(Zimbabwe, 1958)
Freedom T.V. Nyamubaya (1958 – 5 July 2015). poet, writer dancer, and fighter for freedom of Zimbabwe. She was born in Uzumba near Nyadire Mission in Mashonaland East Province in 1958. She left her Secondary School education in 1975, to join the Zimbabwe Liberation army in Mozambique.
While battling on the frontline she achieved the rank of FFOC (Female Field Operation Commander), later being elected Secretary for Education at the first Zanu women’s League Congress in 1979.
She has also founded MOTSRUD, a local Marondera-based NGO that provides ago-services to rural farmers. Her love of the traditional mbira music has seen Freedom performing on platforms like a possessed spirit medium. To date Freedom has published 3 books: “On the Road Again’’ published in 1986 by (ZPH) Zimbabwe Publishing House; “Ndangariro” 1987 published by Zimpfep Zimbabwe Foundation for Education with Production; “Dusk of Down” published by College Press 1995.
She contibuted to poetry anthologies and short stories in Writing Still and Women Resilience. Freedom sees writing as a continuation of the struggle for a peaceful and better world. Currently Nyamubaya is the Chairperson of Maninga Conservancy which natures and breeds wild animals such as buffaloes kudus Sables lions, leopards and many more plain game
Her first volume of poetry was On the Road Again (Zimbabwe Publishing House, Harare, 1985); then she published Dusk of Dawn (College Press, Harare, 1995). Stories book: That Special Place was published in Writing Still (Weaver Press, Harare, 2003).
Introduction
Now that I have put my gun down
For almost obvious reasons
The enemy still is here invisible
My barrel has not definite target now
Let my hand work
My mouth sing
My pencil write
About the same things my bullet aimed at.
A Question Of Choice
I am a mountain!
I laugh with those who laugh loudest
I have been a church?
Seen them come
In different ages colours
Black, white, yellow, red and pink
A walk in and walk out
By the rich and destitute
I have been beaten
Spat at, kicked and raped
My brain is a cold room
That stores the most torturous secrets
My flesh is like a football
Been kicked all the way round
I am a balancing rock
Have survived all weather
A rest place for peace loving birds
I live the way I believe
Because I have a strong will
Seen Enough To Go Sterile
A live current
Expressed through actions
Rolling eyes round and round
Like a child caught stealing sugar
Raising the head up and down
When you hear that long awaited sentence
I love you!
Then appear to be surprised
When you already knew it was coming.
When I think of the open dusty
Buttocks of the male comrades
With half-torn trousers
like the tail lights of baboons
You know what I mean
The sad look of the male organs
Hanging open and uninterested from behind
About dust?
They lived in it
The faces just fell short of monkeys’
Sisters and brothers
I don’t mean the mountain monkeys
I mean those ones coming from a peanut plot
“What about feelings?”
She just shook her head
And walked away
Seen enough to go sterile
Journey And Half
Have you ever been ordered to strip
In front of a thousand shouting eyes
Forced to lie on your back
With your feet astride
Allowing your vagina to be inspected
By somebody whom you have never seen before?
Imagine lying on your back
On an empty stomach
On top of angry biting ants
On hot dry African sand
And asked to imitate making love
Have you ever stayed awake
Hundreds of hours in one night
Crying out loudly without voice?
Asked to bark like a wild dog
Or laugh like a hyena
Beaten on your buttocks until they
turned into minced meat?
“The truth from a comrade comes from the buttocks!”
A famous interrogation slogan
It happened in the liberation camp prisons
We have come a long way
And still got a journey and half to cover
Shanty Town Beauty
She stood at the door step
Must have been five years or less
The begging eyes gazed from left to right
The kwashiokored tummy bulged out
Of the torn dress
With marks that looked like the map of Africa
I realised it was not tattoo
But an accumulation of dust
Run over by sweat
Pretty more than famous Cleopatra
Everything equal
The girl would pass for Miss Africa
Just another woman nature produced
But forgot to breast-feed.
The Train Was Over –Booked
From Beira to Salisbury
Some think it was full
Others say it wasn’t
But the train still made it
To its destination, Salisbury,
Now called Harare.
What happened to the passengers,
Those who actually bought tickets?
I saw women with children
Wandering about at the station,
Old people staggering, luggage in hand,
Awaiting official announcement
Young people hustling at enquiries
Trying to check the departure time;
But the train had gone halfway the journey.
Those on the waiting list
Got seats also to Salisbury.
Who else took the booked one?
It was discovered right in Harare:
With no tickets and no passports:
Crooks in the waiting room Really made it to
Harare.
