOVEMBER 16, 1984

3:00 p.m.

Anderson and I cycled to Kesina Banana’s field some five kilo­meters along the road. I felt as weak as one of my tires looks. She, Kesina, is a fine ­woman, as is her husband. They both have large, cheerful grins, rather unlike John, their son, who is quiet and serious. His asthma afflicts him. We have followed the f­amily’s work t­oday, returning at 1:00 to rest. Hot and humid ­under a lowering sky so not ideal for resting. The New York hornbill sat in the tree (bwangwa) beside me and laughed with a friend near the stream. 6:30 p.m.

Damn Roberts’. I return delighted a­ fter having sighted three magnificent birds beside the stream only to have Roberts’ tell me each is common! Or should I damn Gordon L. Maclean, who revised the Roberts’ Birds of South Africa in 1985? I recall being on the beach at Langebaan with him and Lindy and Francis Wilson when a golden cobra slipped past our feet heading for the bushes. Maclean smacked it on the tail to hurry it along. 88  A Field Diary

figure 10. Kin from a cluster of dwellings work companionably. Photo­graph by Alexander Joe for the book Lwaano Lwanyika, © Pamela Reynolds and Colleen Crawford Cousins, circa 1985.

I told the tale to the ecologist Rowan Martin, who asked, “Are you sure it was not ‘n een-­oggie broeke’?” The birds w ­ ere a paradise flycatcher, a blue waxbill, and a red-­headed weaver (red mashangu). I need salt, but I have lost the salt pills. A bold sunset offers hot competition for the birds’ finery. I saw a lean, mean scorpion and an unnecessarily long centipede and felt better about having jumped with fright when the blindworm wriggled over my toes. NOVEMBER 17, 1984

11:45 a.m.

Six of my sample ­children, their friends, and I had a desultory morning. They ­were invited to come this after­noon but have come early and are resolved on staying all day. We had Mazoe orange cordial and biscuits, I weighed and mea­sured them (some have lost weight; most have grown a ­little), and we sat in the shade looking at books and magazines. The girls are now playing netball. I took the ­family trees of Moses, Obert, and John A Field Diary 89

but cannot rise to much more fieldwork this morning. I have been up since 5:00 working on the school data. It was comforting to sit quietly with the ­children, none of us expecting much from each other apart from quiet companionship. Each has claimed his or her photo­graph and is pleased. Peter Mackay brought me coffee and cold beers and, he said, “something that looks like tea.” How kind. Anderson, Costain, and Thomas have all been h ­ ere. Good to have the ­people come to me on such a hot day. A warm wind warms us even more. Letters ­were delivered to me, lifting my early mood of slight despair. Moses has been with me for four hours. Talking sometimes, drawing a l­ittle, looking at Upbeat, but mostly just sitting or organ­izing the orange drinks, biscuits, and washing up. I am struck by his contentment in sitting for so long anticipating so l­ ittle: it contrasts with the frenetic pace of urban life. Poswet’s ­brother, Pearson, slipped in without my noticing his arrival. He has said l­ittle. The ­children join our Manhattan culture quietly, coming in ones and twos and slowly gathering confidence, like puppies drawing closer to the fire. Midday

The boys drift off to pump up the football, they say. Now Obert is swinging on the crèche swing and Pearson is kicking the ball. The girls have been flirting in sweet, seemingly innocent, early adolescent tones with older boys and their gruff voices. They have now faded from view like the six-­ pointed flowers I brought back from the valley. Hot. Even in the shade one sweats. How can Pearson kick a ball in the sun? 1:30 p.m.

The ­children are painting (the girls reappeared soon ­after 12:00). They have never painted before, yet their first pictures are bold, bright, and intricate. They are, they say, “just of ­people and ­things.” None accepted my invitation to share my beans and sadza, but I was glad to have an orange for each for them, the last of my supply. Eigh­teen ­children are painting, and the wind has risen to cool us. ­There are a few lightly ­etched clouds in the west. It was, I recall, a fine dawn like the soft gold that jewelers in Old Delhi rework. Poswet has materialized. From where? I have set him, John, and other young boys to draw with colored pens and pencil crayons. Obert is directing the proceedings as eleven l­ittle fellows surround the fairly large piece of paper. 90  A Field Diary

Only Obert has shoes (slip-­slops), and only the older c­ hildren (aged twelve to fourteen) wear clothes that are not torn. Poswet’s shirt that he wears ­every day is so torn that it is a puzzle to me as to how he takes it off and puts it on; that he does I know, as I have seen him swimming and sometimes shirtless ­after school. Twenty-­three ­children are now gathered in Manhattan. The wind has abandoned us to the heat, and that makes painting easier. NOVEMBER 18, 1984

6:00 a.m.

It is hot already. I can see Mainara planting with her ­little child nearby and Kuwuwete wandering heavi­ly up to see how she is ­doing. I can see Anderson clearing his field. ­There is a slight haze, and cotton-­boll clouds are gathering. It is a ­silent morning. Yesterday the ­children and I finished with oranges and biscuits, and I left to watch two tractors plow Anderson’s cotton field. I was, I think, as impressed as the ­children by the plow’s speed and the depth at which the soil was turned. The plot of land was readied so quickly compared with the weeks of l­abor a hand hoe takes. This is the second year that tractors have plowed ­here. Last year it was ­free, and this year it costs $12.50 per acre (way below real cost) and only two acres per ­family ­will be plowed for ­those who can afford the sum. The official from Agritex has promised to give me the farmers’ names and acreages. Wisdom arrived ­after the ­others had left. He had spent four hours of the morning planting with his ­father, ­mother, and ­sister, Betty. He was tired. It is always a plea­sure to be with him. We shared juice and biscuits, and he tried out the binoculars. I should like to take the ­children into the valley to watch animals and birds, but I am a l­ittle fearful of the responsibility. The day ended with a walk up the stream. I watched a large striped swordtail butterfly enjoying white blossoms. She was strong, delicate, and quick all at once. The pristine white flowers I gathered the other day from small, stumplike plants have faded. I remain nonplussed by the difficulty of recording ­children’s work. Yesterday I asked Otilia what work she had done the day before and she said, “Nothing.” Yet she had searched for two hours in the after­noon for wild relish, had collected w ­ ater, made sadza, and washed the pots and pans for a teacher at school. She and Tafirei do the latter (the teacher’s work) e­ very day while the other c­ hildren do general A Field Diary 91

work (digging, ­etc.). They like it as the teacher gives them food and extra mahewu. ­There I was growing righ­teously angry with the teachers for exploiting the ­children only to find that the ­children like it and benefit in terms of food. Now I need to consider the nature of exploitation: How to mea­sure mutual benefit and personal attitudes? I have de­cided to go home e­ arlier. I feel bad about being away from my ­children. I have achieved a fair amount this time and ­will stay longer in December to plan the next month. Anderson says that ­people ­here do not anticipate trou­ble among adolescents. Rather, the age between ten and twelve is seen to be one of rebellion. C ­ hildren then are expected not to do what they are told and to do what they are told not to do. Another culturally allowed time for revolt? Why ten to twelve? Is it the last spell before work makes serious demands that soon lead to full engagement in production and reproduction for many of them? The ­children who live alone deny the need for special rules according to which they keep harmony. When I asked what is done about a child who is lazy, who does not pull his weight, they replied, “We help him to do the work.” It is an extraordinary attitude even if real­ity is not quite as idyllic. I have been thinking and recalling conversations, and it is now about 10:00 a.m. The ­children have fine manners. Cecilia has just brought me a bowl of porridge, which she does occasionally. I was eating as Student and Petros approached up the quarry road. On seeing that I was eating, they ­stopped in the crèche shelter ­until I had finished. 12:30 p.m.

The two young boys spent a c­ ouple of hours with me. We recorded Petros’s description of how he and his three young ­sisters live, in order to continue their schooling, without their parents, who moved to Nebiri in July. We talked of other m ­ atters: adolescence, pregnancy, witchcraft, and work. I learned of a snake called lomba that witches use. It has the face and hair of a white person and wears a string of beads. Nice to have a culture that so explic­itly shapes fantasies of dislike. One of Chief Charivamba’s grand­sons called en route to bathe upstream before g­ oing to church, where he plays the rattle. Wisdom came, too. Confident yet awkward before the older boys as befits a young adolescent. Anderson and I walked to Paulina’s and Serina’s fields to see the tractors plow and talk to the w ­ omen. Mudheri and Zvinei spent all yesterday (6:00 92  A Field Diary

to 6:00) in the field planting and scaring baboons. They are ­doing the same ­today in the fields at Mutando. They eat sadza and wild relish at midday. Tapiwa, the eldest son of Anderson and Cecilia, began to help his ­father plant last year aged seven. Anderson dug the holes, and Tapiwa planted the cotton seed. He ­will help this year, too, so now it is the duty of Cosmos to care for his ­little ­sister and Sharai to care for Rutendo, Feriza’s baby. I ­will have only a l­ittle childcare data in my report as by the age of seven or eight a child begins to do other tasks and leaves childminding to c­ hildren aged four to seven. Clearly the allocation of tasks depends on the size of the immediate ­family, ­whether the ­house­hold head is polygamous, and the number of ­house­hold units that share one area. ­There is a medicine made of tree barks including the bark of the mululwe tree which is said to abort babies successfully during the first three or four months and another medicine that is said to prevent conception. Some el­derly ­women still check girls’ virginity: it is called masambo. One of the ­women in our sample told me that, a year ago, she had beaten her fourteen-­ year-­old ­daughter for having played all after­noon with boys when she should have been at school. A few w ­ omen say that they find girls and boys the most difficult to ­handle from age thirteen to fifteen. My theory of a few pages ago is not holding ­water. Nor is my body: I have mislaid the salt pills. The ­house mouse and I are friends. She is not scared when I enter the round ­house, even when the candlelight falls on her. She has eyes as large and as brown as my Portia’s. C ­ an’t bring myself to be friends with the ugly lizard, perhaps ­because he is obscene without his tail. Do note the assignation of sex in the paragraph. 6:15 p.m.

Home just in time to see the sunset. I rode to Million Mashanga’s home and spent some time with the ­family, ­after which I visited Moses’s new ­house. He began to work on it in July 1984 and has almost completed a very fine building. He has, his m ­ other says, spent about two days a week (that usually means about three or four hours in the mornings) on the ­house. ­There is a veranda with peeled mopani posts and a thick thatch. He is making his bed and is waiting for the rain to bring w ­ ater near the site in order to put the mud on the walls and floors. It is a good site on a hilltop that can be seen from the “Fat Stomach” ­behind my home. The heat offers compensations. A butterfly, as large as my ­little fingernail, settled on my wrist and put out a threadlike proboscis to drink the A Field Diary 93

moisture or salt from my skin. How perfect it is with its soft, blue coat and patterned wings, again like Indian cloth. Yesterday I watched a “common brown” butterfly ­settle on a leaf and roll its tongue in and out. The sun has hastened out of the day, leaving a splotch of sad pink that seems to match Feriza’s mood. She has just heard that her ­mother’s ­brother’s ­daughter has died at Bumi while she was waiting for a lift to Kariba hospital. She aborted (naturally) two days ago, and the afterbirth did not come out. Four sunbirds have lined up, like neatly clad schoolchildren, one beside another on the tree near me. Damn the gnats: Why do they love ears and eyes? Why can even flyswatters not disturb their nonchalant, high-­pitched buzz? Why are they not seen as witches’ familiars, for they drive one mad? Obert has come to bring me his diary that he has written in En­glish. He has taken another book and fifty cents for a biro. Three small girls (one of whom is the girl we met walking to Tiger Bay to sell worms) have come to collect their f­ ather’s photo­graph. He is the big man we photographed near Wisdom’s home. I am left with only photo­graphs of chicken coops and hills. Even t­ hose of Norman and me have been claimed. Moses and Wisdom spent an hour or so over lunchtime with me drawing and looking at magazines. I left them to go to Million’s (he is nicknamed maThousand), and they stacked the books and ­table and chairs and stools so neatly. I enjoyed listening to their expression of won­der on seeing pictures of penguins, dolphins, and reindeer in the snow. When a man frequents many beer drinks and shares the large pots bought by ­others without in turn buying some to share, he is called a tset­se fly. The sky is pale now, and the trees are ­etched in charcoal. Visitors approach. The visitors ­were Short and Clever, exchanging novels from my box library, and Edwell and Oliver, who had just walked in from Musamba and had ­stopped to give me four mangoes. It was all they ­were carry­ing. Such a gift: hard to accept. They call me Chipo, yet it is I who feel gifted to be allowed to work with ­these ­children. NOVEMBER 19, 1984

11:00 a.m.

A snake of the muzimu, which is called nsongayoka, has come to visit. It has been sent by the shades to check me out and must not be chased or killed. It is busy snaking around my ­house, to the horror of Cosimos and me. 94  A Field Diary

figure 11. A chicken coop, a small ­house, and young baobab trees. Photo­graph by Alexander Joe for the book Lwaano Lwanyika, © Pamela Reynolds and Colleen Crawford Cousins, circa 1985.

Anderson has had another “death message”; the ­daughter of his eldest ­ rother and his first wife (the one who is troubled and lives with Anderb son’s ­father) gave birth to a stillborn child at full term yesterday. ­There is to be no funeral. A stillborn child is placed by an el­derly ­woman in a grave in an anthill some distance from the homestead. In times past the baby would have been buried in a clay pot. A child who has lived for a week or two is buried in a grave near the parents’ home. On a child’s death, a ritual called dila is held and adults sleep outside for two nights. On the death of anyone aged ten or more, a dila is held and every­one sleeps outside for four nights. Goats or chickens are killed on the first night out, and neighbors ­will bring grain for sadza. ­Children may sleep inside, and some adults may, too. Anyone may enter a dwelling to collect something. Dila is the name for any funeral. I do not know how widely this ritual is followed. Beer (mwesho) is only made to call back the spirit of a dead person who has had a child. Naming a child ­after a spirit is a dif­fer­ent ritual, one A Field Diary 95

conducted if a child is ill or cries too much and it is divined that a par­tic­ u­lar shade wants the child to be named ­after him or her. midday

I went to fetch a mango for Cosimos from the ­house. Rummaged around. Found it. Came out only to be followed a short while l­ater by the muzimu’s snake. ­There he sits, cool as dawn, watching me from my doorstep. Anderson and Costain calmly go off, leaving me to my fate. He is now coiled up u ­ nder my washbasin. Charming. I s­ hall in ­future leap in fright at once onto the tin trunk if blindworms cross my bare toes in the dark. He is black and yellow and over a meter long. He is but four paces from me. I think I prefer watching the l­ittle brown squirrel as I did this morning that settled close to me as I sat beside the stream. I saw a gray-­hooded kingfisher (he has a brilliant orange beak, fluo­rescent blue wings, and a gay rufous belly, and he is named ­after his gray hood); a kite swooped down the narrow streambed at me; a black-­crowned tchagra sat and a white-­ browed coucal hopped heavi­ly near me, and I saw a bird that I cannot find in Roberts’. The snake moved. I did not see where he went so tried to find him. And ­there he was, a pace from me. Now he is inspecting an old stump of a tree trunk a meter from the busanza. He looks comical sticking his head out from the hollow. I suppose he is called a “common” something snake. 1:00 p.m.

The nsongayoka has settled happily in the tree trunk and pokes his head out inquiringly from ­either side. 3:00 p.m.

He is curled up, trustingly asleep. Thus I s­ hall leave him to care for my home in my absence as I leave now for Bumi, then home. 6:00 p.m.

Jarring is the transformation. ­Here I sit in a plush ­hotel room in Bumi Hills ­Hotel, with a fan overhead and a melting choco­late on my pillow. The transformation bewilders me, and I feel ill. Dr. Sam Makanza and I met in the foyer: he is “bushed,” that is, he has the slightly crazed look of one emerging from a long spell in the wild. He is tired and thirsty, having 96  A Field Diary

driven from Kariba via Karoi yesterday followed by a full day treating patients in the clinics surrounding Sampakaruma. He consumed five ginger beers and I a coke as we talked. He was sad to hear of the death of Obvious and said that it need not have happened. The boy had a large liver clearly infected prob­ably by a series of long-­term infections including bilharzias and malaria. Nor need Feriza’s kinswoman have died ­here on Saturday. Many ­others, he said, could be saved with adequate health care. He is a worthy man; would that he had the support he needs to achieve all that he could. Norman sent me a London Review of Books that was waiting at the ddf camp to be carried to me. Th ­ ere is an article on V ­ irginia Woolf ’s last Diary, and I s­ ettle to it with pleas­ur­able anticipation, but the words swim and the meaning escapes. I, too, am “bushed.” It is confounding to be confronted by my mirror image in the doctor’s presence. I went to order a cold beer and met the man­ag­er who generously bought it for me. I sat for a moment with fishermen man­ag­ers from Chalala and their wives (all white p ­ eople). Immediately t­ here ­were puns on African violets—­“violent Africans”—­and talk of the “local kaffirs” who run their boats. I left more disorientated than ever. I called home and spoke to Talitha: sweet, cheerful, grown-up ­daughter. How can I leave her even for a moment? Yet already my conscience pricks for having left Chitenge. As I left I heard of the death of Jam, the makota. Even though he is old, ­there ­will be a divination to discover the cause of his death. The lake, shell-­like, is beautiful, yet it is distressing to think of the ­people’s predicament ­after having been torn from it. Back to Mola DECEMBER 10, 1984

9:00 p.m.

The journey was smooth in spite of my dread of it. I was taken on a short game drive from the airstrip at Bumi to see a six-­day-­old zebra and a crèche of newborn impala. The zebra proud and blue-­rinsed in his newness, with e­ very stripe exactly in place: he danced and threw his tufted mane in delight. The impala ­were sticklike and trusting. Delicious. A Field Diary 97

In Manhattan DECEMBER 10, 1984

All well in Manhattan with my t­hings in fine order and Anderson’s ­family in good health. Anderson lost the court case in Kariba and has been ordered to pay $650 at $50 a month to Mafiyosi. Rosemary swore in court that he had loved her. How can he refute that? He says it is untrue and she is simply obeying her husband. Anderson wants to appeal, but Samson, his older ­brother, advised him against it, fearing witchcraft from Mafiyosi. Anderson ­will now consult his ­father, and we may seek ­legal aid. Quickly into the swing of t­ hings with a delightful r­ ide through the village having p ­ eople call “Chipo” from ­every direction. Good to see Edwell, Wisdom, Jorum, Zvinei, Mudheri, Moses, and ­others and to share jokes with Kuwuwete and her ­family. Theirs is a cheerful, noisy home, and I can hear them singing still. Time Mazhombe and I talked as the fireflies skittered around us. The night is still, and it brings relief as it pulls down the shutters on the hot day. Heavy rains fell ­here during the last two days. Most of the families have to replant at least half of their fields as the sun burned the l­ ittle plants. Some ­people do not have any more maila seed to plant, and no one has any to spare. Anderson’s f­ amily is pleased with their gifts—­a dress for Cecilia to replace the one I gave her last month that did not fit, a full petticoat for her and for Feriza, a dress each for the two babies, a shirt for Costain, and an umbrella for Anderson. Kitchens and toilets are u ­ nder construction to h ­ ouse six students from the Department of Agriculture at the University of Zimbabwe who are coming to do research in Mola ­under my direction, although I have not taught them. They are studying for their master’s degrees. I had expected the structures to have been completed, but they have not been. One round room is thatched but has no mud; the toilet is but a pit. It is just as well that I traveled ­here for a brief stay in order to see them safely ensconced. We spent the after­noon haunting beer drinks in pursuit of the four men who promised to build them for us. The search entailed long hot rides without ­water (I forgot to arrange for any, and I have left my malaria pills and binoculars at home) and no lunch. The supper of beans and sadza was welcome. 98  A Field Diary

I learned ­today that John Banana walked to Tiger Bay yesterday with a group of kin to collect ten kilograms of maize meal for his f­ amily from Jairos Mola. Jairos is John’s ­mother’s ­brother. He is a kind man, and last Christmas he bought forty kilograms for his kin and is ­doing likewise this year. John’s cousin (son of Jairos), who is also ten years old, has gone to carry ten kilograms for John’s ­family, too. The ten-­year-­olds walked thirty kilo­meters, half of it carry­ing ten kilograms—­child ­labor? Work? Would we have recorded it had we not happened to visit t­oday? Patrick, John’s ­father, could not afford the $12.50 for a tractor to plow his land. I mentioned to Kesina, John’s m ­ other, that Bumi Hills’ man­ag­er is considering cooperating with Mola villa­gers on vegetable growing. She assumed I meant a cooperative, and she expressed misgiving, saying that that meant nonpayment for goods commandeered. How often, I won­der, is it a fitting definition? She gave us a huge brinjal from her garden. She is chairperson of the ­women’s group that has a vegetable garden. Moses is excited as he is likely to leave for Spurwing Island tomorrow to spend a month with his ­brother, Nylon, whom he adores. Walk to Bumi (twenty to twenty-­five kilo­meters), catch a ferry to Kariba (at the cost for a child of $5.50), then a ferry to Spurwing Island ($3.00), all to be paid for by Nylon. His m ­ other told me t­ oday that he, Moses, is lazy b ­ ecause he has done no fieldwork this season. Student has been to the field once. Moses says he came third in class. Mudheri came eigh­teenth out of thirty-­six and was accused by the teacher of giving an average per­for­mance and of being capable of a better one. An animal is making a noise like a truck reversing. What can it be? The roar comes from the valley. Lions ­were seen recently, and a leopard was spotted on the road two nights ago. My snake is still in residence. He has to be called Caa ­after all the Mowgli scenes I have watched my ­children enact at the repertory theater over the last two weeks. The schoolteachers refused to allow Anderson to collect data from the ­children in class, saying it would disturb them, and they refused to collect it themselves, demanding that they be paid. Some of the teachers use the old ste­reo­types, learned from the colonists, in talking about the Tonga. The dean of science at the university regaled me yesterday with tales of Tonga stupidity, lack of desire to change, primitiveness, negligence, e­ tc. So much for scientific rationality. He “knows” ­because his aunt, a nurse at Kariba, “knows firsthand.” A Field Diary 99

Canaan is staying with Charles at Musamba. I felt better for the first time since I returned from the conference in Zambia with flu, though I feel a bit weak, especially ­after squatting on a Tonga stool for ages. Anderson and Cecilia are ­going to Harare to shop for Christmas on the 17th. They ­will stay at my home. DECEMBER 11, 1984

1:45 p.m.

I must confess to some distress. While I was eating just now one of the ugly geckos fell from the raf­ters onto my plate and lay playing dead. I looked up into the beady eyes of a snake and, mesmerized, followed his coils as they knitted in and out of the poles. His wife was wound round the ­water pot this morning. Now can I, or can I not, live with two snakes in such intimacy? Even if they come from the ancestors; even if they are harmless. If only I had my Indian snake charmer h ­ ere. Would the ancestors object? They could not to his wonderful ­music. Anderson, Costain, and I spent the morning at home planning the next six weeks’ work and checking data collected over the last few weeks. The rec­ords on diet, health, and w ­ ater are fine. The forms detailing the collection and use of firewood are complete for the moment, while the gathering of songs, Tonga names for illnesses, and local medicinal remedies is progressing. Anderson has the recording of ­labor and accounts in order. Costain is ­going to do detailed histories, rec­ords, and mea­sure­ments of all the fields ­under cultivation by members of the twelve families. Anderson ­will continue as before, and he w ­ ill also rec­ord the ­children’s exam results, the families’ Christmas cele­brations and expenses, and the details of replanting. ­There have been murmurs from Serina Mazhombe and Paulina to the effect that I ask so many questions and give them nothing in return. They complained to Cecilia. Wait ­until the six students hit them. Wisdom and Oliver visited this morning and we talked about Wisdom’s field, his goats (he owns two, and Betty four), his herding responsibilities, and his work with Jorum for the latter’s “tea party.” Jorum arrived from Bumi and we talked for some hours, during which time he gave me his work history and the details of the beer party to be held on Saturday. He is a good-­looking man but seems ner­vous, his hands shake. He both fishes and trades, and uses his wife’s name for the trad100  A Field Diary

ing permit to circumvent the rule that forbids anyone ­doing both. He ­will bring his rec­ords of the Musamba Fishing Camp this eve­ning. Oddly enough, Mafiyosi has allowed him to rec­ord his work activities even as he ruins my coworker. The green world has a secretive air. Simon and three mates are erecting the toilet and thatching the kitchen. They have worked almost nonstop since 6:00 a.m. The Agritex extension officer promised us the rec­ord of last year’s plowing yet prevaricated and eventually only gave Anderson the total number of o ­ wners and hectarage. Nor w ­ ere the rec­ords on the drought-­ relief maize full. How ill served are the Tonga by their new masters, at least at this level. The chief is not holding the rain ritual this year b ­ ecause he did not receive enough grain for the beer from his ­people, Namkondwa told us. 8:00 p.m.

The students have arrived. Shattered, poor darlings. Obert commented, “Why do they need so many t­ hings?” as a packed Land Rover was unloaded. George, a staff member from uz, drove in with Tendai and Chinaniso at sunset, and at 7:30 Thomas, Brighton, Amos, and Benjamin arrived. It was lucky that Anderson and I ­were near the road with a torch, as the hurtling bus showed no intention of stopping. At sunset the flying ants emerged from a hole beneath my hammock and played like confetti in a breeze. Now they are ­doing their best to put out my candle. I had a pleasant after­noon talking to Obert (who brought Short’s book on ­children’s games, for which I gave him $10) and then to his ­family. Serina Wilson has been ill, and she still has stomach pains; she has lost weight. She did not work for a week, and her ­children kept the ­house, cared for the baby, and planted the fields. She and her husband have just returned from their son’s graduation at the end of the year at the Evangelical Bible College in Chinoyi. The wife, Mrs. Kruger, of a man for whom Wilson used to work at Chalala paid John’s fees. I visited Edward Kajiri and his f­ amily and saw Sobina Mola. The latter is very pregnant, and she looked vulnerable u ­ nder her heavy load of firewood. Jorum brought his rec­ords on Musamba Fishing Camp to give to me. I took Chinaniso, the only w ­ oman among the students, to my h ­ ouse ­after dark to find candles for them. As we w ­ ere about to enter, the huge, A Field Diary 101

ugly gecko clomped up the door. Chinaniso refused to enter. That’s one way to establish one’s privacy. She has now elected to sleep in the room next to Cecilia in Anderson’s complex. A six-­inch grasshopper has just flown in. I am not crazy about his sticky feet on my throat. Insects grow to absurd proportions ­here: ten-­ inch cockroaches, brutish centipedes, and ungainly beetles. Kafka land. An enormous black beetle landed on me, and I leaped up and nearly off my Crystal Palace. I descended only to almost step on a foot-­long centipede. He was hastening t­oward my h ­ ouse, so I killed him; I hate killing anything, but I cannot stand the thought of another lodger. 9:30 a.m.

