Author: Lloyd Muponda 20 March 2019 email: muponda2010@gmail.

com

Cyclone Idai has affected everyone in one way or the other. Personally, I am shocked and cannot
verbally narrate my feelings and fears. I have decided to put pen to paper imagining what it could
have been - being at the centre of the disaster and without help from the outside world. I tried to
detail what it means for ordinary rural folks when scientific they get scientific weather forecasts,
level of unpreparedness and the shock of dealing with a disaster without the required knowledge
and resources.

Photos courtesy of Bangkok Post and AFP

Cyclone Idai and the Prisoners of Hope

By Lloyd Muponda

Y
ou may call it a figment of imagination, a story far-fetched and sounding more of a novel
chapter than reality. The irony of the well to do is their failure to imagine life from the
perspective of the vulnerable. Well, that’s a forgivable offence considering you have
never been an 80 year old widow recalled from retirement to fend for and oversee five vulnerable
orphaned kids. You see this little one, the youngest, I warned her mother several times not to go.
Why would she follow the dreaded trek south when the village had still not accounted for dozens
of young men and women who for the love of gold had joined the bandwagon to Egoli. I could not
imagine my own daughter and the only surviving of my half a dozen children becoming an
additional statistic. But she had to do it, she had no choice in a country she said had no tangible
economic prospects for her forsaken generation. Unemployment was at 90% or even worse, she
said and her education had no space to grow. At my age you just cannot argue with these young
people when they start throwing in figures in the middle of their uncontrolled outbursts of anger
and frustration.
Would you believe I lost a handful of sons to the dreaded disease? Well except for Richard who
died in the Regina Coeli bus disaster. Uneducated as I am, I produced a whole geography and
mathematics teacher. Proud I was and proud I am. I reached the hospital a few minutes after he

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 Author: Lloyd Muponda 20 March 2019 email: muponda2010@gmail.com

passed on you know. I could not say good bye. The other four boys were swallowed by the city.
In their splendor they were drawn to the uncultured and unrestricted women in the lit streets of
Harare and my tears will forever flow for the boys who through weakness of character squandered
all they had including their own souls. What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and
lose his own soul? I now bear the pain of taking care of these infants left under my Care. God’s
case no appeal they say and I can’t question him. I will not even bother you about this grandchild
of mine who is always sick and needing extra care. Enough of my stories.
We heard about this coming disaster at a village meeting. People are always talking to their phones
more than they talk to their neighbors these days. They laugh confusingly expecting you to share
in the humor of a joke they did not share. In any case they mentioned it. A cyclone like the one we
once experienced was forming somewhere in the Mozambique Channel. They said it started in the
sea channel brewing like a storm and slowly growing into a cyclone because of warm sea
temperatures. I pretended to understand but they did not explain it as my Richard the esteemed
geography teacher would. Richard had a way of breaking down life’s complexities into simple
idioms and proverbs. He was able to turn the language of white men’s machines into our simple
local deity and that’s why all grown men would gather around him whenever he visited home.
Now these confused young boys with an adulterated language and misconstrued culture speak of
tropical cyclones and complicated satellite weather forecasts. Even the village head did not
understand the story that is why he did not entertain them and ordered the disrespectful boys to get
their house in order before they could dream of having an opportunity to address the community
meeting again. The young people have to understand that we the gray haired look out for each
other. We have no education and no wealth but we have plenty of love to share with the world.
Why would God want to punish us again and put a whole village in harm’s way? God doesn’t
inflict pain on widows and orphans. My honest confession is, we could not get our old heads
around the complexities of the cyclone story and its intended complications, implications and
repercussions. The narrative wasn’t clear and the grapevine in any case is not a credible source of
news.
We left the meeting in huff because the dark clouds were rising from beyond the mountains. We
were half worried about the cyclone story but the other half was hopelessly surrendering the
remaining useless years of our lives to the creator in whom we are prisoners of hope- well, in case
the story was true.
It was cloudy, it was dark and it seemed heavy rains were close by. It’s always calm before the
storm and the boys could have had a thing to share at the community meeting. After feeding my
grandchildren with all I had left we put away the plates, pots and buckets to create more sleeping
space. I had done these chores for eternity. Our round hut was our esteemed three tier mansion- a
kitchen, a lounge and a bedroom. They don’t want to pray these young people but I have to force
them because they have to know the sustainer of their little lives- we said our routine prayers and
called it a day. It’s amazing that the whole lot has their hopes in me and my hope is in them yet
together our hope must be in God. I always pray that they dream of bigger and brighter prospects
than our current squalor and poverty. In the first and second watch as always I routinely woke up
to check on them. With the five of them sharing two blankets you just have to ensure equity and

