Our Food Will Make Us Proud!

It’s not a surprise that Zimbabwe's culinary culture is one to be greatly celebrated. After all, the country is shaped like a teapot and even has a ‘smoke that thunders’ steaming on its tip.

Across many parts of southerly Africa, ice cream is not an everyday treat but rather a special one for noteworthy occasions. In many African households, an ice cream container in a refrigerator often contains frozen stew, meat and frequently beans from the week before. After ice-cream has been consumed on a unique occasion, what remains are the ice cream cartons. Finding actual ice cream inside an ice cream container in your refrigerator means one of two things: a special event is coming up or your folks are very affluent and live a comfortable life.

The types of foods one consumes can be status symbols. The same way that ice cream is seen as a luxury which conveys financial stability, certain food items are viewed as reserved for the poor. In most cases these include the traditional and indigenous foods of Zimbabwe. Food such as Mufushwa, Maputi, Chimodho, Maheu eChirema just to mention a few. Mufushwa are sun-dried leafy vegetables prepared as stews. Since they are seasonal and mainly found during the rainy season, the fresh ones are preserved to be enjoyed during the dry season. The vegetables include traditional ones such as rape (brassica napus), covo (marrow-stem kale) and muboora (pumpkin leaves). Indigenous varieties include mutsine (black jack leaves) and mumowa (red amaranth). Maputi are popped maize kernels; chimodho is cornbread prepared using flour and maize meal, and maheu is a fermented beverage made from maize meal and a mixture of other grains like sorghum or finger millet or pearl millet.

Tapiwa Guzha, the owner of TAPI TAPI ice cream parlour in Observatory, Cape Town, South Africa, creates a melangé of two worlds, creating the best ice cream known to humans. Using the flavours most available to poorer citizens, Guzha infuses the taste of Africa's indigenous delicacies into ice cream. His craft is cunningly oxymoronic. Imagine finding a mine of ice-cream flavours borrowed from our rich indigenous culinary heritage; flavours such as salty Maputi and Mufushwa Masala. Mufushwa is a highly nutritious food, but is not widely consumed in urban areas as the middle class and bourgeois associate it with rural areas and poverty.

In Zimbabwe’s culinary culture, mufushwa and ice cream are polar opposites. Guzha introduces this wonderful combination in both vegan and non-vegan options. TAPI TAPI is beyond ice cream. From the contrast between the ice cream and its flavours to the symbolism of such a store being found in the “Mother City”, the parlour is a Pan-African treasure. Cape Town is referred to as “Mother City” as it was the gateway between Europeans’ first contact with the people of southern Africa.

Guzha’s work interrogates the status quo. A huge poster in his parlour reads “Our flavours are not weird! We’ve all been socialised to believe Eurocentric food should be the global norm.” Meanwhile, painted as a mural on a wall adjacent to the door and hung in a picture frame are words Guzha titles “A reminder to you, my child”.

The message goes on to say, this is your home my child, land of your people. One must nourish oneself from the land, tend it so that others may enjoy it too. He instructs the child to remember that their stories, lives and histories do not begin in1488. (In 1488, Bartholomeu Dias became the first European navigator to round the southern tip of Africa. His discoveries established the sea route between Europe and Asia.)

On the mural, Guzha goes on to cite how a great and ongoing injustice has occurred because of colonization. He says this injustice rots the mind and decays the heart. He laments how these have been inherited over centuries. His child must not hold onto oppression, but cast it out. Guzha tells his child not to allow their story to be written for them, but rather to create space for self and room for others. He reminds his child of the need to build community and embrace diversity. In this way, “we are stronger together.'

From the aesthetics of the ice cream parlour to the mural on the wall. it is clear Guzha is a man on a mission. His push for authentic cuisine is an attempt to break down barriers. He creates cuisine which mirrors the people around it and empowers the people to whom the food belongs.

Tapi Tapi is beyond ice cream. From the contrast between the ice cream and its flavours to the symbolism of such a store being found in the “Mother City”, the parlour is a pan-African treasure. Guzha’s work breaks known mental barriers in African cuisine, pushing for renewed sovereignty one lick at a time.

Webster Makombe is a regular contributor to Emerging Voices. Read more from him here.

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Passport Apartheid

Condemn the South African apartheid regime and support the international boycott (1976) vintage poster by Rachael Romero.