The students are still cooking: Chinaniso to the fore. Their chatter is a new addition to the night sounds; I wish the dogs would be quiet. And so to bed to read, then sleep. A useful day; a gift, r­ eally, to swoop in to check pro­gress and meet friends briefly before the next long stay in January. I heard of an old man who, last year, bewitched another man and his three ­children, causing the deaths of them all. The police arrested him, and ­later he returned to his home. The story, told to me by Anderson and Obert, confirms Scudder’s and Colson’s observations that old men are more feared as potential witches than old w ­ omen are, and it c­ auses me to won­der ­whether the police perform a useful function in arresting p ­ eople and keeping them at the police station thus defusing tension, as they did with the wild young man in September. DECEMBER 13, 1984

8:00 a.m.

Good to have completed the strenuous bits of the early morning before the heat sets in. Up before 5:00 to walk. I saw a bushbuck at close range and the tiny buck. The paradise flycatcher is still beside the deep pool. How changed is the valley once more: it is dense with fo­liage, lush creepers hide the ground, and the leaves are a boastful green. Home to pack up and squirrel away my goods u ­ ntil next year. The students are slowly emerging. I feel neurotic given my pace of work compared with their leisurely ease. The wind has risen, too, and is shuffling in some clouds. We need rain again. Yesterday I sorted data and prepared for next month’s work while the students went with the driver who had brought them from Harare to Cha102  A Field Diary

lala, Bumi, and Masampa. They wanted me to go, too, but I refused to joll around in a vehicle unnecessarily. They returned at 9:00 and finished breakfast by 11:00, by which time I was fairly impatient. We rode with George as far as Chief Mola’s home. George continued to Harare, and we found the chief asleep in Namkondwa’s busanza. We w ­ ere well received, and the chief was pleased with the raincoat the students gave him. Chief Mola says he has chosen the next makota to replace Jam. He is Jam’s ­sister’s son, and he ­will be trained by the se­nior makota. He recommended someone I had not yet met as a good in­for­mant on inheritance, livestock, and wild plants; Dzikamurenga Muroiwa on the history of their move to Mola; and Nteni on marriage. We walked part of the way home in the midday heat, but luckily for Tendai, who had forgotten his shoes, the police gave us a lift. The students rested for most of the after­noon, and I had to drag them up the river and then through the village. I interviewed Wisdom and Edwell on their genealogies with a group of about nine boys playing, talking, reading, and laughing around us. No girls. The village was deserted with every­one at the fields. I talked to Serina Siansikiri. Canaan has returned from Musamba and plans to go back ­there tomorrow. He has not yet done any work in his ­mother’s fields. His ­mother says she needs help but she can do nothing if Canaan does not give it. Presumably his gambling w ­ ill not bring in sufficient funds to meet his needs for fine clothes, so it w ­ ill be in­ter­est­ing to see when he takes it upon himself to work. Chipo is small but looks well. It is frustrating in terms of work not to be ­here all the time. I need to know just how ­children work and play during the holidays that coincide with weeding. I need the kinds of details that no one ­will rec­ord for me. Ah well. It is cool now. The days are long ­here: they encompass some seventeen hours, mostly packed with p ­ eople and note-­taking. No won­der a brandy in the dark is a plea­sure. 1:00 p.m.

Anderson’s ­father says he must not appeal against the court’s decision as the ­woman (Rosemary) is bad and is likely to harm Anderson with witchcraft. Is Anderson to pay $650 in the interest of avoiding black magic? He has pains beneath his lower left ribs—­magic taking effect even now? The meeting that Councillor Moses had called to introduce the student researchers to the villa­gers was a nonaffair ­because no one from Chitenge was ­there. Only ­women from other villages ­were gathered waiting for the A Field Diary 103

doctor, who did not come. He w ­ ill come next Thursday, it is said. Th ­ ere is no vis­i­ble sign to inform ­people as to ­whether he is expected or not. I am sorry, as I had planned to have him stop at Berita’s home. She looks painfully thin. Sobina, Mwaka’s ­sister, is also complaining of pains in her stomach. She, too, is very thin ­behind her fat stomach. I interviewed Mwaka (who came fourth out of fifty ­children in her grade-­one class) on her genealogy and then Namkondwa on her marriage. Thrice she has been married to e­ ither el­derly or middle-­aged chiefs, and each time she has had to join the ­house­holds of established wives. “It was not,” she says, “easy.” If she dies, she adds, her eldest s­ ister ­will become the ritual wife. I find that hard to believe, and it goes against the rules as sketched by the makota. Only if t­ here is no ­sister available ­will her grand­ daughter be chosen, she insists. Parents dislike it when a d ­ aughter is taken thus as ­there is no lobola, no recompense. Nor is the one chosen allowed to divorce the chief or have recourse against mistreatment apart from the protection that the fear of the shades is said to cast. Chief Dumbura is, I am told, a mild and kind man. He does not insist on receiving tribute l­abor from his p ­ eople, and nor does he mind if they do not always treat him as a chief. Chief Chalivamba, on the other hand, used his authority more forcefully, especially against the police who used to come from Gokwe to hunt through the ­houses and granaries for signs of poaching when the p ­ eople ­were forced to leave the banks of the Zambezi River and live h ­ ere. A chief in an adjacent area demands tribute l­ abor on his fields, and if a subject shows disrespect, he forces him to work for him for a week. Two men are putting mud on one of the kitchens for the students. Eight ­children are assisting them, carry­ing ­water from the stream and mud to the kitchen even in the midday heat. I put Thomas on to recording their work for the day. The two men have spent two days thatching and plastering the kitchen, for which they w ­ ill receive $40. Long days. The two men who are building the toilet have demanded $4 more than their contract states even though I voluntarily raised their earnings from $35 to $40. Perhaps the toilet has required more ­labor—­cutting and carry­ing poles, digging the pit, erecting the walls and roof, then thatching and plastering. I referred the ­matter to the students b ­ ecause the funding is not my responsibility. [I returned to Harare soon ­after this.]

104  A Field Diary

In Manhattan JANUARY 28, 1985

I flew from Harare to Kariba having been unable to warn the kind ­people at Bumi Lodge or the pi­lots from ddf to request a lift over the lake b ­ ecause the lines between Harare and Kariba are down. I was inordinately pleased to see the orange gnat of a plane on the Kariba runway, and luckily I was allowed to squeeze in and flown to Bumi. Once more the sights from the sky drew me into the loveliness of the Zambezi Valley: I saw hippo lolling in a shallow river far from the lake; impala racing the plane; creeks of gold; and, on landing, lion spore beside the runway and a blue-­headed lizard consuming a grasshopper at my feet (his arms waved with the pains of indigestion), and all the earth was canopied in green. Lion and leopard have been around Bumi for some time. Now I await a lift in a ddf truck. I sit drinking coke and savor the hiatus before facing self and ­others. A cool wind froths the lake that seems proud of being almost full. The scene at Bumi Hills deserves to be filmed. Right now one of Chief Mola’s ­daughters is sitting alone at the edge of the terrace (the terrace is where nonresidents sit), and I am nearby. Beyond, on the grass around the pool, are guests, the staff, and the Chalala residents. The waiters gather round me to won­der at my role in Mola, and ­those on the grass stare at me with suspicion. Lines that divide, ignorance that secures the division. I won­der if they know that the young girl is Chief Mola’s d ­ aughter. The police, with g­ reat generosity, are arriving soon (1:30) to give me a lift to Mola. Anderson expects me to arrive ­today. I must rec­ord my delight on receiving a letter from Judge Brody to say that Anderson’s case is being reviewed and he has been ordered to make no payments. Rosemary’s marriage was not registered, and therefore, ­under a new law, adultery cannot be an offence in the eyes of the law. I am so very pleased. Mike Gardner, the man­ag­er of Bumi Hills Safari Lodge, has generously put forward a proposal for the lodge to cooperate with vegetable growers in Chitenge to establish a garden. The head of the university proj­ect within which I am conducting research has not moved on the suggestion, so I must pursue it myself. He, Mike, asked me to suggest local entertainers for an eve­ning in May when American travel agents ­will be at Bumi. Such strange tasks a modern anthropologist must perform. A Field Diary 105

JANUARY 29, 1985

7:00 p.m.

How the earth changes. A green mantle has muted the sounds, and when the wind is still, I can hear the stream flowing. I woke from a dream of chickens in the duvet and Abigail crying. The former was, I suppose, in response to the 5:00 a.m. birdsong and the latter my conscience. A thoughtful Mum declared Abigail’s Monday tummy ache to be her reaction to my planned departure to the field; she added that Abigail misses me terribly. We made it a ­family joke, but it sure hit its target. A friendly, bright new constable-­in-­charge of the Bumi police station drove me ­here yesterday, and we had no mis­haps apart from a broken accelerator cable that the aforesaid mended. We arrived to find Anderson and four of the uz students (Tendai, Benjamin, Amos, and Chinaniso) ­here. An after­noon of talk with the students, and in the eve­ning Anderson and I took a three-­hour walk, during which I was warmed on being greeted by our families with vociferous friendship. Betty was delightful: she was voluble, alive, funny; she seems to have suddenly left demure childhood and taken a bold grasp of adulthood. She teased her ­mother deliciously when her ­mother responded to a question of mine about which years she had lived with her grand­mother in childhood by referring to the size of her breasts. Her ­father called us to talk to him, too. We sat for a while with the families of Nteni, Chakafa, and Patrick, and we met Sobina and her newborn son; we spoke briefly to Canaan, Charles, Wisdom, Obert, Short, Clever, and John. Asthma has just begun to afflict John again. All the other ­children near his homestead crowded round to greet us, but he sat wheezing ­under the veranda. He has no medicine, and no doctor has visited the village since November. The two small ­children in Nteni’s home are subdued with belly­aches; too much ­running around, grand­mother said. It is a time of illness; Anderson says, “It is called the time of mpunze—­the illness of the new year.” Anderson has received the letter from Judge Brody and is greatly relieved, as is his f­ather. Anderson met Mafiyosi at the sub-­office recently and spoke with him. Mafiyosi said that it seemed he had been mistaken ­because his wife “must have talked nonsense in court.” She is now in Karoi haunting beer halls and sleeping with many men, it is said. Poor Rosemary. I congratulated Anderson on being able to patch up the quarrel at least on the surface. He responded, “Yes. But not inside.” Anderson 106  A Field Diary

had gone to the sub-­office to send a radio message telling the officials in the District Administration in Kariba about the judge’s letter only to find Mafiyosi on the radio asking if Anderson had paid a portion of the fine yet. Anderson spoke next and relayed the text of the letter he had received canceling the payments. In response, Kariba told him to bring the letter t­ here, to which he said he could not as he had no money. They ordered him to stay near the radio, and some hours ­later a return call was received by Anderson confirming that they, too, had received ­those instructions. Had Anderson and I not pursued the m ­ atter up the l­ egal hierarchy thus reaching a judge in Harare, what injustice would have been wrought, and at what cost? Bureaucracy continues to blow ­people’s lives around like feathers in the wind. In December the district council informed Cecilia that she could no longer use her field near the village center. Therefore, Anderson gave his wife his field on which he had grown cotton last season. Why inform her midseason? No compensation is offered or assistance in preparing another field. Edwell, Obert, and Wisdom have each worked with a student. They have enjoyed it and have worked hard. They have only received $5 each thus far, but I winkled enough money out of the Department of Agriculture, uz, for each to be paid $55 for ten weeks’ work. Their m ­ others say that their contribution to the crops has not lessened, ­because they have worked on the land from 6:00 to 12:00 a.m. and with the students in the after­noon. The headmaster has kindly allowed them to be excused extra activities (farming duties?) in the after­noons to release them for their work as interpreters (between Zezuru and Tonga). Edwell has moved ­house, Tendai says. Two new babies have arrived in our families, both boys: one to Sobina, on December 22, and one to Julius Kapandura’s second wife, Fainara. The latter arrived while his m ­ other was alone. Namkondwa and Namrova attended the birth of Jimmy, Sobina’s son. Sobina was walking back from her field at 6:00 last eve­ning with the baby on her back. She walks some five kilo­meters to and from the field each day. Canaan has returned to school, having had a year off. He says it was too boring sitting at home. Anderson suspects that his b ­ rother persuaded him to go back to school, despite the ­brother’s denials. From my platform I can see across the plain, and I watch the rain creep up from the north. It has come. I sit beneath the platform and feel as if I am seated within a waterfall. The flies hurry in to shelter with me. A Field Diary 107

The students seem to have done well. Some work at half pace, it seems, but no doubt they feel more content than I do with my compulsion to work. It is, of course, my proj­ect, and the pressure on me comes from the need to divide my time between research and ­family. None wishes to return home early. They have been h ­ ere six weeks with a two-­week break for Christmas, except for Tendai, who stayed on over Christmas; each has worked with about 50 ­house­holds of the approximately 104 in Chitenge. We had anticipated most of the prob­lems they met, including saturation of Chitenge (largely from my intrusion), rain, distances to cover, their inability to speak Tonga, the need to redraft their questionnaires, and respondents’ impatience at having to answer many questions. Heat seems to have been their most annoying prob­lem. Only one ­woman has been impolite and refused to cooperate. One man came to inquire of Anderson if the students ­were briefed to ask such searching questions about money. Anderson says the villa­gers often mutter about the students’ nuisance value but cooperate when the moment arrives. One small incident between Anderson and one student is the only report on relations between them and the Mangisi ­house­hold. The Mangisi ­family has been most forbearing; I must ensure that the students are conscious of that. The students and I had a long discussion of the potential of the area last night. They have been unable to run a youth group and told me so rather defensively. It is in­ter­est­ing to note that it is not easy to persuade ­children to keep com­pany with one. Anderson was shivering last night—­a recurrence of malaria? The football rattles are back. JANUARY 30, 1985

8:45 a.m.

Super Mufwepi and two younger boys have just been h ­ ere. Super kept a diary for me and has brought it. It is a rec­ord of living in the h ­ ouse­hold of boys who live alone in order to attend school. I promised three of them a football if they kept rec­ords for me. Super w ­ ill return with the other two this eve­ning to receive the ball. He was pleased with the pen and book that boasts a tiger-­print cover that he had asked me to give him to continue his diary. Anderson is down with malaria. And the rain keeps falling. I ­shall have to stay ­under the thatch to write the paper for the London conference and 108  A Field Diary

to work with the students. I must see if Anderson ­will agree to take pills to prevent the recurrence of malaria once a week for the rest of the year (although I think it can recur despite pills). According to blood tests I have had malaria, although I do not recall having had an illness that fits the symptoms. Many ­children are living at home with an older relative or without adults (who are living in their field homes to protect the crops from animals) and cooking for themselves, or they are living at the fields and having to walk long distances to school. Paulina lost half of one field of maize to the jackals (vegetarians?), and Sophia lost half of one field of maila to the elephants. I met the National Parks guard at Bumi, and he said they had received complaints of crop damage by wild animals but as they had no vehicle they could do nothing. Besides, when they do inspect damage, they discover it is but a small patch, whereas the ­people claim a field lost. The Agritex official is having trou­ble persuading p ­ eople to form groups in order to grow vegetables. Perhaps ­because he insists on implementing Agritex rules that nothing can be grown within thirty meters of the stream bank. In his opinion, “­There is plenty of local l­ abor available to carry w ­ ater from the streams. The ­people are lazy.” One of our two bicycles has broken; it split in two near the handlebars. Anderson asked his younger ­brothers, Jake and Edwell, to walk with it to Chalala (about twelve kilo­meters one-­way) to have it mended. They did. I asked if he paid them, and he replied, “No. They are my younger b ­ rothers.” Two Burchell’s coucals have come to call. Roberts’ waxes quite lyrical, saying that their call consists of a “series of rapid mellow hooting notes, first falling in pitch, then rising at end, about 17 notes, du-­du-­du-­du-­du-­ du-­ . . . ​du du du, sometimes slowing down ­towards end of phrase; likened to ­water bubbling out of narrow-­necked ­bottle; often calls before, during and ­after rain, hence popu­lar name of Rainbird; also harsh tearing kuch, rapidly repeated. Also makes a swearing ‘kitch’ sound” (341). He grants that they are seldom seen on account of their skulking habits. Two gray hornbills perch beside my platform. They throw their heads back ecstatically and whistle—­a plaintive pea-­u uttered with wing flaps and preceded by a ticking sound according to Roberts. They are what I call the New Yorkers. A Field Diary 109

1:00 p.m.

Peter Mackay dropped in with a load of ­people headed for Siakobvu. It is likely that the bus ser­vice ­will be canceled, not only b ­ ecause of the rain but also ­because the costs to the com­pany in terms of damages and vehicle exhaustion (what is the technical word?) are twice as high as anywhere ­else in the country. He gave Anderson a lift to the clinic at Siakobvu for an injection. I spent the morning talking to Canaan and Super; hassling the students (sent them scurrying into the village to sketch it and identify the positions of the ­house­holds whose members they have interviewed to enable me to check the validity of their sample coverage); and g­ oing over Costain’s work on the diet of four of our families, the fields of all our families, and translations of the ­children’s diaries. Costain has accomplished his work admirably. He ­will continue with research on diet, repeat the ­water and firewood collection and use studies, and begin to rec­ord in detail damage (by animal, insect, rain, or heat) to crops. I tried to prepare my conference paper but did not achieve much and ­shall have to leave it for the night hours. Canaan has finished building his ­house. Anderson’s ­sister is occupying her platform ­house ­behind his now and is growing maize in front of it. 8:45 p.m.

I exist in a cocoon of rain. Wind from the west has blown it in accompanied by thunder and lightning. I hasten to turn my bed about and am marooned in a dark Manhattan. I feel very alone. On venturing to my ­house with a candle in hand for nightclothes, ­etc., I knocked over my treated ­water. ­Water in and out. Each spell ­here provides a fresh form of magic and demands the accomplishment of a new variety of tricks. Now I must learn how to pee in the rain, to detect where my thatch drips, how to use Portia’s Swiss storm stove, and what shoes to wear to avoid slipping ingloriously on my butt. The magic is in the insulation, the dampened sounds, the quiet wildflowers, and the charm of the ungainly crops. This after­noon Costain and I walked two and a half kilo­meters across open woodland to Mutonda, where Paulina and Serina are living beside their fields. We slipped through many a gully and found them with four 110  A Field Diary

other w ­ omen and nine c­ hildren sitting beneath Paulina’s busanza. The site is magnificent as it overlooks her tall crops to the far hills. It is quiet and still out ­there. Kuwuwete and ­others ­were visiting. Raina, wife of Million, has a four-­month-­old baby with an eye infection on which I commented, and a ­little while ­later Paulina declared that she was ­going to cure it. I asked if I may accompany her and was allowed to do so. She took the baby into the m ­ iddle of her field where paths cross and laid it on a blanket, then walked astride of the baby. Finished. Paulina’s husband went ­after Christmas to attend a bricklaying course in Harare. Before g­ oing, he left instructions at the sub-­office that Paulina was to be given his January salary. She was not informed, and the paymaster returned with it to Harare. She has no money and has run out of food. Neither she nor the c­ hildren ate anything ­today except cucumbers. Zvinei and Taizvei walked some eight kilo­meters to and from school. Their younger ­sister is fearfully thin. The ­women and I discussed their financial situation. Serina was less forthcoming, and her plight seemed less urgent than Paulina’s. Eventually I offered to lend the latter a small amount (the stores refuse to grant credit to any ­women) and she hesitated, wondering how soon I would demand it back; I said anytime. I tried obliquely to suggest that I could not/would not pay them for the time they spent with me, instead I might benefit the community and thus them indirectly through the vegetable proj­ect, for instance. I must ensure that something comes out of my claims. I was distressed to think that I had arrived with nothing and that the ­children are hungry. Indeed, Costain and I left with a cucumber each. I should not lend them money, but I cannot watch them go hungry. Presumably they appeal to me just as they may appeal to other p ­ eople. One’s impact is prob­ably both more and less than one thinks. Edwell’s chickens have all been eaten by a bule (honey badger). Zvinei ran with her m ­ other and ­sisters from two elephants last week. They plucked up the courage to return to their field home and play drums to scare them away. Last season Serina watched a leopard kill her dog. Treacheries in the green and pleasant land. Mafiyosi is in Karoi hospital being treated ­after a snake bit him as he slept near a store in Chitenge while waiting for a bus. Divine intervention?

A Field Diary 111

figure 12. Kuwuwete, matriarch, midwife, and storyteller, beside a granary built on an old anthill. Photo­graph by Alexander Joe for the book Lwaano Lwanyika, © Pamela Reynolds and Colleen Crawford Cousins, circa 1985.

JANUARY 31, 1985

7:00 p.m.

Thirteen hours of work and tired. Just back from my first walk alone into the valley up the stream, where I saw Japa­nese tourists (another species of hornbill), blue waxbills, large and ­little kingfishers, and many another bird, all slightly bleached of color by the cloud cover. The sunset is in seclusion, though some light is struggling through now. I set off thrice to walk to the fields but each time was turned back by a visitor: Million with a request for help for his son burned by boiling ­water; Edwell, who seems to have hepatitis; Paulina to say she has been lent $20 by her husband’s ­brother; Namkondwa, Namrova, and Erina, who came for tea; Serina Wilson, Sophia Kajiri, Cecilia, Feriza, and c­ hildren for Thursday’s club; students for a briefing (horrified at the load I am demanding from them); and four boys at the tail end of the day. I did fit in a visit to Serina Siansikiri at midday and learned that she had hired four laborers for one day and held a work party on another. I was pleased to see both she and Chipo bright and the latter almost 112  A Field Diary

rounded. Serina had collected 1,400 worms to earn money to pay for a work party. Her sons helped by walking to Chalala to sell them. Sophia also held a work party to weed her husband’s field, for which a goat was slaughtered. I was told that three other work parties had been held. Sophia’s fields have been damaged thrice by elephants at Kacheja. We s­ hall visit ­there tomorrow. The year is 1985. In Chitenge t­here is no doctor, no clinic, no fa­cil­i­ty to pass radio messages (the battery is flat), no bus, and no maize meal for sale. Damn the gnats. In ears and eyes all day, and one has followed me onto the platform. He has brought his mates, the mosquitoes. I picked a small leafed stem crowded with small leaves and tiny crowns of flowers like a Lucie Attwell drawing. It dripped milk, folded rapidly, and is no more. Like Lucie’s appeal? Obert brought Edwell to see me. We talked for a while, and I waited to see what they wanted as they looked ex­pec­tant. Eventually Obert said, “We have been arguing with Edwell. We say he is ill. His hands are yellow and his tongue pale.” Care of one for one: kin and friend. FEBRUARY 1, 1985

9:00 p.m.

The first visitor arrived at 6:45 a.m. Obert to say that Edwell has been placed in isolation and told to rest for a week. The nurse kindly sent me a note saying she would watch him and possibly send him to Kariba. A week’s visit to Kariba costs, at the minimum, $30, an amount that is impossible for the f­ amily to afford and indeed for most families. Edwell was paid yesterday for his work with the students over the past six weeks, but Obert says he has used his earnings to pay his debt at the store for the purchase of food for the ­family. I gave Obert books and crayons and paper for Edwell. Visitors came all day. Anderson has not observed each f­amily as I had asked him to do, and I reminded him that we must be meticulous over the next seven months of our intense period of observation and systematic collection of data on l­abor. The students chose to appear at that moment and received the edge of my brusqueness—9:30 and they had just finished breakfast. I marched off with Costain to walk to Kacheja, where we spent a few hours with Edward and Sophia Kajiri. Their fields have yielded less than Paulina’s or Anderson’s. Elephants have entered Sophia’s field three times and Edward’s four; we counted 150 plants of maila and nzembwe eaten by them. With luck, the plants ­will grow again, but they w ­ ill be late. The ­family members looked thin huddled beneath the busanza. The baby had twenty A Field Diary 113

flies on his upper lip, and the second youn­gest child is clearly malnourished. Dr.  Makanza ordered him to be taken to Kariba hospital, but that is not pos­si­ble. They asked me for Mazoe crush to feed his blood. A ruse? They claimed to have no maize, yet ­there was a pot in which maize had been cooked last eve­ning. Besides, we saw the ­family at home grinding drought-­ relief maize, and both Edward’s m ­ other and Otilia say they have sufficient for the moment. They w ­ ere cooking pumpkin leaves for lunch. The c­ hildren ­were playing with peeled cucumbers. Edward and Sophia have been living at the field (three kilo­meters from home) since December 23. Edward w ­ ill return to Musamba to fish in two weeks’ time. ­There are no traders t­ here now ­because of the rain and b ­ ecause ­there is no bus ser­vice. He gave me no reason why he could not catch bream and sell it to the ­hotel to earn cash to buy food. He cannot, he says, leave now ­because of the elephants, yet he ­will leave in two weeks’ time. We returned through gullies and over streams across a ­belt of no-­man’s-­ land. The truck driver who had promised to take Million’s son to Siakobvu clinic refused to stop. We rode to the sub-­office to secure another lift for him and met Mr. Mupondi and the ddf chief. The former has promised to take him at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow. Drought relief is expected next week. The bus ser­vice is to be cut. Once home, we rested a while, then prepared to visit the Muroiwa ­family, but Otilia and Mwaka arrived; each one is slim, tall, shy, and rather alike, though one’s complexion is pale and the other’s is dark. They are close friends. Rain threatened so I let them go home without being put through a formal interview. Pity. Otilia borrowed $10 from me for her ­father. Rain fell and kept me home, where I received Moses, Givemore, Thomas, Obert, the students, and Kuwuwete. The last named promised to tell us stories in the eve­ning, but the rain spoiled that. She is a lovely, laughing, dimpled old lady. I finished reading Patrick White’s autobiography and was disappointed. His creative essence must somehow be unconscious or, at least, kept in a separate compartment from the one that offers self-­scrutiny. I saw aspects of my ­father and of myself in his depiction of himself. Not flattering. I read Benjamin White on methods of collecting ­labor data and considered what techniques to use in the next stage of my data collection. During the first five months of my ethnographic exploration I selected a sample of twelve families and, apart from subjecting ­every ­family member to interviews based on a screed of forms to do with a variety of topics, I used three methods (full-­day 114  A Field Diary

observations, peak labor-­day observations, and weekly recall interviews) to detail the ­labor of the sample ­children, their parents, and as many of the ­family members as I could to rec­ord their work. The first method is too time-­ consuming and intrusive to use often over a long span of time. Observation is difficult ­because so ­little happens in one spot: a man may be fishing in Musamba (fifteen kilo­meters away); a w ­ oman weeding in her field (three kilo­meters from home); a child collecting wild relish (one kilo­meter from the field); a grand­mother grinding corn at home, and so on. Whom does one watch when? The second technique, peak ­labor observation, is more straightforward and allows one to capture many activities and to trace relationships among ­those engaged in vital tasks like harvesting and carry­ing the harvest home. The third, recall of activities over the past week, has proved to be unreliable and a nuisance to the respondents (it is remarkable that many ­labor studies rely on recall by the head of the h ­ ouse­hold about e­ very ­family member’s ­labor over the past year). Nevertheless, I learned a lot from the exercise, especially ­because it often brings to light pieces of work like worm collecting or basket making that may not be picked up using other techniques. ­Unless I am the one questioning, adults often resist the effort that recall over a week demands when Anderson asks them to do so. Could I observe the sample ­children only? It would be too intrusive. They would watch me. Their movements change too frequently. They live dif­fer­ent lives, in some ways, from one another, particularly boys and girls. Tracing their l­ abor out of the context of f­ amily ­labor would make l­ ittle sense in a subsistence agricultural environment of the kind practiced in Mola. Should I attempt “random instant” observations? Our “field” stretches right now from Moses’s f­ather’s field twelve kilo­meters east of ­here to John’s f­ ather’s field six kilo­meters southwest of ­here, and another ­family’s fields three or four kilo­meters to the south. W ­ ill it make sense to walk twelve kilo­meters to rec­ord an “instant” of be­hav­ior? Perhaps I should use twenty-­four-­hour recall ­every six days as White did. He does not say how many assistants he had to cover forty-­four families, how accurate the recall was, or the size of each ­family. It seems, however, my only alternative. His method seems to depend on the respondents being able to state when an activity began and ended. Most p ­ eople in Mola point vaguely at the sky to indicate time periods. What I must remember is that I do not simply want to rec­ord what is being done and how long it takes. I want to know the strategies each child adopts to worm his or her way into the social fabric, and I want to know against what background of A Field Diary 115

possibility, nourishment, health, and wealth the child operates. I need the ­labor rec­ords, but I need much more. Anderson, Costain, and I are gathering as much detail as we can, as systematically as we can, to do with the collection and use of w ­ ater and firewood; type of diet; schooling and health; store and bakery sales; riddles, stories, songs; individual histories of fields; planting, replanting, weeding, and harvesting patterns; credit; marriage; inheritance; livestock; and migrancy. I must now concentrate on collection of systematic data on l­abor, and I need to nourish greater intimacy with the c­ hildren. I think that I ­shall combine the recording of “instants” of be­hav­ior with recall of one day’s activities on e­ very eighth day—­the “instant” activity observed as I arrive for the interview ­will form the last action of the previous day’s recall. Two-­hourly observations of each respondent ­will supplement ­these rec­ords. FEBRUARY 2, 1985

8:00 a.m.

