The Sunday Mail
STAFF at the DA’s office, that is district administrator, possibly could not spell and opted for the shorter and easier Loice, hence she has been called by that name ever since, “though my parents had christened me Louisiana”. Quite a colourful and exuberant character, it was her energy, vigour and confidence that saw Loice Nyandoro being chosen from a mob of youths who had gathered for a pungwe session in 1976 to join the liberation struggle. March being Women’s Month, Cde No Doubt Magorira, as she went on to become, narrates to GARIKAI MAZARA how the liberation struggle was no easy stroll in the park, especially for the adolescent girl. This is the first instalment of her journey to liberate Zimbabwe . . .
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Q: As usual, let us start with a brief background of yourself . . .
A: I was born on November 11, 1962 in Marondera and my father passed away in 1972, so his brother took me in and we were staying in Chikwaka. One day we went for a pungwe session.
I must have been in Grade Five that year, 1976, when we were selected to join the struggle. We went through Murehwa, Uzumba and then we were diverted to Mt Darwin as we were being followed.
We crossed over into Mozambique to a base called Nyakapiriviri.
Q: How many were you when you left the pungwe session?
A: There were seven of us, two girls and the rest were boys. During the pungwe, we were dancing so energetically and the leader of the comrades selected the seven of us. Unfortunately, we lost some of those who had been chosen with us on the way to Mozambique as we often encountered ambushes. It was by sheer luck that I managed to survive to get to Mozambique. We lost three recruits.
On arrival at Nyakapiriviri, we spent about two weeks in orientation, being told that it was easy to join the struggle, but very difficult to abscond. After the fortnight, we were sent to train in guerilla warfare. I will come to regular warfare training later. We were taught how to assemble and disassemble different guns, mass mobilisation, etc. We were then asked to choose names that we were to use when we got to the front, we were not given names as such. One day after training, as I was sitting under a tree, I just said to myself, whatever comes, no doubt I will face it. Thus I named myself No Doubt Magorira.
Part of the training included clearing obstacles. For instance, a huge pit, probably the size of an average gazebo, would have a single rail line in the middle with fire in the pit. You were expected to cross that rail line, with fire blazing under you. The usual slogan was, if you are thin, you will leave this place fat and if you are fat, you will leave thin.
After training we were sent to the front as manpower was badly needed at the front. We were chosen, about 24 of us, that was still in 1976 . . .
Q: Which month of ’76 is this?
A: I left school in April, so six months after that, it was in November when we came back to the front. So we were chosen and I was put into a group that had Cde Chapewa Masande as the commander, deputised by Cde Sarudzai Chamakananga and our detachment commander was Cde Makaza. Cde Masande is now late, but the other two are surviving.
Our duties were to ferry arms to the front and usually when we started walking, no one would take recess to relieve themselves or to rest. The commanders were the ones who set the targets of distance to be covered that night, mind you we would travel by night and rest by day. If the commander said he wanted us to cover say Norton to Kwekwe in that night, we had to, carrying our loads and weapons.
We travelled in a single file; carefully watching our steps to avoid landmines, TNT, baycoons. Our single file was such that some commanders would be in the front, followed by those strong enough, then some commanders in the middle and the weak and sicklings (we used to call them mudwendi or mzee, those being Swahili words) and then some commanders at the back. So the order came from the front, that we are now resting and you would sit where you are standing.
Resting time was time to relieve yourself and you were not allowed to wander anywhere to relieve yourself, as you were expected to relieve yourself in your position. If it was stool, just a few centimetres from your resting position.
It was during these journeys, ferrying weapons, that we lost some comrades, those who could not take it anymore as they shot themselves. Imagine you had been walking with someone for kilometres and the next time you are resting and you hear a gunshot just next to you. The orders in such situations were simple, you were to take the comrade’s weapons and share his load and the journey continued. Most of those who shot themselves were not buried, those who were lucky must have been covered with tree branches; that is if the commanders were not watching.