In Zimbabwe, one of the popular relishes to go with the staple dish of sadza (a porridge of cornmeal and water) is “haifiridzi”. The history of this delicious dish speaks to the stringent pass laws in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe’s name under colonial rule) under the Native Passes Act. The same effects of these pass laws in colonial times can be seen in the present day visa system. Haifiridzi was invented by the witty native working men in Rhodesia’s high density towns as a way to cope with the law that hindered them from owning property and having their wives in their worker’s quarters. These men were only permitted to have two pots--one for sadza and one for relish, which was usually a meat portion. Most relishes would be missing a rare component, marrow-stem green kale known as muriwo, a side dish staple in Zimbabwe even today.

Failing to have an extra pot in which to cook the muriwo, after cooking their sadza and meat in the other two pots, the native workers would then simply add the muriwo to the pot with the relish, giving birth to what is known today as “haifiridzi”. The name is a Shona language version of Highfields which was a popular high density town housing most workers quarters. It was strategically positioned by the Rhodesian town planners to be next to the industrial area of what is now Harare (then called Salisbury) amongst other worker’s towns such as Mufakose, Glen View, Glen Norah and Kambuzuma.

Today’s restrictions resemble the pass laws that blocked black citizens economic opportunities, decent wages and a healthy social and family life.

To this day, Zimbabweans under self rule are still making their own compromises, their own mixes. Many don’t come out as nicely as “haifiridzi”. Today’s restrictions resemble the pass laws that blocked black citizens economic opportunities, decent wages and a healthy social and family life. Visa laws today are separating working husbands and wives. Just as pass laws stopped ‘natives’ looking for empowerment in certain districts, visa laws are obstructing Zimbabweans and Africans at large from working at good jobs.

This is a form of systematic racial discrimination based on one’s nationality. Many people are disenfranchised from the right to travel. People with Zimbabwean passports have great difficulty obtaining visas, be they for tourism, study or work. Some African citizens have to travel to other African countries to obtain a visa due to lack of consular services in their respective countries. This form of segregation is reminiscent of in-country travel for a black man during colonial times when Zimbabwe was Rhodesia.

In Rhodesia, failing to walk around with a pass or a “chitupa” or failure to produce it at required times was lethal. There could be dire consequences, some resulting in death. Today many Zimbabwean dreams, especially of youth, are killed for lack of obtaining a visa to work and study in other countries. Soon after high school, one of my friends was unable to pursue a career in criminology because he failed to obtain a study visa. This was in spite of the fact that he had excelled in his studies, had been enrolled at a reputable institution and had even secured a scholarship. But failure to get a visa was the end of his dream of a good education.

The visa application process itself is so intense and so interrogative it feels inhumane. The patronizing treatment received at the consular offices to the frisking, detention and interrogation received at immigration and border controls if one misses but a single correct response during questioning are humiliating.

The visa application process itself is so intense and so interrogative it feels inhumane.

Such treatment is akin to the treatment given native workers during colonial times when a person was found outside their district of origin or their registered district of employment.

It boggles the mind to think this form of discrimination even transcends diplomatic ties. A recent example is the inhumane and frustrating experience of South African President Ceril Ramaphosa at the hands of Polish immigration authorities on his way to the Ukraine-Russia Peace Talks. In June, 2009, then Mining Minister Obert Mpofu was denied a UK visa to attend an investment conference. Today many Zimbabweans face deportation from South Africa as this neighboring country has decided not to renew the Zimbabwean Exemption Permit (ZEP) visa. Visa requirements and visa restrictions are a huge stumbling block to the economic and social progress of many Zimbabweans.

Zimbabweans are Africans, and Africans are disproportionately impacted by visa restrictions. A European can mostly travel freely, often visa free. Europe has a relaxed inter-continental visa-free travel system. But in Africa, a Zimbabwean would need a visa to visit Egypt, a country with which it shares a continent.

As an individual who has been fortunate enough to travel to around eleven countries, I am appalled at the problems faced by my fellow African citizens due to visa restrictions. Now technology and online visa appointment booking begin the stress and mental strain of securing a visa even before the formal process itself starts. Failure to attain a visa can be fatal, killing one’s travel plans dead. My first time traveling was to Washington D.C. I received my visa at the Embassy at around 1400 hours and my flight was four hours later. If my visa interview had been delayed by even a day, I would not have been able to travel.

I was going on an advocacy tour to prepare me to attend college. My whole future prospects would have shattered had I failed to secure a 10 minute interview.

_Rock bottom_, the last of Zimbabwe's Shona Sculpture pioneers

The name Zimbabwe is derived from the Shona phrase dzimba dzemabwe, meaning “houses of stone”, an homage to the ancient kingdom of the ancestral vaShona people. Their capital was what is known today as the Great Zimbabwe Ruins.