Two hours’ work have I done already and no sign of Mr. Mupondi, who had promised to take the boy who was burned to the clinic at Siakobvu. So much for Saturday’s entry. FEBRUARY 3, 1985

6:00 a.m.

Awake before dawn to the sound of the football rattler. The clouds steal the dawn. It has rained ­gently, almost continuously, for two nights. Every­ thing is damp: the toilet paper, my canvas chair, notebooks, and matches. I dream of friends, yet I like living alone for a while. I draw ­great plea­sure from washing one cup, making one bed, being ready to work in five minutes. Wait. The agony of missing my ­family ­will hit soon. A rainbow falls into the chief ’s homestead, and the light in the east cleanses the land. A teacup-­size bird is at my feet. He has a lilac beak and a brilliant blue belly; I suppose he is “common.” The birds are up late ­today. Sunday. The flies are irreligious. Tendai was singing church songs at 5:30. ­Will it be quiet ­here? Yesterday was filled with talk and movement. Mr. Mupondi came at 9:00 and took the child to the clinic. Anderson and I cycled to Rainara’s home, and as we arrived, the rain fell and we sat talking for a few hours in the kitchen. The beautiful Berita was t­here—so thin, so vulnerable with her epilepsy—as ­were Student and four of the younger ­children. I learned that Rainara had 116  A Field Diary

acquired her nine goats from breeding one given to her by her ­mother’s ­brother when she inherited the spirit of his ­mother. The goat was one of five fines imposed at a divination following on the death of that man’s ­daughter at which five female kin had, according to revelations read from throwing hakata, committed adultery before the girl’s spirit had been settled on someone, that is, called in from “wandering in the bush.” Fines w ­ ere imposed on the ­women, and the goat had been paid as part of the fine. Re­ distribution or tax or high politics? Rainara’s husband’s seven goats derive from the bride wealth given on the marriage of his ­daughter, and her son’s five from the female bought with the money earned from the sale of a billy goat belonging to her. She gave it to him “so that he may not have trou­ble paying bride wealth.” One could learn a lot by tracing goat owner­ship. Rainara had asked Student that morning to relieve his f­ather at their field (an hour’s walk away) so that he might take medicine to Mangwara village to cure the illness of a new in-­law who belongs to the f­amily of the ­woman with whom his son, Nylon, recently eloped. Student refused, saying he was busy on his own h ­ ouse. Rainara told us laughingly, but she was clearly angry, and Student was shamed. The ­father is too gentle to take mea­sures against the boy, but his m ­ other is strict and may, Anderson thinks, deny him a meal. Rainara, too, claims to be consuming the last of their maize. The room in which we ­were seated belongs to Berita, but it is not yet ready for her and is being used as a temporary kitchen. Th ­ ere is no h ­ ouse for Sophia, who is currently living at her field, and none of the men of her ­family ­will build one for her. Her ­mother says that her husband must build it, yet every­body knows that he has left her. If he does not build one, then she must build herself a ­house of sorghum stalks (like the ­little pig’s ­house of sticks) b ­ ecause ­women do not build h ­ ouses. If, it seems to me, her own kin build her a ­house, they ­will be seen as conniving in her separation from her husband and, perhaps, setting themselves up as targets in a claim for the reimbursement of the bride wealth. The girl must suffer her indeterminate position ­until, somehow, her fate is sealed by total, irrevocable rejection or an offer from another man. She has four ­children. Her situation is worse than that of the third ­little pig, who had access to bricks. In the after­noon Mudheri, Zvinei, Wisdom, and John came with a variety of ­mothers, babies, and friends. Tendai played football with the boys and Chinaniso games with the girls. Mudheri, Zvinei, and Pauline gave me their genealogies. Moses, too, was h ­ ere. The hillock on which Manhattan A Field Diary 117

sits was alive with ­people busy with balls, beads, skipping ropes, blocks, crayons, and crochet cotton. I, as always, busy with a pen. The students and I had coffee together in the eve­ning amid laughter to cancel my e­ arlier impatience. I promised to buy them lunch at Bumi Hills Lodge. Should we walk ­there? I began to read The Name of the Rose but soon slept. FEBRUARY 4, 1985

7:00 a.m.

It is one of t­hose forty day and forty night affairs again. L ­ ittle ­England. Every­thing is wet, including my chair. The c­ hildren walk to school in their skimpy dresses or T-­shirts and shorts. ­There go two of the students with one umbrella. They began work at 3:00 p.m. before I came; now they ­will get pneumonia, and I ­shall get the blame. Yesterday began with a rainbow and ended with another, a bracelet around the moon. We rode to Keresiya’s home and gathered more half-­truths. Why ­these, I won­der. Am I seen to be a fool worthy of no better? Keresiya had not washed the pots and plates for two days ­because her ­daughter, whose duty it is, was ill with a headache. Edwell has hepatitis and is staying inside his room. “­There is still something moving in my throat,” he says. He bought bread and meal for the ­family yet did not tell me. Jorum’s store received a supply of bread on Saturday. Hey, it is cold sitting in the open with four walls of ­water. I do dislike the darkness of the round ­house, although the flies do not enter ­there. As I dressed this morning, ­there was a knocking; it seemed to be in code. It turned out to be a black-­and-­white-­headed woodpecker. He was per­sis­tent. ­There was another knock the other day, and that turned out to be toktokkies (amagqira) courting ­under the cardboard box. The latter half of the morning was spent trying to write the paper for London. Moses and Obert read beside me, then borrowed my binoculars to walk to the top of “the hill with the big stomach,” where they saw two kudu. In the after­noon I went east to Million’s field home, which is grander than his ­actual home. Samuel, the child who was burned, was playing cheerfully. He and his ­father had nothing to eat yesterday when they went to the clinic at Siakobvu, nothing ­until they returned home at 4:00 p.m. and drank mahewu. I recorded their twenty-­four-­hour recall, then Megina’s, and I made a gallant attempt to sort out Million’s genealogy, for he has a huge f­ amily and, I am sure, his recall is fairly muddled. His f­ ather’s line, 118  A Field Diary

he says, comes from Dande. Yet his wife told me last year that they came from Nebiri and are Shangwe. As Anderson and I w ­ ere preparing to leave in the light rain for Kesina Banana’s home, she arrived. We talked for two and a half hours. She had come to claim the money that she says I owe her for ten bundles of grass she had cut for my busanza and kitchen last year. My position is that I made the contract with Samuel with no extra stipulation for the cost of the grass and, therefore, I refuse to pay her ­until Samuel, she, and I discuss it together. He has refused to come for a discussion and has now gone to a beer drink in another village; he has spent the last three days with a former wife. In exasperation, I gave Kesina $10, saying it was to be deducted from the $25 owed to Samuel when he completes my toilet. How long ­will he take to react? The village health worker threw two of the students out of his home. Keresiya tells me that Edwell and Kalinda had opposed her marriage to Jeffrey and that two days ago he, Jeffrey, had beaten the youn­gest child for taking sweet potatoes from his field and, in consequence, Keresiya left him. The men of her f­amily cannot take action against him ­unless Keresiya asks them to do so. Yet, I am told, they could force her to cooperate for the sake of the ­children. John spent a month with his u ­ ncle, Jairos, at Tiger Bay. He went to “wash his ­uncle’s pots and pans.” Jairos has given Kesina’s ­family eighty kilo­grams of mealie meal this season. He gave John thirty cents as a Christmas gift; John gave the money to his ­mother, who bought soap for the ­family. The gift represents a tie between the families based on the fact that John’s ­mother brought up Jairos’s ­daughter, Gladys, ­after her ­mother died. A long walk this after­noon through woodland full of marshes, tiny wildflowers, butterflies, and parrots calmed my ruffled spirit. Ruffled ­because Namkondwa hid in her h ­ ouse on seeing me approach. The Muroiwas’ fields are eight kilo­meters from the town center, but the yields are good. They have to guard constantly against elephants and buffalo. ­Children drummed on tins all after­noon. A nine-­year-­old girl sat alone at her post perched in a tree banging a drum for six hours; she was only one hundred meters from her parents’ busanza and, therefore, not entirely alone, and besides, she was often joined by her siblings. Her ­mother has seven ­children including a baby who was born on December 17, 1984. The ­woman began to weed again on the sixth day a­ fter the birth. Both Mr. and Mrs. Muroiwa gave me their life histories. He showed me the sling, kwisho, made out of mubuyu (baobab) fibers, which he uses to A Field Diary 119

catapult stones at elephants—­a David and Goliath act. Berita is with them plus five ­children. At 6:00 Anderson, Costain, and I walked home through the marshes. I was hard put to keep up with Anderson’s cracking pace. We passed Million’s homestead and saw him bandaging his son’s leg, having boiled the ban­dage on my instruction. He asked for some twenty packets of vegetable seed with which to begin a winter garden at Kazvina. Umberto Eco makes good bedtime reading as he fertilizes my mind with rich imagery. A guinea fowl woke me with his dreadful screech. He sat, looking ashamed, in a tree. The flies are multitudinous t­ oday. Anderson’s m ­ other has come to see me and to give my belongings a close inspection—­she tries on my shoes and comments on every­thing. We have tea and biscuits. FEBRUARY 5, 1985

7:20 p.m.

This vain attempt. This foolish endeavor to seek to explain ­others’ lives. By whose leave? How pathetically? It is ­after dark, and ­there is church singing from beside the stream; it is not beautiful but moving as it fills the silence with one power­ful male voice and a flock of female echoes. What do I know about the church, the believers ­here? Nothing. What is an anthropologist? A necromancer. Tired. Another fifteen kilo­meters or more walked ­today through elephant country of mopani and baobab with a flyswatter for protection. We traveled southeast to Poswet’s parent’s fields and southwest to Keresiya’s fields. Fast. Costain and Anderson ­were in the lead. The rain made me wet, yet I was hot beneath a thin anorak. It was just before seven when Anderson and I ­were walking home in companionable silence and Kesina Banana called from ­behind, “Why do you two walk and not talk?” We answered, “Too tired and too full of thoughts.” So we w ­ ere. The body aches with not only fast walking but also crouching on tiny Tonga stools for hours as we interview, squatting in the rain to talk to Julius as he mends his nets, standing ankle-­deep in mud to rec­ord Keresiya’s day, and wading through rivers then squelching onward. What with bilharzias and the inability to eat much, it is a bit exhausting. My pen, my torch batteries, and I have all run down together. A good day, though. Julius talked ­because I gave him cigarettes; Mainara talked about her baby’s birth despite a bad toothache; Keresiya talked about her day; and so on. We saw John fishing with about ten other ­children at the bridge. 120  A Field Diary

Anderson received a message to take his ­father’s Datsun to collect him somewhere between h ­ ere and Siakobvu, where his truck has been stuck for over two days. Anderson is to take a kinsman to watch that the driver and his assistant do not steal from the truck. He has had a long day, and ­there ­will be a long drive before he can eat. I should moan. Kesina, the younger s­ ister of Serina Wilson, threw Amos and Benjamin, the students, out of her home yesterday. Twice I and once the students have been “thrown away,” as the locals say, by one f­ amily. I complained to Julius, as head of our section of Chitenge; let us see if he does anything. I miss the ­family. I ­shall retire ­after this. A quiet night and dry at last. ­Can’t face the supper of b ­ ottle fish and sadza: s­ hall drink coffee with the students instead. Need brandy, ­really, to obscure Keresiya’s poverty from my mind. Her field has been in use since 1957; no won­der its yield is meager. What’s the answer? Flagrant feminism? FEBRUARY 6, 1985

12:15 p.m.

Awake at 4:00 a.m. Listen to the rain. First visitor at 6:15 a.m.—­a man seeking malaria pills for his wife. S­ ettle to write the conference paper, but I have scant peace. The students come in turn to discuss their work. I sit like a spider in my web as they timorously climb the ladder. My concentration has snapped. Damn. Amos and Benjamin seem to have collected fine sets of data. Anderson could not fetch his f­ ather last night, as the truck has no lights. This morning he set off for Bumi to buy petrol but could not pass through the mud. Our isolation is total if temporary. He dispatched his half b ­ rothers, Jake and Andrew, to walk to Bumi (twenty-­five kilo­meters) to collect petrol, then walk back to Mola and on ­toward Siakobvu to meet the truck hopefully returning with ­father. ­There is a quarter of a tank in the Datsun. The rain has s­ topped at last, though the sky is skin-­full of ­water. The birds are out, and a l­ittle red one is beside me. I s­ hall walk a ­little. I need to go home. FEBRUARY 7, 1985

6:00 a.m.

And it rains. I sit in my round ­house, which I seldom do, drinking coffee (filter) from a paper-­thin Chinese cup. The saucer is of a dif­fer­ent make and chipped, but the cup gives me im­mense plea­sure. I am into A Field Diary 121

my last pair of dry trousers. A l­ittle depression threatens, but it is only the damp. Anderson reached his f­ ather yesterday just as they managed to f­ ree the truck that was stuck. Five days in the mud. He and I walked to Otilia’s home and had to wade through three streams knee-­deep to reach the field ­house. We found Edward very ill with malaria and with no pills, not even aspirin. They w ­ ere all layered with flies. Clean’s eyes have been sore, and the flies formed lashes around them. En route we met Rankson, the son-­in-­law of Julius Kapandura, walking his four-­year-­old son from his field to the nurse as the boy had fallen from the platform and had a deep gash in the bridge of his nose. We met them on our return, and Rankson told us that the nurse had said, “You are lucky that I am treating your son. You men have not built the toilets for the clinic. Another time I ­will not treat your child.” He was furious. A walk of three or four kilo­meters through three rivers to be spoken to like that. The student who argued with Anderson has left for Harare. I do not think he made his peace with Anderson. If not, he ­will be in trou­ble. Otilia had an illness last year during which her head turned back to front. I have heard about such bizarre happenings that are said to accompany illness quite often, especially among c­ hildren. Is it the projection of a ­mother’s anxiety or the complete relaxation of muscles in a joint or what? Amos and Benjamin have done good work and seem pleased. What a sight I must be trudging through the village in wet jeans and squelching boots brandishing a flyswatter. (Once I walked alone through the bush carry­ing my flyswatter when a Land Rover crowded with men and bristling with guns roared past me. ­Later the hunter ­stopped in at Manhattan to say, “Pamela, please hide b ­ ehind a tree when you hear us coming ­because you spoil the entire romance of our hunt.”) 9:00 a.m.

I feel a bit sick. Hands shaking, tummy upset. Was it the sadza last night? It tasted odd, but I thought it was my distempered palate. L ­ ater Anderson apologized saying it had been contaminated by diesel fumes. I did not eat much. Strange images that come to mind—my ­brother’s shaking hands and my inability to forgive my ­father. Hands, my ­brother, Patrick White’s autobiography, En­glish boarding schools, Erik Erikson, who said we must learn not to exploit the trauma of childhood. [I misquote him, but it is the last sentence of my PhD thesis; perhaps he said it to me.] 122  A Field Diary

10:30 a.m.

Raina came bearing gifts for me of three large and some small stones of the white quartz that I admire. Megina found them near my home. I gave her a mirror for Megina and a pencil and sharpener for Kakala. We talked of childbirth and c­ hildren’s illnesses. Raina says her f­ ather was a traditional healer. Raina came for our w ­ omen’s club but hours early despite our having pointed to the sun’s position in the heavens. Perhaps the clouds have disoriented all of us. Th ­ ere is a cold wind now and no rain for the pre­sent. Perhaps the wind ­will chase the clouds. I see two snippets of blue sky. I like ­these lines from Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose (1984),  . . . ​and signs and the signs of signs are used only when we are lacking ­things.  . . . ​to trace sometimes endless chains of c­ auses and effects seems to me as foolish as trying to build a tower that ­will touch the sky. The idea is sign of ­things, and the image is sign of the idea, sign of a sign. But from the image I reconstruct . . . ​the ideas ­others had of it. And is this enough for you? No, ­because true learning must not be content with ideas, which are, in fact, signs, but must discover ­things in their individual truth. FEBRUARY 8, 1985

6:00 a.m.

An after­noon with three w ­ omen, and we listened to Kesina tell her life history. Her ­father, Chalivamba, became chief of Mola when she was a ­little girl and they still lived beside the Zambezi River. Her ­mother was his first and only wife u ­ ntil he became chief. She enjoyed being a chief ’s d ­ aughter, she said: “­There was much that was good to eat; ­people brought gifts of meat and honey, and my f­ather had two guns with which he shot many wild animals.” One gun was called Yanyika (“of the world”), and it passed on to Dumbura but was ­later confiscated by the government. The other gun passed on to a friend, a mujwanyina who seemed to be close through the joking clan relationship. Kesina married relatively late, to her ­family’s distress. “The men who asked love from me w ­ ere not good,” she said. She is strong in her small frame. I suggested last week to the ­others in the club that she run it in A Field Diary 123

my absence. They chose, instead, Serina Wilson. This week Kesina complained that Serina is often away at Tiger Bay. ­Later we interviewed Obert, Tafirei, and Short. They are staying at their ­mother’s ­mother’s home, from which I was once thrown and from which the students ­were thrown the other day. We sought permission to talk to the ­children, and it was granted reluctantly. I sent a message through Obert to the nurse requesting that she write me a note on Edwell’s condition. She was annoyed and refused. “Who is Chipo to bother me all the time?” Anderson’s ­father brought four hundred kilograms of mealie meal (200 × 10 and 100 × 20) to his shop, and it was sold out in a day and a half. Some ­people had walked from Negande to buy bags. Short helped to unload the truck for twenty-­five cents. Costain had been, for a while, Crispin’s assistant in their ­father’s store and had earned $8 a month. He resigned. Crispin works from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. (sometimes ­later) seven days a week for $80. He cycles six kilo­meters to work. Anderson’s ­father paid his last driver $30 a month; the current one earns $110, since minimum wage legislation was passed. One storekeeper’s wife runs the shop for no wage at all. If asked, she says she is paid. Mr. Muroiwa brought me a gift yesterday to keep me safe as I walk; it is a sling with which to throw stones at elephants. I, too, can be David. Two gifts ­today: stones and a sling. How kind. FEBRUARY 9, 1985

3:00 p.m.

Wet. This time with sweat. The sun emerged at about 10:00 and threw down shafts of heat. We walked home from interviewing the Ntenis at midday. Two bad patches this morning. Chinaniso cried a­ fter I told her she could not do the census of the village by sitting and asking information from a twelve-­year-­old, even a bright one. Then Moses’s ­mother’s ­sister brought her two-­year-­old child to me. The child is very ill, not eating, barely drinking. She had taken him to the nurse, who had said, “The clinic is not open”; then to a village health worker who gave her malaria pills and aspirin; and, fi­nally, to me. The radio does not operate at weekends and ­there is no traffic on the roads. All I could do was ask the nurse to attend to the child. I did so. We sparred—­she, her male assistant, and I. I kept my temper but was furious on hearing her words: “­These ­people are ill b ­ ecause of witchcraft”; “­These ­people throw away the medicine we 124  A Field Diary

give”; “­These ­people are so lazy they have not built toilets for the clinic in two years.” Ah, the rulers of old taught the rulers of now well: “­these ­people,” “they.” The nurse sent Canaan to summon the ­woman and her child. She was berated on arrival for having taken tales to Chipo. I went beyond my brief no doubt, but I was as tactful as I can be. Anderson was angry with the nurse. John and a friend are reading beside me. How small the ­children are. How bad I felt following Shari and Cosimos, last night, to see their thin ­little legs with grasshopper knees. Last night the westerly wind blew light rain through my opening onto my face. Rather fun to lie half-­asleep with gentle rain falling. FEBRUARY 11, 1985

7:30 a.m.

No rec­ord yesterday ­because Robin Stott and John Bowthorpe arrived on Saturday midday to stay. ­There was much to-­ing and fro-­ing around the village and beyond. Poor Robin, who is a se­nior con­sul­tant at a London hospital, playing doctor without any equipment except a ­thing to look into eyes. We walked to the Muroiwas’ field to see Berita and advise her on ­handling her epilepsy. Robin has written notes to the doctor requesting medicine for Berita and for treating John’s asthma, and he wrote notes of reference for a visiting doctor about other ill c­ hildren, some with pneumonia (not that the visiting doctor cannot prescribe for the c­ hildren, just that they do not see ­every patient as their loads are heavy). He brought video equipment and has filmed the village, the field homes, even a beer drink. I was relieved to see how friendly our welcome at the latter was. We pursued, trapped, and inspected butterflies. Robin was a rare sight in his torn trousers and khaki hat, leaping across wild flowers in a glade brandishing the net. The locals are now firmly convinced of my madness. We caught grass yellows, orange tips, acraea, charaxes, black-­veined whites, guinea fowls, yellow pansies, a hill-­brown, an unidentified skipper. And a “common brown.” Work has been interrupted somewhat but not entirely. One learns from new ­angles always. The end of this trip and of this journal have arrived. On Sunday eve­ning Robin, I, and a few ­others climbed to the top of “Big Stomach” to check a butterfly net, and we watched the rain race across the plain ­toward us. As it arrived we scrambled down the hill and I ran along A Field Diary 125

the rough road to Manhattan as I had no dry clothes left. I fell on rocks and have cracked some ribs. The London con­sul­tant from a top hospital, that is, Robin, said unfeelingly, “­There is nothing to be done about broken ribs.” He did not even offer an aspirin. Pretty sore, especially walking and riding in a Land Rover. Very stupid. The journey home was uneventful and easy. Odd how difficult the transition through Bumi always is. This time I was at the front door of the lodge looking bushed as usual and came face-­to-­face with a beautiful French ­woman dressed in a Parisian-­style safari outfit. Home to the ­family: my poor Talitha has been ill with chicken pox all the time I was away. Thank goodness for Granny and Rosemary. The ­children seem fine other­wise. Norman has been magnificent. Back in Manhattan MARCH 26, 1985

9:00 p.m.

The snake and I are back in residence. He wound skillfully through my cup ­handles and round my forks as if to lay claim to them soon a­ fter I arrived. A young moon is dripping like clarified butter t­oward the horizon. The moon man is in profile, and a trick of the atmosphere throws out multiple images. It was fun following him home at 7:00 this eve­ning, though I was footsore (silly sandals). As I climbed my ladder to the platform two eyes stared unblinkingly at me from the top rung. Glad, was I, to see they belonged to a floppy-­bellied frog. Nice image—­the frog hopping up the ladder. Hot ­today. Hot as I sat at the harbor at Bumi waiting for the ddf truck to be filled with stones before we headed inland to Chitenge. Hot as we walked through the village, and only cooling now. Good to see the rude ears of corn in the fields. Good to meet the ­children returning from school. A fifteen-­year-­old girl has been killed by an elephant as she was walking between her home and the field homestead of a ­family who ­were paying her $4 a month to care for a child. A bull chased her and her three friends. He thrust a tusk through her shoulder and broke her spine. A court case has resulted, but the chief is awaiting the da’s judgment. The girl was related to Anderson. Siachema, Anderson’s ­father’s ­brother, is suing the ­family for whom the girl worked on two counts. One, ­because the ­family failed to secure his permission for them to employ her as he has inherited her ­mother’s ­father’s spirit and he is her m ­ other’s ­father’s ­sister’s son. Two, ­because the ­family 126  A Field Diary

failed to inform him of her death. Indeed, they failed to tell her ­mother ­until the next morning (it happened at 7:00 or 8:00 p.m.). National Parks shot the bull and, it is said, took the valuable bits away. Siachema is suing for forty goats. The chief said in the old days he would have won. Another court case is of interest. A local man with a lowly salaried position in Mola’s bureaucracy, and who is the son of a former chief, impregnated a blind man’s wife. The latter charged the former $800. The case went to court. The chief charged $600, fi­nally settling on $520, to be paid in $60-­a-­month instalments. That must be nearly all the accused’s salary per month. He ­will take the ­woman as his wife, but the child belongs to the wronged man. The ­whole is illegal in the light of the new law that forbids the payment in cases of adultery u ­ nless the marriage involved is registered. Again, to be seen as re­distribution? Money from a young, strong, healthy, salaried man to a middle-­aged, blind, unemployed man? Maybe. Sobina was ill recently, and a traditional healer’s diagnosis was that Obvious’s spirit was calling for the slaughter of a goat. “­After all,” the healer said, “did he not, when alive, once ask Sobina to kill a goat for him, and did she not refuse?” Nzembwe is being harvested. I must put my mind to its mea­sure tomorrow. The night is still, and sounds carry; I hear crickets, dogs, c­hildren’s songs, and ­women’s calls while a moth is being seduced by my candle. The moon has melted, and the night is a black leather glove. Some animal roars. MARCH 27, 1985

6:30 a.m.

The football rattle wakes me to a blueberry dawn at 5:50, which is ­later now as the sun seems to move north. It has taken me an hour to persuade all my limbs to move and to sort my ­little home. ­There is lightning (148 Zimbabweans have been killed by lightning this season) followed by thunder. A l­ ittle child detours through Manhattan to say good morning in ciTonga and in Shona. How subtle are the moods of the valley? The grass is a resigned green. The h ­ ouses have bedraggled fringes and skulk amidst the trees. We talked to Otilia yesterday as she sat sewing a skirt out of material her ­father bought her. She is lovely with her coffee-­cream complexion and strong curly lashes. She has the adolescent stand-­two-­meters-­from-me attitude in small mea­sure and mocks a ­little as she replies to our questions. I suggested we have sewing sessions, and she was pleased. A Field Diary 127

We spent time with Edwell, too. Keresiya arrived home at 6:00 p.m., having been harvesting nzembwe for a ­family since 6:00 a.m. She had just carried a tin tub of 173 maize cobs home over a distance of five kilo­meters or more. She underestimated her own crop. It is ­going to be difficult to judge how much ­people have already consumed from their crops. The hill, “Big Stomach,” looks neatly combed this morning. 6:30 p.m.

