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Lina Machado Zuze and Zhuawo Zuze Relationship: Husband

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Lina Machado Zuze and Zhuawo Zuze Relationship: Husband 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.
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