War Living: Part 1

We moved to Zimbabwe in 1972, during the war for independence, when I was a mere year old. My next 12 years of life were spent in that beautiful country.

Living during war-time is never easy. Things you take for granted, such as travelling 30km to the next town, become dash-and-run adventures, hoping all the way that you won't end up in an ambush. But as kids, most of it went completely over our heads - for us it was just the way people lived. There was fun and excitement in bomber runs, terrorist siren alerts, trawling through the rat-packs of older brother soldiers home for a brief breather.



A few years before Independence found us living in the border town of Umtali (now Mutare), up against the mountains between Zimbabwe and Mozambique. We were the second house from the mountain, across the road from the last houses before bushland started. We had a huge flame tree in the front yard, and the mechanic's pit in the garage had been converted into a bomb shelter, covered by corrugated metal roofing.

There were often attacks launched on the town from just across the mountains. We'd watch the evening "fireworks" as they streaked by overhead, wondering if now was the time to head for the bomb shelter.

I remember one night they were trying to get the mortars over the mountain and into the town. They kept landing on the top of the hill, none making it down - until a stray shell wandered off course and split our flame tree down the middle! But that was the end of the attack and in our year there we never once needed to rush to the bomb shelter.

We'd often spend Sabbath afternoons walking on nearby Cross Kopje (a small hill with a metal cross on top), keeping an eye out for bullet shells to collect, generally of the machine gun variety. If lucky, there would be an intact one and we were warned not to play with it.

One incident made local headlines. A lady had parked her car in the main road for a bit of shopping when an attack came. One of the mortars shot right down the main road, buried itself under her car.... and failed to detonate. A VERY lucky escape.

We spent a mere year in Umtali before moving on to Gwelo (now Gweru) and school-time for me. My dad was always upset that we "missed the action" - the town was bombed out good and proper the year before we arrived, and the year after we left!