A day of walking and talking. I am fearfully unfit, I suppose from nursing the ribs I damaged last time; they have just healed. We spent time at the fields of two families. Th ­ ere are wonderful scenes everywhere of p ­ eople busy amidst piles of lusili, chibuku, nzembwe, and maize. The atmosphere is joyful. Mrs.  Muroiwa’s new daughter-­in-­law was visiting her, and we witnessed an enchanting scene as she left (without saying good-­bye, as she may not speak to her in-­laws or even to Anderson and Costain, who are kinsmen) with Moses and two girls accompanying her—­one child with her blue umbrella held high like a butterfly in the green field, one child with her Dick Whittington bundle of clothes, and one child with a twenty-­ kilogram bag of lusili and pumpkin leaves on his head. We watched them parade through the field and into the forest beyond. The Muroiwas’ crop is good despite the five intrusions of elephants into the fields. Berita has been taking the epilepsy pills that Robin ordered and has not had a fit since she began. She is still very thin. Would vitamin pills or iron help? Student has lost weight ­because, Anderson thinks, he, Thomas, and Moses cook for themselves while their parents are at the field and often go to sleep without bother­ing to cook. A whiskey sunset: strong at the base and well watered near the top. The clouds curl like tendrils of hair. It is too dark to write now, so I dig out the skele­tons of last night’s insects from the candle wax and light it. The flame mirrors the sun’s descent. The Mashongas are well. Megina is plump and has cuts on her chest made by a n’anga who protected them all from evil for $3 (Megina says $6). ­After an hour’s collapse, we spent the after­noon with the Wilsons. Mr. Chakafa Wilson arrived from Tiger Bay yesterday to spend a week at home. He is a fine, warm man, though he shows some signs of ner­vous­ ness. Overwork, perhaps—he works as a cook at a tourist lodge from 6:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. ­every day for $175 a 128  A Field Diary

month with only one assistant. Mrs.  Wilson has been very ill for two weeks with stomach pain. She received four injections at the clinic but is not yet better. We have worked out schemes for mea­sur­ing plants in the field, baskets full of grain, granary sizes, and journeys carry­ing the yield home. We are asking about gift giving, too. Who could have dreamed I would ever concern myself with such ­matters? And still we lose so much. T ­ oday, for example, I came across Raina Mashonga’s youn­gest ­sister (aged nine) and two smaller boys en route to school with a two-­kilogram sugar packet full of wild fruit picked for their lunch at school. Moses’s two youn­gest ­sisters ­were carry­ing cobs from the field to the drying platform, yet the cobs are not recorded in our scheme. Nor have we covered baby and childcare. Mwaka, Otilia, and Tafirei ­were ­here this eve­ning (Obert and Edwell, too) and then told me how onerous childcare can be. As Tafirei said, “It is not that one ­doesn’t want to care for babies and ­little ­children, but if one cares for the child, the pots still wait to be washed.” MARCH 28, 1985

7:00 a.m.

The sky is like a shuffleboard with clouds shooting across it. I slept deeply and only heard the hyenas last and first ­thing. They ­were close this morning. The Contexts book is on my mind.* I brought three papers to read and edit. Two go against the grain of all that I believe in. Is that which I believe so dif­fer­ent, or are just a few South African academics simply backward on issues to do with childhood and do not stick to the data, the cases, the ­actual material? Is that an anthropological hang-up? A young girl carries a huge bathtub on her head piled with nzembwe to a storeroom. Anderson’s m ­ other suddenly appears ­behind me; she seems lively and young. Distracted from schemes for recording harvests, I have been watching an ant lion (or is it ant elephant—­looks more like an elephant—­that tiny creature that makes ant traps in the fine dust) build his trap. It begins in a circle on the dust, throwing what must be huge boulders, given its

* The Contexts book was one that I was editing with Sandra Burman. It was published as Growing Up in a Divided Society in 1986. A Field Diary 129

size, high into the sky, per­sis­tently working round and round ­until the fine grains at the base of the cone have to be thrown very high. Then it lurks at the bottom, waiting for an unwary ant to slip down the smooth slope. The mind wanders to meta­phor: ­labor, he and I work so hard to achieve the same t­ hing—­a wage/an ant and a hole of nothing? Anderson’s chickens have been clucking around and one has caught my frog, which it consumes beside me with much relish and bashing it on the ground. Ugh. The sky is clear and the sun hot. Thomas eloped with Eunice last night. I heard much rejoicing in the dark coming from across the stream. Eunice is Namkondwa’s ­daughter and is sixteen years old. Have we lost an in­for­mant or gained a newly married one? 5:30 p.m.

Ten hours of straight work with a slice of bread and a biscuit for sustenance. Mr. Gonde failed to collect us as promised for a ­ride to the In­de­pen­ dence Day cele­brations, so we walked in the heat to the stores and, luckily, caught a lift on a truck to the bridge, 7.2 kilo­meters past the school. We sat in the sun from about noon to about 3:00 p.m., watching the opening and listening to the governor of Mashonaland West and the da talk. The chiefs of Mola, Negande, and Sampakaruma ­were ­there, and about two thousand ­people. Too hot and tired to write about it now, but it is all in the notes. It was festive—­the red and blue clothes, the horn band, the drummers, the n’anga dancing, the old men sitting on their stools. The p ­ eople ­were angry that ­there was no food for them (only for the vips at the school). They say they ­were promised a buffalo. The governor put down Nkomo and zapu (Zimbabwe African ­People’s Union) and got into hot w ­ ater calling for praise for the government; instead ­people called for their bus ser­vice to be returned. The news that Thomas and Eunice had eloped last night was widely discussed. The ­couple had left an account of their intentions with Raina, the girl who lives with Namrova. We saw Thomas and Eunice ahead of us this morning, beautifully dressed: she in an orange dress, white cord ­belt, white calf socks, white takkies, and a black-­and-­white scarf tied high; he in smart trousers, slim shirt, and shoes. They looked delightful as they walked on opposite sides of the road, so self-­conscious and aware of the other’s ­every move on ­either side of the road. Details of their marriage negotiations are in the notes. 130  A Field Diary

6:20 p.m.

We went to visit Eunice as we w ­ ere due to rec­ord her last twenty-­four-­ hour recall ­today. She refused to talk, but as her husband has given us permission to continue to take notes on her, she ­will talk on other days. She sat shyly with Thomas’s ­sisters and their babies. Esterayi’s s­ ister has a baby, and her husband has just divorced her. He has paid neither damages nor lobola and had been living in his mother-­ in-­law’s ­house. If he leaves the child, he ­will pay nothing ­toward the child’s upkeep, who w ­ ill be left with his former wife’s ­family, and he ­will have no claim over him. This after­noon we talked to Namrova, Sobina, and Mwaka. We discussed Sobina’s serious illness, but Namrova did not mention the diagnosis concerning Obvious’s spirit. Seven ­people ­were consulted during the illness, including her ­mother’s ­brother, Samuel, who knows how to cure some illnesses; a German doctor; three healers; and a w ­ oman possessed by a spirit. Namrova, with the aid of aspirin for her headache, was enlightening about the old Tonga terms for possessing spirits. How long it takes to winkle out information on healing, and how hard it is to dig b ­ ehind the received truth. I am almost glad not to have to “discover” all that as well as this labor/farming business. Mainara Kapandura had a field just b ­ ehind Anderson’s wives’ vegetable gardens. In expectation of the f­ amily’s planned move, Foster’s grand­mother asked Julius if they might have the field. It was given to them and Foster has grown cotton, but the yield is very poor. Anderson says the soil is wrong as it is too heavy and holds the w ­ ater too closely for cotton and that he ­ought to have grown nzembwe. Is the poor choice of crop for that soil part of Foster’s agricultural apprenticeship? With such details is my brain cluttered. Perhaps healing rites are more fertile, for the imagination, at least. Dark now. End of a long, hot day. The sun has no strength for a g­ rand finale. MARCH 29, 1985

7:30 p.m.

An animal’s call—­halfway between a cough and bark—­woke me before 5:00, and walking upstream, I had to b ­ attle through thick, tall grass and thorn bushes. I peered in at a shy moorhen nesting, listened to a lark’s song, and watched a bishop bird (or is he a cardinal? I was never A Field Diary 131

much good at hierarchy) swank in the reeds and lord it over the “common” waxbills. Home for coffee and work. The twenty-­four-­hour recall scheme works well enough but does not detail the time spent on each activity. Does it m ­ atter? Can it m ­ atter? Bloody hell, we still miss so much of each child’s work. However, time is caught in our two-­hourly observations that are spread across the hours of the day’s ­labor. As Anderson and I sat with Namrova and Sobina yesterday, Mwaka was sent to do four chores (to collect nappies, b ­ ottles, ­etc., for the baby), yet no one, not even Anderson or Mwaka, thought to consider that work. She is obliged to be around to perform such tasks, whereas a boy is not. If I sit and watch, does the ­whole scene alter? What to do? No good living with one ­family, as it is impor­tant to capture change across c­ hildren’s lives in relation to the myriad ­factors of growth, birth order, sibling sex ratio, occasion (such as a new birth, a death, a marriage), personality, health, other ­labor needs, individual retreats or rejections. I guess one can only ever sense or suggest ­these ­things, not rec­ord them accurately. Reading Levy’s Tahitians, I am sorry he did not write it as fiction. All ethnography is fiction. Fiction approximating real­ity, perhaps. By so placing his material in compartments, he loses the fiction and therefore the sense of life. We academics are too pretentious. What claim can we make to represent the truth that can persuade readers to pay as much heed to us as they do to novelists, poets, songsters, and artists? I carry my argument too far, but the quandary is how to balance systematic description with some sense of life lived. midnight bumi safari lodge

­Here is an excellent introduction for a book: I ­shall you make relacyon By way of apostrofacion, U ­ nder supportacion Of youre pacyent tolleracion. . . . John Skelton, poet laureate, born circa 1460, died 1529, and sometime rector of Diss in Norfolk, thus introduced his “Ware the Hawke.” So I while away my time at Bumi. The h ­ otel sent a message to ddf to say I would fly out t­ oday at 11:00 a.m. Mr. Gonde kindly drove the five-­ton Nissan truck to fetch me at 10.00. On arrival, plans had altered, and I wait upon events. The staff is generously ­doing all it can to secure for me the 132  A Field Diary

means to go home on a small plane or a boat across the lake to Kariba. A breeze cools me h ­ ere as I watch elephants flap their ears on the shoreline and bushbuck parade. I ordered a sandwich, not having eaten t­ oday, and a waiter made me an extra-­large one; it is funny to be given the sort of thick-­ sliced sandwiches local ­people like in this elegant setting. ­There can be no sufficient compensation for t­hose who had to move away from the fertility and beauty of their ancestral home beside what was a river and is now a lake. A plane has arrived bringing Courage (the ddf man who was so generous in giving the students, Robin, my guests, and me a lift in February) with men from the Ministry of W ­ ater. They have come to inspect three pos­si­ble dam sites in Mola. One site is on the Masawu Stream just up from Manhattan (the locals say that the w ­ ater dis­appears in the area and that t­ here must be a fault line), another is near Njaka, and a third in Negande. I learn that plans for the vegetable proj­ect are moving ahead and a horticulturist ­will come up in April to take ­matters further. As the men and I wait at the lodge, I for a lift in the plane that w ­ ill return to Kariba and the ­others for a vehicle to carry them inland, we become embroiled in arguments about feminism and religion. I leave for a private corner. As a bateleur circles overhead, I climb the steps to enter the tiny plane and fly to await another flight home. Back in Manhattan APRIL 18, 1985

9:15 a.m.

In­de­pen­dence Day, and Norman drives our old vw Kombi with Talitha, Olivia Lankester, her friend from London, and Bob Herner, a botanist, from Harare to Chitenge. We had booked the Agricultural Department’s Land Rover, but the booking was canceled at the last minute. Our car is not reliable on ­these roads, but then a study of child ­labor is less impor­tant than other research in the department. It was an unpleasant journey with two breakdowns. We met Billiard (the ddf driver and my friend) in the truck g­ oing to collect the meat of four elephants to deliver to the ­people of Nebiri, Sampakaruma, Negande, and Mola as a celebratory gift for In­de­pen­dence. He sadly told me that his second ­daughter died last week ­after a brief illness A Field Diary 133

with symptoms only of headaches and weakness. News of another death greeted us in Chitenge—­Oliver’s ­mother, one of Chief Mola’s wives, died last week. She had been the wife of Chief Chalivamba, and ­after his death she had married Chief Mola; it seems that the latter did not inherit her and so accepted no responsibility for her ­children born to Chief Chalivamba, and in consequence, Oliver and his siblings are now living with their eldest ­sister. Another man has been made responsible for them but is unlikely to support them in any way. I heard, too, that Serina Wilson is in hospital in Kariba for a gynecological operation. She was very ill last month. We arrived at the school to find ­people drumming, dancing, singing, and drinking in cele­bration of In­de­pen­dence. The meat did not arrive in time to be cooked and shared ­today. Many ­people ­were excited to see my ­family and friends. One ­woman said she was relieved to see that I did have a husband and she had feared that I was too thin to have had ­children. Elias Mujokere was t­here looking smart and orderly. Namkondwa and Namrova w ­ ere in charge of the chief ’s portion of beer in a classroom around which we wandered trying to recognize ­people as dusk fell. The chairman of the Worker’s Committee of Chalala regaled Talitha and Olivia with his delight in his own good fortunes and the new camaraderie between whites and blacks. We walked beside the Masawu Stream to survey pos­si­ble sites for the vegetable proj­ect. We s­ hall take soil samples tomorrow. The valley is still green beside the browning plateau. Only maila is standing in the fields, and as it ripens, ­people prepare to keep watch and scare birds again. The e­ arlier harvest has been carried home. Recently an elephant walked right up to the Muroiwas’ busanza to eat from the drying platform. He caused ­little damage. I like being h ­ ere with Talitha and her friend, but it is time-­consuming; I cannot throw myself into work and must attend to many more mundane ­matters—­pure ­water, clean mugs, salt pills, stretchers, e­ tc. Fun to share the pleasures of the bath from the tin tub ­under a moonless, star-­filled sky, trace the stars with the aid of a chart, and spot birds together. An evil, black, hard-­backed beetle has flown to the light that Norman has placed upstairs. Said beetle has knobs like headlamps and a horn on his head. He sends me scurrying ­under my mosquito net. Buzz bombers dive at us—­Norman and his school friends once tied cotton round the ­middles of the insects then stuffed them in their blazer pockets and let them loose all at once at the beginning of the second hymn in chapel: pandemonium resulted. “Spectacular,” says Norman, “my idea.” 134  A Field Diary

We saw a fish ea­gle this eve­ning and two warthogs who marched ahead of us with the self-­importance of gentlemen leaving a London club. Now I read in the cool, soft night. APRIL 19, 1985

9:00 p.m.

A day of fiascos. Dawn shone at 5:00 like a new coin. We breakfasted, then took a trip to Tiger Bay. The road ended at a dry riverbed; from ­there we walked to Groebler’s to see the crocodile farm. I had on my clogs, having forgotten to change (or been distracted from d ­ oing so), and found the ­going wooden. We immersed ourselves in digging up ant lions, tracing leopard spore, and finding crocodile claws and buffalo jaws. Mrs. Groebler was singularly unwelcoming, but we persuaded her reluctant assistant to drive us back to the Kombi. He is training as a hunter, and I fear for his ­future clients. He said, “I am not afraid of swimming in the lake. I can poke my fin­gers in any crocodile’s eyes and break his back legs. Afraid of nothing.” The place always sets my teeth on edge. We passed the old hunter driving a Spaniard off to shoot one of the top five trophy animals, this time an elephant. They shot one just over the hill from my h ­ ouse and told the villa­gers that they could collect the meat. On our return, we found an empty village as p ­ eople had passed my h ­ ouse to fill their basins with meat cut from the elephant’s carcass. At sunset the silhouettes of ­people returning past Manhattan with dishes of meat on their heads seemed to have stepped out of a Bergman movie. We spent time with Million and Megina; Thomas, Student, and Moses; Elias Mujokere; and Nteni but failed in our main ambition, which was to weigh dry grain. It seems that p ­ eople must fear one or some of the following: (a) witchcraft, (b) taxes, (c) jealousy, (d) invasion of privacy. The upshot is that I dive into a trough of depression and won­der, yet again, what it is that I do. (Secret relief at the need to jettison my attempts to be an agriculturalist. Damned if the Zambian lot ­don’t want to publish that paper I wrote for the Farming System Research Conference.) A black sky pricked by stars has Norman, Anderson, Garfield, Olivia, and Talitha lying on their backs tracing out the dog’s hind leg and the bear’s back. Only the scratch of cicadas and the soft clip of the wings of night beetles impose on the quiet. I was glad to have had an hour of peace at sunset while the “tourists” w ­ ere still away in Bumi securing flights, vegetable proj­ects, swims, cokes, petrol, tire repairs, ­etc. A dove calls. Why so late? A Field Diary 135

APRIL 20, 1985

midday

It is too hot to eat, though ­there is a breeze. Norman photographed some of the ­children this morning before he and the rest of the party left for Chalala then Bumi. Costain, Anderson, and I interviewed Tafirei and Moses. It is extraordinary the load of work that Tafirei has when her m ­ other is ill or away. She pounds, grinds, collects relish, and cooks for her two ­brothers and her s­ ister; she scares birds from the maila; she washes her own and two younger siblings’ clothes plus each meal’s pots and plates; she washes her s­ ister and herself; and she is responsible for planning the meals and collecting the relish and grain (the latter from her ­mother’s granary). She says she cannot stay with her f­ather at Tiger Bay as Obert is d ­ oing ­because she has too much work to do even when her m ­ other is home. She says that she is finding the work very hard. Moses is his usual laid-­back, cheerful self. Yesterday he helped carry the harvest home and so did his ­sister, Sophia, and as she was so busy, she did not prepare lunch. By 3:00 p.m. Moses, not having eaten all day, was hungry. He came to Anderson’s home and sat talking to Cecilia. ­After a while Cecilia asked him to cut okra for drying. He then told her he was hungry. She warmed tyezi and sadza left from lunch for him. True reciprocity. ­Later we weighed lusili, chibuku, nzembwe, and maize in baskets prior to and post-­shelling (­people’s fear of us has dissipated). The weighing was quite a pro­cess. We ­were amused as we watched Canaan’s young s­ister climb like a woodpecker clinging to the pole as she skimmed up to the granary to retrieve the chibuku. This is the second season that chibuku has been grown ­here from seed handed by the Agritex officer. He distributed nzembwe seed this year, though Anderson’s did not germinate. Thomas and Givemore came to see me. Thomas has been charged $180 for damages consequent to his elopement with Eunice. He thinks the price is very high, and he anticipates a charge of about $80 for lobola. He plans to seek work in Chalala next week. Obert and John have been in Tiger Bay, Edwell is in Tashinga, Canaan is at Groebler’s, and Wisdom is in Musamba. Boys travel; girls do not. I have brought a skirt pattern and enough material for each girl to sew a garment for herself. Perhaps we ­shall begin tomorrow. Bob, the horticulturalist, collected soil samples from Anderson’s proposed garden site, the brick-­molding field, and an established vegetable 136  A Field Diary

garden. The soil looks fairly good, he says. He is to meet the Bumi Hills Safari Lodge man­ag­er, Mike Gardener, and Dan Ayket, a big boss from the breweries. I am pleased at not having to play the woman-­on-­the-­sidelines role. Nor, however, would I like a central role. 7:00 p.m.

At peace. A star has just fallen into the last daub of the plum sunset. Slowly Anderson’s demesne is becoming populated, as his m ­ other, two ­sisters, and a ­brother have joined his other ­sister and her ­family. ­Women and ­children now pass through my terrain. My ­family has not yet returned. I spent a cheerful after­noon shelling maize, weighing grain, ­etc., then watching Paulina and Serina grind and the activities of their ­children. The three ­women grinding and talking, two young ­women pounding in the same mortar, and a host of ­children variously engaged had surely been positioned for a scene in a film. The sense of surfeit and relief ­after a season of growing and danger is tangible. The families are glad to be back from the fields and living in their own homes. How hard girls work, constantly, it seems. School must offer a respite. Mudheri and Taizvei w ­ ere in the nearby fields scaring birds and had not returned by 6:00 p.m. Julius Kapandura was charged by a bull elephant last night as he wound his way home to the field a­ fter a beer drink. He ran through thick bush and left the elephant trumpeting. Sobered? This work is difficult. Difficult to rec­ord all that happens in a single homestead in one hour, never mind in a village, a ­people, a nation. Moses made a fire for me just now and has brought me green maize on the cob to eat. Million gave me a pumpkin fit to be a coach, and Paulina a baobab pod. How kind every­one is. Moses spent four hours this after­noon with Shaira and Cosimos scaring birds from Cecelia’s field; he is still with them, prob­ably sharing their supper. The assistant at Groebler’s who gave us a lift yesterday dropped in to say hello; seeing him arrive, ­people thought he had killed an elephant near my ­house and began to gather their knives and plates. Gora told the story with relish amidst much laughter. ­There was laughter, too, when Kuwuwete asked Serina, her ­daughter, for the rest of her son’s porridge; laughter at the incongruity of cooking for the youn­gest and then feeding the oldest. How funny Kuwuwete is with her unblinking seriousness as she makes jokes. My ­family must come soon or I ­shall worry. A Field Diary 137

APRIL 21, 1985

9:00 p.m.

Cross for no reason. The anxiety of having ­children ­here, I suppose. Some work has been achieved, but not enough. Irritability scorches from me. The day was pleasant and disturbing. Some photo­graphs ­were taken, then we set off at 8:00 a.m. for Tiger Bay. Tafirei came, too. We drove to the river before Groebler’s and walked a few kilo­meters before a tractor and trailer came to fetch us. Tafirei and I spent the morning with Serina and Obert, who are staying with Mr.  Wilson, while the ­others boated up the Ume River. We left at 3:00 p.m. ­after lunch, I nursing the usual series of emotions that crossing the divide between the world of tourism and village life stirs. The contradictions in my ties are stark ­today. In the eve­ning I paid a visit to Keresiya’s field; her yield is poor b ­ ecause the soil has been worked since 1957. Edwell did not weed his field b ­ ecause he was ill with jaundice, and so t­ here was nothing to harvest. A headache assailed me, and I returned to Manhattan. All of us are a bit tired. ­Today was one of ­those days when I lack a certain drive, enthusiasm, command in my interviewing, and so reap l­ittle. Odd, that. It o ­ ught not to work thus, but so it seems. I tried to think about the work, to inject my thoughts with new vigor, but it did not work. I seem but to have ends to tie up—­finish histories, health profiles, genealogies, the harvest—­and nothing fresh to pursue. Jaded. We leave tomorrow. The thought of the journey in a vehicle with weak or expired shock absorbers is not attractive.* I would like to stay, but I cannot have five c­ hildren at home in the holidays and not be ­there. The vegetable * The return journey was difficult. A bump caused the oil to leak out, and the car ­stopped. We found the paw prints of lions in the sand near the vehicle. A man traveling on foot told us that the infamous Fifth Brigade that President Robert Mugabe had formed had an encampment nearby. We had to choose between waiting in lion territory or asking for assistance from the Fifth Brigade. We tried the latter, but they regretted that they could not help us. Back at the car, we waited. A ­ fter some hours a Land Rover appeared; it was driven by Alois Hungwe and belonged to the Department of Agriculture, for which we both worked. Perhaps it was the one I had requested for the trip but had been refused at the last moment. Alois and Norman cut down a slender tree and tied it with short stretches of rope to the Land Rover and the Kombi. Alois skillfully towed us many kilo­meters to the town of Karoi. It was a hair-­raising ­ride. 138  A Field Diary

proj­ect is on track, it seems: Bob and Mike have met; Bob has Mike’s proposal and w ­ ill make his own contribution to it. A l­ ittle return from me, perhaps, for that which I have received. The main point of this trip achieved. The ­children have enjoyed it and have seen a lot. It was only partially worthwhile in terms of work, but the harvest had to be weighed and I had to do it. The best part for me was watching Paulina’s and Serina’s families at work and play. A ­grand time was had by all on our last eve­ning as I had invited c­ hildren to come and light sparklers. Twenty arrived, and their eyes shone as they watched the stars come down. Norman, Talitha, and Olivia arrived and we sang songs, with Evelina, Givemore, Garfield, and Taizvei leading. Samson and Matthew recited poems followed by duets from Talitha and Olivia. In the dark of the night the ­children’s eyes reflected the candlelight. Norman’s Chinese fable was well received. So beautifully they behave, such fun they have, so unselfconsciously does each child participate. I taped it all. In Manhattan ­after Attending a Conference in Omay JUNE 6, 1985

8:00 p.m.

Peculiarly, I arrive and feel depressed and wish to return to my ­family. I suppose ­because of the detour on the journey. At 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday, June 4, I left Harare with thirty-­five ­others who ­were ­either organizers of or participants in a conference on arid or semi­arid regions. Participants came from Chile, Turkey, Greece, Jordan, Gambia, Senegal, Somalia, ­Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, the USA, and elsewhere. Russell Taylor and Kay Muir-­Leresche ­were the local organizers. ­After driving for four hours to Kariba we, and the vehicles, ­were loaded onto a ferry that slowly carried us across the lake to Bumi. The light on the lake made shifting patterns on the hills of Zambia. Mudze Chasi, a fine w ­ oman from Agritex, and I shared a luxurious room at Bumi Hills Lodge. On the following day, the da’s deputy gave an introductory speech before we set out for Chitenge, where I delivered a lecture ­under my busanza. I lead a tour of the village, a­ fter which we trundled off to the Musamba Fishing Camp. The fishermen expressed their fury about the legislation passed last month by the National Parks Board that has cut the number of nets that a fisherman may set from twelve to two. During the day government officials from Agritex and National Parks, posted in Omay, w ­ ere notable for their absence, and a poor light was cast A Field Diary 139

on their per­for­mance. ­There ­were some funny scenes beside the school cotton field, as some of the arguments that arose during the day revealed sharp differences in opinions that ranged across disciplines and levels of both expertise and responsibility. We spent another night at the lodge and the next day exploring Siakobvu and Nebiri. We had a long session with the deputy da, Ignatius; the executive officers of the district councils; and a c­ ouple of councillors. Many of the participants ­were shocked to hear that ­cattle would prob­ably be brought into Omay soon. They w ­ ere horrified at the sight of ddt being mixed right on the banks of the Ume River, next to a school and in the midst of Nebiri settlements. At the end of the day, I was dropped off at Manhattan and the ­others returned to Bumi. What did I learn? ­Don’t know, except that a lot of discussion was engendered and many of our Zimbabwean representatives widened their eyes. The experts on ecological m ­ atters felt that the land could not carry c­ attle as the grass is poor, the soil fragile, and the c­ attle ­will have to compete with ­people for use of the scarce arable land. I must clear my mind of the exercise and concentrate on my tiny patch. Anderson and ­family are well enough, though Rutendo has flu. The biggest piece of news is that the older s­ ister of one of the c­ hildren in the sample was discovered to be pregnant. [I ­shall call her June.] She and her lover are still scholars, and he is only fifteen years old. Her ­father chased her from home to her lover’s homestead and has demanded that his ­family pay for June’s education up to O-­level. Her kin gave her medicine and she aborted, but she is still with her lover’s ­family. They plan to marry. One fears for them both. It is only 8:00 p.m. and I am bathed and fed and I have my home in order. ­There was a lemon meringue sunset—­couldn’t decide ­whether it was too sweet or too sour. I cannot work to­night ­because I feel uneasy and strange. I s­hall read Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being and ignore his depiction of a man’s narcissism so that I can enjoy the turns of some of his phrases: “In the sunset of dissolution” and “The first rehearsal for life is life itself.” JUNE 7, 1985

1:00 p.m.

