The Sunday Mail
Alvin Harry Jnr Zhakata, Aluva to many, is a colourful character who is unapologetic when it comes to Dynamos and even more so when it is the national soccer team, The Warriors. Two weeks ago, he embarked on a 3 000-km road trip into the heart of Africa to watch the ongoing African Nations Championship (CHAN) tournament. Below is his account, enjoy it . . .
There is some madness that builds itself into football passion.
Hello Rwanda . . . just after crossing the border into the tournament’s host country
My journey of the 3 000km I endured from Harare to Rwanda to watch the ongoing Chan tournament is a fine example of such madness. And the journey did not start with the proverbial first step.
Rather, the journey started with that heartbeat, which only those whose blood flow with the love for soccer can understand. This is the story of my five-day journey to be with the soccer team, the Warriors of Zimbabwe.
I have passionately followed my national team ever since I started to understand that the 22 men chasing a ball did what they did as a matter of life and death.
A long prayer that must have lasted for almost an hour and a $1 token from Chris “Romario” Musekiwa, “because that is all I have”, set the tone for an intriguing journey.
Thinking back and playing out what I went through in my mind, this story can equal an epic only John Ronald Reuel Tolkien could pen for the fantasy that became The Lord of Rings trilogy.
Day 1, Wednesday January 13: Hello Zambia
I left the suburb of Damofalls in Ruwa telling my friend and brother, John Mokwetsi and his family, that I was leaving for Rwanda. I deliberately omitted the crucial detail that I was going by road. Otherwise, I would have gone through a lecture of unnecessary warnings about rebels and terrorism.
I took my small bag and football regalia and walked into the unknown. It would take hours waiting for transport to Chirundu. “Romario” had escorted me to Greencroft, where minutes turned into hours. At last I had to settle for a car that was to take me to Karoi. It was a painful trip in that run-down vehicle, whose top speed was a depressing 70km/hr and whose engine noise pricked my eardrums.
Given the performance of his vehicle, the driver then decided to end his trip in Banket without even a warning. It took two more vehicles to reach the Zambian border.
The Zimbabwean and Zambian immigration officers celebrated me as if I had carried the world’s torch for all to see. I was humbled by how much they were fascinated that I wanted to reach Rwanda by road.
But there was a look of sadness from one elderly woman who said, “I wish you well son, but why enter the lions’ den just to trap a mouse?”
Hello Rwanda . . . just after crossing the border into the tournament’s host country
I stared at her and when she saw the conviction in my eyes, she smiled, grabbed my hand and whispered in her Zambian accent: “God bless your journey”.
I was to navigate through the mountainous landscape of beautiful Zambia to reach the capital Lusaka in a Toyota Corolla. That was to be the last time I would smile.
When I reached Lusaka, I got a taxi to take me to Heroes Stadium, the hiking spot for one travelling to Kapiri-Mposhi, some 210 kilometres away. At Kapiri-Mposhi I would get, hopefully, transport to take me to Tunduma, the Zambia-Tanzania border.
It was at Heroes Stadium where I was so heart-broken that I almost gave up the trip.
A soft-spoken taxi driver had approached me to take me to the hiking spot and I had obliged. I think the mistake that I made was to change my US dollars to Zambian kwacha while he watched. I also volunteered, rather naively, information that I was on my way to Rwanda and that I was to be there for many days (because I believed and still believe that Zimbabwe will play in the final).
Hello Rwanda . . . just after crossing the border into the tournament’s host country
He must have seen dollar signs written all over my small frame. He left me at Heroes Stadium and left. Or so I thought!
By that time I was tired and I was alone. The rains that had been elusive in Zimbabwe pounded the dimly lit streets of Lusaka and soaked me in the process. There were hours of waiting.
Waiting is a virtue when it involves courtship and not in the situation that I was in. Things were getting desperate. These were desperate times that called for desperate measures.