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 Author: Lloyd Muponda 20 March 2019 email: muponda2010@gmail.com

equality. They were sound asleep. It’s always a peaceful night when their stomachs are full -
Treasured moments.
I had not put my head to pillow when I felt a faint tremor from my legs up. It was probably those
queer sounds of the night or a distant explosion because the young village boys can be naughty at
times. I pulled the blanket up my body and over my head. Then came the sounds, It must have
been a cat but what about the thundering roll. It happened quickly and did not give me the time to
think and make sense of it all. I quickly uncovered my face and looked in the direction of my most
valued possessions. I switched on the torch that was still in my left hand and flashed it where they
were sleeping. Rufaro was not there and Takunda was not there. If this was a dream it was a bad
one and I did not tolerate evil spirits taking control of my narrative even in my sleep. I heard a
squeaky high-pitched cry from my little sick Nhamo. The little boy was obviously in shock. I was
confused but he was more confused. I pulled him close to me then suddenly a roar from behind
me. Water gushed in, it was muddy and that’s when I noticed that my other two grandkids were
standing beside me shivering and in unimaginable shock. “Gogo the hut is falling, look at that big
stone by the door side.” It’s only then that the dots were connected and had some fractional control
of my faculties. Half the hut was gone and half the hut is what we had left. I forced myself to think
and realized that the standing half would soon fall over us. I had prayed but found myself praying
loudly with the vigor of a young woman. God knows where I got the energy but in a short time I
had my four grandchildren climbing up a hill next to our home. It was on our way up that I realized
the boulder that had destroyed my hut had rolled from the heart of the same hill from which we
were seeking refuge. I knew the physical features for the hill had been my neighbor for over six
decades. I knew the stone that had destroyed my only hut, I had a very personal relationship with
the big rock of ages. I felt betrayed by the very stone I had Adored as a symbol of strength and
God’s power for decades. The very friend whom I had trusted with the remains of my late husband
had rolled as in protest for the years of unpaid service to destroy my home. It was not only my hut
but my 2 priced possessions Takunda and Rufaro. The squeaky sound, the squeaky sound. My two
grandchildren had been sleeping in harm’s way. God had plucked out my little joyful roses before
they were fully blown. I wanted to cry, I wanted to mourn. As I was about to send out a loud cry,
Nhamo’s shining eyes struck me cold. I had three little clueless kids looking to me for strength
and with their hopes pinned on my next instruction. I held my tears back and gathered the little
strength I had left. They needed a strong commander, they needed hope, and they needed life. I
had to comfort them in the confusion of my own pain. I had to keep them warm when my heart
had suddenly grown cold from the colder effects of nature. A minute can be like an hour and an
hour like a day. I kept calling Rufaro, Takunda, Rufaro, Takunda. There was no response. In my
fear I prayed and in my prayer I feared. One minute after the other we could hear many crying out
for help, the rains were heavy and it was difficult to point the direction from which the voices were
coming. The river adjacent the hill was raging violently and the sounds of crushing trees were
deep, loud and wide. I wondered why the river had turned angry and violent, why nature had
plotted a coup against the very humans that had lived under its natural provisions. I had more
questions than answers.
Like a hen with chicks under its wings, I pulled my possessions closer and kept them warm with
my own body. It soon became day. I must have dosed off a bit but was woken up by the noise of