A long night’s sleep has recouped my spirits. I enjoyed my coffee and stale bread and contemplated my dream of Paris. Recently I dreamed of London’s streets and parks. If I ­were ­there, would I dream of Chitenge? 140  A Field Diary

We visited Kesina Banana and Serina Wilson t­oday. Both families are well, though John has asthma again. Kesina returned yesterday from an eleven-­day course for ­women’s club leaders in Harare. Serina was cooking thirteen mice that Tafirei had trapped in a bucket of ­water. They have to be cooked for five to six hours. Serina’s son, John, has secured a job as a preacher in Harare. Kesina has nine c­ hildren from Marombera village living at her homestead but caring for themselves while they attend school. She and three girls ­were threshing maila with sticks. I took down the details of the girl’s pregnancy and marriage. Another pair of schoolchildren has conceived a child; the girl is staying in her home, and the boy’s ­family has paid $60 of a $260 damage fine. Both are still attending school. The headmaster w ­ ill not let June’s partner return to school as long as she continues to attend. He has been unable to secure a place in a school in Harare. June’s ­father and his ­mother berated June’s ­mother for having given the girl medicine to abort the child b ­ ecause they feared for her life. Despite the abortion, her ­father insists that she continue to live in the boy’s ­family home ­because it seems that if she returns to her home, that ­family ­will not pay damages. Thomas’s ­father visited recently and gave him $70 that, Thomas says, is for “soap” (I presume it is a contribution to lobola). He used some to make beer for sale, earning a ­little profit, and has bought food. He has not paid any of it to Eunice’s ­family. They continue to live at his ­mother’s home. Million Kapandura’s first child by his second wife died in Harare hospital. The boy is said to have been “beaten by ghosts” while herding goats. His body was returned for burial on a ddf truck. No divination has been held yet. 7:00 p.m.

Tired ­after walking at least ten kilo­meters ­today. JUNE 8, 1985

6:30 p.m.

­ fter supper and a bath, I read Kundera and some papers for my article on A food, then slept. By 7:00 this morning I was at work and kept at it all day despite having a headache. And now I sit on the platform facing winter’s watercolor sunset with a medicinal tot of brandy ­because aspirin failed to soothe my sore head. I felt gloomy at lunch, yet we had a productive day. A Field Diary 141

Otilia, Mwaka, Tafirei, Mudheri, and Zvinei came to have skirts cut out for them. They w ­ ill sew them. Still hard to achieve intimacy with the girls, but Zvinei is the most forthcoming. We mea­sured them, but the scale is broken and ­there is no scale at the clinic or at Bumi. So much for that l­ ittle piece of data collection. I interviewed Serina Wilson, and Kesina Banana visited me, and each one completed the health questionnaire; I received some in­ter­est­ing ­responses. Sometimes they hesitated, and it seemed to me they w ­ ere wondering how modern they ­ought to appear to be. Mr. Wilson called, too. ­Later I sat for an hour observing Canaan’s ­family members at work and play. The charm of ­children, their toughness, their willingness to work emerge through observation. This after­noon, when the sky was apple green on the horizon, Obert and Edwell came to talk to me about Oliver (one of the sons of the last chief, Chalivamba), who left school a week ago and went to Kariba yesterday on the advice of his ­sister, with whom he is living. Oliver has gone ­because he says that a man had visited him in the night and had given him medicine to drink. The story revolves around fear of the evil power of a n’anga. The one feared is Jeffrey, the man who inherited Edwell’s ­mother and with whom Edwell refuses to live. Oliver’s ­family believes that Jeffrey killed Oliver’s ­mother; they say that before she died she told them that he had visited her in the night. Oliver’s s­ ister says that Jeffrey now hates Oliver and intends to kill him. Edwell told me that he feels Jeffrey’s hatred of him and he is afraid that he is trying to kill him. A man who had been at a beer party with Jeffrey told Edwell that Jeffrey had expressed his jealousy of and anger ­toward him. I tried to deflect Edwell’s fears—­his pulse in his neck was visibly beating, and his breath was short as he spoke. I tried to say that fear was the worst ­enemy for it weakened one’s re­sis­tance, allowing an ­enemy’s ill ­will to penetrate the protection of one’s ancestors and one’s youth. I am afraid he, too, might run away and, therefore, not receive an education. How sad I am for Oliver. He now has neither m ­ other nor ­father nor ­brother to attend to his interests. Should I bring his case before the chief? I met a kinsman of the boy who impregnated June this eve­ning, who says that he has been charged $120, of which he has already paid $90, and that the headmaster has agreed to allow him to resume his schooling. June is staying in the boy’s homestead and ­will return to her ­family shortly. The kinsman refuses to allow the boy to stop his education, even though he is not his son. 142  A Field Diary

Once more supper consisted of sadza made from maila, millet, that bears a remarkable resemblance to glue—­ought I to sniff it?—­and beans. Bathing ­under the dark blanket sky left me cold. Whining, am I? Momentarily the night is quiet and the stars imitate candle flames. ­There is a bat in my loo. I chose to wait for dark and pee on the bleached grass. Th ­ ere are many mice in my ­house, and I begin to miss the ancestral snakes, who seem to be hibernating. The lizards, ­those ugly fellows, have taken to napping in my shoes just to frighten me. Only a few insects invade my space, and I set aside all my grievances. Canaan has not been to school for a week as he has no soap with which to wash his dirty clothes. I suggest he comes to me tomorrow and I ­shall find him a task worthy of a bar of soap; that is, I guess, what he had hoped would happen. JUNE 9, 1985

midday, or nearly 1:00 p.m.

First I visited Namkondwa, who was sorting good from poor heads of maila with Sobina and Eunice before storing them on a platform; then the Nteni ­family, where I found that Serina is ill and that Betty was putting fresh mud on the inside walls and floor of her room; and, fi­nally, Keresiya’s ­family, where Kalinda was washing pots and preparing to make lunch. I observed for an hour and a half at the last home. I talked to many o ­ thers, including Wilson’s neighbor for whom he has built a granary for $80. She, the neighbor, worked as a domestic in Bulawayo for about ten years, but her second husband has called her home. She has only one child, who is a boarder at a school in Bulawayo and is in form four. She pays for his schooling, and the fees alone are $200 per term. In the village center I met Crispin, who is copying out the sales made each day in 1984 and 1985 for me. And I came across a man from a neighboring village who had had a bite taken out of his scalp by a neighbor during an argument at a beer drink. In April he had complained to a neighbor ­because, he said, the latter’s goats w ­ ere eating his maila crop. At the beer drink the one accused raised the ­matter and questioned the grounds for complaint. A fight ensued. The injured man was on his way to report the case to the police in Bumi. Onlookers expect them both to be charged $10, and they cannot imagine why he is bother­ing to report the ­matter. A Field Diary 143

Samuel accosted me from a beer drink requesting a dollar for beer. I reminded him that he owes me a chimney for my toilet and placated him with cigarettes. What did I learn ­today? This and that, pieces for the jigsaw: that girls work hard; that it is difficult for them to care for obstreperous younger ­brothers; and that ­children run many errands (Edwell was sent by Crispin to collect his lunch from home by bike—­about twenty kilo­meters in all; John was sent by a storekeeper to buy beer at a beer drink—­two kilo­ meters; Betty was sent to the store to buy Mazoe for her ­mother). All of which I knew, just more grist for the mill. My bottom is sore from bouncing in Land Rovers, sitting on stools and on the ground, and sleeping on a thin mattress. The night was well lit by half a moon and alive with noises: someone ran down the road, a child cried, an animal coughed, beer drinkers sang, and a dog barked. A lively imagination could have made much of it. I woke at 4:00 and read Foucault with plea­sure as he stimulates my thoughts on ­children in relation to subjectivity and power. Anderson says that ­there are many more beer drinks this year as the harvest was good and ­people feel that they can spend their money on drink instead of grain. Feriza has begun to attend the Apostolic Church, though Anderson has stipulated that his child must have Western medical attention. Cecilia is Roman Catholic and he is a Methodist; all in one homestead. ­Children are singing by the river. 5:30 p.m.

We interviewed the boys who live alone near Butcher Mc­Ken­zie’s home. They comprise more or less the same crowd as was h ­ ere last year. The younger ones admit to missing their m ­ others very much. Foster came to greet us and lead us over to Butcher’s homestead. I have not met Butcher before ­because he works in Harare and he displays a city’s sophistication and was embarrassed by his se­nior wife’s avoidance of Anderson (she stands in the position of his “mother-­in-­law” ­because she is the d ­ aughter of the elder ­sister of Anderson’s wife, Feriza). Butcher was also embarrassed ­because he had nothing to offer me to eat or drink. He wanted to give me a goat, but his b ­ rother who cares for them was absent and he is obliged to ask his permission first. He offered me $2, which I politely refused. Should I have? He escorted us to the river. ­After his ­father’s death in 1972, he paid 144  A Field Diary

for his three ­brothers’ schooling from grade one to O-­level. One ­brother is teaching ­here and ­will prob­ably go this year to Rus­sia on a scholarship for five years. The other two have good jobs. Butcher is clearly a fine and disciplined man. He has a grade-­seven certificate and worked for five years in the da’s office (the title was then district commissioner) alongside Anderson’s ­father. His own ­father had worked with Anderson’s ­father, too. Wisdom has kept his harvest separate and is ­going to make two tins of beer for sale. He has been helping his ­father make a large, well-­built beer hall. Nteni’s energy is extraordinary. He is said not to have been ill since he arrived in Chitenge when they ­were relocated from the Zambezi River. Crispin has just come to deliver the rec­ord of cash sales for ­every day at his f­ ather’s store, and I can cross more items off my list. The work seems rather mechanical at this stage. I am happiest sitting and observing and recording the ­children’s activities. I am tired of probing ­behind reticence, particularly Namkondwa’s and Nteni’s. I need a good quarrel with them, perhaps, or a good beer drink. The headmaster has lost my questionnaire for the schoolchildren; I must rethink it now. I ­settle cheerfully on Manhattan’s veranda to watch winter’s pastel sunset, but the peace is shattered by a radio belonging to Givemore. It is all I can do not to cry. So much for my precious imported sensibilities. The gift I should like most in the world is a noise-­jamming machine. I ­shall ignore the school questionnaire and dip into the tls. JUNE 10, 1985

1:30 p.m.

I am peculiarly bored. Time seems powdered like winter dust; it spreads invisibly in the air. The novels I have fail to hold my interest. I have lost the compulsion to work and cannot persuade myself to write the two papers I owe. Is it ­because I feel that I know my families well enough for the purpose of writing about ­children’s work? Yet why be bored when a child spills out his fears of bewitchment to me, when I hear tales of magic that force confessions, when I watch a young adolescent’s life in crisis? It does not make sense. JUNE 11, 1985

8:00 a.m.

Up before dawn and a walk along the bed of the Masawu Stream into the valley. I saw no animals, which is not surprising as I made a lot of noise bounding from boulder to boulder. I enjoyed collecting quartz crystals A Field Diary 145

and had an armful to carry home. The sun did not reach the riverbed ­until 7:30, and my fin­gers hurt with the cold as they clutched the stones. I had an inkling of how cold ­little ­children must feel in this weather. As I wait for the ­women’s club members to arrive, I compose vegetable garden and school questionnaires. The moon, a mere slice of cheese, is up t­ here. Yesterday I interviewed the Banana f­amily on twenty-­four-­hour recall and watched the l­ittle ­children at their home for an hour. I visited the headmaster and requested permission to collect data from the schoolchildren: I gave him an official-­looking letter on university notepaper to flash at his teachers and ensure their cooperation. This morning Samuel completed my toilet, and I gave him the last of the $25 I owe him. He claimed $30. Julius Kapandura hailed us from a beer drink and asked us to report to the government that he has no money with which to buy clothes for his ­children to wear to school. He was very drunk but most courteous. Sophia Kajiri answered the questions on health in the after­noon. In the eve­ning I observed at the vegetable gardens. Cecilia and her b ­ rother carried thirty-­eight buckets of ­water up from the stream. Wisdom visited and took away the Upbeat magazines to read. Betty came for her skirt material and hurried away to collect ­water for her ­mother, who is not yet well but has improved. Kalinda and a friend came, too; the latter is a character—he coolly inspected my home, even opening boxes, and he asked for material to take home to his ­mother. 3:30 p.m.

Lots of village scandal keeps emerging. The ­women in the club (they have just left) discussed Julius Kapandura’s anger. It was wrought on Richard, his b ­ rother’s son whom he brought up, for eloping with his own wife’s ­sister (they share the same ­father but have dif­fer­ent ­mothers). It is taboo to marry s­ isters. The ­sisters’ ­mother died when the girl, the one who has eloped with Richard, was very young, and she has been raised by her ­sister, the one who is Richard’s wife. Julius upbraided Richard and the new wife last night for not building a home at his new site. He was very drunk, to which I can testify, so not too much can be read into his meaning. The girl’s f­ather intends to take Richard to the chief ’s court and demand that he choose between the two wives. Richard has only paid damages for his first wife and thus has no claim on their child. However, if he pays the lobola, he can then take the child and she ­will prob­ably be sent to live with 146  A Field Diary

his ­mother at Sampakaruma. Cruel fate if the ­woman loses her husband to the ­sister she brought up and her child to the husband. Poswet and a cousin have come to call. Poswet’s amazing orange shirt must fi­nally have disintegrated, for now he has a khaki one with tears and knots, and blue trousers with a huge brown patch on the bottom. He has grown taller, slimmer, and has lost some of his tummy. Damn, a fly in my eye. The boys look on in amazement as I lash out with my swatter at an apparently invisible ­enemy. 5:15 p.m.

Having spent time with Poswet, Anderson and I gave him and his cousin lifts on our bikes to their home, where I interviewed his m ­ other on health and observed for an hour and a quarter. At home we find that Feriza’s parents have arrived, so I leave Anderson to be the gracious host and attentive son-­ in-­law while I enjoy the last light—­a magical time that I am often too busy to notice. I won­der if he can talk to his mother-­in-­law if she visits him in his own home. The sky’s blue drains to apple green, and the light is yellow like butter sieved through muslin. Birds play, and a red-­throated twinspot and his lady sit above me. Flocks of ­little ­things pass, among them orange-­breasted waxbills. Parrots call rudely, and a lilac-­breasted roller shows off. I try to persuade myself to work on the food paper, but my overtures are rejected. Each time I observe a ­family, I learn something new or confirm impressions. Poswet escaped his m ­ other’s need for him to care for the baby, partly, perhaps, ­because I was observing. He got away with it, whereas a ­daughter would not have done. How closely Gift, aged two or three, clung to his m ­ other; how he needed to be within touching distance. Was it a display of jealousy of a new sibling or an off day? Who knows? ­Little gangs of four-­to seven-­year-­olds ­were having enormous fun; they moved as swiftly, and sometimes as distractingly, as crowds of midges; they are consistently inventive, and ­there is time only for brief cries over ­little tragedies. My hill “Big Stomach” is pink as the sun slips away. A dove’s call seems to say, “Takope” (I d ­ on’t know), an answer the c­ hildren often give me. Super, John, Peter, and James (do you think Super is J.C. in disguise?) come to call. We watch birds, and the boys are delighted as every­thing comes to their feet through the binoculars. We argue as to w ­ hether one feathered fellow is a kingfisher (celebula) or a roller ­because we cannot see the color anymore. They live in the boys’ village near Butcher’s home. I learned ­today that Foster’s ­father, Butcher’s ­brother, killed his father-­in-­law A Field Diary 147

in a fight, then killed himself. Butcher refused to allow his f­ ather’s ­brother to inherit his f­ ather’s wealth (goats, a radio, two bicycles, and a bank account) and took control of it himself. He assumed responsibility for Foster and used the money to educate his five b ­ rothers. His ­father’s two ­brothers inherited his ­mother and her co-­wife. The tapestry of village life begins to have detail stitched into it. It is a­ fter 6:00 p.m. with a mulberry sky; I must find the candle that the mice chew each night even though I prop it up on a tin. JUNE 12, 1985

6:00 a.m.

I await the sun impatiently as it is cold. I have fallen into a foolish pattern of waking at 4:00 a.m., then by 9:00 a.m. I feel tired. A messenger arrived saying that he had received a call from Harare, and t­ here was a horrid sinking feeling in my belly followed by relief that it has nothing to do with the ­children. Norman radioed to call me home on Saturday as he is to leave for Eu­rope soon. This time I am glad to go home ­earlier than planned. Costain and I spent yesterday interviewing ­people and observing at the homes of the Muroiwas, Siachema (he is the sebuku), and the Mashongas. The day was one of ease and pleasant friendship. Only three of the ­women with whom I work sometimes stand back with ill-­disguised impatience; they are Mainara, Namkondwa, and Sophia. Perhaps they have the most to hide. The village was agog at the news that last night Julius had beaten Richard with two long, heavy sticks. Julius was drunk again. Siachema said that it is pos­si­ble to marry ­sisters if the parents of the girls and the boy agree to hold a ritual at which goats are killed and eaten by the families. The ritual is called majiko akubaswanizya, “to kill a goat and eat with all the parents.” Thereafter the man may live with two s­ isters as his wives. It is more usual for the man to be made to choose between them. A cardinal woodpecker lands beside me; he is a comical fellow but proud. The birds sing in the dawn. A brown-­throated bush warbler arrives and is fearfully shy. Cape parrots fly over screeching abuse. Shupi walks past crying so hard that her ­little, old face is contorted. JUNE 13, 1985

6:00 p.m.

We rode a long way ­today searching in vain for the chief (who, it turns out, has gone to Harare), the court clerk, Keresiya, Edwell, and ­others. Eventually we tracked the court clerk, who had before him a case brought by 148  A Field Diary

a man who had caught his wife sleeping with a fisherman at Chalala. The man’s wife said she slept with him to earn money to buy a tin tub. However, the court did not sit, b ­ ecause of the chief ’s absence. The clerk is generously allowing us to copy out the thirty-­odd case histories he has written down. They are bare boned but testify to the ease of divorce, among other m ­ atters. Neither the chief ’s assistant nor his clerk earn salaries, but they receive $5 each ­after ­every court case. No rec­ords are being kept this year. The clerk is self-­taught. Keresiya and Serina Wilson’s ­sister, Kesina, are making beer for Chakafa Wilson. For a week’s l­abor they may earn $4 each. Spirits “beat” Serina’s ­brother’s wife yesterday morning, causing pain in her neck and twisting her head around. The f­ amily consulted Jeffrey, whose diagnosis is that an ancestor is calling for beer. I won­der if Western medicine can explain this strange head twisting—­convulsion? High fever? Serina was furious with a relative whom she suspected of having stolen her crochet hook. I watched the ­little ­children run off with bowls in their hands to collect food from the feeding scheme and return to eat beans, peanuts, and sadza in small groups. I interviewed Kuwuwete about her practices as a midwife, and I asked questions to do with conception and birth. She said that she suspects me; she thinks that I w ­ ill appropriate her knowledge and use it to earn money. I teased her, and she told me to demonstrate my willingness to share by bringing her medicine for the fontanel (she has heard that amaXhosa and isiZezuru healers say I am possessed by healing spirits, particularly ­those with gynecological expertise). Paulina has fever. Serina’s and Million’s young ­daughters pounded and winnowed steadily for almost an hour. We talked to Canaan, who still claims that he is not attending school ­because he has no soap with which to wash his clothes. He claimed his reward for having counted the number of baskets carried to bring the harvest home. Edwell’s room is beautiful; it is well built with smooth mud walls and fine detailing. It has a small ­table (box) with his worldly goods carefully arranged upon it; t­ here are pictures of w ­ omen sunbathing and of wild animals on the walls; and a curtain divides off his sleeping area. How neat and carefully turned out he is compared with his siblings. Keresiya says that Jeffrey, who inherited her, has called her to live with him. She may go, but not if Edwell refuses. Edwell says he can, if he likes, live with one of his ­mother’s ­brothers, preferably John. He is not sure what he ­will do. A Field Diary 149

Back in Manhattan JULY 3, 1985

8:00 a.m.

I arrived yesterday at about 4:00 p.m., having spent hours waiting at Bumi. At last, the police kindly transported me. The officer-­in-­charge says crime has increased and that 90  ­percent of it is related to poaching. The man whose head was bitten was charged $10 (as predicted by the onlookers) for disturbing the police, as was his partner in the fight. What a wonderful crime—­“disturbing the police.” The police ­were on their way to investigate a “case of arson.” A man is reported to have burned his wife’s property, including her clothes, at her parents’ home, as part of his attempt to divorce her. The police view it “as a serious crime.” They h ­ andle no witchcraft cases, they say. While I was away Noriya, the wife of Christmas, gave birth, but the baby died, never having sucked. Julius Kapandura has taken no further action against Richard, who is living with his wife’s s­ ister. The young w ­ oman whose child was aborted is still in her partner’s ­house­hold and ­will remain ­there u ­ ntil the damages have been paid. Anderson and Costain have almost completed the school questionnaires and are working on the court rec­ords. They have completed about seven vegetable garden forms. Th ­ ere are only twenty-­one vegetable gardens in Chitenge, and our families own six of ­these (­others among our families plan to establish gardens). My gifts of seed have interfered with the data. JULY 4, 1985

7:30 a.m.

Two Meyer’s parrots celebrate a perfect day. Yesterday I conducted successful interviews with Patrick Banana and Nteni and his wife, Serina Siansikiri, and recorded twenty-­four-­hour recall with Nteni and his f­ amily. Nteni pushed his broken bicycle to Bumi yesterday morning and met a pride of six lions. A ddf truck arrived and gave him a lift, to his relief. On his return, he walked a long way around via Chalala to avoid them. ­Today I ­shall try to catch Julius and Million sober and interview them. I am discombobulated by the sense of winding down. Winter’s quiet exaggerates the feeling. W ­ omen, and some men, have begun to cut grass to comb and sell. Serina S. has a few bundles piled up. She paid $66 to have her h ­ ouse built by Nteni last year and earned the money from cutting grass. 150  A Field Diary

Patrick Banana had a salaried job for many years beginning in 1953, and he gave all his savings to his f­ ather, who used the money to buy a sewing machine (that is now in Patrick’s possession, although his b ­ rother uses it) and material to make skirts for sale. Nteni, on the other hand, gave his savings to his f­ ather, who kept them for him. Nteni has much more to show for his efforts, but then he is an extraordinarily energetic man. 1:00 p.m.

Julius came to visit and gave me the bare bones of his life story. His ­father bought goats for Julius with the money he, Julius, had sent home. He told us that Million, apparently, is angry with his son-­in-­law, John, b ­ ecause he has burned the grass he had stashed for sale on purpose, or so Million thinks. ­Others suppose it was an error as John was clearing the land. Julius ­will report the m ­ atter to Councillor Moses, who may take it to the chief ’s court. Another piece of gossip was relayed to me, this time by the el­derly ­woman who said that ­after a beer drink last night her son-­in-­law was involved in a fight and was beaten with a stool. Samuel’s wife arrived to claim money from me for having cut the grass Samuel had used a year ago to thatch my busanza, round h ­ ouse, and toilet. She claimed that I owed her $27. I said that was a ridicu­lous amount and I was only prepared to pay $10, the amount that I had paid Kesina. She left ­after berating me for a long time and threatening to remove my thatch. Moses came leading Cephas, who is blind, by his white stick. Cephas asked me for $20 to cover his return bus fare to Bulawayo to enable him to attend a course at Jairos Jiri, a center for the support of the blind. I gave it to him. Moses has not worked with us recently, and he looked shamefaced on being asked why. He agreed to continue for the next six weeks ­until the research ends. He seemed cheerful enough as we took down his genealogy. Evelina brought her notes on her systematic observations of very young ­children. They seem to be well done. She asked for another notebook to use to complete the task. Costain and I walked a long way in search of six p ­ eople to interview and found none of them. Very annoying on a short trip. We saw bateleurs ­doing acrobatics, kingfishers, woodpeckers, barbets, canaries, and other birds. On our return, Anderson took me into the bush to see an old, sacred baobab tree that has a wooden drum deeply embedded in a hollow in the tree some ten feet off the ground. Anderson said, “When Mola’s ­people arrived in the area, t­here ­were two drums in the tree. It is believed that the A Field Diary 151

first ­people who lived h ­ ere long before the Tonga arrived placed the drums in the tree.” Anderson did not come near the tree. Anderson says that on his ­father’s death, his twenty sons ­will decide how his property is to be distributed. They refuse to allow his f­ather’s ­sister’s son to inherit the property as tradition dictates. They w ­ ill prob­ ably place Samson, the firstborn, in charge of the trucks and store, and he ­will distribute the profits among the sons. If the wives are to be inherited, Anderson’s ­father’s younger b ­ rother and s­ ister ­will decide by whom. The sons ­will not allow the property to go to that person. The only ­family in which the sons refused to allow their ­father’s ­brothers or his ­sister’s sons to inherit the property that Anderson knows about is Butcher Mc­Ken­zie’s ­family. Anderson thinks the new attitude is good and that it is a change wrought by education. On a man’s death, his wife or wives stay in his homestead ­until the ritual of bringing his spirit back has been conducted ­after a year has passed. If a man’s wife dies, he may not continue to sleep in the ­house they have occupied. On a man’s death, neither his ­house nor his granary are inherited. Food in the granary is distributed. Moses says boys older than he often fight on the way home ­after school. JULY 5, 1985

7:00 a.m.

­ fter a morning of wasted effort yesterday, I managed to interview five A adults and to spend time with Moses, Tafirei, and Obert. Shupi is crying. Clouds hide the sun, and the village has huddled into winter. I leave for Harare ­today. Back in Manhattan AUGUST 15, 1985

8:30 p.m.

