FOOD was very scarce and supplies erratic at Doiroi Camp with the inhabitants mostly having one meal a day.
The main diet comprised mostly of thick maize meal porridge (sadza) with either coconut powdered milk or dried fish (bakayawo) or African beans (ndodzi).
In some instances when there was only maize meal, the inhabitants ate sadza without relish.
There was also emergency porridge that came in powder form made from American yellow corn (maize).
The shortage of food forced the inhabitants to undertake chirenje escapades in order to stay alive.
It was from the emergency porridge and coconut milk that inhabitants experienced running stomach cases of diarrhoea that led to dehydration-related deaths.
Vegetables, fruits, bread, butter, salt and other basic necessities were unavailable and a luxury in a war situation.
The acute shortage of food supplies led to the inhabitants developing survival tactics.
In 1977, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and International Red Cross officials visited the camp at intervals and organised the supply of clothes and food items such as emergency porridge and powdered milk.
There was also donated black sadza which appeared not suitable for human consumption because it caused diarrhoea.
In an effort to circumvent hunger, enterprising inhabitants clandestinely slipped out of the camp and provided their labour to the Mozambican populace in exchange for food.
They stayed with the villagers doing a variety of odd jobs while concealed from camp security patrols.
Yet others would barter trade their clothes or those stolen from colleagues or the storeroom in exchange for soap, money, flue-cured tobacco, marijuana or sadza and duck relish.
Women also expertly executed chirenje just like men although some depended on their male counterparts.
A few women opted to slip out of the camp to marry themselves away to Mozambican men as second or third wives as an alternative to evade hunger. Although some of the women were rounded up during periodically sanctioned security patrols in the Mozambican villages, others were not located and remained stuck in those marriages.
Chirenje became the mode of survival up to 1980 with people buying jeans, shoes, charcoal irons to kill lice, cigarettes, bottled beer, bread rolls, soap, condensed milk and many other goodies.
Materials for chirenje escapades were pilfered from the camp store-room and comprised of donated goods that were yet to be distributed to bases like clothes, powdered milk, tinned fish, rice and gallons of cooking oil.
The early inhabitants had found a field of ripe sunflowers and maize grains left by the workers of the former FRELIMO farm before its occupation by the Zimbabweans.
The sunflowers and maize grain were roasted and eaten by the inhabitants to supplement insufficient food supplies.
In summer, the inhabitants augmented their diet with traditional vegetables that grew in the fields.
These vegetables included black jack (nhungunira), traditional leafy okra (derere) and other related wild vegetables.
Some hunted or trapped wild animals such as kudus, bucks, tsenzi and mice, while others used fish traps (duwo) to catch fish in Doiroi River.
All these efforts provided an alternative diet to the inhabitants.
Towards the end of 1977, the UNHCR started assisting the inhabitants of Doiroi Camp with food, clothing, blankets, plates, tennis shoes and medicines.
It is important to note that ZANU had informed the United Nations (UN) Agency that the inhabitants were refugees fleeing from the intensifying war and oppressive Smith regime, yet the inhabitants were genuine young men and women who had sacrificed life and limb to join the armed struggle, take up arms and liberate Zimbabwe.
However, the strategy by ZANU worked perfectly well on the welfare side of the inhabitants at Doiroi Camp, but it adversely affected the inhabitants’ status of being changed from comrades awaiting training to ‘refugees’.
When the UN Agency officials periodically visited the ‘refugee’ camp, the inhabitants were instructed to remove any military fatigues they may be donning and to act like civilians.
Some of the clothes that the UN Agency donated were of very bright colours which were targets to the Rhodesian reconnaissance planes on aerial missions to identify Zimbabwean camps in Mozambique.
The inhabitants dyed these brightly coloured clothes into dark ones using tree leaves or barks.
As there was no resident UNHCR representative at the camp, those who qualified for training under a criteria laid down by the party for a certain group of people, they were either taken from the camp by trucks or would toyi-toyi to the Chimoio – Beira highway to board waiting trucks.
The UN Agency was to play a leading role in the repatriation of the Doiroi inhabitants back home as refugees to Zimbabwe during the Lancaster House talks-agreed ceasefire period in January 1980.
On arrival at Toronto Transit Camp near Christmas Pass, the inhabitants (refugees) faced an identity crisis regarding how to address each other.
Everyone who had crossed the border to join the armed struggle had been asked to cease using his name of birth and instead choose an appropriate nom de guerre of his choice.
It was impossible to call your colleague with any other name than his nom de guerre and they went like: ‘Mabhunu Muchapera’, ‘Satan WeMabhunu’, ‘Zvitunha Pwititi’, ‘Brian Hondo’ or ‘John Chimurenga’ in the presence of Rhodesian soldiers in the camp.
The inhabitants ended up calling each other in hushed whispers to avoid being heard by the soldiers.
The ‘refugees’ were later ferried to their respective homes.
To this present day, these people are nonentities in a liberated Zimbabwe with Government recognising war collaborators for possible compensation at the expense of the comrades who returned home without undergoing training, but suffered the horrors of diseases, hunger and death in Mozambique.
l To be continued