By Milton Shumba

AS one grows older it is no surprise that memories of early childhood fade.
Retrieving truth and facts from early childhood is a tricky affair for romanticising the past is inevitable.
But there are those traumatic moments that no amount of time can erase, they cannot be simply forgotten; they are a reality that strikes and leaves an indelible mark.
They remain like the cattle brand that never fades with the progressing seasons.
In 1978 I was a small boy, living in Domboshava, in a village named after our clan, Shumba Village.
The liberation struggle was at its peak, one of the most infamous Selous Scout Roy Bennett, commonly known as Muzezuru for his fluency in Shona, operated in our area; he was a source of bone-chilling terror.
He was legendary for his cruelty and mercilessness.
Of course I did not know it at that time, I was a little boy; all I knew was that there was a war going on.
I remember it was an unpleasant time chiefly because the natural instinct of children, the instinct to freely roam, we never fully expressed.
Our parents would day-in-day-out emphasise that we do not ‘stray’ far away from home.
We were herded like cattle during the farming season; an eye was always kept on us lest we ventured into territories that would bring both us and our parents grief.
The Rhodie soldier was known for his callousness, he had no qualms killing or maiming a black child as evidenced by bodies of children in mass graves being unearthed that concealed Rhodesian atrocities.
So one afternoon in the summer of 1978, I will explain why I remember that it was summer and during noon, we were playing with a tennis ball in our round thatched kitchen.
We bounced the ball in that small confined space, playing outside was a risk that was never taken.
It was 1978, the war, never mind that I did not fully comprehend what was happening, had intensified.
The Rhodies were losing and had become desperate, employing all tactics, some even ludicrous, to try and win a war that was now beyond them.
We were having fun.
And then the tennis ball bounced out of the hut.
It rolled and came to stop a few metres away from the door.
I bolted out of the house to retrieve the small ball so that we could continue our play.
My eyes were intensely focused on nothing else but our precious small ball.
As I rose clutching the ball my eyes locked with those of a gigantic being in camouflage, most probably he was average height but my small eyes saw a giant.
The Rhodesian soldier beckoned me to come to him with a finger.
And like a zombie, frozen to the core, shivering and terrified, I obeyed.
Mother had told me that my grandfather had been killed by Rhodesians.
Being young I had never interrogated why he had been killed so as I walked towards the Rhodie, I knew they killed and what scared me the most is that I did not know the reasons for one to get killed.
Was I about to die?
I shivered as he put me behind him.
Having disappeared from view my brother Washington came out too.
And he got the same signal that had me behind the gun-clutching Rhodie, the rifle was big, at that age everything to do with adults was big.
We stood behind the soldier, quacking, not in our boots but bare feet.
Players of the game were many and out came another, this time my cousin.
And his response to the signal was different from ours.
I guess mother had more influence this time around as he cried out to her.
“Mhamha ndiri kudaidzwa (mother I am being summoned),” he cried out.
Mother came to the door and she froze.
I not only saw my mother’s fear, I felt it with all my senses.
Our lives have come to an end at this tender age my small brain thought, my mother’s fear did not help or inspire courage, we were finished, I concluded.
In that moment I really knew what war meant, I knew how people died, I knew the feeling of helplessness.
I knew what every defenseless black person felt.
We did not die.
In that frozen moment the Rhodesian soldiers signalled each other to move on to the next house and from behind our hut emerged soldiers wielding guns.
And as they approached the next hut we saw what they had been doing.
Stealthily they had walked into the village and were listening to conversations in the huts.
Our huts were small and spaces left to allow air to circulate enabled one to hear conversations inside.
The people from the homestead before us watched silently as we stood frozen.
And then we also watched the next home.
They approached it silently and hugged the walls, listening, these were desperate people.
We could see them and the next homestead clearly that is why I remember that it was summer, there was no vegetation.