Name of interviewees: Lina Machado Zuze and Zhuawo Zuze Relationship: Husband and wife Wife’s Village: Mgonamainga Posto: Magagada District: Mutarara Ethnic group: Sena Name of Wife’s Mother: Karota Makarichi Name of Wife’s Father: Jackson Machado Name of Husband Mother: Zuze Name of Husband’s Mother: Chasasa Place of interview: Rugare, Harare Date: 13 June 2007

Lina and her husband Zhuawo Zuze live in Mubita Street of Rugare Township. Although Zhuwao is now very old and needed the assistance of his younger wife to clarify his account, he is known as a successful businessman who bought a wood selling stand from his employer, the Railways Company, and purchased land from a chief in Mtoko where the couple built a thriving rural homestead. Their accounts combined show the brutal impact of Portuguese colonialism and the life experiences of men and women under British colonial rule in an urban setting.

Q. When did you come here?

A. Initially, my father wanted to bring us with him to Rhodesia and he traveled with us from our village. But when we reached Gondola he decided to leave us in the hands of my mother’s brother. Since my parents did not have a marriage certificate it was difficult to migrate as a family, considering the housing inadequacies in Rhodesia. So we spent years in Gondola while father worked in Rhodesia. Then I met my husband and he paid lobola for me. He was already working for the Rhodesia Railways. He already had a house in married quarters having been married before. So he took me to Rhodesia with him. I cannot recall the exact date I was still a young woman, a mere girl then. It must have been in 1959 because in 1960 I had my first born child.

Q. How about you father can you give your own account of how and when you came here from Mozambique?

A. I came to here in 1944 during the German War, and then it was still the good old Rhodesia. We arranged as a group of boys that we wanted to seek work in Rhodesia. We made all the preparations, our cooking pots and sticks, a sack of maize meal and relish. Then we started off at dawn as agreed. We walked all the form our village to Beira and from there our traveling fortunes changed. We met people we used to call masaloon; these were train attendants or ticket checkers. They were wise in the traveling world because they went everywhere on the trains and met all kinds of people. I do not really recall how these guys came to us but they persuaded us to abandon our foot journey for a train ride. They told us that since we had already reached Beira, it was safe now to board the train and they had transported other people before. We consulted among ourselves and I remember that everyone was tired after three weeks of walking towards Beira. That’s how we accepted masaloon’s offer. We traveled well and reached Umtali Town. Each of us had their own contacts. I sought out my own relative, Milinyu, a cousin brother. I found him at the Rhodesia Railways Depot where he worked. It was in the morning, so I waited for lunch time and he took me into the location and brought me to his room. He gave me food and went back to work while I rested. I stayed with him till I got a job at Vanderberg Company. I also got my own accommodation.

Q. Can you describe your living conditions in these rooms?

A. Oh that was tough. We lived as soldiers and that why people called the quarters the place of soldiers, we were the soldiers. We live four to seven people in one room. No women were allowed in these quarters. Any woman who dared to be seen in the soldier’s quarters was caught by the police and imprisoned. Some were sent back home. Some just paid fines. Of course some soldiers had wives and needed to live with them so they made friends with police boys who warned them when inspections were to occur. Then their women would sleep in the bush. It was bad for a man with a proper wife to bring her in the quarters there was no privacy she became like a prostitute.

Q. In the 1940s did you encounter the same situation where by you had a wife and no proper housing?

A. Yes. I had a wife and did not have a marriage certificate. It was only later that we applied at the Mozambican office called kwaMachado and got a certificate that we took it to the civil court here called kwaMudzviti. Then they endorse it and we took it to the Railways Company to file for married housing. We then separated because of fights and I married my current wife.

Q. Did you bring your first wife from home too?

A. No. I came as a single boy here. Then I sought a wife among the local Barwe women in Umtali Town. You know that there are Barwe people here as in Mozambique just as there are Manyikas and Makorekore on either side? But she took herself as a Zimbabwean such that we seemed too different to live in peace. She looked down on me as a foreigner and tried to control me and my money so I let her go. Q. Which was the first Company you worked for?

A. I first worked for Vanderberg Company. We sew sacks which the Company sold to farmers and other factories. In 1947 I left Vanderberg and joined the Rhodesia Railways. I had my first two children after joining the Railways.

Q. What job did you do at the Railways Company and how much did you earn?

A. I worked with the loading team till my pension. We lifted heavy goods into and from trains and trucks. These included 90kg sacks of maize, wheat, rice, and even cement. It was very heavy work, but then we were young and strong. In 1947, I earned one pound and ten shillings and in 1970 I recall that I earned five pounds and ten shillings. It was a lot of money then.

