Most of the huge ranches that took up much of Matobo district outside the crowded communal areas to the north were divided up during land reform. As in other areas there were medium-scale farms (A2 and so-called self-contained (SC)), aimed at commercial livestock production, themselves often quite large (ranging from 281 to 2000 ha) and A1 small-scale areas where mixed crop and livestock production was encouraged. Here around 5 ha was allocated for arable land, while livestock grazing was communal as part of ‘villagised’ schemes.
Matobo is a dry district with highly variable rainfall levels (average 550 mm), but with a coefficient of variation of 44%. The large areas that were previously white-owned extensive ranches are now divided up, with fences increasingly dividing the landscape. Livestock – particularly cattle – production still dominates, but within both A2/SC and particularly A1 farms, crop production (including irrigation) has increased. In this dry area, relying only on livestock or cropping is risky though and most combine agricultural activities with a wider portfolio. The proximity to South Africa means cross-border trade and work is important, and many of those who have taken over medium-scale A2/SC farms support their farms through off-farm businesses.
In the early years after land reform (which in this area was slow to take off as people were concerned that it would not last), cattle herds were small and the area was not full of livestock. Those with bigger herds were able to make use of the surplus land through leasing arrangements that occurred both between A2/SC farms and A1 farms. Today, livestock populations have increased and the land is more constrained and a variety of other strategies have to be used to sustain accumulation. Leasing remains important, but also intensification through the importation of feed, the establishment of water points and so on.
The possibilities of accumulation are very much dependent on rainfall patterns (and so grass/water availability) and the dynamics of herd growth (births, deaths etc.). Livestock are a particular type of ‘capital’, reliant on biological growth and intimately connected to human-nature relations. Livestock as capital can be an investment, a store of wealth, a source of speculation and a generator of interest through offspring. As has often been noted, Karl Marx observed that: ‘the still migrating hordes with their herds on the Asiatic high plateau are the biggest capitalists, since capital originally means cattle… ’. As Tim Ingold noted, the Latin word for money, pecus, also means a head of cattle, while the Greek word for loan interest, tekhos, refers to livestock offspring. Being so linked to rainfall and grazing/water availability means that accumulation if it occurs is usually intermittent, taking on a stuttering form, with some good years when animals become pregnant and give birth successfully, followed by poor years when birth rates decline and mortalities increase. There is no neat, linear trajectory for livestock accumulation in dry rangelands.
Whether herd owners are able to accumulate also depends on social relations and the ability to connect land parcels across diverse, variable landscapes – through sharing, leasing and loaning arrangements. Labour is crucial for successful livestock production, and joint herding and watering arrangements are common, with people combining forces to ensure that livestock are looked after and find feed and water, especially in drought years. Hired labour is essential for larger herds and bigger farms and new housing on A2/SC farms is largely dedicated to herders and other workers, often in quite basic conditions. The reliance on such labour for accumulation is key, but many herd owners fail to invest in their labour force resulting in disgruntlement and sometimes theft of property.
There has been a sequencing of accumulation and investment patterns over the years in our Matobo sites. As already noted, in the early years, herds were small and were able to grow with good years and low population pressure. This was associated with lots of leasing out of understocked areas where people had not yet established themselves. Today, there are fewer possibilities of renting out grazing and livestock herds are more vulnerable to drought impacts (something we saw when comparing 2011-12 and 2015-16 droughts, for example). As people established themselves in the A2 land reform farms, initial investments were usually small houses for workers (herders) and fencing. In the A1 areas, building homes and clearing land for cropping were the first steps in establishment. Clearing crop farming land in the A2 areas came later, as people tried to diversify and provide food for workers too. Digging boreholes was a crucial next step, although many of these failed. People also bought cars/trucks, especially in the A2 farms as the roads were poor and distances long with no public transport. And throughout, people continued to invest in cattle, although most herd growth came from births, again intermittently. Where purchases did occur, they were often of improved breeds, such as higher value Brahmans. Especially prompted by the 2015-16 drought, investment in supplementary feeding became essential and some have graduated to a strategy of intensification with significant importation of feed onto single farms, abandoning the extensive lease grazing strategy in favour of concentrating on one place with significant capital investments (including growing feed, and investing in associated infrastructure). Twenty odd years after taking over the land, we now see much more investment in homes on farms. This came later than in our other areas, as the sense of security over land areas was slower to emerge in Matabeleland. Today, people are contemplating retirement to the farm and they are keen to attract other family members to homesteads that have mod-cons, such as solar systems, piped water, flush toilets and so on.