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 Author: Lloyd Muponda 20 March 2019 email: muponda2010@gmail.com

the village boys calling out my name. The rest of the village was busy with picks and shovels
digging and with speedy as if someone had informed them of secret gold deposits. I called out in
response. Everyone froze and stopped working for a second. The young men came running up the
hill to rescue me and my three priced possessions. As we were making our way down the hill
someone shouted in despair, “Come over here, come over here!”
I felt so awfully hollow when they pulled out the two lifeless bodies of my Takunda and Rufaro.
Clad in shorts but wholly covered in mud, the faces deformed and bones broken everywhere were
my priceless inherited possessions. I mean, I had tried all night to hold my tears back for the sake
of the ones who relied heavily on me but I could do it no more. The comforter in me vanished and
I let out a loud cry. I cursed, I groaned, I shouted and I lost control. It seemed every action I took
and every sound I made the kids followed suit. The village was engulfed by my mourning. I
expected all of them to comfort me but they didn’t. The majority of the villagers seemed to have
disconnected from me emotionally and continued with their assignments. Only two women out of
a whole village came to console me. “You have to be strong Mbuya vaTaku. Be strong, the village
already has five funerals and many more are coming. Your neighbor and his whole family perished,
the village head was swept away by the river after delaying at the shops after the community
meeting, your friend mbuya Muchongwe was buried under the rubble from the mudslide and we
have been cut off from the rest of the world. You have to be strong for we only have each other
and right now we cannot afford to mourn. Join us in the work in whatever way you can, we need
all hands on the deck!” She meant business. They consoled me for two more minutes and picked
their hoes to join others in retrieving but more importantly their bodies signaling me to quit
mourning and join the rest of the village. I did. Mourning was a noble sentiment but reality had to
chart the course. We left my two lifeless grandkids under the watch of a village elder while we
proceeded to search for the bodies of my neighbor’s family. One by one we retrieved them, a
sombre atmosphere was all around us but the work had to go on. We discovered 8 bodies there and
together with mine they were now ten dead people before us. The village elder walked
authoritatively towards us and commanded; “We have 10 now, half of us will bury them while the
others will continue searching for others up the village.”
You have to understand that in our village funerals were rare and more importantly well-spaced in
time but to bury 10 at one go was devastating. We were so used to the Nyaradzo, Doves and
moonlight hearses but here we were with 10 dead bodies, no coffins, no pastor to give the journey
prayers and definitely no eulogies. Just like that and my treasured possessions were gone. They
did not give me a chance to mourn. I had not gotten it in my head that they were gone yet they
were already buried. This is no closure.
It was only after their burial that we realized the village had no food supplies and no water to drink.
The village elder stood up and spoke again. “We have 8 more bodies that have been discovered in
our village. We cannot identify the other two who seem to have been washed away by the river.
We have tried to call everyone we know but we cannot reach any, roads have been cut off, and no
one can help us even if they wanted to. All we can do for now is to identify a safe space, sit and
wait for help if and when it comes. We pray that the rains will stop soon before we lose some more
people.”

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 Author: Lloyd Muponda 20 March 2019 email: muponda2010@gmail.com

We sat there without a plan. The sombre atmosphere was thickening by the minute and a hopeless
village sat in silence for hours not knowing what to do next. We were at the center of a catastrophe,
a topic of discussion in the world yet on our own unable to narrate our own experiences. We had
to comfort each other and hope for the best. The young men kept their eyes glued to their phones,
switching them off and on religiously then walking around with the phone holding hands up in the
air searching for network. The village elders wanted to get in touch with the outside world but the
young men kept saying the network was not there. These little gadgets are useful when spreading
nuisance but in times of trouble they betray you.
Three young man who had been send to scout the surrounding villages and rivers came back just
before dawn. Everyone was expectant, expecting good news, expecting bad news, expecting
anything. You know you are in trouble when the grey haired open up to anything from the mouth
of these young messengers. There was no room for distrust and there was no reason to lie. We had
been united by the force of nature and any news from one of ours would be good news. They had
scouted the surrounding villages and the story was no different from ours. Dead bodies were
floating in rivers and some had been buried by mudslides. The traumatic part was that the floating
bodies had names and names we knew. They were our kith and kin, whole families and half
families, strangers seeking refuge and government workers giving us valuable services. Disasters
must always leave people with a way to escape yet this one had engulfed us completely with the
evil intention of swallowing us alive. The disaster had turned us into prisoners, prisoners in our
own village and prisoners in our own country. Is there hope for the living? Our fields had been
washed away and our livestock gone. We the gray haired must show these young people that one
can be a prisoner but by all means be a prisoner of hope.
In memory of those who lost their lives and those who had to bear the burden of burying them
while cut out from the world. #CycloneIdai2019

Author: Lloyd Muponda 20 March 2019 email: muponda2010@gmail.co cell: 0772116408. Lloyd Muponda writes in his own
individual capacity and the contents do not in any way represent the values of any publication.