In fact, present day Zimbabwe actually is a house of stone, rich in diverse minerals and precious and semi-precious stones. Zimbabwe is known for its stone carvings and masonry dating back to the Great Zimbabwe days, 1250-1450 AD. A Zimbabwean bird carved of stone is a national emblem appearing on the national flag and bank notes.

Zimbabwe is known for its stone carvings and masonry dating back to the Great Zimbabwe days, 1250-1450 AD.

Shona people had a relationship with the soil--“ivhu”--a relationship that would lead to war and rebellion when white colonial settlers tried to take the land. The abundant stone of Zimbabwe was linked closely to Shona spiritual and cultural practices. Historically, stone works were not exported nor created as objects of art.

In 1889, German explorer Willi Posselt was the first European to steal carved Zimbabwean stones, marking the external world’s first encounter with Zimbabwean stone works.1

McEwen was keen on the mores of African people which led him to become acquainted with the godfather of modern Shona Sculpture, Joram Mariga. Mariga and his early soapstone carvings prompted McEwen to encourage early stone carvers to work on pieces that reflected their culture. A school was established by the gallery and soon attracted more artists, many of whom had already been exposed to some form of art training in early mission schools.

These artists included Henry Mukarobgwa, Joseph Ndandarika, John Takawira, Thomas Mukarobgwa, Henry Munyaradzi, Fanizani Akuda, Nicholas Mukomberanwa, Slyvester Mubayi, Bernard Matemera, Boira Mteki, Moses Masaya, Bernard Takawira and Lazaraus Takawira, who made up the first generation. The budding art movement was financed by a farmer, Tom Blomefield, in 1966. Artists set up Tengenenge Sculpture Community at Blomefield’s farm.

From Tengenenge to the world! After setting up this first collective, other communities sprouted in Zimbabwe from Chapungu Sculpture Park to Chitungwiza Art Centre. The first generation of sculptors worked to put Zimbabwean Shona Sculpture on the map nationally and internationally.

The first generation of sculptors worked to put Zimbabwean Shona Sculpture on the map nationally and internationally.

Slyvester Mubayi, a first generation artist who died in late 2022, inspired me to write this piece. An internationally acclaimed sculptor and “elder” of the Shona Sculptor community. A 2005 review by Michael Shepard in the Sunday Telegraph remarked, "Now that Henry Moore is dead, who is the greatest living stone sculptor? Were I to choose, I would choose from three Zimbabwean sculptors – Sylvester Mubayi, Nicholas Mukomberanwa and Joseph Ndandarika". To have these artists juxtaposed with Henry Moore demonstrates the excellence and importance of Shona Sculpture.

Second and third generation sculptors have managed to keep the art form alive, acting as custodians of the vaShona people, chiseling one sculpture at a time. Sadly, economic conditions in Zimbabwe and a lack of collectors in the country have resulted in many of the original sculptures being exported. Our heritage and customs go away with them.

The biggest Shona Sculpture collection in the world is at Zimbabwe Sculpture: a Tradition in Stone, a permanent exhibit of sculpture at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in the state of Georgia, USA. Comparing that with the number of art pieces at Robert Mugabe International Airport in Harare, you will understand why we Zimbabweans need to set up more permanent collections in our own country. It’s a sad commentary that it’s in the southern United States, not Zimbabwe, where the largest Shona stone collection is to be seen.

There have been efforts to set up collections in Zimbabwe, and some notable pieces can be seen at the University of Zimbabwe Great Hall and Library, the National Art Gallery of Zimbabwe, and the Parliament of Zimbabwe. But there are no more than a few pieces on display.

With the whole first generation of Shona Sculptors nearly gone, their works of art will scatter. More private parties and the government need to buy the art pieces and set up permanent collections around Zimbabwe. This would preserve the Shona Sculpture history in Dzimbabwe, the House of Stone. We must save ourselves from a great loss, forfeiting the very last of the first of Zimbabwe’s Shona Sculpture culture.

1 More than five decades after Posselt’s theft, Zimbabwean stone carvings evolved to what we know today as Shona Sculpture. The first generation of Shona sculptors emerged in the nineteen fifties under the patronage of then Rhodes National Gallery (RNG) director Frank McEwen. Today the RNG is the National Gallery of Zimbabwe (NGZ).

See © Brown-Lowe, Robin (2003). The Lost City of Solomon and Sheba: An African Mystery.