Not everyone has managed to accumulate, however. Establishing herds and getting going proved difficult for some, and they have handed over land to others, taking the land rent rather than managing livestock and focusing on other livelihoods. Others have followed a boom-and-bust cycle, with substantial investments and growth of herds followed by crashes (due to droughts or lack of external investment), then growth again. Still others enthusiastically invested at the outset but were not able to sustain this and subsequently the operations collapsed, with some abandoned.
Across the sample of A1 (N=67) and A2 (including SC) (N=50), there is a huge variety of different dynamics. Below, we attempt to classify these along the lines used for the other sites.
Accumulation from below
This is the slow, ‘stuttering’ form of accumulation we see often in the Matobo A1 areas, where people manage herd growth over time. They very often came to the area on land reform with nothing and have gradually built up herds. This has been assisted by agriculture, with occasional good maize harvests resulting in extra investments. People in this category rely on land leasing especially in droughts to maintain herds, and many have links to off-farm work (particularly circular migration to South Africa) to provide additional support to the core livestock activity. Given relatively small herds, most herding labour is provided by families, although a number of herders are hired in. The case of CM is illustrative.
Case 1: CM, Vimbi, A1 villagised
CM is 44-year-old and he obtained land in 2001. At the time, he was working as a farmworker at a nearby white-owned commercial farm. He had 3 cattle, which he bought using savings from his wages. In 2007, he then got fired when his employer found out that he had acquired land in resettlement areas. He then emigrated as a “border jumper” to Botswana, where he worked as a herder at a cattle post. He spent a year, and managed to raise enough money to buy a heifer. In 2008, he then went to South Africa, where he worked in a construction company for a year before returning home. Using income from his wages, he managed to buy 12 iron roofing sheets and windows to build a two bedroomed house at the farm. After his return in late 2008, CM busied himself with farming and never returned to South Africa. There was a severe drought during the 2011-12 drought, which provided an opportunity for him to expand his herd through leasing of grazing land. He received 5 heifers as rental. These animals added to his already slowly growing herd. In 2013, he exchanged 8 heifers with a pick-up truck worth around USD4500. Through cattle proceeds, he has also managed to purchase a plough, scotch-cart, building a good rural homestead and educating his children. Three of his children have managed to complete Form 4. His oldest son obtained his heavy vehicle drivers’ licence and was seeking employment. The oldest daughter completed a course in hotel and catering and was also seeking employment. The youngest son is doing a mechanics course at a college in Bulawayo. Despite two recent severe droughts (2019 and 2024), CM still owns a substantial herd (53) thanks to his careful management. During the 2024 El Nino drought CM only lost 2 cattle thanks to his careful management. He always scans the horizon for troubles ahead and can manage challenges as they arise. Despite variable crop output, CM is also a very good crop farmer. The family’s homestead is amongst the most well-built and comfortably furnished in the village, with a solar system and satellite dish funded by proceeds from cattle sales. In 2018, after selling cattle, he gave his wife start-up capital to rear broilers. His wife rears a batch of between 50 to 100 birds at a time. He uses his pick-up truck for hire. This alongside with his wife’s broiler project provided sufficient cash-on-hand to sustain groceries purchase, while bulk proceeds from cattle sales have been essential to fund major investments, including paying children’s school fees. A key strategy of the household is therefore refraining from selling cattle for consumption purposes.
This pattern is also seen in the A2/SC areas where circular migration (a job in town or in South Africa) supports slow accumulation of livestock on the farm, where again some good years result in a spate of births, but this is followed by years where little happens. Many of these A2 farmers are struggling, as the resources are insufficient to upgrade to a significant commercial operation, and many lease out land to supplement their incomes, as the following case shows.
