a small slice

of

rhodesian pie

Dam Building on Rio, mixed

with random thoughts!
#1.

1.
Armistice Day and Rhodesian Independence Day
11th. of November, 2010.
A long time ago, I decided to write down what I could remember of my
early years, growing up in Southern Rhodesia. Discipline does not come
easily and as we are all aware, the road to hell is paved with so called
good intentions and one has to confess to probably being a fair way down
that track! It only takes a bit of will-power to put things at least a little
bit right and with winter here in the far North, dragging its dark, cold
blanket over us with ever-increasing intensity, there is no better time to get
out the pen and put it to paper!
A couple of days ago I spent some time fruitlessly searching for the Marange
diamond field by peering down from Google Earths satellite, and when that
plan failed I thought Id have a look at home where I was born and lived
for more than half my life.

R-LeftDad, myself, Mother and last, but not least, Towser.

2.
The farms Rio, Sitola and Dunsinane in the Tokwe Block, more or less in
the middle of Rhodesia and the middle of no-where to all other intents and
purposes, no longer exist officially on paper having been scrubbed out of
the deeds registry a long time ago now! However, there they are standing
out proudly on my 1: 50000 Ordinance Survey map which I drag out
periodically to encourage that favourite pastime of people as the years
advance. that of reminiscing!!!

3.

The so-called big dam and full of water, for a change!

And the back-yard, always shakura-ed to keep snakes away from the house!

4.
They are there, the memories that is, trapped in a time warp nearly a hundred
years old now, in the form of A Permit of Occupation for Rio, granted to
my grandfather by the British South Africa Company on the 28th. of June
1913, for a period of five years and with the annual rental of 40 and eleven
shillings, being equal to 5% of the total purchase price for the farm. Unless
my calculations are distorted, Rio was eventually purchased for the princely
sum of 2/6d an acre, in that far off time. Also attached to this agreement is
one dated 1918 in which the BSA Co. lends my grandfather 35 to build a
dip tank, with annual repayments of 2 and nine shillings to be made until
the debt is paid off! That dip tank, the site of which can just be seen from
Googles lofty perch would have worked for us for about sixty years,
dipping about six or seven hundred cattle per week, or around two million
cattle dipped in total over the period. Not a bad return on a 35 investment!
And what did Google show of my old home? Well, as one might expect,
things aint what they used to be! One can only locate the site of Rios
homestead accurately now, because two relatively small dams which Dad
had had built have stood the test of time and still hold water! One about
500 yards to the north and a smaller one 500 yards south of the where the
homestead once stood. The new owners have ploughed up and built their
homes over the whole area of the homestead as shown in Googles birds
eye view! I wonder if they have discovered yet, that they did not have the
blessing of either myself or my ancestors to do this?
In the late 1950s a subsidized dam building scheme was introduced by the
government of the day, and made available to the Tokwe block at a certain
point in time. Dad contracted to have one dam built and it turned out to be so
economical that he opted for a second smaller one to take advantage of a
one off opportunity. And there they are now, standing just a little bit like
monuments, more than fifty years later and probably the only remaining
vestiges of my fathers sixty-six years of farming! The orange orchard
which produced lovely Washington Navel oranges in spite of their growing
in very poor granite sand, aided and abetted by some fierce droughts, and
the avenue of gumtrees whish led to the homestead, are nowhere to be seen.

5.

All the sheds and the old homestead with its red-oxide painted roof have
been dismantled by the present incumbents, for better or worse, and I wish
them the best of luck because the only reason I didnt bother with such items
myself was that the corrugated iron was all but rusted through, with more
red-lead than zinc left and the timber had been sampled extensively by
mujuru the white-ant!
But, more cheerfully, back to the dams! I can remember the excitement of
coming back home from boarding school and seeing and hearing Caterpillar

6.
D7s at work, for the first time! Two of them were fitted with the
appropriate scoops behind them and the third provided logistical
support, when required, to help the others to fill their scoops to capacity, by
pushing vigorously from behind, as and when needed. No need for silencers
or catalytic converters in those days.when hard at work, as much diesel
was poured into those engines as they could gulp and it emerged,
transformed into clouds of black smoke and a mighty roar the likes of which
had certainly not been heard since the last good thunderstorm! For all the
noise and smoke belched out, not to mention soil moved, it would seem that
the horse power produced by these monsters may not have been that great.
The loudest other noise occurring naturally out in the bush was probably
when two Africander bulls met in that age old contest required by nature of
most males, but even that sometimes impressive spectacle paled into
insignificance for a short period, as D7s moved the Earth about! First they
dug downwards until they could disappear completely , which seemed like a
big waste of time to a ten year old but then slowly everything grew back up
above ground-level and a beautiful dam wall took shape.
And even starting these beasts was an interesting spectacle if I remember
correctly! First the donkey engine hidden somewhere in the works had
to be started and when that was going OK, that somehow started the main
engine. I remember this sequence of events didnt always go quite according
to plan which gave rise to some flowery and descriptive language from the
operator on occasions! Sooner or later their work completed, the roar of
Caterpillars fell silent and the long wait for rain to fill the new dams began. I
think the smaller dam filled quite quickly but the bigger one which I seem to
recall held a mere 5 million gallons took a couple of years to spill! Fishing
trips to collect bream were mounted to such places as Mushandike dam and
later to the brand new Kyle which produced small bream in huge quantities
in its first years. Bass were bought from, if my memory serves me correctly,
Henderson Research Station, and R** R*********** and I scoured his
dads dams at Lalapanzi for fingerlings as well, using a tickey spoon to
which young bass are attracted, for some reason. (lots of fools are
attracted to shiny things, I have now discovered!)
I dont think the bigger dam ever went dry, in the true sense of the word, but
it did get reduced to muddy pools from time to time as the vagaries of the

7.
climate of the Tokwe tested its endurance! I learned to sail on that dam, in a
forty-four gallon drum cut open like a mussel, for want of a better
description.

Sailing on the little dam in a 44 gallon drum!

A rather special, heavy rain, falling at the right time of the season also
triggered a mass exodus upstream of all the barbel that lived otherwise
happily in the dam. This led to some vigorous hunting in the water-logged
vlei above the dam, as the farm labourers collected a real feast of fish.
And such are the probable ages of most of our readers that by now, many
may well have fallen asleep, so perhaps this a good time to reflect on todays
Armistice Day and to celebrate about 45 years since that fateful day when
UDI changed the course of all our lives and that of Rhodesia forever. I
wonder, once again, whether anyone will march past the Cenotaph in
London in memory of all the Rhodesians who gave their lives for the British
Empire in the World Wars. Probably not, and I can understand if we
commemorate privately, those Rhodesians who made the ultimate sacrifice
for their country after 1965.

8.

Oxen pulling a trailer, with the Svika and Senangwe mountains in the background

An Mchakata tree which was taken over by a Strangler Fig.

And now, before I myself nod off as well, its..

Best regards to all! Tom Hogg