Muzungu is a vivid memoir of growing up in a time and place it has become taboo to speak of — Rhodesia in the twilight of empire. An elegy upon a vanished life and people, it is a reflection upon a childhood mainly spent deep in the backcountry of what is now Zambia as the son of an adventurous British official and his enigmatic wife. It is a story of being raised by and among black Africans, the best of whom are the people you admire most in the world, only to be shipped off to boarding school in England. Muzungu, slang for a white person across swathes of Africa, is said to mean ‘a wanderer’ who strays over the land without purpose, or one who 'spins around' as if bewildered. This poetic memoir charts a struggle to transcend that condition and find one's own way at last through writing.
It's a pleasure to be sharing an extract from Muzungi: A Rhodesian Testament by Rod Madocks today. Many thanks to Auriel Roe for inviting me to take part in the blog tour.
I cannot tell what part of me deceives the other.
- Georg Bücher
I am usually lost again whenever I dream of Africa, once more adrift in the bundu with no map or compass to guide me. Maybe we are always lost in dreams but there is a distinct sense of panic to my African ones. In them , I inevitably seem to be threshing through head-high elephant grass, reeling in circles under a sledgehammer sun until I wake in a sweaty tangle. These dreams feed off a real event in my case. It happened in 1964 when I was twelve years old near the small town of Fort Roseberry in the country now called Zambia, then still known as Northern Rhodesia. My parents used to let me go shooting with Mr. Kruger, the local game warden. They probably thought he was personally supervising me but the truth was that he'd simply fire up his Land Rover at dawn and we'd roll out at over a sandy track through the thick bush a mile or so out from his camp, where he'd stop and hand me a .22 calibre rifle and ten rounds and tell me not to come back until I'd got him a guinea fowl for his pot. The aim was for me to find my way back to his base on foot. His only guidance was not to waste ammo and to keep the escarpment of the Mansa River always to my left while heading away from camp and the reverse on my return . My parents were also probably reassured that I took our bull terrier, Buster, with me. Buster was bow-legged and not much seemed to go on inside his massy head but he would unhesitatingly attack anything that might threaten me, be it man or beast.
We drove slowly along the red sand of the track in the slanting, gauzy light. It was the height of the dry season and the scrubby miombo woodland formed a leafless grey stemmed wall on each side. The night creatures had slunk away, leaving their tracks all over the sandy verges. The big game had mostly gone from the area but there were still plenty of smaller animals. I leaned out the window as we jolted along avidly scanning the dusty roadside, looking for the drag marks of porcupines, the riddling clefts of duiker and other buck, or most exciting of all, the fresh pug marks of a night leopard. I was all keyed up in intense anticipation of the hunt although I tried not to show it too much as Kruger did not favour overt displays of emotion. When we came to a creaking halt, he cut the engine, padded around to the back of the Landy, unwrapped the gun from a burlap bag and handed it to me. We'd practised with the rifle a few weeks earlier. He'd stood behind me while I'd pumped a mopane tree full of holes until he was satisfied I was competent. It might have been more efficient if he'd given me a shotgun to pot the elusive guinea fowl but a rifle gave you more options against the unknown threats of the bush.
"I want you back by noon, chop, chop, OK?" he ordered.
"Ja, Mr. Kruger," I replied.
He scrutinised me for a second, then nodded. Was there a hint of a smile on his tanned thin face? Hard to say, I was in awe of him. He had a strong presence, a bwana mkubwa, with grey eyes like chips of smoked glass under the brim of his worn slouch hat. Dad had told me Kruger had won the Military Cross leading the black infantrymen of the Northern Rhodesia regiment against the Japanese in Burma. Now he was the local game warden, shooter of rogue animals and nemesis of poachers. Rumour was that he'd slotted a few. I had once heard a local farmer referring to him as " that hardegat " , meaning ' hard-arsed ' . He was a taciturn, self-contained man who handled weapons with an easy familiarity, and who could read the bush in all its moods. I was not sure what he thought of me . I had the impression must have confidence in me as I'd already made a few of these hunting expeditions on my own, and had gone fishing with him. I felt I'd acquitted myself honourably on these expeditions. On the other hand, maybe he merely wanted to keep well in with my Dad, a senior figure in the late colonial administration of the area.
I wanted to believe that Kruger recognised me as a kindred spirit and it was certainly true that I wanted not only to be liked by him, but also to be like him. When asked by adults what I dreamed of doing in life I'd always say "a game ranger". It was his formidable apartness, the romance of his rejection of the settled ways of most men that had entranced me. He lived in a semi-permanent camp north of Fort Roseberry. I'd heard that the young mfazi who worked at his place was also his wife. That was fine by me. I didn't have much time for the colour-conscious townie world my parents inhabited. Kruger's wife was a local Bemba. She never spoke to me but that morning she filled my water bottle with tea made with condensed milk and smilingly handed me a couple of packages of wrapped banana leaves, containing home cured , incredibly savoury biltong.
Once he was back in the driving seat, Kruger gave me a last glance over, as if I were one of his soldiers going into action. His chilly gaze swept across the slung rifle, a single action Remington, the bulges of biltong packed into my shirt pockets, a water bottle slung on a canvas strap and my sheath knife strapped to my Ruzawi belt. He seemed satisfied and raised a brown forearm in mock salute,
"Good hunting," he grunted, then reversed and drove away.
The brake lights winked briefly in the soapy light like old dogs' eyes. There was the sound of chinking tail board chains for a time, then nothing but the muted sizzling of bush crickets as they warmed to their day. The wide mouth of the bush had opened up and engulfed me and Buster.
Muzungu: A Rhodesian Testament by Rod Madocks is published by Dogberry and can be purchased here.
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