Case 2: MD, A2 farm
60-year-old MD obtained a 415ha plot in 2007. At the time, he was employed as an extension officer, and was involved in the pegging of farms during the Fast-Track Land Reform Programme. According to him, he acquired the plot as a “token of appreciation” for his role in pegging farms. However, he admitted that he struggled to gain a foothold in ranching because he “acquired land without resources”. At settlement, he had only 7 head of cattle that he bought using savings from his wages. With limited funds, he said that he had to make some sacrifices, including limiting the family’s food consumption. As he explained, “My family was not eating as I had to save money to buy cattle. Fortunately, my wife understands.” There was a drought year in 2008, and he immediately leased out the farm to other large herd owners in exchange of heifers, which he retained as part of his breeding herd. There was another severe drought, which provided an opportunity for MD to obtain 5 heifers through leasing. In 2017, MD received a loan of 13 heifers – worth US$4120 – with each heifer priced at US$320 under the CSC/Trek cattle scheme to be repaid over 5 years. Today, he owns a herd of 30 cattle.
Case 3: MM, A2 farm
MM, in her late 40s, works in Bulawayo as a records supervisor at Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZEDTC), a subsidiary company of Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA). Her husband works as an engineer in South Africa. She inherited a 284ha plot from her father. Her father, who died in 2007, acquired the plot in 2002, although he could not occupy the farm due to the white farmer’s resistance. It was only in 2012 when the white farmer died that the family was able to occupy the farm. When MM’s father died, her mother asked her two brothers to take over the farm but they both refused. She said that her two brothers had no interest in farming. One of her brothers was working for an NGO in Bulawayo, while the other one emigrated to the UK in 2017. When her brothers refused to take over the farm, she asked her mother if she could take over the farm, and her mother agreed. She then managed to change the offer letter into her name. She started in 2012 with five cattle, which she bought using her savings. Between 2014 and 2015, she bought another three heifers. Since then, the herd has been slowing growing mainly through births. In 2018, the household owned 23 head of cattle. Since they are still building their herd, they only sell cattle when “there is a nagging problem”. Besides cattle, the household also started a sheep ‘project’ in 2013. Today, the household owns over 50 sheep. In 2016, she took a three-year loan of US$3000 from NMB bank in order to finance the establishment of an egg layer project at the farm. However, this project failed because the workers they had employed on the farm were stealing the eggs. In the same year, she also started a horticulture project but she was forced to abandon the project because of marauding baboons. Given that she has a small herd of cattle, she is renting out part of her grazing land to a cousin who helped her to fence the farm. Like many A2 farmers, MM’s biggest challenge is lack of capital to invest substantially on the farm. To address this, she has joined a savings group of farmers, contributing USD50 per week on a rotational basis.
These cases illustrate that this dynamic of accumulation from below is fragile and reliant on good seasons. It can quickly reverse, and many in this category also end up in a pattern of decline (see below).
Accumulation from outside
Perhaps the most significant pattern of accumulation in the A2/SC areas is one driven from outside. Many of these farmers have businesses (or well-paid jobs in NGOs or as consultants) elsewhere and these co-finance the farm operation as part of a wider portfolio. Livestock accumulation is therefore highly reliant on the success of the off-farm business. Many of these farmers have accumulated significant herds, usually starting from relatively large herds on settlement, and now the populations are way beyond the capacity of their allocated farms, and they have to rely on renting/leasing of land, while some have turned to intensification on their farms. All such farmers move between urban homes and the farms, where labourers live and manage the farm and livestock. Workers are often poorly paid but are given large responsibility and sometimes will abscond with stolen animals. Labour relations between new A2 commercial livestock farmers and their workers have many similarities with what existed on the large commercial farms owned by whites before.
Case 4: MX, A2 farm
48-year-old MX, an auto mechanic by profession, runs driving school, transport and milling businesses in Bulawayo, employing around 100 workers in town. He purchased an A2 plot from his uncle in 2014. His uncle, a war veteran and retired lieutenant colonel in the army, obtained this land in 2002, but struggled to invest in the land because of lack of finance. Upon acquiring, he rapidly invested in livestock, livestock handling facilities, fencing, elaborate houses for his family and workers, water pumps and grinding mills. All this was financed through earnings from his business. In 2022, he had 450 cattle. Of these,150 cattle were kept and grazed at his plot, while the rest of the herd is grazed in several leased farms. He also runs an additional herd of 150 cattle in partnership with his cousin who works in the UK. In 2022, he purchased 23 ‘pure’ Brahmans for US$1200 each from a registered stud breeder, with the aim of improving the quality of his herd. During the dry season and drought years, he provides his herd with supplementary feed, which he manufactures himself at his milling company.