Q. Did you ever visit your rural home in Mozambique, if so when?

A. I visited my rural home once a year between 1944 and 1949 but of course I went to other parts of Mozambique. I however last visited Mozambique when I went to find my present wife whom you were talking to. That was in the late 1950s.

Q. So do you mean that you went back home to find your wife, whom I was talking to?

A. Yes, but it was like this, I knew her father because we worked for the same Company, the Rhodesia Railways. He told me that I was having trouble with women yet there was a well bred girl waiting for a marriage partner at his home in Gondola. So we agreed that I would travel with him in 1958 or 9. We went back to Gondola and there she was for sure. She was pretty and light skinned like a muzungu. I was ready so I paid bride price for her. That’s when I took her back with me. I already had married accommodation in Umtali Town.

Q. Coming to you mother, can you explain how and why you moved to Gondola and further to Zimbabwe? A. My original Mozambican homeland was Magagadi. I was a child but as I grew I could see that we Africans were suffering because of Portuguese cruelty. I grew up with that knowledge because I saw people being beaten. Just before my father decided that we had to migrate to Rhodesia, he had been among the people who had been beaten with Mbaramatodya (sic: Plamatoria) because they had failed to meet the expected quarter of harvest in their assigned fields. I still recall that it was the Portuguese who came with their police men to measure out nchiri (portions of land) which they assigned to each individual. One person would have an nchiri for maize, one for cotton, one for millet and another for peanuts. They beat then either on the buttocks or palms. It was also a public display to warn everyone that’s why we children also saw it.

Q. Did women also have nchiri assigned to them when you were growing up in Mozambique?

A. Oh yes! Especially if some jealousy neighbor went to the police and informed them that your husband had gone to Rhodesia then you suffered. My mother once suffered like that. We had to help her because she could not meet the expected harvest alone. I recall that my mother’s sisters also suffered like this and we got to know that this is how cruel the Portuguese were. They would come to our village. Africans carried them on Machira and he would be sitting comfortably only to be set down at the headmen’s boma (Kraal). Then he would tell the headman that this time I want this and that amount of cotton, this and that amount of peanuts. He oversaw the investigation of households. The Headmen called everyone to his boma and those whose husbands had gone to Rhodesia were separated from the rest and suffered the worst. They could not resist the nchiris assigned to them nor could they fail to meet the expected harvest. If they did they would be beaten with mbaramatodya.

Q. I heard some people talk about Mtarato. Can you explain what you saw as a child?

A. Both men and women served mutarato with men spending six months and women half of that. Women would be helpers in road and Bridge making in the District of Mtarara. So you see now, when father decided that he was tired of suffering and could not keep on sneaking back to see us before escaping again to Rhodesia, we them went away from our village towards Rhodesia. But as I said earlier, father did not have ready accommodation in Rhodesia, so instead of taking us all the way he left us in Gondola with my mother’s brother. Here life was better and father could come more frequently.

Q. Tell me about your father’s arrangement of migration to Gondola. What difficulties can you recall? A. We were four altogether that is my father, mother, brother and I. Father told grandfather that I am taking my family to Rhodesia. But grandfather was worried for he said, how can you walk with them all when you can see that the Portuguese are raging and everywhere they have their eyes and ears. You will all be caught and taken for mutarato. But he insisted and took us. So we walked all the way from Mgonamainga our village. We passed through Gorongozi until we pushed into Chimoio. We spent the night there. It was at Chimoio that the Portuguese tried to arrest my father to take him back but he was fortunate because one supai warned him and he ran away. So when the Portuguese and their police came where we were resting they found us alone. They asked- where is the man you are traveling with and where are you going. I recall that my mother replied that we are just traveling alone and the police left. Then father came from his hiding place and talked to the goods train attendants and we rode all the way to Gondola. But in Gondola, father was unfortunate. He was arrested for leaving his original village. He was beaten five times with mbaramatodya but he insisted that he was just visiting our relatives and they released him. He stayed with us only three days and caught the train back to Umtali.

Q. How was your life in Ngondola, how did you make a living while father was away?

A. For years we farmed maize, peanuts, melons, pumpkins and many other crops. It was a more comfortable life. I stayed on in Ngondola until I became a marriageable girl. That’s when father came with my husband from Umtali and in 1959or 1960, I was happily married. That’s when I came to Umtali, as a married woman. My own mother later followed father to Umtali. She was running away from the war which broke out between FRELIMO and the Portuguese and father even insisted that she could not stay there by herself. My brother too escaped the war and found a job in Umtali.

