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Nhimbe spirit: African oneness

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By Munhamu Pekeshe

YONA phoned me late last Thursday advising me the beer delivery had not come and he was therefore postponing the nhimbe yemupfudze pencilled for the following Saturday.
He had organised a village working party, nhimbe, to help him move cattle manure, mupfudze, from our cattle kraals to our agricultural fields.
He estimated that 10 of his colleagues would be present with a span of oxen and a scotch cart for the exercise.
That would complement well our own cart and span of oxen.
All that was required was for me to avail enough sadza, meat, mahewu and beer.
Arrangements were made for the former three and as for beer I asked him to collect from the local bottle store on my account.
And when Delta missed their Thursday delivery, Yona panicked and hence his suggestion that the nhimbe be postponed.
I assured him that I would be in the village early Saturday morning with enough beer for the nhimbe.
This seemed to calm him a bit, but all Friday he was sending me ‘call me back’ on my mobile phone.
Each time I phoned him, he pleaded with me not to let down the nhimbe by failing to bring the beer.
Friday evening I secured enough scuds for the nhimbe at the local bottle store.
I left Harare around 4am and arrived in the village around 7am to loud cheering and whistling from the nhimbe party.
My mother hugged and thanked me for coming.
She said I was a blessed child of the soil.
Twenty-nine people had turned up for the nhimbe with lots of oxen and three scotch carts.
She told me this was unprecedented in a village nhimbe.
She had managed to mobilise her colleagues and sadza was being prepared in three ‘extra-large’ pots.
To the beef I had provided she added the homestead cock.
I had been eyeing it for Christmas.
The arrival of the beer invigorated the energy of Yona’s colleagues.
By 10am the task had been accomplished.
All the manure had been transported to the fields and spread over two acres.
A task that had given my mother sleepless nights had been turned into child’s play.
Under the inviting tree shades, (mimvuri), the party enjoyed the beer listening to the village jesters.
Over the beer jest talk centred on how critical nhimbe would be this year in a village that had had its draught power severely depleted by the nefarious activities of the tsikamutandas.
Jokes centred on a neighbouring village head who parted with his entire herd of 10 after the tsikamutandas had dug up ‘lightning’ from under the hearth in his kitchen.
The nhimbe group kept referring to him as ‘timba ugute’, on account of his new incapacity to raise a plough span.
The question was whether he could still manage to host a nhimbe in view of his sudden impoverishment.
Fadho remarked that at least in the near future this Sabhuku would have no mupfudze to worry about, having donated all his cattle to tsikamutanda.
Nhimbe has changed form, but the spirit has remained the same; to create positions of strengths through collaboration.
Others call it humwe, oneness.
In Swahili it is called harambe.
In our village, the spirit of nhimbe helped us subsist for generations in these infertile areas that colonialism dumped us in.
“Chara chimwe hachitswanyi inda.”
In the urban areas our fathers appealed to the nhimbe spirit as they established burial societies. Through these their wishes to be buried kumusha and not in urban cemeteries were realised. Ndonovigwepiko ini Kambuzuma handidi, so went a popular burial club tune.
During the war the spirit of nhimbe pulled village communities through.
The war theme of socialism, gutsaruzhinji, resonated with the nhimbe spirit.
In old times nhimbe was nourished by beer and biti (a non-alcoholic byproduct of beer brewing).
The village brew, seven days or ngoto, requires a good harvest of rapoko, a drought resistant grain now in decline in this area that has become obsessed with maize production.
Scuds have been a handy substitute.
For less than U$30 you can buy enough for the average nhimbe.
On my return from the village I bemoaned to my wife the absence of the nhimbe spirit among urban folks.
She corrected me by giving examples of this in high density suburbs funerals.
Collections for cash and maize meal provide a communal responsibility towards funerals.
It is in low density areas where communities feel they are self-sufficient and require no assistance from their folks.
In conceding to her observation I remarked on the absence of smiles and celebrations in high density cooperation, unlike in the village nhimbe.
Our son who had been listening to the discussion then mentioned mum’s grocery clubs.
In her church kokoradzano of 20 members, they contribute US$50 each monthly for bulk grocery purchasing.
They share these groceries towards the end of the year.
At work she belongs to another such club of her workmates.
It is also about bulk purchasing of groceries.
Between the two clubs nearly US$2 000 is raised monthly which if it were directed towards productive activities could economically empower and develop these club members.
And still leave them with change to buy all their wanted groceries at year end.
Nhimbe spirit is an unexplored economic force.

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