IT was a cold day in June 1989 and Patrick Chamboko from Gomo village in Mukumbura district was walking across a small bridge. As he tussled with his stubborn goats he was oblivious of the danger that lurked a few meters from him.
BY PHYLLIS MBANJE
Buried beneath the surface was a landmine that had been lying dormant since the 1970s liberation war.
Chamboko drew his tattered jersey around him and dunked his hand into his trouser pocket. His gnarled fingers closed around the roasted peanuts, which he popped into his mouth and chewed ravenously.
With eyes closed, he savoured their taste, oblivious to the fact that it was the last handful of his delicacy. As he strode quickly after his herd, little did he know that it would be his last time walking with both his legs.
A tornado-like force tossed him into the air with an explosive sound.
“I fell to the ground and a few metres away from my body lay my mangled leg,” his said, his eyes narrowing briefly as his body involuntarily shivered at the chilling memory, although it was a warm day.
As Chamboko lay bleeding from the stump where his leg had been hacked off, he was drenched in fear. Initially his horror masked the pain, but as minutes ticked by intense pain washed over him in quick succession.
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Bright red blood gushed from his hideous wound and Chamboko thought he would die.
A few metres away, his goats scampered around and one or two curiously gazed at him before dashing off to join the rest of the herd.
“I prayed to God and my ancestors to spare my life,” he reflected. “I tried to scream, but my voice could not come out.”
Back home, his wife, Hedisa Kapadza, waited anxiously for him to come back. When she later learnt from other villagers of her husband’s fate, her whole world came crashing around her.
The family stood together and supported Chamboko throughout his ordeal. But fate was not done with the family and a few years later, as Kapadza made her way to the borehole, she stepped on another landmine.
“There was a huge explosion and I felt my body leaving the ground. It all happened very quickly,” she recalled.
As her limp body tumbled to the ground like a rag doll, Kapadza thought of her children and husband.
In the distance, she saw what looked like a log but it was stained red. Eyes widening it dawned on her that the “log” was actually her leg, well what was left of it.
Waves of pain shook her small frame and she gritted her teeth before passing out.
“Darkness bloated out everything and I do not remember much,” she said.
Both husband and wife became incapacitated by the loss of their limbs. They could not fend for their children, as before and the children had to drop out of school.
“We initially bought some artificial limbs, but these were not comfortable and we constantly had to change them,” explained Kapadza.
Losing their limbs was costly: a short trip to the bathroom required many hands and they missed out on many social gatherings.
International land mine clearance company, Halo Trust, had by December 2015 cleared its 10 000th landmine in Zimbabwe.
Mine clearance has allowed hundreds of rural families in Zimbabwe to access water sources and graze their livestock along 30km of the border with Mozambique.
“However, there is still a lot of work needed to clear the rest. The villagers need the land to improve their livelihoods and also to feel safe,” programmes manager, Tom Dibb said.
Halo’s work in Zimbabwe has been supported by the governments of the United States, Japan, and Ireland, among others. Their current work in Mukumbura started from Musingwa and will end at Chigango.
Zimbabwe has one of the densest minefields in the world, with about 5 500 landmines per kilometre. Since 1980, more than 1 500 people and 120 000 livestock have been killed in landmine accidents.
