Cells Description
Content
Wananchi,someone should write a guide to the notorious inhabitable police cells of Harare. Yes a proper guide ,possibly entitled "From Matapi to Mabvuku; A Peep into the armpits of the dictator" In the real world of self pity and over intimacy with depression,the guide should provide some kind of Orwellian relief to a wananchi that can no longer laugh at itself. One dare says that Harare s dingy holes would be microcosmic of the state of these little places of delight scattered across the motherland from Chiendambuya to that orphaned jewel,in the middle of a nation s guilt called Dotito. Many many years from now ,they will turn these holes into museums.Yes museums of shame carved from some Kafkaesque joke. The irony being that who ever invented prisons was a shameless joker with thoroughly no sense of humor.A little nameless whimp plucked from a Third Reich movie. Speaking of jokers ,some big jokes out there are about to unleash hell and fury in that giant cuckold of a city called Chitungwiza , in an echo of the 2005 fiasco curiously named Murambatsvina,literally meaning 'refuse the dirt". The good citizens of Chi-town as they call it ,must be afraid ,very afraid. But then again fear long ago became the nation s staple diet.There will be no constipation from this one. Any exploration of the deep underculture of the nation s shame must begin with that sobriquet found ill hid at the back of Matapi Police Station.The little place must be a clone of some unfinished horror novel somewhere in perfidy. It is a mass of concrete floor but somewhere in the middle is a little hole that serves as an ablution facility. So one shifts both gears in the middle of a ululating audience suffocated not by the smell of the unspeakable but of one s own shame.
As Nancy Kachingwe put it some few yeas ago,in a court application to close this aberration,, this is "degrading and inhuman treatment'. More so when the hole can only be flushed from outside at the whim and discretion of the officer in charge. Accompanying the soprano of one s embarrassment is the baritone of putrid that invades ,released by the powerful ghost of the nearby ,Mukuvisi stream .Itself a prison of all rot ,from dumped babies ,used "protectors,"vitriolic chemical worst and human dung. Then they are the infamous Matapi mosquitos.Tiny dinosaurs with the appetite of a fresh vampire.They suck the blood with the clinical ness of Nikuv. Slow ,latent,mendacious but decidedly fatal. The mistake is always to oil one self with mosquito repellent.The sabre -rattling creatures became immune a long time ago.Repellent is tomato sauce and 'aromat' seasoning rolled into one.They will devour you like an aphrodisiac. But the Matapi lice is no match for the Napoleonic lice at Harare Charge Office cells.One suspects Matapi s low temperatures may have something to do with this. Harare Charge Office is the lice capital of the country. They are a rare breed these ones.They climb over one ,invading particularly the most private of all places.Do not bother fighting back.Kill one ,and like a hydra ,fifty emerge from the corpse of the deceased. At least there ,they are some concrete ledges that serve as a bed.Once in a while there will be a mitigating mat to offer some comfort.But do not get excited ,that mat ,is the Troutbeck Resort of all bugs. Machipisa will forever be imprinted in the memory of many of us.They almost killed us there ,on that horror 11 March 2007.They bit us up,as we say in the mother language,"like a snake that has strayed into a house". Never will one forget the courage of Lovemore Maduku,the pain of Sekai Holland,the dignity -in -torture of Grace Kwinje.The sheer dog headedness of a prostrate Elton Mangoma.The shock of a William Bango. The brave loyalty of Muzuva and the late Nhamo Musekiwa.
But most profoundly the prostrate frame of a butchered Morgan Tsvangirayi,whom they had left for dead. It was the day we lost our virginity and learnt that torture has no relation with pain.That pain is a luxury of those that can still breadth.Those that still have blood flowing in their veins. If one has to get arrested avoid Chizhanje in Mabvuku.There they can just dump you and rub you out of existence. They almost achieved this in February 2003.We were arrested following a car chase from a banned rally.Try as it might Paul Madzore s jalopy could not outpace the slick spanish made Defender. So we were caught and dumped at Chizhanje.Days later we were hid at Hatfield.By the time a tearful Alex Muchadehama discovered us ,it did not matter anymore. Each cell,Greendale,Mbare,Highlands,Borrowdale ,the horrible Breaside ,Avondale,Marlbrough ,to name a few has its own DNA,its own character and characters. The tragedy of our time is how these little places of horror have remained standing thirty four years after independence when the nationalist himself was a petrified guest of the same. For these nationalists ,who never possessed nationalism at first instance ,it was always about power. That is why Matapi and others like it will be with us for quite some time. Zikomo.
As Nancy Kachingwe put it some few yeas ago,in a court application to close this aberration,, this is "degrading and inhuman treatment'. More so when the hole can only be flushed from outside at the whim and discretion of the officer in charge. Accompanying the soprano of one s embarrassment is the baritone of putrid that invades ,released by the powerful ghost of the nearby ,Mukuvisi stream .Itself a prison of all rot ,from dumped babies ,used "protectors,"vitriolic chemical worst and human dung. Then they are the infamous Matapi mosquitos.Tiny dinosaurs with the appetite of a fresh vampire.They suck the blood with the clinical ness of Nikuv. Slow ,latent,mendacious but decidedly fatal. The mistake is always to oil one self with mosquito repellent.The sabre -rattling creatures became immune a long time ago.Repellent is tomato sauce and 'aromat' seasoning rolled into one.They will devour you like an aphrodisiac. But the Matapi lice is no match for the Napoleonic lice at Harare Charge Office cells.One suspects Matapi s low temperatures may have something to do with this. Harare Charge Office is the lice capital of the country. They are a rare breed these ones.They climb over one ,invading particularly the most private of all places.Do not bother fighting back.Kill one ,and like a hydra ,fifty emerge from the corpse of the deceased. At least there ,they are some concrete ledges that serve as a bed.Once in a while there will be a mitigating mat to offer some comfort.But do not get excited ,that mat ,is the Troutbeck Resort of all bugs. Machipisa will forever be imprinted in the memory of many of us.They almost killed us there ,on that horror 11 March 2007.They bit us up,as we say in the mother language,"like a snake that has strayed into a house". Never will one forget the courage of Lovemore Maduku,the pain of Sekai Holland,the dignity -in -torture of Grace Kwinje.The sheer dog headedness of a prostrate Elton Mangoma.The shock of a William Bango. The brave loyalty of Muzuva and the late Nhamo Musekiwa.
But most profoundly the prostrate frame of a butchered Morgan Tsvangirayi,whom they had left for dead. It was the day we lost our virginity and learnt that torture has no relation with pain.That pain is a luxury of those that can still breadth.Those that still have blood flowing in their veins. If one has to get arrested avoid Chizhanje in Mabvuku.There they can just dump you and rub you out of existence. They almost achieved this in February 2003.We were arrested following a car chase from a banned rally.Try as it might Paul Madzore s jalopy could not outpace the slick spanish made Defender. So we were caught and dumped at Chizhanje.Days later we were hid at Hatfield.By the time a tearful Alex Muchadehama discovered us ,it did not matter anymore. Each cell,Greendale,Mbare,Highlands,Borrowdale ,the horrible Breaside ,Avondale,Marlbrough ,to name a few has its own DNA,its own character and characters. The tragedy of our time is how these little places of horror have remained standing thirty four years after independence when the nationalist himself was a petrified guest of the same. For these nationalists ,who never possessed nationalism at first instance ,it was always about power. That is why Matapi and others like it will be with us for quite some time. Zikomo.