Case 5: RN, A2 farm
RN is a 49-year-old lawyer and businessperson, based in Bulawayo where he runs a law firm and transport business. He acquired a 475ha A2 plot in 2013. After acquiring the farm, he then constructed decent accommodation for his workers as well as ring-fencing and paddocking the farm at a cost of US$2,000. In 2018, he owned 150 head of cattle. Like MX, his herd has grown rapidly thanks to natural growth and further purchase with proceeds from his businesses. While he said that his cattle enterprise was now “self-sustaining”, he admitted that non-farm income was crucial for maintaining his cattle business too. “I sometimes wish to resign from my law firm business and focus on cattle, but as you know, most of us started farming with no funds, and if I resign from my law business the farm will suffer.”
Case 6: ZN, Self-contained farm
ZN who works for an NGO in Bulawayo acquired a 201ha SC plot in 2001, and was allocated an additional 70ha of land (which was reserved for a business centre) around 2005. At settlement, he brought a 67 herd of cattle, which he was keeping in the communal areas, but had to sell some to reduce grazing pressure. “When I arrived here, I had lots of cattle”, he explained. “The communal areas were not as limiting as the plots. So, I had to reduce the numbers. I sold all the male animals during that time and used the money to build a house in town”. In the early 2000s, there was a drought, and he sold all the male animals and used the money to build a house in Bulawayo, which he rents out. In 2010, leading up to the severe 2011-12 drought, he sold some more cattle, and complemented these proceeds with savings from his highly paid job to buy two mini-buses and set up a transport business. He has also sold cattle and invested in a grinding mill and tuckshop at the farm. Today, he owns 39 head of cattle. Since settlement, his strategy has been to sell his animals before drought occurs, and invest in other off-farm activities. As he explained, “This place is up and down. It’s not constant. For us, we have to sell cattle and invest in other things during drought.”
Although more common in the larger A2/SC farms, links between livestock farming and outside businesses can be important in A1 farms too, and these farmers have accumulated significantly when businesses have thrived, again facing challenges of grazing and so with cattle spread across A1, A2 and communal areas with various types of grazing lease/rental arrangement as well as loaning out of cattle especially to relatives in the communal areas.
Livestock accumulation that is reliant on outside businesses is thus particularly subject to boom-and-bust cycles, as drought affects livestock production and economic challenges affect off-farm businesses. When these shocks combine, we see collapses, but these can be reversed as the portfolio allows a type of ‘opportunistic’ tracking through high variability. Others however have sufficient outside resources that they can ride any shock and continue to accumulate, despite challenges. Many of these A2/SC owners are increasingly capitalising their farms to do this, through investments in intensification (on-farm fodder production, boreholes for irrigation, as well as transport etc. for importation of feed).
Accumulation from above
Our A2/SC sample in Matobo included a number of well-connected individuals who benefited from patronage-based allocations. These included war veterans, most of whom were not well-off and found it difficult to establish farms, as well as those with more established political and military connections. They benefited not only from priority land allocations (to A2 farms) but also to Command Agriculture and other state benefits. State benefits in these areas were however limited, and only a few benefited from ‘command livestock’ for example (only five in the whole district). The consequence is that those with land (often large areas) were unable to capitalise it and many ran just a few animals, leasing out the rest of the land to others who needed it. Most who received benefits from outside through patronage have failed to accumulate and some have abandoned their farms.
Case 7: JC, A2 farm
JC, a war veteran and 84-year-old man, acquired a 460ha A2 plot in 2002. After leading the land invasions of the early 2000s, he was rewarded with an A2 plot. However, since acquiring the farm, he has struggled to invest in livestock production, and has been leasing out the whole farm to the other herd owners. “I am struggling because I got the farm as a war veteran and I had totally nothing”, he explained. “Some of us were demobilised after Independence in 1980, and we did not get a chance to join the National Army. After demobilisation, we were given ZW$185 per month for only two years, and it was then closed. That was that! From 1983 to 1997, we got nothing. We were then given ZW$50,000, and that ZW$50,000 was wiped out by inflation. So, I did not have any other sources of income. I never worked again. Think of a man with 11 children, trying to push then through to school. My eldest son, N, did a diploma at Joshua Nqcabuko Nkomo Teacher’s college, and he is a teacher by profession. All my other children reached Form 4. When I got the farm, I did not have any other source of income except a meagre war veteran pension. So, I have not made a lot of investments on the farm…. I have been concentrating of my last-born daughter’s education so that one day when I leave this earth, she will have something.” Given the lack of capital, JC has since entered into a formal joint venture arrangement with the former white farmer who intends to build an agricultural school on the plot.
