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House of Stone
THE TRUE STORY OF A FAMILY DIVIDED IN WAR-TORN ZIMBABWE
CHRISTINA LAMB
To my parents who taught me there are always at least two sides to a story
Among the gold mines of the inland plains between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers [there is a] … fortress built of stones of marvellous size, and there appears to be no mortar joining them … This edifice is almost surrounded by hills, upon which are others resembling it in the fashioning of stone and the absence of mortar and one of them is a tower more than 12 fathoms high.
VICENTE PEGADO, captain at the Portuguese garrison of Sofala,
on seeing the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, dzimba dza mabwe, House of Stone, 1531
I have one great fear in my heart-that one day when they are turned to loving they will find we are turned to hating.
ALAN PATON, Cry, the Beloved Country (1948)
CONTENTS
2 Riversdale Farm, Headlands, 1971
9 Dombotombo township, Marondera, 1986
14 New Life Centre Church, Marondera, 16 April 2000
Epilogue - Great Zimbabwe, November 2005
THE WAR VETERANS had been living at the bottom of the garden for months. Every afternoon the family would take tea on the terrace and stare beyond the swimming pool and children's tree house to the plumes of smoke rising from the round thatched huts that the squatters had built. Every night the family tossed and turned to their drumming and chanting. The next morning the farmer would find the carcasses of the cattle that the intruders had slaughtered.
Kendor Farm was in Wenimbi Valley in the rich tobacco-growing district of Marondera. Tobacco was Zimbabwe's main export, and for the previous two and a half years neighbouring farms all around them had endured similar invasions. The first murder of a white farmer had happened only a few miles away on 15 April 2000. Since then many farmers had been badly beaten; some had been hacked to death. Most had been either kicked off or fled. By August 2002 the morning roll call over the radio, started to check on the safety of local farmers, had stopped because Kendor was the only white farm left in the valley.
The Hough family had thought about leaving. But the 1,400-acre ostrich and tobacco farm and eight-bedroom house with its sweeping view over the balancing rocks and floaty canopy of msasa trees was their dream. They had worked hard for the farm and sunk all their money into it. They wanted their children to grow up as they had and could not imagine starting all over again. Other white farmers who had moved abroad to England or Australia had ended up driving minicabs and living in poky council flats. Besides, it was not
