Just after we get up, the electricity goes off. We have been really lucky as the only power cut we had was the night we arrived. I send a quick message to Ritz to say we are off. She wants to come round
Recently, we discovered one of our guests had broken the small cafetiere that is in the cottage. People often break glasses and teaspoons very easily disappear in picnic baskets. However, we do generally find most people quite honest about breakages and, if they aren't, we have to carry that expense. I do not like the idea of treating guests with suspicion and going through every single knife, fork and spoon before you allow them to leave.
Before we leave the Bvumba completely, we visit a castle near the White Horse Inn. The castle belonged to a friend of mine's dad and step-mother. When I was about 14, she invited me and a couple of other friends to stay a week there. It was really quite an experience. I am not sure who built the castle originally, but it was great fun to stay in. Every day, we went into Mutare in a beach buggy, spent the morning at the municipal swimming pool and went for lunch at the dairy den, which was also owned by my friend's dad. Both he and his wife have now died; his wife suffered a terrible death when she fell out of a top floor window(there are three floors) and broke her back.
It is my turn to drive and John's turn to sit in the back. Apart from one game of hangman, John is left undisturbed and manages to read a book. Why are children always so different with their mothers? As we are approaching Masvingo, we see what looks like a small walled cemetery on the right-hand side of the road. I stop and the girls and I walk through the bush to see what it is. It is indeed a cemetery, but is no longer in use. A plaque informs us that it used to contain the remains of a number of Italians interned near Masvingo during the Second World War and they have now been removed to the Chapel of St Francis of Assisi.
I have heard of this place and really want to go and see it, but it is not signposted and I have to make some inquiries. The internment camp is now the headquarters of Fourth Brigade. It is very run down and looks like a scene out of Bridge Over the River Kwai with its rickety wooden look-out tower and old Nissan huts. The chapel is just outside the camp and is well looked after. Inside, it is beautifully decorated with murals on the walls and ceiling. The names of all the internees that died are in an alcove on either side of the altar with the names of the places they were born and where they died. One is just a child of seven and the oldest is about sixty six.
These Italians were brought from Abyssinia (Ethiopia) by boat to Durban and then sent up to Rhodesia. It is extremely sad that you can be quite happily living your life when someone decides you are the enemy and sends you off to a totally different place. Although they were living in Ethiopia, the majority of the Italians were born in Italy. I wonder if they were homesick or quite glad to be out of Europe.
About 60 kms from Masvingo, I realise I have taken the wrong road and am extremely alarmed to see that the next place is Mvuma; I am on the Harare road. In Zimbabwe, roads are very straightforward. There's no looking at maps and seeing which junction to get off on or anything like that. There is a road into town and a road out, yet somehow or other, although I followed the sign for Bulawayo, I must have missed another turning.
After some deliberation we decide to carry on to Mvuma. My dad was general manager of Athens mine at one time. I remember him telling me about the mine manager who had spent his entire life except for university in Mvuma and did not ever want to leave. Mvuma has, perhaps, a shop, a school and a police station. A few years ago, my parents bumped into this man in Botswana. He had moved to Selibi-Pikhwe after his wife left him. He was a lost man.
From Mvuma, the next stop is Gweru. If it is one thing I cannot understand about Gweru, it's how anyone lives there. I really feel it is the arse end of the world. The only place that perhaps surpasses it n this respect is Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia. I have connections with Gweru though for quite a lot of my family lived there. My great-grandmother, who was only about four feet tall, ran the bar at the Midlands Hotel. She was a very cheeky Welsh lady who had also run the bar at The Meikles in Harare. My grandparents lived in Gweru as did my gran's sister and her husband. Legend has it that one boozy evening when they were driving home from the club, he fell out the door as they went round the roundabout. My gran's sister carried on driving, went round the roundabout again and picked him up. Luckily, there was not much traffic in those days.
Finally, we are home. The dogs are absolutely ecstatic to see us. Rolo does about five laps of the garden before he will calm down. I make the excuse that I need the toilet and I rush inside and quickly get the Christmas chocolates out of my cupboard and leave them on the mantelpiece for Ellie to find.
I'm tired, hot, glad to be home and sad our very short holiday has come to an end.
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