Date and Wadzi

Three men were headed down the backroads of northern Zimbabwe- Pastor Kayawa, Jon Christiansen, and Nzou. They were headed for the village of Date (pronounced Dah-tay) to meet with some elders there. They needed to discuss the building plans that needed ironing out, and hammer out a few more minor details.
When they arrived, they found the elders were all out, tending to their fields. It wasn't totally unexpected. There were no cell phones, and definately no landlines in Date, so it was going to be hit-and-miss. Kayawa sent a young boy to run to the fields to find his father, and then meet us at the designated spot, a musha about a kilometer up the road. The three drove on to the meeting place, but when absolutely no one was there, they turned around and stopped at the next-door neighbor's musha. An ambuya (grandmother) came forward to greet them.
Ambuya welcomed them inside of her cookshack, where she was tending two small children- a boy of three and a little, pudgy girl of less than a year in age. Inside the cookshack, in the center , a fire was going, and over the fire a pot of water was boiling. The interior was smokey, and there was no apparent vent for the smoke to go. The thatched and poled ceiling was black and sooty from years of smoke. On the far wall was two areas of shelving for plates and cups, each plate standing on edge as if on display. It was a traditional set-up, and Ambuya showed off her plates, all enameled and chipped, as if it were the queen's finest china. Kayawa went in first, and noticed a concrete bench to his left. He slid about five feet down the bench, then Christiansen, then Nzou. Introductions were done, and it was apparent that Kayawa new Ambuya well. Christiansen introduced himself, Ambuya seemed to know the name, and then Christiansen said that the little boy was born three years ago just when he was leaving Karanda. Nzou was new. He was from Canada.
Ambuya offered some roasted maize, and threw a few cobs in the fire about three inches from the flames. The pudgy little girl fussed, and Ambuya prepared some sort of nasty looking food/drink for her. It was white and lumpy like cottage cheese. Christiansen leaned over to Nzou and whispered, "Can you imagine drinking that stuff? It's sort of like curdled milk." Nzou was close enough to smell the odd whiff, and was very grateful that it wasn't being offered to him. At least not yet.
A lone man came walking up the driveway. He was about five foot eight inches, very thin, and his cheeks and temples were very hollowed out, and his eyes appeared sunken. Surely this man new what it means to live a hard life, Nzou thought. He entered the cookshack, proceeded past the three men already seated, and found and empty spot. This was his home, and as more introductions occured, Ambuya pulled the roasted maize, called chibage (chee-bah-gay) out of the fire, and placed them on a plate. The men each tried a piece-firm, almost hard, yet mildly flavorful and quite filling. Ambuya also served rooibos (red bush) tea with milk. Outside, it began to rain lightly.
Kayawa and the owner of the home did most of the talking, discussing how exactly to go about with the building project at hand- a home for the pastor of the Date Evangelical Church. Currently the pastor, who is fairly crippled up, lives a long ways away, and offerings had been taken and money raised to build him a home near his church. Kayawa asked how many men from Karanda were needed, how to co-ordinate things, and when to begin. A start date of March 12 was decided. There was one more question. The issue of feeding the troops was discussed, and it was finally agreed upon that Karanda would bring one goat along for a barbeque, or braai.
Nzou watched the proceedings with interest. He thought how it really was no different from being in a teepee in North America. There was no peace pipe, but the fire in the center of the room was smoking enough that he could smell the smoke in his clothes. The chiefs were gathered around.....
Outside the rain had stopped. The four men stepped outside, said their thankyou's (maita basa and majita) and headed for the Landcruiser parked in the middle of the road.
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The church site was located literally at the very base of Wadzi, a huge chunk of rock projecting hundreds of feet straight up out of the ground. The setting was amazing. The church was a jumble of posts and logs with open walls and a thatch roof- a badly thatched roof in much need of repair. However, the building project was not for a new church- the locals here would do with what they had. The project was for a house for the pastor of this church.
The local elder was also a high-up person in the local village/tribe. With him along, we had permission to climb up Wadzi to see the bush paintings. Unfortunately, Kayawa had another appointment looming, so they couldn't go all the way up. The four men headed up a mombe (cow) path at a blistering pace, since they really didn't have the time to do this.
The view was second-to-none. Huge boulders and trees in the foreground, an endless sea of small fields in the distance,ranging from a quarter hectare to maybe five or ten hectares in size. Beyond them were more mountains. The team arrived at the first ledge, a flat area with a massive cliff looming over them, projecting outward. On the cliff face were bush paintings from long ago...back before the Shona ever lived in the area; when it was the Sen tribe, now almost extinct.
The Sen people were once plentiful in southern Africa, but now are confined to the Kalahari Desert, where nobody else on earth can survive... they find water where anyone else on earth would die. They communicate using clicking sounds included in their language, and once used paintings as art. Now it was fading badly, a piece of history soon gone.
The elder explained that the Sen and the Shona used to drive cows off of the top of the mountain, over the cliff. Down below, where they were standing, the meat would be perfectly tenderized and easy to cut into pieces...