The Sunday Mail
When the ceasefire was announced signalling the end of the liberation war that was being fought on many fronts around Zimbabwe, Cde Bob Gumede Ndlovu bade farewell to his lover.
When he got home, or so he is alleged to have promised, he was to make sure his two kids and lover would follow him. That was the last time the lover, Jessy Phiri, and her two kids were to see or hear of him.
Some 37 years later, Gift is now a grown man, having been born just a day before the bombing of Freedom Camp, hence they nicknamed him Kangondo, which means war in the local language.
His younger brother, Masiye, was to be born after Cde Bob Gumede Ndlovu had already left for newly independent Zimbabwe. “I was heavily pregnant when Cde Gumede left for Zimbabwe and I was to deliver when he had already left,” narrated Jessy last week at her home, just a stone’s throw from where Freedom Camp used to sit.
Masiye, just like his brother Gift is now grown up and married. Besides carrying the burden of never growing up with a father figure, for Masiye the pain is compounded by that he never saw him.
Now serving in the Zambian Air Force, Jessy says Masiye has opted to let sleeping dogs lie. “To my two boys, the chance of ever seeing their father is remote, hence they have somewhat given up clinging onto that hope. We are not even sure if he is alive or not. It has been a while since Zimbabwe got independent.”
Sharing the same burden of growing up without a father figure is Handson Ngabwe, now a father of five. His father, Cde Mabhena, died during the bombing of Freedom Camp on October 19, 1978. Handson was just four months old at that time.
His mother, Fan Ngabwe, died in 2013 and just like her son, she didn’t know much about her lover. Which part of Zimbabwe he came from or any leading information. For Gift, the tribute that he thought most befitting to the father he has never known or seen, was to have his children use the Ndlovu surname.
And for a liberation struggle that was fraught with nom de guerres, Gift and family are not sure if they are sticking to a false identity. “We used to know him as Cde Ndlovu and we are not sure if that was his real name as a lot of the fighters used war names. But all of Gift’s children are using the Ndlovu surname, that was the best way he could remember the father that he never saw with,” explained Peter Phiri, brother to Jessy and uncle to Gift.
But the ignominy of growing up without knowing one’s father is not limited to Gift, Masiye and Handson alone. In fact, there is a community of such children.
In a letter written in 2002 and addressed to the then Zimbabwean Ambassador to Zambia, and now Minister of State for Matebeleland North, Honourable Cain Mathema, Jessy Phiri, writing on behalf of other mothers, appealed: “We, the women of Chikumbi, are humbly requesting your assistance into our prolonging problems (sic).
“Sir, the listed below are names of children left by the freedom fighters who were at Chikumbi Camp up to 1978 when the camp was bombed by the rebels of Ian Smith. We do not know whether these freedom fighters are still living or dead in Zimbabwe. These children are grown up now and they have not known how a classroom looks like.”
Whilst this upbringing, without a father figure, has affected some of them – Gift was not at home and he had to be called from wherever he was drinking home brew and Handson is a general hand at a nearby farm, some of the children have gone on well to acquit themselves in life.
One of them, now a high-ranking official in the Zambian government, refused to speak, saying talking about the father he never knew, does not help his present circumstances. Besides fears that his speaking might compromise his government standing, the son of the freedom fighter also has his sight set on the next Zambian general elections, coming in about four years’ time.
“He wants to stand in the coming elections as a Member of Parliament for this area. And his reasoning is that if he speaks about his Zimbabwean roots, that might compromise his election bid. You know how dirty politics can be,” said an uncle.
But for Jessy all she carries are memories of the lover that went into thin air. “It was an affair made in heaven,” she recalled. “I used to brew beer and Cde Ndlovu would come here for his beer, almost on a daily basis. We developed the relationship and it bore us the two children.”
On the day of the attack, she said when she saw what was happening at the camp, she hid her baby under the bed and closed the door to her hut. “We then awaited whatever fate had for us. Little did we know that Smith’s soldiers wanted to bomb the camp only and didn’t want anything to do with the surrounding villages.”
After Cde Ndlovu survived the bombing of Freedom Camp, he stayed with the Phiri family, to the extent of having another child, this time born when he had already left for liberated Zimbabwe.
Does she remember Cde Ndlovu? “Yes, I do. No one can ever forget him. He had one eye, there was something wrong with his left eye. The last we heard, and we are not even sure if it is true information, is that he was somewhere in Mzilikazi. I have never had a passport my entire life, and besides I am now crippled so there is no way I can look for him.
“If I want to know where he is, it is for the sake of his two children and their children. Now they are moving around with the Ndlovu surname, just in his remembrance and we are not even sure if it is the proper name.”
For Handson, it is a different proposition. He knows his fate was somehow sealed with that callous bombing of Freedom Camp. His roots died in that bombing: “All my children are using my mother’s name. We didn’t know where even to start so we just let it be. What I just know is that Cde Mabhena was one of the camp commanders, from what my mother told me.”
Chikumbi area, some 25 kilometres out of Lusaka, was the seat of Freedom Camp, a military facility used by the Zimbabwe People’s Revolution Army (Zipra). Interestingly, Umkhonto weSizwe, the liberation wing of the African National Congress, operated alongside the Zipra forces in the same area. In fact they used the same facilities.
And it seems when the freedom fighters were not training, they would use their spare time otherwise. So as the names of the children who were born of freedom fighters were mentioned, the elders would interject, “no, that one is apartheid”.
Cde Zephania Moyo, whose chimurenga name was Cde Jechonia Zulu, and who operated extensively in Zambia, said the issue of children born during the war was an unavoidable page of history.
“That was bound to happen. Go to any area where guerrillas spent a lot of time, you will hear of similar stories. That is what happens when people meet, they are bound to fall in love.”