When resting, one of the commandments was to have your weapon in-between your legs, you were not allowed to have it by your side. Even if you were to sleep, your weapon would be on your chest. Your weapon was your partner for life. In the case of an ambush, you had to stick to instructions, a crawl was a crawl; a retreat was a retreat and you fired only when instructed to fire. When we got to where we were supposed to leave the weapons, we dug huge pits, the depth which would be the height of an average person and place them there. By the time we finished stashing the weapons, the commanders would have communicated with the receiving comrades on where to get the weapons.
Q: How did you dig these pits?
A: If we were near the masses, we would get hoes and shovels from them but they were not allowed anywhere near our trenches. Even the youths, vana mujibha and vana chimbwindo, were not allowed near that. It was strictly our mission. If we were far from the masses, we used bayonets or any object that we could lay our hands on to dig.
After stashing the weapons, we were to leave the area immediately except for a few of us that remained to monitor if the enemy had not spotted anything. Satisfied that the stash was safe, they followed us.
To put this whole journey into perspective, we didn’t carry any bags for clothes but we would wear three or four trousers. So imagine walking those long distances wearing four trousers? When we got to the rear, we got what was available, if it was a blue right shoe, same size with a red left shoe, then that was that.
There was no time to look for the same colour, as long as the sizes were the same. In some scenarios, where there were no shoes from logistics, we used tree barks as shoes, with the tree fibre acting as shoe laces. Because these shoes didn’t have front or back, maybe that is why the Rhodesians ended up concluding that guerillas disappear into thin air, because they could not tell which direction we would have gone.
As for us girls, underpants were a luxury, in fact unheard of, we never wore panties during the war. If it was time for periods, one would take leaves and use them as cotton wool. When it came to bathing, we bathed side by side. No soap, no towel and no toothpaste — our teeth we washed with sand.
Besides ferrying weapons from the rear to the front, there were many times when we had to ferry injured comrades from the front back to the rear. We made stretcher beds from tree branches, no blanket to make the injured comrade safe. With four comrades under the stretcher bed, the journey to take him/her to the rear had to be non-stop as the comrade would be in pain and needed attention urgently. So it was common to cover a journey, say from Kwekwe to Harare in just 24 hours.
It is only that we have gone some 40 years since the liberation struggle, otherwise I would have shown you the blisters that were on my shoulders from carrying those stretcher beds and weapons. In the event of an ambush while carrying an injured comrade, the standing instruction was to safely lay the comrade on the ground and fight. In the event of an injured comrade passing on, if the circumstances allowed, a quick burial would be done. But if an injured comrade died in an ambush, we would just rest him against a tree or if circumstances permitted, take him up a tree, pamhanda yemuti.
It was tough surviving in the liberation struggle but most of us owe our survival to our ancestral spirits, midzimu yedu, they looked after us so much. When we were embarking on a journey either to the front or to the rear, we prayed to our ancestral spirits, we never prayed the Christian way. Those who had strong ancestral spirits survived and those without were unfortunate not to come back.
Q: Let us rewind a bit, to the pungwe when you were in Grade Five, were you told when you left what awaited you? Or were you aware what joining the liberation struggle meant? And were your parents informed that you were going away?
A: No parent was informed. When we went away, the pungwe was like some five to 10 kilometres away from home. I had sneaked out of home during the night, going to the pungwe, you know how it was like back in the rural areas, just the same way young girls at times sneak out at night to go to jitis. That is the same way I went to that pungwe. So it was some distance away and the comrades didn’t have time to go and tell each parent that they were taking their child away. As for us, we were told and asked if we wanted to join the liberation struggle.
Looking at the comrades, with their dressing and their guns, and how the pungwe sessions were so full of joy, we just assumed it must have been fun going to war. Remember pungwe sessions were full of morale and that did it for us.
But the situation at the front was something else, there was no Christmas, there was no New Year, there were no holidays. There was no time to think of your father, your mother, your brother or sister. The training was so intense that you wished for it to end and you go to the front. At the front, it was not rosy either.
In the next instalment, Cde No Doubt Magorira delves into the capture and abduction of one Yvonne Mulligan, whom they were supposed to take all the way from Bhora in Murehwa to Mozambique. What happened to this prisoner of war, did they kill her? Don’t miss the climax that was 1979, the year that defined the liberation struggle on so many fronts.