Twelve hours it took me to travel from 21 Bedford Road to Manhattan. The plane for Bumi left Kariba airport as we arrived in the Viscount from Harare. I took a taxi to the office of the da, Kudo Muyambi, and spent the day g­ oing through his bookcase and files both for my own use and for the benefit of the Sebungwe library. Kudo is convinced that c­ attle ­will come to Omay, that the p ­ eople have the right to own ­cattle and it need 152  A Field Diary

not be a threat to the ecol­ogy. He points to Binga, where c­ attle are kept with no apparent ill effect. He listens to o ­ thers’ arguments, but t­here is ­really very ­little survey material on which to base considered judgments. At 4:00 p.m. I caught a bus to the airport and flew in the l­ittle plane to Bumi, where I waited for three hours and watched the sun slice the lake with knives of yellow as it set hurriedly and boldly, leaving the elephants sharply outlined on the shore. One was new to the world and looked like a bonsai baobab. I saw zebra close by, and a fox, a bushbuck, waterbuck, impala, and many elephants and vultures plus an ea­gle before being kindly carried in a ddf truck to Chitenge. Anderson is ill with flu or malaria. The night is cool, dogs bark, ­children call, and t­here is a fire to the southeast. How dark it suddenly is beyond the creamy pool of light from my candle. Good to be back and to have that anxiety-­provoking journey over. I always feel so odd, and no won­der with luggage that includes methylated spirits, brandy, good-­luck medicine, knives, Zambia cloth, coffee filters, a bathroom scale, and cabbages. It is strange to think of Norman, Talitha, and Portia sailing from Denmark to Sweden while I lie on my platform. Sabaa and Abigail are at home with my ­mother. She has brought her tv to the ­house, so they should be content as we do not have one. Just as adults would, they wished me “a good trip and an enjoyable stay.” AUGUST 16, 1985

6:00 p.m.

Dangi Jonga, the head of the ddf field office, dropped in at 9:00 a.m., and as Anderson is still ill (with both malaria and flu), I de­cided, at his invitation, to accompany him to Siakobvu, a settlement that is situated at the beginning of the escarpment. ­After perusing rec­ords in the library, Mr. Jonga kindly took me out of his way to show me the new school site at Marambera village and the tap whose source is in the Njaka hills. We visited a storage tank and a spring that lies in a wonderful gully with clear, sparkling pools and large trees, where we sat quietly and saw an otter run, dive into the pool, swim across, and dis­appear into a cave. The spring yields abundantly. ­There is another spring that could be tapped, and a third not far off. Mola now boasts four boreholes (sunk in 1982), one of which is currently out of commission, and seven auger wells, one of which is drying up. The da and the se­nior executive officer (Mr.  Hove) of the district A Field Diary 153

council estimate that t­ here may be as many as 18,000 p ­ eople, double the 1982 estimate, in Omay and perhaps 5,000 in Mola. Eleven ­water sources spread over a large terrain are insufficient among 5,000 p ­ eople but a g­ reat deal better than none. We cut across from Njaka to the road that links Mola and Siakobvu and traveled through mopani forest clad in dazzling spring gear, passing some buck and hunters. I relished the long, companionable trip in the absence of any feelings of responsibility. The warmth of local officials renewed my sense of well-­being. In Siakobvu Mr.  Hove was very generous with his time and information. It is a plea­sure to travel with Mr. Jonga b ­ ecause he is calm and funny and highly regarded. We traveled to Negande and met a very drunk medical assistant who asked me fifty times if his clinic was clean enough. Shupi is crying. The sun is setting. The day’s mist lent mystery to the terrain of ea­gles and rollers and bee-­eaters. I was amused to learn that Chief Mola has recently banned all “tea parties,” that is, the brewing of beer for sale. It has been fun collecting ­people’s reasons for his action: Anderson—it has led to prostitution, men can no longer feel secure even about their own wives; Councillor Moses—­ beer encourages dancing, which results in pregnancy among schoolgirls; Mr. Hove—­Mola is b ­ ehind in development as no men come forward to work on proj­ects as they are constantly drunk, causing church ministers and ­others to upbraid Chief Mola; and a young man said, “It is my fault and the fault of other young men ­because we all slept with a visiting official’s wife (seven of us from Karoi, six from Negande, and three from Chitenge) and the trou­ble that resulted caused Chief Mola to react angrily.” Council beer continues to be sold but only u ­ ntil 10:30 p.m. to prevent men from becoming drunk and, therefore, lazy the following day. Locals are furious and are awaiting an opportunity to bring the ­matter before higher authorities. Two of Anderson’s ­little ­children, Rutendo and Tariro, are standing close to each other by Cecilia’s kitchen. They are the same height; one is round like a bun, and the other elfin. They turn to touch one another at my approach; perhaps their childhood represents one ideal for small persons, that is, the companionship of a peer who shares the same ­father (giving approximate equality) yet each having her or his own m ­ other. Feriza winnows while Cecilia cooks. 154  A Field Diary

6:20 p.m.

The moon lights up some twenty minutes a­ fter the sun has set. Like a child’s pink tongue. Sudden silence falls apart from murmurings from Anderson’s ­mother’s fireplace. Julius Kapandura is the chairman of the Chitenge Village Development Committee, and Councillor Moses represents the four villages in Ward A of Mola. Their proj­ects include the ­Women’s Club Vegetable Garden and the School Uniform Sewing Club. Mr. Hove asked me what other proj­ects would be worth establishing; I suggested sewing clubs (especially for young ­women), credit ­unions, a major vegetable scheme, donkeys and carts for transport, a seed depot for general sale. ­There is, he observed, an inability to plan for large proj­ects at the village level. The reasons, I think, are to do with the absence of incentives, structural support, financial assistance to initiate a proj­ect, and training in management, and the lack of a market, and not ­because of a lack of talent, enterprise, ability, or desire. The hard ­labor of scratching a living in a harsh, unyielding environment debilitates effort. My expectations to do with living in Manhattan have been foiled once again, for t­ here are no snakes, only a few insects, and the weather is not hot. AUGUST 17, 1985

6:45 a.m.

The new moon has a slight grin as it observes the rapidly setting sun slip down a jelly sky. I sit on the platform with brandy (carefully rationed) and a candle. Back into the old pattern with bones sore from the truck’s shaking, muscles tired from a fifteen-­kilometer ­ride, lips dry, hair dusty, and the usual feeling of smallness in the face of the universe’s prob­lems. The shape that ­these take t­oday is that of flu. Virulent flu, the same that struck Harare and sent five of us to bed, but it hits harder h ­ ere, of course. We visited Keresiya, Serina S., Erina, Sophia, and Kuwuwete ­today, and each had flu. Kuwuwete has been seriously ill since last Thursday. She refuses to go to the clinic as she fears she w ­ ill be sent to Kariba hospital. She is even reluctant to have the nurse visit her. Presumably she has bronchitis or pleurisy or something and needs antibiotics. I return angry that “development” is late ­here and so patchy. Why does the nurse not know her villa­gers, at least the midwives, who could give her information as to who is in need of her attention? Why has she no informal referral system? Why the excessive A Field Diary 155

emphasis on cleanliness, the construction of toilets, and the planting of flowers in the garden of the clinic when the imperatives of health need to be addressed first? We passed a beer party this eve­ning and I learn that the chief has only forbidden “tea parties” the definition of which is hard to ascertain. In effect, they seem to be t­hose beer drinks that attract w ­ omen and girls. Therefore, men may gather to drink, while ­women may not? Sophia, Edward, and the two ­little boys are ill. Elizabeth has a gray film over one eye. Shupi is crying. This morning, birds surround me. They include a lilac-­breasted roller, a woodpecker, a drongo, waxbills, and ­others. A bateleur flew overhead. To­ night I kept sadza for them. Why did I not make a feeding tray right from the start of my stay? P ­ eople express sorrow that it is my last trip. “You w ­ ill leave us ­here alone?” they ask accusingly. Keresiya has gone to live with Jeffrey. He has built her a solid busanza, on which she keeps her small store of grain. She is sleeping in a h ­ ouse with no roof. She is not happy ­there, she says, but she has no choice. Edwell is living with her ­sister ­until his ­house is completed. He is reluctant to move, but Jeffrey grumbles to Keresiya, saying that he o ­ ught to live with them. The lodge at Tiger Bay refused to buy Million’s combed grass as his bundles are too small. Three ­women are at the center of a small scandal within the group that runs one feeding center; they are accused of having appropriated foodstuffs. I wrote it all down and they expressed fear that the complaints would rebound on them. I told them that I am as ­silent as a mountain. Wisdom leaves for Mukuyu Fishing Camp tomorrow for a week’s fishing. Canaan is at Groebler’s—he attended very l­ ittle school last term, having been forced, he says feebly, to stay at home ­because he had no soap with which to wash his clothes, no uniform, and his pencils had been stolen! Edwell leaves for Tashinga soon. Obert, too. Tafirei has gone to Tiger Bay. The c­ hildren are dispersed. I have seen Edwell, Obert, Wisdom, Betty, Moses, Poswet, Mudheri, and Zvinei thus far. June is back with her parents. She looks very well fed.

156  A Field Diary

AUGUST 18, 1985

1:30 p.m.

In dealing with Super, I have blundered. He walked twenty-­five kilo­meters from his home to mine to see if I had brought the gift of a pair of track shoes I promised him for filling in his diary. His book, however, is locked in his classroom as he was ill with malaria at the end of term and had gone home. As he has not kept excellent rec­ords for me and as he did not bring his last book, I sent him away to see if he could gain access to the classroom. As soon as he had gone I was consumed with remorse and wished I had given him the shoes. Yet Edwell wrote twice to me asking for shoes, and I brought him none ­because I am not paying ­those with whom I am working. How does one give when ­there are so many with such big needs? How to align their sense of my wealth with the niggling demands of the Faculty of Agriculture for receipts and the tax-­master’s greed? How except to be ­Mother Teresa? Anderson is still ill. Costain and I spent the morning with Runari and Moses. A clutter of boys came to paint their cardboard-­and-­wire trucks. Edwell and Obert visited. We rode to the Wilsons’ homestead, but no one was home so we interviewed a man whose ­family lived in Chitenge before Mola’s p ­ eople came from the Zambezi River. Chief Nebiri and his ­people had lived in Mola and chose to move to their pre­sent site on the Ume River when he, the interviewee, was a baby. Five families stayed on in Chitenge. The man was reticent, suspicious. The word research terrified him, and he refused to admit to having hunted even in the days before Mola’s ­people arrived. I am tired of suspicion, not that I meet it much among ­those whom I know well anymore. Kuwuwete is still very ill. She says that her spirit refuses medicine, but her son, Million, forced some pills down her yesterday. I gave her milk and aspirins and sent a note to the nurse. The late morning r­ ide in the heat was exhausting, and my bottom ached as we bounced over the stones that pretended to form roads. Now the wind is quite strong, and the sun has bleached the landscape. The ­houses and trees stand as if hoping not to be noticed. The day began to cool, and I took a brief nap and dreamed of drinking w ­ ater with ice (I woke thirsty) at a diplomat’s dinner at which many of the t­ hings I dislike ­were pre­sent—­ poor En­glish food, uninteresting w ­ omen, egotistical men, and cluttered rooms. Why dream that ­here? I must wash my hands for sadza and rape. A Field Diary 157

2:00 p.m.

My conscience is mollified. Super returned having been unable to retrieve the book. I gave him his shoes, most of my lunch, and my address. Soon I ­shall accuse myself of foolishness, softness, ­etc. Better that way. I am reading John Berger’s A Fortunate Man about a country doctor. I am envious of the doctor’s place in the scheme of ­things and his ability to have a beneficial effect on ­people’s lives. Berger writes about the need not to be unique but to fit in and share. Is ­there a constant conflict between this need and another that seeks difference? How are such needs experienced in Chitenge? Another motor rally passes my home. The c­ hildren are clearly longing to paint the bits of cardboard with which they have adorned the wire frames of their vehicles. I invite them in and now have seven boys aged nine to twelve, including Poswet, painting beside me. My tray and the university’s enamel plates are rainbow colored, as if they are palettes. Runari wanted some of the paints to color her plates. Canaan’s young ­sisters and their friends are ­here to play with the tennis ball, which is now bald and soft. The wire frames are being painted, too. Super asked for a watch, a notebook, and a ball before he left. I ­shall work with ­people who never ask for anything next. And ­shall I receive nothing? Twelve boys now. Wheels and aerials are being painted; the noise is muted ­until I leave the scene. A boy tells me that p ­ eople began to make wire cars in 1980. Pearson was the first boy to make one in this August vacation. He walked for three hours to salvage wire from the rubbish bins at the Bumi Hills Lodge. Thomas Muroiwa (Moses’s ­brother) taught them to make the cars. The vehicles have axles, driving shafts to turn the front wheels, frames to represent the engines, steering wheels in cabs, and aerials. They have used knives, adzes, and axes as tools. The materials include wire from Bumi and Chalala, wood, rubber from the inner lining of tin lids, bits of tin, and cardboard. Pearson, Poswet’s older ­brother, arrives steering a huge truck. AUGUST 19, 1985

2:00 p.m.

The wind is strong. It blew hard last night. I was woken at 4:00 a.m. by an animal grunting close by. Hyenas and zebra called in the night. A flock of black birds visited this morning, and Costain and I laughed ­because they sounded like the quarrel between Thomas’s m ­ other and Sobina that we had 158  A Field Diary

overheard from a distance. Anderson is feeling better, though weak, and we examined the reports on the Tonga that I have borrowed from the da. How often the descriptions and accounts of beliefs are incorrect. Why? We watched Julius Kapandura’s group molding bricks. They began at 9:00 a.m. and are still at it. Some thirty-­two ­women to eight men. Million Kapandura hauled another twenty or so out of Namkondwa’s beer drink. They came drunkenly to sit near me and listened to a report on yesterday’s Ward vidco (Village Development Committee) meeting called by Councillor Moses and attended by Julius and Dzikamurenga. The three spoke. Julius called on each ­house­hold to mold one thousand bricks as is being done in another village. The ­women refused. The ­matter was dropped. Taking the opportunity afforded by a village meeting, I spoke thanking the ­people of Chitenge for their care and patience. I compared my nuisance value to the mashangu birds that so devastated the last harvest and said that, as Chief Mola had predicted, it was time for me to fly off. Dzikamurenga thanked me for what I had said, and Julius thanked me for leaving without having made a ­mistake. Marvelous. Could one write that on one’s tombstone? “She left without making a ­mistake.” Shupi is crying. 6:00 p.m.

And a sunset of crisp celery. Perhaps it is the diet of sadza and leaves that makes me translate colors into foods. Home a l­ ittle low a­ fter seeing Kuwuwete seriously ill and Mudheri carry­ing a tin of twenty liters of ­water on her ­little head. Anderson says that is the reason their c­ hildren do not grow tall. He is not far wrong: a real­ity that presses down. Shupi is crying. Otilia walked with her ­mother’s ­sister to Chalala to sell vegetables. Moses returns from the store where Anderson had sent him for cigarettes; he can just reach the pedals of Anderson’s bicycle. I called to Shupi, who cried harder then ­stopped. The grating note of I-­am-­unhappy-­about-­nothing-­ in-­particular jars. Why is she so, given her m ­ other’s constant attention and the fact that kin including her m ­ other’s ­mother surround her? Silly question. She has an elemental grudge against the world, her tummy aches, she needs colored blocks and puzzles, she would like to be Cleopatra. Who knows? I watch Million Kapandura help his son, Gora, build his h ­ ouse, and I admire the big man with the strong neck and the thin, tall boy. They have A Field Diary 159

a fine relationship. One is bluff, the other shy; one looks preoccupied, the other watchful; one laughs, the other indulges. Both are proud. The h ­ ouse is solid and well constructed. Gora has spent a month building, and he says it ­will take another three days to complete once he has the walls up. His ­father estimates that it takes a boy of sixteen thirty-­one days, six hours a day, to complete a h ­ ouse, excluding the cutting of grass to thatch and the laying of the floor. Million receives eight days’ leave a month, which he spends with his ­family. Petros is singing. He still lives alone across the road from me. ­There is no singing from Kuwuwete’s home b ­ ecause she is ill. Million has come home to be with her. In response to my note to the nurse, a nursing aid with Red Cross training was sent to visit her and gave her an injection and left pills. I doubt that they are antibiotics. A snake slithered near me as I walked. He was on a spring foraging trip, I guess. AUGUST 20, 1985

1:30 p.m.

A cool, windy midday. Another herd of car d ­ rivers have appeared to paint their cars. They come in droves. The area beneath my platform was transformed into a courtroom at 7:30 this morning. Julius Kapandura had been collected to preside as chairman of the village to hear a case brought against me by Samuel Mola’s wife and another ­woman. (How many anthropologists have been put on trial in their ­house or, should I say, ­under their bedroom?) Samuel was with the complainants. They relieved me of cigarettes. The ­women respectively claimed $27 and $9 from me for having cut grass with which my buildings w ­ ere thatched. They charged $1 per bundle (usually thirty cents). With Kesina Banana’s $10, I was being called to pay $46 for no more than fifteen bundles. Julius demanded the truth from them. It was not forthcoming. I asked Samuel how many bundles he had used. He says he did not count, only inquired of the ­women afterward. Julius upbraided him for that irresponsibility. Discussion ­stopped for a while as we looked at photo­graphs of Chief Mola’s installation in nada: we clucked over one of Jairos Mola, who had been acting chief before Dumbura’s election and who died last month. We argued some more. I gave aspirin to Samuel, who has flu, and a glass of ­water to Julius. Again we discussed. Julius brought the claims down to $16 and $9. I rejected his decision. He brought them down to $13 and $8. I was interested in watch160  A Field Diary

ing him work and maneuver through a delicate set of relationships. As I am about to leave and as I have so clearly got unlimited funds, the real price need not be set. As the judge is both kinsman and drinking partner of the plaintive and her husband, he must see satisfaction in that ­family. I had to hold my feelings of anger back: ­toward Samuel, who squanders his money and gives sparingly to his dependents, and who failed to include the cost of the grass in the original contract but foisted it on me ­later when I was putting pressure on him to complete a job that was far b ­ ehind schedule; ­toward his wife who, failing to control him, chose to extort from me instead; and for the blatant escalation of her demands. The ceremony was funny and ridicu­lous. My crossness is colored by the endless requests I receive from the villag­­ ers for notebooks, beads, cigarettes, matches, paint, money, a party. ­Later Anderson and I talked to Mainara Kapandura, who balked at my queries as she always does, but I persisted. She asked for beads. I have run out of the energy to probe just that much harder to get at deeper responses. We watched Poswet set a fire to burn down a fine mopani tree, and ­children cut branches for wheels for their cars; and Otilia and other ­children daub a kitchen with mud. We walked some twelve kilo­meters and w ­ ere gladdened when the noon winds ­rose. Certain actions horrify me: Julius squashing in his fin­gers a large grasshopper that had landed on the chair. Obert and a small crowd of boys came to play a game with me. Obert asked questions to which I had to answer truthfully. Then he read another set of questions and appropriated my initial replies as answers to this set of questions. The idea was to embarrass me. For example, he asked, “Where did you sleep last night?” and “With whom?” I had answered “Samuel” to one of the initial questions and Obert o ­ ught to have read it out in response to the question from the second set that asked “Whom do you hate?” but he clearly thought it too risqué. I called out “Samuel,” much to the amusement of the assembled boys. The game seemed to be a parable for the morning’s court case. ­There ­were questions; ­there was the truth; real­ity chose to take into account answers other than t­ hose actually relevant. My feet are blistered from silly takkies. My more sensible shoes hurt the ankle I twisted last month. I walked some more and conversed with four ­people, one of whom was Nteni, who was cutting meat when we arrived at his homestead but claimed to have been burning rubbish. Someone said it was goat meat. Was it? A Field Diary 161

I set ­children to stop Dr. McClain’s Land Rover as he drove back from his visits to the clinics in the hinterland t­oward Bumi so that I could ask him if he would accompany me to see Kuwuwete. He was s­ topped, and he did attend to her. The nurse visited her t­oday, so our zeal may not meet with her approval. She cut off the path that leads from the Wilsons’ homestead to the stores b ­ ecause it crosses the area they sweep and the ­people may dirty it. Sweet imperialism. Mr. Hove gave me a beer, t­ here was bread at the store (sixty cents), and Runari Muroiwa gave me a pawpaw. Luxury. I can afford to ignore the sticky sadza and bland cabbage to­night. I wish the invisible insects would stop biting me. Other­wise, life, like the sunset, is a bed of roses. Tafirei has walked with some eigh­teen other teen­agers and the choirmaster (a young man) to join a festival of school choirs in Binga. The journey ­will take three days. A mob of adolescents and one young chaperone, this place does surprise me. Serina says, “Their bibles are their spears.” Now that is an image to play with. AUGUST 21, 1985

2:20 p.m.

Work began early t­oday. At 7:30 Serina M. and Paulina appeared. Serina came to collect her good-­luck medicine. Much shy teasing among us about it. Paulina is expecting another child; she looks small and young as she proudly carries her round belly. Soon Anderson and I set off ­under the sun’s fairly harsh glare. ­After a solid hour we arrived at Madimba to observe Moses cutting grass to comb. It took him one hour ten minutes to walk five kilo­meters; he cut grass for thirty-­three minutes; it ­will take another two hours twenty minutes to carry the grass home once it has dried; five hours ­will be required to comb and bundle it before it can be sold. Ten hours of ­labor ­will earn him $2. He is afraid to go to Madimba alone as he is afraid of wild animals. He and his m ­ other saw a buffalo ­there last week. Moses is a charming and sweet-­natured boy. He takes ­after his parents. ­Later Anderson and I walked for forty-­five minutes to visit Raina at her field home to fill in gaps in our rec­ords. Megina and Kakala listened and made some contributions. Once again I heard a child laugh at her ­mother—­Megina teased Raina, telling her to answer truthfully. Th ­ ere are lovely relationships among parents and c­ hildren: a profound sense of re­spect and warmth and sharing. We all laughed about the fact that Raina 162  A Field Diary

and Million tell dif­fer­ent stories as to how much each other earns; each swears the other is lying. Megina has grown into a full-­bodied ­woman though she is still young. We accomplished over thirteen hours of work ­today—­interviewing, walking, writing, and checking notes. I am flea-­bitten, so my sleeping bag is open in the sunshine. This morning’s sun had to pierce a bank of clouds to lend the landscape definition and illumination, but it soon settled into the savanna-­colored stupor of midday. AUGUST 22, 1985

6:30 a.m.

In the night high winds rocked the platform and woke me from a dream about preparing a spaceship in which to leave a doomed world. That is what comes of reading about space travel. ­Later I dreamed of having to entertain old school friends whom I did not admire, and I found myself caught between frustration and guilt, as I so often am. A flock of black-­ and-­white long-­tailed birds surrounds me. They peck insects off the bark of trees and use their tails to balance on the curve. One has a crooked tail. Yesterday after­noon was spent at Namkondwa’s home observing Mwaka and other girls pound maize seed. I talked to Namkondwa and Namrova; the latter talks easily, generously, the former hardly at all. I began to think that she was almost rudely dismissing me, when she went to her room and returned with a pipe made from a gourd with a clay bowl as a gift for me. She refused to elaborate her genealogy, perhaps seeing herself as being without ­family but, as a wife-­of-­the-­world, tied to ritual functions. I checked many of the points made in the nada article, and the two of them confirmed the inaccuracies. To perpetuate so many inaccuracies in the pro­cess of recording a ­people’s myths is to distort history, even the recent past, horribly. Nyaminyami begins to assume absurd proportions when classified not with the likes of a Loch Ness monster but with biblical parables. Mwaka has grown tall; she is slim, and her dangling silver earrings enhance her loveliness. Yet her thin waist and round stomach sadden as they, no doubt, represent ill health or poor nutrition. She, like some other girls her age in the sample, seems to have come into a more prominent role in the home with a greater load of duties the accomplishment for which she is now responsible. A Field Diary 163

AUGUST 23, 1985

5:30 p.m.

I had a sixteen-­kilometer ­ride, a four-­kilometer walk, and a long day. Three of the ­people I hoped to see at the end of the ­ride could not be found, and I therefore spent a c­ ouple of hours with the chief. He welcomed me warmly, and we talked, as we always do, about ­England. I drew a map of Britain in the dust, and the chief commented, “I hear ­there are no trees ­there.” We talked, too, about Antarctica and Eskimos and igloos and the midnight sun. His amazement on hearing descriptions of other lands and his surprise over facts common to me gave me plea­sure, for such enthusiasm is seldom found in our blasé world. Million has just come to visit; he is drunk and full of sorrow that I am ­going “a thousand mile” away. Who w ­ ill help him now? Can he have some tobacco? Since he was drunk I sent him home without firing another battery of questions at him, lucky man. Mwaka, Otilia, Memory, and other c­ hildren ­were ­here this after­noon. They stood at the crossroads for about half an hour before they plucked up the courage to come to Manhattan, and then only when a boy came to sell me an airplane he had made of sorghum stalks. The girls sat on the mat facing away from me ­until Anderson teased them. Otilia is fourteen pounds heavier than Mwaka although they are the same height. They relaxed as I talked to Edward Kapandura’s wife and giggled and h ­ orsed around as we all walked to Otilia’s home. Hard to make them relax in conversation, though. I am the first white to whom many of the ­women have ever spoken. I have not heard Shupi crying ­today. A child is crying sorely some distance away. AUGUST 24, 1985

7:00 a.m.

Strange dreams. Of my ­sister’s illness and my incompetence in ­handling it. All to do with catching busses in London and not being able to find our way through Eton-­like schools with unsympathetic doormen. An anxiety dream, which is unusual for me. I woke to a star-­filled night and slept again and dreamed of Vancouver with lovely homes and gardens stacked on the hillside near the city center. I was tempted into a garden and drew a chart on paper that the owner gave me. Then I was in a friend’s home, 164  A Field Diary

where I looked among my data for the chart to no avail. I threw the charts, books, and notes all over the room ­until my friend turned on a machine to sort them out. The dream was quite clearly a pre-­writing-up nightmare. It has struck me how funny last night’s scene was with the inebriated Million bemoaning my ­going a “thousand mile” from him as I sat on my platform watching the sun set and drinking my meager ration of brandy. ­Today is Sunday, the day Anderson and Costain do not work in their eight-­day cycle of capturing instant and twenty-­four-­hour data. I am to be transported to Siakobvu to attend an Omay development planning meeting. The da, the chiefs, the councillors, Peter Mackay, Dr. McClain, and a number of other interested persons ­will be ­there. Anderson’s ­father called to us as we ­were cycling past the stores. He was drinking beside the army hut that serves as a beer hall. He had agreed to transport my possessions to Chinoyi for $30; a fair price. He now wanted to raise the price. I looked bewildered, I guess, as he had set it, not I. In the gentleness of his drinking he left it at $30 and offered to drive it all the way to Harare if I had somewhere safe to park his truck. It ­will be in­ter­est­ing to have the quiet, self-­contained man and his son as guests in my home. My skin is brown and dry and speckled like chicken legs. My face is lined and boasts a few insect bites. I do not look glamorous or even particularly healthy. I look forward to ridding myself of bilharzias. AUGUST 25, 1985

8:00 p.m.

