This is the colour of love

When love is given selflessly, genuinely and with a deep sense of sincerity, it can’t be concealed.

July 25 at the Blue Roof, the First Family’s private residence in Harare, was a day when the colour of love was in full display.

It was on this day that President Mugabe and First Lady Amai Mugabe walked the nation through their love story.

They entered the huge white marquee, hand-in-hand, with daughter Mrs Bona Mugabe-Chikore and husband Mr Simba Chikore.

It was as if they were listening to Oliver Mtukudzi’s ballad “Mbabvu yangu”:

“Ndiwe mbabvu yangu ndiwe, Ndiwe svovi yangu ndiwe, Ndiwe mumwe wangu ndiweeee! Ndiwe wega uripo!”

Amai Mugabe was clad in a captivating red dress, and the President was dapper in a black tuxedo.

Red, we often hear is the colour of love. And she also had the short, natural hair sported by trendy women who are comfortable with their African-ness.

That “hair politics” flowed neatly with the ambiance in the marquee.

The highlight of the Golden Jubilee celebrations, however, was how the First Lady and the President revealed the deep love, affection and appreciation they have for each other.

She is her own woman, has her own mind, is strong willed, determined, exceptional and hard working, the President said. Her tastes are different because she prefers to do things on her own, using her hands. She is generous and caring, not only for family members but also for all children.

This was a proud and loving husband speaking about the woman who holds his heart.

She, in turn, expressed gratitude to the husband who has been there for her through and through – in sickness and in health, as it should be. When President Mugabe narrated their love story – and he is a man of detail – she blushed, chuckled and at times seemed lost in the moving narrative as he spoke of his “very dear wife”.

“The day before yesterday, the 23rd of July, which was the actual birthday of Amai Mugabe, in the morning, I rose and went and got the two boys, Tino and Bellarmine, and then we went and sang, ‘happy birthday to you’ to the mother,” he said.

“But I did not give my wife a card. I had written it the usual way to say – I reiterate what I have said before – that I love you and love you so much; that I will still continue to love you.

“I said to her, I had earlier on quoted Shakespeare on the card but on second thoughts I refrained from doing so. She said why, and I said, well, I was going to quote what Shakespeare said in ‘Antony and Cleopatra’.

“There was this lady called Cleopatra, very beautiful and from Africa, and the Roman commanders, you know Egypt and that part of North Africa was occupied by Romans, all admired her. Even Julius Caesar did, and after him, a guy called Antony.

“And he (Antony) says about Cleopatra – and this is what I thought I should also say to my wife: ‘Age does not wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety’. She gives her most, she takes. If you look at my wife, you’ll think she is 30, 35.

“That’s why I thought I wanted to say age does not wither her nor is she spoilt by those customs which tend to make some of our wives in the eyes of their husbands primitive.

“So, age does not wither her nor custom stale her variety. There she is. I got married to her and the age between her and me, the difference doesn’t change. I wish she would grow and grow in age faster than myself.

“She was very young – just about 20-plus. And at that time my mother Bona had gone in years. I had married earlier a Ghanaian lady and she had died of kidney ailment. We had one child who died when I was in prison, Nhamodzenyika. He was about three-and-a-half-years-old. I went to see where he was buried.

“The doctors said your wife cannot bear children anymore because of the kidney ailment . . . So, to my mother, she will say, ‘My child, you will grow old without a child.’ Aah! And she was telling others and my uncles – ‘Ko iye Robert kana akangowana zvake musikana waanotora, kuti ndingowana mwana wandinobata ndisati ndafa?’

“So, there was that impulsion too on the side of my mother. So after the death of Sally, I decided to marry. I just made up my mind. I married this girl. It was a definite choice. It was not something just out of fancy or emotion, but a definite decision that I must marry and the girl I must marry is this.

“As I say, she was very young, and I wondered whether me, so many years older than she, would be able to put up with this young girl. I think she must have had the same problem in her own mind. As young as she was, would she be able to put up with this man in his seventies. But we got married and got to learn each other’s likes and dislikes.

“I got to know she was a woman who has her own mind. One of the desires she had was to start a little business. I wondered whether that was right. But once she has made up her mind, if you say no, she’d say, I’ll go ahead and show you that I can do it,” he said.

As if she was the only person in that marquee, the President added: “She baffles me, still baffles me. I could never say, ‘stop it’ to her, with the exception of politics.

“When she has made her mind to do a thing, she will do it . . . All girls were taught how to knit, how to sew, how to cook, etc in a simple way. I tell you, there is no week which goes by without her taking to the knitting needles. She is always using her fingers at home. Always!”

And he went on, “She is a difficult woman to buy a dress for. I can’t go into town and say I’ll buy you a dress. No! She will not accept it. If she accepts it, she will say she will give it as a gift to someone else, because she wants things that come out of her own hands.

“And, that is not just what she is good at. You have also the kitchen . . . She wants perfection. The orphanage . . . What she is doing in Mazowe, she is doing to for the country, for us. Yes, she has that zeal, moral commitment, which we don’t have, which many don’t have to assist children who are abandoned . . .

“It is that sense of sacrifice that she has also, sense of giving herself as a helper or can we say ‘saviour’ of children who otherwise would have faced death.”

In closing, the President said: “That woman is really a good mother, but I’m sure you can interpret what that means in a broader sense. It means also, a good wife, and a good relations operator . . . We pray that God will not only lengthen your days but will as you move into the future meet some of your wishes, especially in regard to the children, the children you are serving in Mazowe.”