Others however were able to make use of patronage connections to build successful operations. This was usually on the back of earlier success – such as slow accumulation from below, now accelerated by accumulation from above (or where other businesses could be combined.
Case 8: GM, A2 farm
GM is a 63-year-old war veteran, businessman, senior ZANU-PF politician, Member of Parliament (MP) and serving minister in government. Previously a school headmaster at a local school before his retirement from the job in 2017, he joined politics and became a ZANU-PF MP in 2018 and is currently serving as a cabinet minister in government. GM acquired a 162ha self-contained plot in 1999, and has since purchased two additional plots from struggling neighbours. At settlement, he had 11 cattle. In 2008, he received a government loan of ZW$30 billion under the Farm Mechanisation programme to purchase 30 in-calf heifers. He then repaid the loan a year later when the money was ‘worthless’ due to hyperinflation. In 2018, he received 5 heifers under the Command Livestock programme, although he already had 200 cattle. Today, he owns more than 200 cattle. Initially, he mainly relies on leasing-in additional land for grazing as a strategy to deal with variability. Now, as a senior politician, GM has extensive social networks and political connections, and is able to secure access to grazing and water for free. For instance, during the recent drought (2023-24), he was grazing his animals for free at the Agricultural Rural Development Authority (ARDA) Antelope Estate in Maphisa.
Decline
None of these accumulation strategies are forever. And we see lots of cases where once successful farms are on the decline. The boom-and-bust cycle may shift into simply bust, as external businesses fail, patronage sources dry up, or other misfortunes beset the family. The slow, stuttering accumulation from below may equally reverse as farmers get older, ill/infirm or pass on, with wives or sons/daughters unable to continue in the same way. Some of those who arrived on their A2 farms with excitement and vision, but little experience in farming and poor business sense, threw money at them, built up herds and invested, but the whole thing collapsed in a few years, as the following cases illustrate.
Case 9: SM, A2 farm
SM, who emigrated to South Africa in 1997 and is an accountant by profession, acquired an A2 plot in 2012 after he was “forced” to retire from his highly paid job in Johannesburg. At the time, he was running a cross-border transport business and printing/internet shop in South Africa and so decided to venture into livestock farming in order to diversify his portfolio. At settlement, he had 35 cattle and over 50 goats. During the 2011-12 drought, he capitalised on drought distress sales of livestock in his original home in Lupane, and exchanged livestock with grain. However, in 2015, his transport business began to flounder because of lack of “good loads”, marking the beginning of financial challenges. The final blow came in 2017 when one of his errant drivers stripped the new tyres fromone of his trucks, which he had recently replaced for ZAR60,000 and abandoned the truck in Kadoma. By 2018 he had disposed of two of the trucks and was left with one, which he was trying to sell so that he could “revamp” his farm using the proceeds. His internet and printing business also collapsed. Financial challenges meant that he could not visit his farm regularly to check up and bring supplies for his workers. In 2015, his hired herders sold 10 cattle and over 30 goats, and ran away to South Africa. Having no income to buy supplementary feed, 8 of his cattle also died through starvation during the 2015-16 drought. Today, he owns less than 10 cattle, which are kept by a neighbour in Luma farm (where he owns an A1 plot) under a loaning arrangement. He has since abandoned the A2 farm, and in 2017, he was served with a “notice to repossess” the farm by the District Lands Office because his “development is not visible”. Today, SM trades in forex online for a living in South Africa as “jobs are scarce”.
