Tag: Mwenezi
-
Zimbabwe’s hunger crisis turns fatal
By Tatenda Chitagu MASVINGO, ZIMBABWE-There is a popular vernacular saying that goes; ‘Kange mbeu kurima kwakona.‘ Loosely translated, it means; ‘Better eat the seeds since farming has failed.’ This saying turned out to be true for a hunger-stricken family from the arid Mwenezi district of southern Masvingo province that consumed a meal prepared from treated…
-
How USAID emergency drought relief programs saved lives in Masvingo
By Tatenda Chitagu MASVINGO-Nothing seems amiss at Tendai Maronge’s rural homestead in Zimbabwe’s southern province of Masvingo. The neatly painted houses, a thriving orchard, lots of free range chickens, broilers, goats and turkeys all point to a normal rural life. Not before she opens up on her ordeal of being left ‘high and dry’ by…
-
Mechanisation: the missing link for Zim smallholder farmers
By Tatenda Chitagu MASVINGO-The ease with which Magret Mapondo, a small-scale farmer from rural Masvingo district, processes her cow-peas harvest, is something to behold. Not so long ago, the 45 year-old farmer from southern Zimbabwe would take several days to thrash, then shell, using her bare hands, and winnow a few sacks of her cow…
-
Old rags in underwear: the sad tales of period poverty for Zimbabwe’s internally displaced persons
By Tatenda Chitagu The old tent that provides cover at a makeshift blair toilet for Martha Moyo in Nuanetsi Ranch is tattered and it is matter of time before it gives in to the vagaries of the weather. But Moyo, one of the 17 000 flood survivors from the basin of Zimbabwe’s biggest inland dam,…