ZIMBABWE: Women of Zimbabwe tell Their Stories

In 1990 a few women writers formed Zimbabwe Women Writers (ZWW) to promote women's writings in the country. It now has 600 members and 56 branches in both the rural and urban areas throughout the country.

Wherever there is injustice, human rights abuse and oppression there is always a strong community of writers with plenty of material to write about. Zimbabwe is no exception, and its women are particularly gifted in the literary department.

In 1990 a few women writers formed Zimbabwe Women Writers (ZWW) to promote women's writings in the country. It now has 600 members and 56 branches in both the rural and urban areas throughout the country.

Wherever there is injustice, human rights abuse and oppression there is always a strong community of writers with plenty of material to write about. Zimbabwe is no exception, and its women are particularly gifted in the literary department.

In 1990 a few women writers formed Zimbabwe Women Writers (ZWW) to promote women's writings in the country. It now has 600 members and 56 branches in both the rural and urban areas throughout the country.

Since 1994, the exclusively female membership has published three anthologies in Shona, Ndebele, and English. Numerous other works have also been published, a more recent one being Women of Resilience: The Voices of Women Ex-Combatants, a collection of recollections of women who participated in the war to liberate Zimbabwe, which was published in 2000.

The stories are told by nine women, mostly ex-combatants, about their war experiences. One of them, Marevasei Kachere, joined the war at the age of 15. By 1976, she and other villagers had been forced to live in a keep (protected village) by the government. She escaped to Mozambique, to Tembwe camp where she received military training. She was caught in a military raid in November 1977 in which she was badly wounded. Kachere then carried arms to the comrades in the front. After the ceasefire in 1979, she could not find a job, even though she attended dressmaking and other skill training courses. She married and went to live in Karoi, but that did not last long. She then went back home with her three children to live as a communal farmer.

Kachere's story gives us an idea of what kind of war the women had. They speak about what made them join the war, what life in the camps was like, how they lived through the fighting, what difficulties they faced after independence, and how they now feel about the events they experienced. The editors of the book say: ‘Women tend to explore, perhaps naively, the underbelly of the war, the small unpleasant details of the day-to-day horrors, and consider their capacity for endurance'.

The book reveals many non-glamorous aspects: hunger, makeshift shelters, horrible toilets, fleas, disease, suspicion, internal violence, friends' deaths, missing family, gender inequality, sexual harassments, etc.

The ZWW editors conclude, ‘It is time for us to consider what a country would be like if the agenda and the priorities were governed by women: would war be a priority? Whatever you are fighting for, in the end it's just a matter of removing one regime and replacing it with another similar regime'.

Not all the women felt this way though. Mavis Nyathi said, ‘It pains me when you see people castigating ex-combatants. People do not seem to realise the sacrifice that they made. Sacrificing their lives, leaving their parents, and going to fight for the liberation of the country is not a joke. It was a great sacrifice.”