And that desperate measure was to settle for a commuter omnibus that was in transit from Durban to the DRC. What was more — the omnibus had no seats.
And just as I was dozing off, trying to get myself comfortable in the omnibus, I was shocked to see the taxi driver I had paid and left in Lusaka and a policeman stopping the driver of the omnibus. He immediately pointed at me. I had barely cleared my head to understand what was happening when the policeman, who was communicating in a local dialect, just lurched at me and handcuffed me.
There were five of us in that commuter omnibus and I had told my fellow passengers that I was off to Rwanda for the soccer tournament. When I was handcuffed they asked why, but the policeman said he would explain at the police station.
Everyone, including the driver of the omnibus, refused to let me go to the station without them accompanying me. When we got to the station there was no electricity and the taxi driver wanted to take my bag but I refused. The policeman, who was menacing looking and had an annoying habit of splashing saliva when he spoke, said I was under arrest for stealing the taxi driver’s mobile phone.
Hello Rwanda . . . just after crossing the border into the tournament’s host country
It was clear this was stage-managed. The driver of the omnibus asked the policeman to search me. They did and found nothing. Amongst my fellow passengers (in the commuter omnibus) was one Zambian who immediately phoned a senior policeman who came in no time.
Another fellow passenger, Bruce Chipepo, was fighting on my side and told the taxi driver that he was giving Zambia “a bad name”. The senior policeman who seemed to have had a lot of influence asked my accuser and his accomplice to apologise and we left.
My new friend, Bruce Chipepo, was to remark as we drove towards Kapiri-Mposhi: “Keep praying my brother, they wanted to dupe you. Keep praying as you travel.”
We arrived at Kapiri-Mposhi around midnight and the driver warned me of thieves. He advised me to sleep in a lodge and proceed in the morning. But I wanted to move on. I just wanted to reach Rwanda. I stubbornly said to myself that I would wait for transport to Tunduma because I believed God was by my side.
Day Two, Thursday January 14: Detention
The warmth of Zimbabwe was out of reach like the stars that littered the sky and I missed home. There were those night sounds that reminded me of my rural Seke and for some moments, my mind wandered to those National Geographical documentaries, in which a lion stalks its prey and lurches on the throat. I brushed all these thoughts aside and waited alone.
It would take two-and-half hours for me to get transport but only as far as Mpika where I jumped into a haulage truck and reached Tunduma around 1800hrs.
Tunduma is not by any means flattering but in its chaos, there is an order that is familiar to all the places I have visited following football, either with Dynamos or the Warriors.
From the slow immigration officers of Mozambique, the picturesque Lesotho, and the donkey-infested towns of Botswana, Africa replicates itself in so many ways.
Basing on Google maps, I had decided to use the relatively shorter but riskier route that passes through Burundi, en route to Rwanda. No sooner had I informed the Tanzanian customs authorities that I was in transit to Burundi than an alarm was raised and the facial expressions of everyone changed.
I was immediately detained, vetted, searched and scanned like I carried a nuclear bomb in my pocket. They spoke of terrorism and searched me again. I told them in the process that I was in transit to Rwanda for the CHAN football tournament.
When they found nothing and discovered that all was for the love of football, their paranoia turned into fascination. They then strongly warned me against travelling through Burundi and gave me two alternative routes.
One was either via Dar es Salaam or the shorter one via Rungwa. But they said the shorter one has a “laugh load”. It didn’t make sense to me then, what a “laugh load” would be.
Football is a universal language, those who had detained me became my friends as they assisted me to change my US dollars into Tanzanian shillings. And I was police-escorted to buses that go to Mbeya, 120 km away, where I would get another bus to a place called Tabora via Rungwa Game Park.
I reached Mbeya around midnight but I was a bit confused when I learnt that the region was an hour behind Zimbabwean time so technically it was still a Thursday.
Language was a barrier that made it all worse as the local policemen I had approached for assistance even struggled to speak a single English sentence. Swahili is the main language in Tanzania.