Case 10: MT, A2 farm
MT, in his late 40s, acquired land in 2016. This land initially belonged to a 92-year-old and infirm war veteran who had “done nothing” on it since allocation in the early 2000s. When MT obtained the land, he was running a thriving construction business in South Africa, combined with other agricultural ‘projects such as dairy, rabbits and horticulture in the outskirts of Johannesburg. For his construction business, he used political connections to secure government contracts under the Zuma administration, making him a ‘tenderprenuer’. With adequate financial resources, MT wasted no time in investing in fencing, housing infrastructure, a weir and so on. In 2017, he also bought a herd of 21 Beef Master cattle for US$1500 per heifer and US$2000 for a bull. He also had a flock of 43 goats. Clearly, the household was on an upward trajectory. However, following President Zuma’s resignation in early 2018, things begun to change. His construction business began to falter as the then new President Ramaphosa clamped down on corruption practices. This was worsened by the outbreak of COVID-19. By the end of 2022, MT was heavily in debt both in South Africa and Zimbabwe, and he and his family had moved back home and closed down the construction business. He had taken a loan of USD50,000 from a microfinance company in Bulawayo and invested in a truck, but his financial situation had not improved. In the same, year he decided to sell all his cattle “at a give-away price” to service his debt. In 2024, he tried his hand in horticulture at the farm, but with limited success. Today, MT is leasing out his whole farm for grazing to other livestock farmers, while he lives in Bulawayo. As one of his neighbours told us, “His situation has not improved to this day”.
Gender and generation
The classification offered above is very much one centred on accumulation by (older) male owners. Men are usually the main herd owners and the business operations on and off farm are usually run by men. Nearly all workers are men, although some have families with them on the farm. Women are however central in providing wider support to these dynamics. Women may be supporting families in town while men are at the farms managing the herds. Women may also have their own jobs in town or businesses that can feed into farm businesses, just as men do. In the A1 areas women may be central to crop farming and so support the overall household trajectory. And, particularly in the A1 areas, they may have their own livestock-based accumulation strategies, centred on small stock that complement the cattle-focused male accumulation story. These are linked to other activities, including thatch grass collection, mopane worm harvesting and so on, which provide women with independent income. And when husbands pass on (as has happened in a number of our sample households, especially in A2/SC areas), women may take over the farm and continue to operate it, especially if they too can link to off-farm employment and business activities.
Intergenerational succession is especially challenging in our A2/SC Matobo sites, as young people (and wives) often do not have the interest or capacity to take over a farm which is remote, difficult to run and with limited facilities. There are not the possibilities of the type of ‘projects’ that we have seen in our other sites, as the conditions are not conducive. In the A1 areas, young people returning from South Africa after a period of work are often just living at their parents’ home, bored and underemployed, and many young men succumb to drugs and drink as a result. In these cases, especially as parents who took on the farm at land reform become older (and less able to run the farm), there is often a switch from slow accumulation to slow decline, sometimes leading to abandonment.
Future prospects?
Overall, the particular context of a dryland setting where livestock are the central source of on-farm accumulation presents some important differences to the crop dominated settings in our other sites. Managing variability in a fragmented and increasingly ‘full’ landscape requires investment in social relations to secure access to grazing and water. This may happen through leasing/rental or through sharing arrangements with neighbours or through loaning out cattle to others to herd them in areas with surplus fodder.
External business connections are vital for the A2/SC farms in the absence of other support. Effective accumulation requires a whole suite of other social and capital investments to secure fodder, water and so on, especially in drought periods. Reversals of good fortunes easily happen, and we see many changes over time, with a sequence of strategies being followed as circumstances change, some with upward trajectories, othersnot. In a dryland environment, connected to a volatile economy, non-linearity is the norm, as our case studies show.
The future therefore looks very uncertain, although the core accumulation strategies outlined here will persist, which ones will dominate over time remains unclear and is highly dependent on the wider context, which remains highly volatile.
This blog concludes this series on accumulation dynamics. We hope readers have enjoyed the series and the previous one on success perceptions of ‘success’. Together these blog series form the core of our initial findings based on participatory workshops and qualitative biographical interviews of our project on 25 years after land reform. There is much more to come, but right now the team is focusing on the repeat survey of our now 2000 odd households across our sites (a big job!). For the next few weeks we will take a break from the blog and return towards the end of September for more.
This blog has been written by Ian Scoones and Tapiwa Chatikobo, with inputs from Felix Murimbarimba (who facilitated the workshops), Godfrey Mahofa, Jacob Mahenehene, Sydney Jones (Matobo), Moses Mutoko (Masvingo), Makiwa Manaka (Gutu), Vincent Sarayi/Peter Tsungu (Mvurwi) amongst many others in each of our sites. This blog first appeared on Zimbabweland