The Sunday Mail
Rumbidzai Dzoro
As many may rejoice that this tropical cyclone that had beseeched my home area is past us, it’s sad that it has left a raging tornado within my heart and my family.
Waking up on a Thursday morning that was mildly cold for the usually hot summer, I was actually excited that for the first time I would not be forced by heat to rehydrate. Little did I know that the cyclone would hit my family in the middle of the night and sweep away my father and my mother?
We were in it and in a very rough way. It initially started drizzling and my parents actually thought those were the last rains of the season.
Without any communication, internet or computers how could my parents have known of Cyclone Idai? The only mobile phone in our possession was a Nokia 3210 whose pieces were bound by rubber band and its battery in place with the help of a small piece of paper.
It, however, actually served as a phone booth to most of our neighbours who would call their children in the big city to send them fertilisers and food.
Strong winds blowing fiercely hit our Chimanimani village. Plants were uprooted even the oldest trees in our compound were uprooted whilst some were split apart by the merciless wind. The rains were so strong and vicious destroying everything in their way.
Our thatched house by early evening was leaking like a sieve and temperatures dropped. Fear and panic consumed us trying to understand what was going on and trying to figure out a plan forward. I then realised that I had spent the whole day without eating, how would I have eaten when early in the morning we had gone to the fields by the time we came back home all the firewood was wet and could not be salvaged.
Chiadzwa was not spared in all this as the rains swept away bridges and roads as if they were merely leaves. The mining area was drowned burying the precious diamonds where some people made a living from.
The Tanganda tea plantation was also not spared and some golf courses too. If such big name places were not spared what more of my small Ndau family that are just like a stamp on a big envelope.
It was as if the sea came washing our small round hut. I managed to hold tight to my big brother Nhamo’s hand and he promised he would not let me go.
Unfortunately, my frail parents could not swim away with us and so they were swept off to wherever Cyclone Idai took them, even up to now, more than a whole week later, they are still missing.
By the time help came along, my skirt had been washed away by the water and my T-Shirt was tattered. We were hungry and shivering just holding on to a tree that was miraculously spared by the storm.
Finally, we were taken to a shelter and given warm clothes and soup.
We survived death but the death in my heart and the mark this has brought is indelible.
Tears could not even come out. That is how shattered I was and still am. I do not know where my parents ended up or if they are going to be buried.
The little wealth that was known to my family but which we were content with was washed away. Not even the ants and cockroaches were spared.
It may be sunshine for others but to me the storm is not over yet!
CYCLONE IDAI ECOCASH RELIEF FUND *151*2*1*320041*AMOUNT#
NB: This is a fictional account of events in Manicaland written by a student. Any link to real people or events is purely coincidental.
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