After over half-an-hour of trying to comprehend what they were saying, I finally booked a ticket for a bus that would leave at 0600hrs, an hour they strangely call 12 o’clock.
I was fortunate to get that ticket otherwise that would have meant me waiting for another three days before I could proceed as there is only one bus that travels from Mbeya to Tabora and only on Mondays and Fridays. God is good.
Day Three, Friday January 15: The road of death
The road from Mbeya to Tabora is like a road to hell.
It was to be a 15-hour journey that I would want to forget quickly.
There was still the language barrier issue, until I stood up and asked if there was anyone in the bus who could speak English and a university student called Grace gracefully raised her hand. I was to sit with her and learn a lot about this particular part of my journey.
We were in no man’s land. There was no sign of life. The road was bad and the rain season made it worse. It reminded me of the dust road that joined Mabvuku and Chikurubi , what we used to call “Bhinya Road”. Grace was not helpful either, by telling me over and over again that we might not reach our destination.
I was to be confronted by that reality as my eyes were constantly drawn to car shells.
“The extremely bad parts of the road can claim your car and when you are stuck, there is no car recovery company that dares to risk theirs by following you. Most abandon them and move on,” Grace explained animatedly, as if that would be news to excite my ears.
It was at that moment that I discovered that “laugh load” was actually a bastardisation of the queen’s language that simply was supposed to be pronounced as “rough road”. The journey took forever and to avoid further “updates” from Grace, I put my headphones on and started listening to Catholic music.
Being a Catholic, I started to recite the rosary and a litany of other Catholic prayers. I would shift my playlist from Catholic music to Zimdancehall, to Jah Prayzah to Alick Macheso but the journey seemed endless.
I would consult Google maps now and then to ascertain my location vis-à-vis my destination, and my enthusiasm turned into anxiety, and inevitably depression.
We passed through Rungwa Game Park on our way to Tabora. The beauty of the fauna and flora was apparent. I saw the majestic elephants and the buffaloes and giraffes that stared at us as if cheering us.
We finally reached Tabora on a Friday at 2100hrs, an hour they strangely call 3 o’clock. I put up in a cheap lodge that Grace helped me find, but that was not before I had booked a ticket to Kahama, from where I would get transport to Rusumo border.
Day 4, Saturday January 16: Ebenezer, Good Morning Rwanda!
I woke up early Saturday morning to hundreds of WhatsApp messages from friends back home telling me that Robson Sharuko had shared the story of my journey in his popular weekly column in The Herald.
I was to endure another four-hour journey from Tabora to Kahama. And I got into another omnibus to Rusumo. Buses are not allowed to reach the border post, so I was to learn that motorbikes are the “taxis” that the bus operators arrange to take passengers through the final five or so kilometers of the journey to the border post. It was fascinating.
I cleared the Tanzanian side and to reach the Rwanda side, there is a long bridge that needs another form of transport. This time there were bicycles.
Finally! Finally, I was in Rwanda and I blew my vuvuzela in celebration. The Zimbabwean flag had made me a person of interest and immigration officers were friendly save for one incident when the army hurriedly came when I blew that vuvuzela. However, that was resolved faster than I can say CHAN.
What a lovely people, these Rwandese! I was helped to get a local sim card and I immediately posted on my Facebook wall a picture of myself on a billboard inscribed RWANDA.
The soldiers were so delighted to learn that I had soldiered all the way from Zimbabwe and they took turns to take pictures with me as if I was a Hollywood star.
They asked a lot of questions about President Robert Mugabe. They also organised transport for me to Kigali, the capital which was another two hours away.
My heart was beating faster as the roads passed through mountains, above mountains and around mountains.
I quickly understood why Rwanda is known as “the land of a thousand mountains”.
It was a journey that tested my resolve. But I am prisoner of my passion, the lover of Zimbabwe and our football. I would do it again if need be.
The story of the bright lights of Kigali and our Warriors is for another day.