Q. How do you describe your interaction with the local Zimbabweans?

A. Language made relations difficult. The Shona or Zezuru language was difficult for me so it was not easy to get along. Personally, I usually preferred making friends with Zambians who were foreigners like me. In the area where I first stayed in Umtali Town my neighbors were three Zambians and only two local Zimbabweans of the Manyika dialect of the Shona Language. The Manyika’s were selfish and proud, so how could I relate with them? I just ignored them. In fact they looked down on us.

Q. How did you know that they looked down on you?

A. They always insulted our children saying you mabwidi get away from my house. When the indigenes called us mabwidi that was an insulting name for Mozambicans, Malawians and Zambians. So we foreigners became united and avoided the Zimbabweans.

Q. Did you participate in any social networks such as clubs or societies or churches?

A. I joined the women’s club at our local Community Hall in this location. It was at what you young people currently call Old Hall. We learnt to cut material to sew dress, trousers and other clothing items. But I did not stay long enough in the club to come out with lasting skills. It was difficult to get along with the people most of whom were Shona. I could not even feel free to ask how to lay a pattern on a material and to cut even when I needed help because of Language handicaps and the inferior treatment we expected to get from the Shona women. They said Mozambican women are stupid so I just dropped out. I also attended the Roman Catholic Church and there I met many Mozambicans, Zambians and Malawians. All of us had been Catholics from our countries. When I first attended the church here in Salisbury in this location, I was thus well received. We even agreed to form a Catholic Women’s burial society to help in times of death. Money for coffins, food at the funeral and other expenses would come from the contributions we made every month.

Q. When your husband took you to Umtali in 1960 in which part did you stay?

A. My husband had been married before and so he already had a married housing unit. That where I went to live. We lived in Rhodesia Railways housing in an area then called Old Bricks. Single workers lived in mudhadhadha (continuous block of rooms in which between four and seven men shared a room).

Q. How did you find the living conditions in the married quarters?

A. The fact that we had latrines located away from our houses was really good. Men shared their own toilet and women the other. The whole compound used the same bathroom.

Q. How many bathrooms for women did you have?

A. There were two toilets for women and two for men. But trouble came when we women met at the communal water tape. It was located in a central place away from the bathrooms and the houses. Instead of doing my laundry and dishes there, I carried water in jars to my house. That way I avoided the fights that usually erupted at these water tapes. It as no a safe meeting place especially for us mabwidi. They would tell us roughly to go back to our country.

Q. How long did you stay in Umtali?

A. I had my first child in Umtali and that was in 1962. But the rest, I had them when I had already moved to Salisbury. Father was transferred in 1964.

Q. In which part of Salisbury did you live?

A. I lived in the Railway Township of Rugare. We stayed in the four roomed married units near the beer hall. We did not like it there because people used to fight in the beer hall and some would escape into our yard. We then moved to this end of the Township in the 1970s. It was easy to transfer houses as long as you had a marriage certificate and a Town pass on which all your children’s names were written. I gave birth to four of my children here, one in 1972, the other in 1975 and the remainder in 1980 and 1987.

Q. Did you ever visit your home area in Mozambique in the 1970s?

A. Not in the 1970s but I started at the end of the civil war. Also it was not easy to get traveling documents then. But from the end of the civil war, I have always gone to Gondola and Beira, sometimes to purchase goods and sometimes to sell. I would catch a train here at the station and reach Beira where I bought dried fish; African print material and other items for resell here. In the 1970s, all my relatives were here until the end of the civil war when my parents went back home. You see my mother sitting there; I went to get her because since my father died there is no one else to take care of her. I now live with her.

Q. How about relatives who visited you in the 1950s, 60s and 70s?

A. In the 1960s, I recall that my husband’s relatives used to come. Antonio came and spent some months here before returning home in 1966 or 67, Eriki also came in the same period. Others would only stay to seek work and move to their own homes after getting jobs. No one however visited in the 70s and 80s. It was difficult to travel due to the civil war. People could not get the travel documents and those who traveled found clandestine routes of old. But as for us we had no visitors until much later.

Q. Can you recall what these visitors brought from home in the 60s?

A. Not much, just tepwe (a type of sea food, a very tiny translucent fish) and bakayawo (dried fish).

Q. Did you have any plans to return to Mozambique?

A. Ah no. We are now used to our life here. All our children married local men and our grandchildren are here. Our life is in this country and instead of building our retirement home in Mozambique we built ours in Mutoko. I have goats, chickens, cattle, ploughs there in the Eastern part of this country. That’s my home.