The sadness of g­ oing begins to engulf me. I ­shall miss being woken by the swish and plop of ­women’s winnowing and pounding before dawn. I ­shall miss the first light and the morning star. I s­ hall miss coffee as the sun rises over “Big Stomach” and patches the valley with light. I s­ hall miss the quiet, the loerie’s call, the lilac-­breasted roller’s morning visit, the hares that lollop past my candlelight at night, the ­children’s eve­ning singing, the walks, the greetings that seem to possess an infinite variation, the red sun that falls like a cannonball into the horizon, the call of “Chipo” from the long grass, the zebra in the valley b ­ ehind Manhattan, the mix of caution and familiarity with which the men greet me, the w ­ omen’s friendship, and the ­children. Most of all I s­ hall miss the ­children: Edwell’s vulnerable smile, Moses’s quick laugh, Otilia’s demure but wise glance, Mwaka’s cheeky shyness, John’s air of being the eldest in the f­ amily, Obert’s confident companionship. I s­ hall not miss snakes, Shupi crying, insects during the rains, mice that eat every­thing, A Field Diary 165

summer heat, the feeling of inadequacy that goes with fieldwork, the need to impose myself on ­others, sadza and relish of leaves, and the journey to and fro. Still, I ­shall be back. At yesterday’s meeting in Siakobvu I was coopted onto one of the committees to or­ga­nize the Omay Development Conference to be held next winter. That means a return in October for the agricultural week. It was a good meeting, though it lasted from 10:00 to 5:30 and the truck and airplane that ­were to bring food never appeared. The development plan is impressive, as is the quality of the p ­ eople engaged in its design and its implementation. The tsetse eradication proj­ect is frightening given its likely repercussions. The Eu­ro­pean Economic Community is to spend $180 million on eradication in central Africa. A Paraguayan ­woman from the USA Embassy drove me back to Manhattan. I was terrified. She has never driven on rough roads before. As dusk began to obscure the way, I was out­spoken to no effect and seethed with fury at the thought of having braved elephants, buffalo, tsetse, and some crazy chaps only to be knocked off by a female driver. ­Today I ­shall hold a party. I ­shall provide mahewu, two goats ($25 each), chickens, and sadza. Many ­people are expected. Anderson and I are g­ oing out when the goats are killed. The day is ending as I write. Th ­ ere ­were, for most of the day, over one hundred ­people in Manhattan, many of them c­ hildren, and a few are still lingering on. It was a good day: a time to confirm friendship even with Serina Wilson’s ­mother, the nurse, and Samuel’s wife; the latter worked like a Trojan all day. Chief Mola came; so did his messenger, Samuel, and Mr. Muroiwa, and Councillor Moses and Mr. Jonga and a few other men including the chief ’s dunzi, Tapson. All our m ­ others came except three—­ Keresiya, who is ill; Kesina, who is in Harare; and Serina Siansikiri. And so did hordes of ­children. We only ate at 4:00 p.m. Chief Mola demanded a knife and fork. I hovered between the worlds of men and of ­women and ­children. Only babies behave thus. The c­ hildren and I played drawing charades, open gates, trea­ sure hunts (for insects, leaves, wild fruits), and other games dredged up out of my childhood. How beautifully the ­children behaved; not a cry, not a complaint, although many of them had not eaten since supper on the previous night. How still they can sit yet how joyfully play when a ball is produced or a game initiated. 166  A Field Diary

We sat and played at Anderson’s home, then had a mass exodus ­behind a wheelbarrow loaded with pots to my home. ­There we ate and had speeches by the chief, Councillor Moses, and me. The chief thanked me for having made no errors, and Moses said that if this ­were a town, they would name a street “Chipo.” He thanked me for never having been proud. We hauled out Kaschula’s genealogy of the chiefs, and the chief, Tapson, Samuel the messenger, and Dzikamurenga hotly rejected it. They say that Siajinaka, who was then seeking to be selected as chief, and Jairos Mola went to Kariba and gave the da a false genealogy in support of his claim. It was de­ cided that we would have to meet on Monday morning at the chief ’s home to give me the correct account. The chief only left ­after 5:00 p.m. The village resounds with the call of ­children this eve­ning. Serina Wilson blessed me and thanked me for having given them so much knowledge. Me give them? To ­those in our twelve families I gave each ­mother a Zambia cloth; each ­father a penknife; each girl a sewing kit, pins, and scissors; and each boy a fishing knife. ­Little enough, yet it cost enough. I dreamed last night that Portia had a bone through her nose as the Tonga in Binga used to have. What meaning? Do I want to adopt or be a­ dopted or yield my ­children to their fine upbringing? I miss my ­children and ­shall be glad to return to them. Torn, though. Givemore’s ­house is yet to be thatched. ­There is to be a dam in the valley north of my h ­ ouse. Anderson is planning to have a large vegetable garden watered by hand pump in front of my ­house. Already the very contours of the earth begin to alter. So they ­ought. I sip the last of some Seagram’s 100 P ­ ipers De Luxe Scotch whiskey that I brought up a year ago, just a quarter of a ­bottle. It suits the setting sun, which has clarity of line and color that rounds off the day admirably. AUGUST 26, 1985

6:00 p.m.

I woke before 4:00 and at 7:30 had my first visitor, Julius Kapandura (who said he did not come to the party as he was drinking beer and when drinking he does not care to eat). Julius again thanked me formally, and I gave him his penknife. A fairly slow and lackluster day followed. I interviewed Otilia on her twenty-­four-­hour recall and watched her and Memory pound grain for two hours yielding enough meal for the ­family for a week. Jorum A Field Diary 167

and Wisdom spent some time ­here, each having brought their diaries. I interviewed Samuel Mola and took notes from Kumpa, the n’anga, on his genealogy and the kin ties between the last two chiefs, which are fearfully complicated or have become so in the telling. In the after­noon, Serina Siansikiri, Otilia, and Sophia Kajiri visited me. Serina says she was not aware that she had been invited to the party; it is not true. They had tea and we finished off Otilia’s health interview. Among the batch of c­ hildren playing with blocks, balls, books w ­ ere Betty, Mwaka, Zvinei, and Mudheri. I observed at the ­water source for an hour (­people have had to walk from Kalulundika for ­water over the last month), and we watched Mudheri and her ­sister ­water their ­mother’s vegetable garden. Mudheri carried some sixty cans (60 × 17 liters = 1,020 liters). The ­daughter of the disabled w ­ oman arrived with Sophia this after­ noon; she carried the baby to and fro to soothe her. She is a pretty girl of about eleven; she went to school for a while but no longer goes. Yesterday the dunzi, Tapson, was at the Kajiris’ home selling second­hand clothes and the girl took a pair of pan­ties. Tapson reported the theft to Julius, who retrieved them and, during his visit h ­ ere this morning, told us the story. To compensate for her hurt and shame, though I did not say so, I gave her my best blue T-­shirt. She is on the brink of adolescence and ­will prob­ably be dependent on the support of kin rather than her parents. How long would one need to know a village in order to see how disadvantage of one sort or another is recurrent across the generations? I have no brandy left apart from a final tot for the last eve­ning. I miss the ritual of sitting with it on my platform to watch the sunset rather than the brandy itself. AUGUST 27, 1985

Finished. Or run down. I am packed ready to leave ahead of schedule. The day seems maliciously nasty, as if to chase me or to remind me that life is not as romantic h ­ ere as I am sometimes pleased to find it. I was up at 5:00 with a biting south wind and was glad of my coffee in the thin porcelain cup that is now cracked. The Royal Danish cup is w ­ hole. I walked up the stream and watched the birds, and ­later rode to Chief Mola’s home to write down the genealogies of the chiefs. It was a disappointment. Neither he nor Tapson could untangle the relationships, or they refused to tell me. I do not know which. How then do they know that Kaschula’s 168  A Field Diary

genealogy is wrong? They named the four candidates from whom the next chief could be chosen and said that each was Sianjeme’s “­sister’s son.” Keresiya is still ill. I found Edwell waiting to see the nurse at the clinic as he has earache. I asked the nurse to listen to his chest, as he breathes rapidly and still wheezes when he exerts himself. She declared him to be anemic. All morning the wind threw buckets of dust at us so that we could not see. Noisy. Unpleasant. It is time to go: I am down to my last candle, spoon of coffee, page in this journal, and page in my twelfth notebook. Julius gave Anderson the nylon pan­ties to return to Tapson, which he did. Tapson gave them back to Anderson to give to the child who took them. I spent one hour ten minutes watching Poswet and his half ­brother, Jairos, dig up worms in the reeds beside the stream. Poswet collected sixty-­ seven, which equals one cent for ­every 104 minutes. ­There is danger from black mamba (sianangoma), cobra (nachipapa), and python (cheka) when scrabbling through the reeds as the boys ­were ­doing, I am told, but only ­really in summer. We saw a dove trap: the scouts tell the locals that all trapping is illegal, though that is not true. The birds ­were splendid: an Angolan kingfisher (sikaka), a carmine bee-­eater (simuleyanungu; the word means “one cannot hit it with one bead”). I observed Betty thresh maila and walked home with Patrick and John Banana and the son of a man who has recently died. Patrick told me in front of the boy that his f­ather had been killed by witchcraft. A year mea­sured in spoons of coffee and ­children’s ­labor in minutes. AUGUST 28, 1985

7:30 a.m.

Moses, Stanley, Poswet, and Jairos drop in on their way to Chalala to sell the worms. They w ­ ill stay the night with their “grand­father” Richard and catch the bus home early tomorrow morning. I give them padkos and am happy as it is fun to act like ­Father Christmas now that the study has ended. They have no baggage apart from four tin cans of worms and soil. How to cost the ­labor for each one-­cent worm? The day is apol­o­getic with its reticent blue sky that followed an old brass dawn. So it o ­ ught to be a­ fter yesterday’s full moon and the wind that shook my platform last night and layered my eyes with dust. My last day: What ­shall I do? Kalinda and Misheke came to visit. Their ­mother and ­brother, Edwell, are ill. Serina Wilson came, too. They all came to say good-­bye. ­There was A Field Diary 169

a message from Mr. Jonga that I am to leave ­today and that he ­will collect me at noon. So I have nothing to do t­oday but wait. I paid a last visit to Kuwuwete, who is weak and shivery and feels hot to touch. She says she is better. So it ends with a last-­minute scurry and sort. The wind has risen again but not as fiercely. I leave clutching four bags of field data. An odd sight to the very last. I go both glad and sad: glad to return to my ­children and sad to leave ­these ­children.

170  A Field Diary

jane i. guyer

A F T E R WOR D .

Noticing Life, ­Matters Arising

Surprise

Ethnography is not only a method learned in formal terms, in the classroom and the library. The continuous lived presence upon which it rests—­day and night, day a­ fter day, season a­ fter season, from one event to another—­ cultivates a par­tic­u­lar sensibility, through all five senses and all the cir­cuits of the mind, that links together the ele­ments of life and their connections within par­tic­u­lar, and changing, lived contexts. This is what our long-­ lasting concept of participant observation refers to: being t­ here, pre­sent in body and mind, attentively becoming part of the ongoing pro­cesses of life in both their predictable and their surprising temporalities, in their materiality and imaginative imbuing with meaning, interpretation, and imperative to ­future action. Reading Pamela Reynolds’s deeply personal and attentive daily diary of living the life of an ethnographer in Zimbabwe over thirty years ago reminded me not only of the expressive modes of early ethnography but also of a deeply wise comment by the Ghanaian scholar Ato Quayson about certain qualities he saw in my own arguments—­qualities that are clearly pre­sent, in their original inspirational moments, in Pamela Rey­ nolds’s descriptive book, and possibly in many other personal accounts of fieldwork. He quoted to me words of the poet John Keats, written in a letter in December 1817 to his b ­ rother. ­Here Keats differentiated analogical, poetic thought, which he termed “negative capability,” from the straight-­ line rationality of the Enlightenment thinkers of the time, describing it

as “when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching ­after fact and reason.”1 Its key quality is receptivity. This, I think, lies at the basis of ethnographic method, as its point of departure into the journey of learning, and it is practiced in its own way by each individual scholar in our discipline. Pamela Reynolds’s account is exemplary. A rich repertoire of modes of attentiveness, to being in the specific moment, place, and com­pany, provokes connections between words and ­things, actions and poetics (both ours and theirs), this generation and past and ­future generations, an event and a monetary cost, a memory from the past and an instance in the pre­sent, and so on. Since this is not a formal diary of her fieldwork, but rather a diary of ­matters arising in her lived life in the field and how ­people then “negotiate the everyday,” Reynolds’s personal diary contains endless insights of this kind, all of them arising u ­ nder the circumstances of the moment and intersecting with her own archive of memory, concerns, and aspirations. ­Every page alludes in some way to the instances through which lives meet, collaborate, and work out some sort of conversation and coexistence amongst p ­ eople who are named and clearly indicated by gender, age, and their own position in community life. As I mentioned in a paper on method, surprises of the kind that infuse this work by Pamela Reynolds are a key component of ethnographic sensibility and then method.2 This diary offers provocations to the readers to pick out the insights, and to connect them to each other. It is particularly striking how literary imagery infuses Reynolds’s thinking ­here. For example, she writes, “Umberto Eco makes good bedtime reading as he fertilizes my mind with rich imagery,” and Eco is quoted again l­ater, at greater length. However, as I suggest we all do, Pamela Reynolds takes all the small surprises of the moment—in ­people’s words, actions, responses to each other, and plans for next “­things to do”—­and places them in her own “memory bank” to be provocative of further thought. It is a memory bank of literary richness and of experiential knowledge of living with ­children, making a living, managing money, and so on. In this writing, then, she passes ­these provocations from life on to us in the original form in which she experienced them. They are the result not of formal methods, as exemplified in her book Dance Civet Cat, but of her experiential involvement, acute attentiveness to spontaneity, and careful thought about the ramifying implications of small actions, day-­to-­day. Even for ­those of us who have used certain formal methods, such as mea­sure­ment, accounting, 172  afterword

genealogies, and so on, this high profiling of learning “on the go,” as we intermingle and take small actions at all times of day and in all seasons, exposes clearly many of the ways in which we identify impor­tant facts of life, and how such topics become linked, eventually, to a more formalized shared method within the disciplines. Th ­ ere are many stories, conversations, and pursuits of mutual comprehension and commitment ­here, in ways that open win­dows to the lives of t­ hose whom social history has categorized as “the common ­people.” Emergent Events and the Weave of Money

Small events in life, as experienced by ­people and by the anthropologist by virtue of presence, can be observed and understood through careful concentration on the pre­sent moment as part of several temporal pro­cesses: tomorrow, last year, precursor to something ­else arising, evocation of a story from the archive of the collective past, and so on. This text is rich in its allusions to events and interchanges in which money figures prominently: for subsistence, for making a cash-­based living and being paid for small tasks, for financing sex and marriage, for paying fines, and for requesting help. The stories crisscross each other, as they do in life events, and in par­ tic­u­lar ­people’s own trajectories of transactions, of all kinds, which can be linked over time. Momentary intersections can thereby be understood as intersections amongst each party’s own long-­term opportunities and commitments. For tracking ­people’s engagement with the money economy, we can notice examples and then link them together as social interactions, stories remembered and told, with reactive judgmental thinking. Having myself studied ­people’s daily lives of work and exchange, in the text I followed with ­great interest events relative to just living (food, housing), jobs and income, ­family obligations and mediations, ­legal responsibilities, and commentaries on prices. Most of ­these money events and commentaries interact with each other, and we can track them out in ways that might not be pos­si­ble if the rec­ord ­were not, as this one is, “one day ­after another,” in sequence, as lived. And fi­nally, the formal sector of government appears and reappears in the money economy. Reynolds’s sources are telling of the shift of farming away from being a source of food itself to being a source of money income, in intimate contexts. The diet is now monetized, and everywhere that this is mentioned has its own messages: gain (as from the sale of worms) and unpredictability Noticing Life, M ­ atters Arising 173

with re­spect to availability of goods and their price. Marriages are mediated by money as bride wealth (lobola), which formalizes the marriage in customary law; as support for the c­ hildren; as the basis for spouses sharing incomes from individual jobs. Th ­ ere are several cases of broken marriages, and individuals skirting their monetary obligations by tracking back briefly to old relationships. And ­there are many references to sex for money; for example, a wife uses sex with a fisherman to “earn money to buy a tin tub.” The pro­cess of making marriages through monetary transactions that are specific to each case is well illustrated across several phases of life. Parents commit a child to a f­uture husband who has given a “deposit” to the parents. The chief ’s court mediates many of ­these marital money transactions. Reynolds can track through the story of Anderson, who is charged with “messing up” Mafiyosi’s marriage, and then has to accept paying $50 a month to Mafiyosi, knowing that Mafiyosi could also mobilize witchcraft against him. How money is mobilized within kinship and marriage can then be linked in to many other transactions and the situational authority of chiefs. The chiefs impose fines as well as mediating settlements. The man who impregnates the wife of a blind man is required by the chief ’s court to make monthly payments nearly equivalent to his monthly salary, the total of which would take almost nine months to complete. The example of payment and incomes shows us how unpredictable the money economy can be. When we place t­hese facts about income in relation to the ­legal and kinship mediations with money, and to the other costs of life such as education for c­ hildren, medical bills, and transport, we can be left with the ­simple questions: How do ­people make ends meet? And what are the ends they have in view? It is perhaps the tracing out of long individual stories that can help us to understand the shifting monetary conditions and mediations that ­people have to know how to navigate in their monetary worlds. NOTES

1. John Keats, Letter to George and Thomas Keats, December 22, 1817, in The Complete Poetical Works and Letters of John Keats, ed. Horace E. Scudder, Cambridge ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Com­pany, 1899), 277. 2. Jane I. Guyer, “ ‘The Quickening of the Unknown’: Epistemologies of Surprise in Anthropology,” the Munro Lecture, Edinburgh University, 2013; published in hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 3, no. 3 (2013): 283–307. 174  afterword

julie livingston

A F T E R W OR D .

Sitting Quietly, Traveling in Time

Years ago I read Dance Civet Cat, the book on child l­abor in the Zambezi Valley that emerged from the fieldwork chronicled in Pamela Reynolds’s diary. It is a terrific work of anthropology, taking up kinship, social reproduction, and land tenure, among other themes, to reveal the lives and ­labor of c­ hildren so often hiding in plain sight in the aftermath of colonial dislocation and its attendant poverty. I reread it before opening the diary. And yet my familiarity with and tremendous re­spect for Pamela Reynolds’s substantial body of scholarship could not have prepared me for this diary that wends through the interstices of fieldwork. If Dance Civet Cat is a book from which I want to take notes, The Uncaring, Intricate World is a book with which I want to sit quietly, reveling in its superb prose and pacing. ­There is no crescendo, no epiphany around which the diary unfolds, and in this very fact its brilliance is held. It is the hard-­won unfolding of imperfect knowledge and relationships. I want to send this book to beloved gradu­ate students currently “in the field” (­whether that field is in their hometown or halfway around the world) as a way to encourage them to sit quietly at the end of the day and contemplate their predicament. Like Reynolds, I want them to know the value of the eve­ning retreat from the self-­consciousness that the anthropologist must often feel at her work. Beyond the archipelago of beer drinks at day’s end, perhaps their own glass of brandy in hand, they can and should let their mind wander where it may amid the impatience, small pleasures, loneliness, and exhaustion of research. I want to send it to

t­ hose students also to remind them that collecting data is an imperfect but necessary art—­requiring creativity, social dexterity, and energy in equal mea­sure. One does not simply “hang out,” as the story sometimes is told—­ though hanging out is so vital indeed. One works to assem­ble a cohort of ­children, gaining permissions and attempting to establish their ages. One also tries one’s mightiest to rec­ord how many times a child walked eight kilo­meters carry­ing a ten-­kilogram bag of maize—­a more difficult and imprecise task (the documenting, that is) than one might have i­magined before trying it out. ­These ­children carry­ing worms and maize and lunch basins and w ­ ater, they are the specter of anthropology’s current obsession with infrastructure. I want to send it to my students ­because this diary is not a journey of self-­discovery. It is instead a rendering of the total bodily experience of fieldwork built through the quotidian acts of sleeping and peeing and eating and walking and arguing and laughing. Pamela Reynolds writes in her introduction that her “life is of interest ­because it is a life set in a time lost (a country collapsed and an empire in decline).” This is true. But the interest is also in how the diary enables a return to that time—­what is revealed and what is taken for granted, and the phenomenological quality of time lost. Reynolds writes, “Anthropology’s shadow life lurks in the relationships ­behind the scenes that hold the monograph in place.” The hurt feelings, the companionship and fun, the rhythmic interchange of “knowing and not knowing,” the injustices and misunderstandings, the court cases and the love affairs, the profound challenge of the anthropologist’s relative wealth and mobility, her whiteness, and the burdens and minor opportunities her presence offers—­they are familiar. And yet in their particularity they conjure a world now gone in a way that social science abstractions and analy­sis simply cannot. In opening the shadow life, the author offers us her past uncertainties, impatience, ­mistakes, and ­trials as the pro­cess not only of creating anthropological knowledge but also of time travel. This is all the more compelling, given that the Tonga villa­gers of this diary are grappling with their own uncertainties and ­trials in the wake of their own time lost. They, too, must travel to the time before the dam that took their land and their livelihood, their graves, homes, fishing routes, and fields, for analy­sis and knowledge of how to live in their exiled pre­sent. In so many ways this is a diary that could only be written before the cell phone and the internet. Its author spots zebras and buffalo, hornbills and weavers, lilac-­breasted rollers, but she does not pull out her phone 176  afterword

to capture or share them. ­Mother of four that she is, she travels long and regularly between Harare and the Zambezi Valley, transitioning through the racial and consumptive disorientations of the tourist lodge as pivot point in between. But in the valley Harare fades, and instead she is left alone with her minor victories and major hurdles, her good days and her bad ones. The beautiful language, the small vignettes, and the self-­effacing humor of the diary fill me with intense nostalgia of some sort, I suppose. Not for the “isolated tribe” or the “lone anthropologist” or any of that horrid romance which the diary reveals to be a ridicu­lous fiction at best. Nor is the nostalgia for a simpler time of peace and health—­the genocide of Zimbabwe’s Gukurahundi raged in t­ hese same years. C ­ hildren in the Zambezi Valley could go all day without a meal; w ­ omen die in childbirth; c­ hildren die, too. The world is uncaring and intricate. And goodness knows I am so profoundly afraid of snakes that I could barely read my way through the weeks where a pair of serpentine ancestors took up ­house with Pamela Reynolds, such was my visceral reaction to their presence. And yet, the diary carries us to a time and place on the farther shore before the aids epidemic opened an abyss; before the hydroelectric dam that displaced and impoverished ­these villa­gers was forced to cut its power output amid threatened collapse; before Mugabe and zanu-­p f (Zimbabwe African National Union–­Patriotic Front) and even the anc (African National Congress) ­were rendered hollow. I think my nostalgia must be for a time when knowledge and intimacy of the kinds produced ­here felt transformative. When teenage sexuality was not immediately interrogated as potentially deadly pathos; when amid all the death and the sickness t­ here was not a pervasive sense of contagion. When the birds, and trees, and insects, and zebra, and elephant ­didn’t seem in imminent peril from commodification and climate change. When precariousness came from l­abor shortage versus its overabundance in a collapsed economy reeling in the wake of hyperinflation and kleptocracy. As I read, I was reminded of Paul Farmer’s classic book on Haiti, aids and Accusation (1992), one of the earliest volumes in what would become a substantial body of anthropological lit­er­a­ture on the aids epidemic. That book is set in the same time period, also among a community displaced by a hydroelectric dam that swallowed their once verdant fields and homes. Farmer, too, saw dozens of deaths, a long history of colonial appropriation—­misfortune, child l­abor, and the broken promises and par­tic­u­lar predations of postcolonial strongmen in the wake of centuries of militarized racism that would all become evident Sitting Quietly, Traveling in Time 177

in the Zambezi Valley as well. So the diary is part of a broader moment, a global moment of structural vio­lence left by high modernist proj­ects. And yet, The Uncaring, Intricate World opens the in-­between spaces, the down times, the relationships and lives and small scenes that make up major po­ liti­cal events and so­cio­log­i­cal transformations. It works against the idea that ­there ­will and can be resolution or that the reduction of lives to analy­ sis is pos­si­ble.

178  afterword

GL OSSA RY

The glossary draws on two main sources apart from my research: Pamela Reynolds and Crawford Cousins, Lwaano Lwanyika: Tonga Book of the Earth (Harare: Colleen Crawford Cousins in association with Save the C ­ hildren Fund UK, 1991), and Gordon L. Maclean, ed., Roberts’ Birds of Southern Africa, fifth edition (Cape Town: The Trustees of the John Voelcker Bird Book Fund, 1985). Lwaano Lwanyika is a book on the culture and resources of the Zambezi Valley that brings together the knowledge of local ­people and specialists in ecol­ogy, botany, law, agronomy, history, anthropology, and archaeology. For the first time, the names and uses of the flora of the Zambezi Valley are listed; 613 plants are given their scientific, Tonga, and En­glish/Shona names. The book has, too, lists of animals, birds, reptiles, the months in the agricultural cycle, and staple crops. In the introduction to the fifth edition of Roberts’ Birds of Southern Africa, the editor notes that “vernacular names are an eternal vexed question. The task of settling on a standard set for southern Africa was bedev­illed.” His observation stands for Tonga vocabulary in Zimbabwe. Many of the words ­here are from Mola. Agritex

Department of Agricultural, Technical and Extension Ser­vices in the Ministry of Agriculture in Zimbabwe. amagqira (sing. igqira)

In the diary the word is used to refer to toktokkie beetles that subsist largely on dung and roll it into balls that they push along the paths, but it means “indigenous healers.” The beetle (African Scarabaeus) igqira is the name used for “the Doctor of the road” in a popu­lar wedding song in southern Africa. baobab

A large savanna tree of ungainly proportions; all parts of the tree are used in Mola.

bateleur

A large, black, short-­tailed ea­gle that soars on motionless wings for long periods; it may be the origin of the Zimbabwe national emblem. bbc

British Broadcasting Corporation. bilharzias

Schistosomiasis, an illness carried by freshwater snails that ­causes debilitating disease in ­humans. Blair vip

A pit toilet designed by Dr. Peter Morgan (who always published his inventions to dispel patent claims) that combines a septic tank with air currents, open light, a grate to keep out and trap flies, and ventilation. The only prob­lem I found was that snakes ­were attracted to the cool of the curved entry, causing me to step into the entry out of the brilliant tropical sunlight and wait for my sight to adjust before checking if ­there was a snake at rest. ­There often was. bow

A ­simple, strung musical instrument made of a flexible, usually wooden stick strung with taut cord, gut, or mettle and played with hands or wooden stick; it often has a resonator and two or three notes; common among the Nguni. busanza

A shelter of reeds or pole and mud built on a stable platform some three meters off the ground. campfire

Communal Area Management Programme for Indigenous Resources, designed by Norman Reynolds and Rowan Martin for the control and use of wild animals in partnership between communities and government (see Lwaano Lwanyika, p. 221). chibuku

A variety of grain, often used in making beer. dagga

A mixture of mud and ­water. da

district administrator. ddf

District Development Fund. doppie

Slang for a (usually) small amount of alcohol. drongo

Known as the “storytelling bird,” the Tonga name is mutengwe. 180  Glossary

dunzi

A chief ’s official attendant. football rattle (bird with)

Flappet lark; it is shy, and seldom seen except on display—­flapping. The bird flies straight up before dawn, and the noise is made by “its castanetlike wing rattles,” says Roberts’. hakata

Objects used by many indigenous healers in divination in southern Africa; often called “the bones.” igqira

Indigenous healer. joll

Slang for dancing or partying. jube-­jube

A soft, brightly colored sweet. lobola

A bride price traditionally paid with ­cattle. lusili

A grain grown in the Zambezi Valley. maila

A grain grown in Mola. makota

Chief ’s advisor. mashangu

Red-­billed quelea bird that seasonally reaches plague proportions in croplands. Mashonga

A clan in Mola named ­after the quelea bird (see mashangu, above) or the cardinal quelea. Mazoe

A popu­lar orange squash, diluted with ­water. mealie meal

A common name for flour ground from maize (corn). mopani

A deciduous tree used for poles in buildings. mujwanyina

A friend formed via a joking relationship between clans. Glossary 181

mungonwa

Wood from a plant called “live-­long.” muzimu (pl. mizimi)

The spirit or shade of a person at death, sometimes called by the Tonga in Mola a ngozi. nada

Annual journal/magazine of the Southern Rhodesia Native Affairs Department. n’anga

The most commonly used word for an indigenous healer in Mola; the word is often defined as “spiritual healer or herbalist,” but many healers combine both and t­ here is a complexity in their nomenclature, training, and practice that the definition obscures (n’anga is a Zimbabwean spelling of the Bantu word nganga). ngongwa

Nuts from manketti trees. ngozi

Ancestor spirit; ngozi and muzimu are used interchangeably in Mola (unlike among the Shona, for whom ngozi is often feared as an avenging force). nkolola

Ritual of seclusion for girls as a mark of initiation into adulthood in early puberty. Nkomo, Joshua

Leader and founder of the Zimbabwe African ­People’s Union (zapu), one of the Liberation forces that fought the government of Southern Rhodesia ­under Ian Smith. nsenje

The tree ­under which the kusonde was conducted. nzembwe

Bulrush millet. padkos

Food prepared to take on a journey. pambiri

A Shona word meaning forward, advancement, even glory; it is shouted by crowds often at po­liti­cal rallies. rapoko

A grain grown in Mola. sadza

A stiff porridge made from grain that forms the staple diet with relish. sebuku

A headman. 182  Glossary

takkies

Slang for tennis shoes or sneakers. tls

Times Literary Supplement, a weekly literary review; fifty a year are published from London. tyezi

Okra. Upbeat

A magazine for ­children published in Cape Town in the 1980s.

