Taurai Mangudhla
An elderly woman, possibly in her mid-80s, clears bricks from what used to be her two-room house. What remains are just those bricks and aluminium roofing sheets. Only half of the building is still standing. This is only a tip of the iceberg, of what Cyclone Idai’s 185km-per-hour winds left in its wake.
“We thought the rains had come to give us life, we didn’t know they would instead destroy us,” Mbuya Munhapo of Mhandarume village in Chimaninimani district told Business Times last week.
Her homestead is less than a kilometre from the bridge that collapsed on Umvumvumvu River which links Mhandarume and Mutambara communities. Now people have to cross on foot on a 40-metre strip that is making it difficult to get medical assistance. Pregnant women are now forced to walk for about 10 km to Mutambara Mission Hospital.
Munhapo’s old age, coupled with a stressful experience that left her family of seven homeless, is apparently messing with her head. She pauses, speaks to herself briefly and mutters: “When you are poor, you become insane, we don’t know what to do now and we will try anything.”
A wheelbarrow, water containers, and a small heap of sand can be seen a few metres from the ruins of what was her house before the disaster. Despite a drizzle, she continues with her reconstruction efforts.
“I was stuck in this house for two days with my grandchildren and daughter until Sunday when we heard a funny sound from the walls. It was clear we were in danger and we ran out before the building collapsed. We were lucky to escape unhurt,” she said.
Now her daughter and grandchildren are a few hundred metres away, with what remained of their belongings. Marry, the daughter, is cooking lunch and taking care of her 22-year-old daughter who has mental health problems.
The shelter they are now staying in looks abandoned, with no decent roof or doors, but it is all they have. It in fact belongs to Marry’s ex-husband and will only accommodate them for a few nights.
“All my groceries were destroyed, my children lost books and clothes. Even my grain was damaged,” Marry said.
Unlike the victims who lost their lives to the Cyclone, Marry lived to tell her tale.
“When I was in the house for two days, people from the community came to check on us when it was raining and they helped us to move our belongings,” Marry said, gazing at the remains of her home, counting her losses.
“I was scared when we were in the house and I was thinking about my family’s safety and lives. I worried about my few belongings, some of which I still lost. But all that has changed, right now I am just glad we still have our lives and we will stand to someday possibly rebuild what we lost,” she added.
About 30 km from Munhape’s homestead is Precious Tiki’s. Huge baobab tree trunks lay just by the entrance of her bar, which is 20 metres away from the Umvumvumvu River at the Tanganda Halt. It is in that bar that she escaped death by a whisker on the fateful Friday –nearly two weeks ago, around midnight.
“I was talking to my friends on Whatsapp around midnight when I felt water on my blankets. I got up to check and water violently broke down my door,” Tiki said.
“Water then filled the back room and I struggled to find my keys. I was saved because the water level then dropped, allowing me to open the back door to safety,” she added.
“I only realised my life was in great danger when I was watching my shop from a distance. My survival instinct took over and I just fought to get out alive.”
Along the Chisumbanje-Chiredzi highway, a couple walks in their field at Mikiri. The field is covered with water, all the maize crop destroyed. The fields have turned into a stream.
“We have been staying here for a long time guarding the field from wild animals,” Sarudzai Mutema of Mudzimwa village says. “Now we just appeal to the government for support so that we can get food at least.”
In Chisumbanje, residents whose settlements are along the Save Valley are on high alert. “It takes up to seven days or so for water to flow from Odzi and Umvumvumvu to this area, so we still have time. If the water levels don’t drop, we may be wiped out. Everyone is on high alert right now,” says the Chipinge South MP, Enock Porusingazi.