Glossary 183

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B IB L IOGRA PH Y

Baker, Nicholson. U and I: A True Story. London: Granta, 2011. Bayley, John. “The Superchild.” London Review of Books, September 6, 1984. Beckett, Samuel. Ill Seen Ill Said. Scranton, PA: Haddon Craftsman, 1982. Berger, John. A Fortunate Man: The Story of a Country Doctor. With photo­graphs by Jean Mohr. London: Allen Lane, 1967. Burman, Sandra, and Pamela Reynolds, eds. Growing Up in a Divided Society: The Contexts of Childhood in South Africa. Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1986. Cavell, Stanley. ­Little Did I Know: Excerpts from Memory. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010. Cavell, Stanley. “ ‘Who Does the Wolf Love?’: Reading Coriolanus.” Repre­sen­ta­tions 3 (summer 1983): 1–20. Coetzee, J. M. Boyhood: Scenes from a Provincial Life. London: Secker and Warburg, 1997. Colson, Elizabeth. “Introduction.” In Pamela Reynolds and Colleen Crawford Cousins, Lwaano Lwanyika: Tonga Book of the Earth. London: panos, 1993. Colson, Elizabeth. “The Resilience of Matriliniality: Gwembe and Plateau Tonga Adaptations.” In The Versatility of Kinship: Essays Presented to Harry W. Basehart, edited by Linda S. Cordell and Stephen Beckerman. New York: Academic Press, 1980. Crary, Alice, and Sanford Shieh, eds. Reading Cavell. London: Routledge, 2006. Dickinson, Emily. “An Ignorance a Sunset.” In Poems: Packet XVII, Mixed Fascicles, Emily Dickinson Archive, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Accessed November 24, 2017, http://­www​.­edickinson​.­org​/­. Dillard, Annie. “Seeing.” In The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Pre­sent, selected and introduced by Phillip Lopate. New York: Anchor Books, 1995.

Durrell, Gerald. My ­Family and Other Animals. London: Rupert Hart-­Davis and the Book Society, 1956. Eco, Umberto. The Name of the Rose. San Diego, CA: Harcourt, 1984. Eliot, T. S. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” In Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. London: Harriet Monroe Chapbook, 1915. Erikson, Erik. Childhood and Society. New York: Norton, 1950. Evans-­Pritchard, E. E. Some Aspects of Marriage and the ­Family among the Nuer. Northern Rhodesia: Rhodes-­Livingston Institute, 1945. Fortes, Meyer. Oedipus and Job in West African Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Foucault, Michel. Dits et écrits, Tome 1, 1954–1975. Paris: Gallimard, 2001. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: Introduction, The ­Will to Knowledge. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage, 1990. Goddard, Victoria, and Benjamin White. “Child Workers and Cap­i­tal­ist Development: An Introductory Note and Bibliography.” Development and Change 13, no. 4 (1982): 465–77. Greene, Graham. Ways of Escape. London: Vintage Classics, 1999. Guyer, Jane I. “ ‘The Quickening of the Unknown’: Epistemologies of Surprise in Anthropology.” The Munro Lecture, Edinburgh University, 2013. hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 3, no. 3 (2013): 283–307. Heaney, Seamus. “Feeling into Words” (1974). In Preoccupations: Selected Prose, 1968–1978. London: Faber and Faber, 1980. Heaney, Seamus, and Dennis O’Driscoll. Stepping Stones: Interview with Seamus Heaney. New York: Farrar, Straus, 2008. Holub, Emil, ed. Travels North of the Zambezi, 1885–1886. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1975. Kavanagh, P. J. The Perfect Stranger. Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1995. Orig. pub. 1966. Keats, John. Letter to George and Thomas Keats, December 22, 1817. In The Complete Poetical Works and Letters of John Keats, edited by Horace E. Scudder, 276–77. Cambridge edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Com­pany, 1899. Kentridge, William. Six Drawing Lessons. The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014. Knausgaard, Karl Ove. Some Rain Must Fall: My Strug­gle, Book Five. Translated by Don Bartlett. New York: Vintage, 2016. Kundera, Milan. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Translated by Michael Henry Helm. New York: Harper and Row, 1984. Larkin, Philip. “Aubade.” Times Literary Supplement, December 23, 1977. Maclean, Gordon Lindsay, ed. Roberts’ Birds of Southern Africa. Fifth edition. Cape Town: The Trustees of the John Voelcker Bird Book Fund, 1985. Malinowski, Bronislaw. A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967. Matthews, T. I. “The Historical Tradition of the ­Peoples of the Gwembe Valley, ­Middle Zambezi.” PhD diss., School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1976. 186  Bibliography

Mercier, Pascal. Perlmann’s Silence. Translated by Shaun Whiteside. London: Atlantic Books, 2012. Pessoa, Fernando. The Book of Disquietude. Translated by Richard Zenith. Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1996. Plath, James, ed. Conversations with John Updike. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1994. Reynolds, Pamela. Dance Civet Cat: Child ­Labour in the Zambezi Valley. London: Zed; with Ohio University Press and Baobab, 1991. Reynolds, Pamela, and Collen Crawford Cousins. Lwaano Lwanyika: Tonga Book of the Earth. Harare: Colleen Crawford Cousins in association with Save the ­Children Fund, UK, 1991; London: panos, 1993. Tonga version translated by T. Munsaka, 1991. Rothman, William, ed. Cavell on Film. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. London: Bloomsbury, 2010. Scarry, Elaine. Resisting Repre­sen­ta­tion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Sebald, W. G., and Jan Peter Tripp. Unrecounted: 33 Texts and 33 Etchings. Translated by Michael Hamburger. London: Penguin Books, 2005. Skelton, John. “Ware the Hawke.” In Certain Books Compiled by Master Skelton. London, n.d. Smith, Patti. Banga. New York: Electric Lady Studios, 2012. Soils Incorporated (Pty) Ltd and Chalo Environmental and Sustainable Development Con­sul­tants for World Commission on Dams (wcd). wcd Case Study: Kariba Dam, Zambia and Zimbabwe, Final Report: November 2000. Cape Town: Secretariat of the World Commission on Dams, 2000. Stiglitz, Joseph E. “In­equality Is a Choice.” New York Times, October 13, 2013. Strathern, Marilyn. Partial Connections. Updated edition. Walnut Creek, CA: Alta­ Mira Press, 2004. Orig. pub. 1991. Tracy, Peggy. The Lost Valley. Cape Town: ­Humans and Rousseau, 1975. White, Benjamin. “Child ­Labour and Population Growth in Rural Asia.” Development and Change 13, no. 4 (1982): 587–610. White, Patrick. Flaws in the Glass. London: Jonathan Cape, 1981. Woolf, ­Virginia. Orlando, a Biography. New York: Harvest, 1956. Orig. pub. 1928. Woolf, ­Virginia. The Waves. New York: Harvest, 1978. Orig. pub. 1931.

Bibliography 187

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IN DEX

agriculture, 6, 9, 37, 73, 166, 173, 179; ­labor, 24, 27, 107, 131; production, 23; subsistence, 2, 10, 24, 115. See also ­children: ­labor of Agritex, 91, 101, 109, 136, 139, 179 aids epidemic, 177 Altman, Robert, 20 amagqira, 118, 179 anger, 43, 86, 142, 146, 161 animals: damage from, 10, 24, 109; fear of, 80, 162; paths of, 40; safety from, 6; trophy, 135, 149; watching, 87, 91, 179 anthropology, 15, 18, 31, 59; of ­children, xii; shadow life of, 20; specter of, 176; work of, 175 antibiotic, 73, 155, 160 arson, 150 asthma, 8, 88, 106, 125, 141 Baker, Herbert, 44 Baker, Nicholson, 16 banakazi banyika, 44 baobab, 45, 95, 119, 120, 137, 151, 153, 179 bateleur, 133, 151, 156, 180 Beckett, Samuel, 17, 19, 25 beer drink (beer party), 41, 43–46, 50, 52, 57, 66, 67, 69–71, 82, 84, 94, 98, 100, 101, 119, 125, 137, 142–46, 151, 156, 159, 167, 175; tea parties, 154, 156 Berger, John, 158, 185

bilharzias, 45, 53, 87, 97, 120, 165, 180. See also illness birds, 23, 34, 35, 42, 56, 58, 62–64, 81, 83, 88, 89, 91, 94–96, 109, 112, 116, 121, 131, 134, 137, 147, 151, 156, 158, 159, 163, 168, 169, 177, 179–81; damage from, 10, 24; feathers, 42; song, 109, 148 Blair vip, 37, 180 books, 2, 11, 12, 16, 33, 37, 49, 55, 63, 70, 71, 76, 85–87, 94, 101, 108, 113, 129, 132, 157, 165, 168; flip-­book, 7; bookcase, 152; registration, 37, 70. See also notebooks bow, 44, 46, 180 brandy, 36, 41, 103, 121, 141, 153, 155, 165, 175 British Broadcasting Corporation (bbc), 42, 180 British Empire, 15; government, 3; imperial rule, 21. See also colonial rule British pounds, 5 bule, 111 Bumi, 2, 9–12, 17, 18, 33, 38, 41, 68, 71, 73, 75, 94, 96–100, 103, 105, 106, 118, 121, 126, 132, 135–43, 150, 152, 153, 158, 162 burns (skin), 8, 58, 75, 112, 116, 118 busanza, 1, 20–22, 31, 34, 53, 96, 103, 111, 113, 119, 134, 139, 151, 156, 180 Canadian Organisation for Development Through Education, 12

case study, 3, 5–7 Cavell, Stanley, 3, 19, 26 celebula, 147 census, 35, 37, 40, 41, 44, 82, 124 Central African Power Corporation (capco), 5 Chief Dumbura Mola, 1, 23, 35, 37, 46, 48, 52, 70, 103, 123, 130, 134, 159, 160, 166 cheka, 169 chibuku, 128, 136, 180 childbirth, 35, 37, 95, 107, 119, 120, 123, 132, 149, 150, 177; abortion, 27, 93, 94, 140, 141, 150; accident of, 15; afterbirth, 94; birth order, 132; stillbirth, 84, 95. See also pregnancy Childhood Action, Research and Documentation Institution (card), 12 ­children: diaries of, 110; ­labor of, xii, 8, 10, 14, 16, 19, 22–27, 36, 43, 48, 58, 66, 69, 99, 113–16, 130–33, 169, 172, 175, 177; owner­ship of, 69, 127; precarious lives of, 7, 8, 68, 92, 95, 112; self-­determination of, 84; visibility of, xii Chipo, 22, 35, 82, 86, 94, 98, 103, 124, 125, 165, 167 Chitenge village, 1, 2, 8–12, 17, 21, 24, 26, 33, 35–37, 44, 50, 51, 58, 64, 70, 76, 82–84, 97, 103, 105, 108, 111, 113, 121, 126, 133, 134, 139, 149, 145, 150, 153, 155–59 church, 44, 92, 120, 154; Apostolic, 144; songs, 116, 120 Coetzee, John, 16 Communal Area Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (campfire), 41, 180 colonial rule, 9, 15, 175, 177; colonialism, 7, 26. See also postcolonial Colson, Elizabeth, 11, 13, 72, 102 compensation, 7, 13, 14, 41, 77–79, 85, 86, 93, 107, 110, 133, 136, 146, 150 cough, 53, 131, 144. See also infection court, 13, 21, 22, 85, 86, 103, 106, 149, 150; case, 24, 79, 98, 126, 127, 161, 176; chief ’s, 9, 76, 77, 151, 174; clerk, 148; local, 9, 13; regional, 9; room, 160 crocodile, 87, 88; farm, 33, 135; tails, 17 crops, 2, 8, 24, 41, 78, 80, 107, 109–11, 128, 179; failing, 10; harvesting, 6; shortage of, 50. See also agriculture

190  Index

dagga, 11, 36, 180 damages. See compensation Dance Civet Cat: Child ­Labour in the Zambezi Valley (Reynolds), xi, xii, 2, 16, 19, 24, 25, 172, 175 danger, 10, 15, 16, 26, 38, 137, 169 death, xii, 12–16, 27, 44, 57, 77, 78, 88, 132, 134, 141, 144, 146, 152, 160, 169, 177; of ­children, 10, 12, 42, 53, 73, 85, 94, 95, 97, 102, 117, 126, 127, 133, 150; in childbirth, 10 diarrhea, 53, 75. See also infection disease. See infection District Administrator (da), 38, 77, 107, 145 District Development Fund (ddf), 49 District Development Office, 17 divination, 77, 78, 85, 86, 96, 97, 117, 141, 181 divorce, 13, 14, 35, 37, 42, 43, 46, 48, 53, 57, 68, 76–79, 86, 104, 131, 149, 150 doppie, 41, 180 drongo, 34, 35, 51, 156, 180 drunk. See intoxication dunzi, 166, 168, 181 Durrell, Gerald, 83 Eco, Umberto, 118, 120, 123, 172 education, 92, 116, 140, 142–45, 152 elephant, 9, 58, 59, 80, 109, 11, 113, 119, 120, 124, 128, 129, 133–37, 153, 166, 177; dung, 17, 18; tossed by, 8, 126 employment, 27, 141, 145, 161, 173, 174; salaried, 151 Erikson, Erik, 122 Evans-­Pritchard, E. E., 80 Farmer, Paul, 177 farming. See agriculture fear, 10, 15, 57, 58, 72, 76, 86, 87, 98, 102, 104, 134, 136, 140–45, 156 fieldwork, xi, 2, 16, 17, 20, 26, 90, 166, 171, 172, 175, 176 fish, 50, 51, 60, 121, 135; market, 33; trader, 33. See also fishing fishing, 6, 9, 41, 52, 65, 70, 84, 100, 114, 115, 120, 174, 176; Chalala Fishing Camp, 73, 79, 149; knife, 167; Mukuyu Fishing Camp, 156; Musamba Fishing Camp, 58, 69, 101, 139

flu (influenza), 73, 100, 140, 153, 155, 160 food, xii, 23, 26, 50, 54, 57, 78, 85, 86, 113, 114, 141, 147, 149, 152, 156, 157, 159, 166, 173, 182; share, 36; subsidies, 10; wild, 43 football rattle, 83, 92, 108, 116, 127, 181 Ford Foundation, 12 Fortes, Meyer, 84 Foucault, Michel, xiii, 144 friendship, 6, 8, 106, 148, 165, 166 funeral, 78, 95 funicalor, 70 gambling, 63, 71, 103 genealogy, 48, 58, 68, 69, 104, 118, 151, 163, 167–69 Goodenough, Elizabeth, xi Greene, Graham, 16, 29 gynecol­ogy, 48, 134, 149 hakata, 71, 78, 117, 181 Hardy, Thomas, 23 hatred, 142, 161 healer, 18, 43, 61, 71, 77, 123, 127, 131, 179; ama­ Xhosa, 45, 64, 149; isiZezuru, 22, 64, 149 health worker, 37, 38, 85, 119, 124 Heaney, Seamus, 15, 18 hepatitis, 112, 118 hospital, 8, 9, 10, 14, 53, 75, 76, 83, 88, 111, 114, 134, 155; Karoi, 111; London, 125, 126; staff, 68 hunger, 6, 10, 11, 17, 78 hydroelectric dam. See Kariba Dam incest, 69 infection, 8, 58, 73, 87, 91, 111 infidelity, 78, 85, 149, 176 injustice, 107, 176 insects, 17, 51, 83, 84, 101, 102, 110, 128, 134, 143, 155, 162–66, 177 International Bank of Reconstruction and Development (ibrd), 5 intoxication, 46, 70, 78, 84–87, 146, 148, 154, 159, 164 inysa, 40 isolation, 23, 113, 121; and deprivation, 26 joll, 103, 181 jube-­jube, 43, 181

Kapandula, Evelina, 12 Kariba Dam, xi, xii, 1, 3, 5–14, 23–28, 133, 176, 177 Kariba Dam Case Study (wcd Case Study). See case study Kariba District Hospital, 9, 10, 53, 75, 114, 155. See also hospital Kariba Gorge, 1, 3 kasulwe, 88 katunda, 75 Kavanagh, Patrick, 16 Keats, John, 171 Kentridge, William, xi, xiii Knausgaard, Karl Ove, 7 knifing, 33 kombora, 34 kumanikizigwa, 45. See also marriage Kundera, Milan, 140, 141 kusonde, 77, 182 ku-­vundika, 72 kwisho, 119 Lake Kariba, xi, 1, 4, 9, 10, 14, 17, 18, 26, 38, 40, 55, 69, 97, 105, 133, 135, 139, 153 Land Rover, 33, 36, 41, 46, 51, 58, 73, 101, 122, 126, 133, 138, 144, 162 ­legal dispute. See court Levy, Robert, 132 lobola, 13, 14, 35, 66, 68, 79, 81, 86, 104, 131, 136, 141, 146, 174, 181. See also marriage London Review of Books, 97 loneliness, 2, 76, 175 loss, xii, 6, 7, 11, 26; of crops, 78 love, 67, 69, 71, 86, 98 lusili, 128, 136, 181 Lwaano Lwanyika: Tonga Book of the Earth (Reynolds), xi, xii, 2, 11, 12, 25, 28, 29, 179, 180 lwindi, 45 Mackay, Peter, 2, 28, 87, 90, 110, 165 Maclean, Gordon L., 88 mahewu, 36, 77, 92, 118, 166 maila, 98, 109, 113, 134, 136, 141, 143, 169, 181 makota, 51, 59, 61, 68, 69, 97, 103, 104, 181 malaria, 53, 71, 97, 98, 108, 109, 121, 122, 124, 153, 157. See also infection Malaria Spraying Team, 66

Index 191

malende, 45 Malinowski, Bronislaw, 3, 18 malnutrition, 163 Mangisi, Anderson, 2, 12, 13, 17, 24, 31, 33–38, 40, 41–46, 49, 50–54, 60, 62, 62–69, 71–88, 91–137, 140, 144–67, 174 Mangisi, Costain, 2, 24, 25, 65, 66, 71, 72, 82, 90, 96, 98, 100, 110–16, 120, 124, 128, 136, 148, 150, 151, 157, 158, 165 Manhattan (author’s h ­ ouse), 20, 22, 63, 66, 72, 73, 79, 83, 90, 91, 98, 105, 110, 117, 122, 126, 127, 133, 139, 140, 145, 150, 152, 155, 164–66 map, 4, 23, 65, 164 marriage, 13, 14, 27, 45, 58, 72, 79, 80, 85, 103, 105, 116–19, 127, 130, 132, 173, 174 Martin, Rowan, 89, 180 masambo, 93 mashangu, 89, 159, 181 Matusadona National Park, 10. See also National Parks Mazoe, 89, 114, 144, 181 mealie meal, 50, 82, 119, 124, 181 medicine, 8, 18, 64, 87, 93, 106, 117, 124, 125, 140–42, 149, 153, 157, 162. See also antibiotic Mercier, Pascal, 16 Mola (place), 1, 6, 8–12, 23–25, 31, 38, 58, 59, 63, 69, 72, 78, 97, 98, 103, 105, 115, 121, 133, 154, 157, 160 mopani, 93, 120, 154, 161, 181 mourning, 71 mpunze, 106 mubuyu, 119 muderi, 80 mudyori, 41 Mugabe, Robert, 40, 138, 177 muhwiti, 51 mujwanyina, 123, 181 mululwe, 93 mungonwa, 37, 182 murder, 13, 33, 86, 147, 148 ­music, 36, 100, 180; playing, 46, 51, 92, 111 mutupo, 35 muzimu, 34, 66, 94, 182 mwesho, 95

padkos, 169, 182 pain, 15, 103, 104, 149; relief from, 8, 88; stomach, 64, 101, 105, 129 pambiri, 71, 182 participant observation, 171 Pessoa, Fernando, 16, 26, 29 photo­graph, xiii, 33, 36, 72, 75, 77, 79–82, 90, 94, 136, 138, 160 play, 8, 11, 21, 32, 55, 57, 58, 59, 64, 93, 103, 114, 118, 139, 142, 158, 166, 167, 168; birds, 147; doctor, 125; football, 79, 117; playing games, 42, 72, 161 pneumonia, 118, 125 poaching, 20, 22, 33, 40, 104, 150 police, 17, 58, 102–6, 143, 150; station, 9 polygamy, 14, 27, 93 postcolonial, xii, 177 pregnancy, 92, 141, 154 proverbs, 8, 26, 71

nachipapa, 169 nada (Journal of the Southern Rhodesia Native Affairs Department), 160, 163, 182

Quayson, Ato, 171 questionnaire, 24, 108, 142, 145, 146, 150. See also survey

192  Index

Namkondwa, 45, 52, 61, 63, 69, 75–77, 103, 104, 107, 112, 119, 130, 134, 143, 145, 148, 159, 163 Namrova, 45, 57, 75, 77, 107, 112, 130–34, 163 n’anga, 51, 53, 61, 72, 77, 78, 128, 130, 142, 168, 182 National Parks, 6, 9, 10, 33, 41, 109, 127; Board, 139 ngongwa, 43, 182 ngozi, 34, 43, 182 Nkomo, Joshua, 130, 182 Nkumbulo Yakwanta, 87 notebooks, 25, 57, 63, 116, 151, 161, 169 nsenje, 77, 78, 182 nsongayoka, 94, 96 nurse, 8, 10, 36, 38, 73, 75, 99, 113, 122–25, 155, 157, 162, 166, 169 Nyaminyami District, 1, 3, 8, 9, 26, 163 nzembwe, 113, 127, 129, 131, 136, 182 Oak Foundation, 12 Omay, 4, 8, 9, 10, 12, 18, 23, 26, 28, 49, 62, 63, 73, 139, 140, 152, 154, 165, 166

racism, 177 rapoko, 41, 45, 46, 182 resettlement, 5, 6 Rhodesia, Northern and Southern, 1, 3, 5, 6, 12, 15 riddles, 8, 11, 21, 24, 71, 82, 116 ritual, 13, 45, 57, 66, 67, 72, 148, 168, 182; cleansing, 14; following death, 10, 95; rain, 69, 70, 101; wife, 104, 163 sadza, 8, 17, 32–36, 51, 56, 79, 82, 83, 90, 91, 93, 95, 121, 122, 136, 143, 149, 156–59, 162, 168, 182 safari, 17, 33, 105, 132, 137 Save the ­Children Fund, 12, 88 Scarry, Elaine, 10, 23 Sebald, W. G., 19 sebuku, 148, 182 sex, 67, 69, 85, 93, 106, 140, 173, 174 sex ratio, 132 sexuality, 177 Shakespeare, William, 32 sianangoma, 169 sikaka, 169 silence, 83, 86, 120, 155 simuleyanungu, 169 Skelton, John, 132 sleeping, 144, 156, 176; bag, 51, 163; platform, 1, 31 Smith, Ian, 182 Smith, Patti, 26 smoking, 43, 52, 57, 61 snake, 10, 21, 27, 34, 36, 48, 75–78, 80, 83, 92, 94, 96, 99, 100, 111, 126, 143, 155, 160, 165, 177, 180 sorrow, 15, 23, 147, 156, 164 Stiglitz, Joseph E., 26 staccato, 20 stillbirth. See childbirth storytelling, 11, 34, 50, 85, 86 Strathern, Marilyn, 26 survey, 21, 85, 134, 153. See also questionnaire takkies, 36, 130, 161, 183 takope, 147 tea, 31, 38, 40, 51, 52, 55, 62, 73, 87, 90, 100, 112, 120, 154, 156, 168

teacher, 13, 18, 62, 68, 91, 92, 99, 145, 146 tease, 106, 149, 162, 164 Times Literary Supplement (tls), 145, 183 timidity, 2, 15, 19 Tonga (­people), xi, 1, 2, 3–7, 9, 11, 34, 38, 41, 48, 58, 99, 107, 131, 159, 167, 176; baTonga, 12; ciTonga language, 108, 127; disease forms, 87; kinship, 13, 14; of the ­middle Zambezi, 62; Plateau, 72; riddle, 21; song, 54; stool, 100, 101, 120 tourist, 112, 135; industry, 6, 9; resort (lodge), 18, 128, 177 twins, 10, 147 tyezi, 138, 183 University of Zimbabwe, 51, 99, 105, 146; Department of Agriculture, 2, 12, 73, 98, 107, 138; Faculty of Agriculture, 157 Upbeat (magazine), 90, 146, 183 Victoria Falls, 34 Village Development Committee (vidco), 159 war, xii, 3, 12; Liberation, 72; Zimbabwean, 38 whiskey, 21, 22, 32, 33, 66, 83, 128, 167 White, Benjamin, 114, 115 White, Patrick, 114 ­widow, 37, 50, 59 Wilson, Monica, 21 witchcraft, 10, 92, 94, 98, 102, 103, 124, 135, 145, 169, 174; accusation, 61, 150; bewitching, 102, 145 Woolf, ­Virginia, xiii, 18, 32, 54, 60, 64, 97 World Bank, 6, 8, Zambezi River, 11, 13, 17, 26, 34, 38, 49, 104, 123, 145, 157 Zambezi Valley, xi, xii, 1, 8, 27, 51, 87, 105, 175, 177, 178, 179 Zambia, xi, 1, 3, 5, 12, 13, 27, 72, 100, 135, 139, 153, 167 Zimbabwe, xi, 1, 2, 3, 5, 9, 12, 27, 38, 51, 70, 127, 140, 171, 177 Zimbabwe African ­People’s Union (zapu), 130 Zimbabwean Parks and Wildlife Estate, 9. See also National Parks

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