Day 304 / 69

Date: 10 February 2023
Sleeping location: Nyamoro Dairy Farm, nr Nyanga, Zimbabwe
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 0 / 18759 / 3922
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 0 / 161800 / 43800
Cows: mumbi
Day in three words: Debbie’s dear dairy 

In the morning I had some “fresh from cow” milk alongside my morning coffee and fruit salad, followed by a milkshake and a cream scone from the onsite tearoom. All was delicious. When I first went outside I was set upon by two very friendly labradors called Sadie and Bunga, and they sat near me as I spent the morning figuring out a plan for the Nyanga Highlands over the next couple of days, then doing lots of blogging. Debbie returned from Harare at lunchtime and we spent much of the rest of the day chatting as she showed me around the farm, grounds and house, regaling me with tales of the past. 

Her story is quite something. She was born a couple of hours away and moved here as a kid alongside her three sisters. Her dad built the house and set up the farm. This was shortly before the civil war in the 70s, and the farm was attacked but survived. Whilst showing me around she casually pointed out bullet holes in the door, and when I asked what their response was, she said her dad shot back. He was then badly injured by a landmine and was never quite the same again. None of the other sisters fancied running the farm, so eventually Debbie and her husband took it over the farm and raised three kids, now aged 25-34. During the forced land reforms of the early 2000s there were visits from the police asking them to relinquish the land, but thankfully for her nothing past that. Around ten years ago her husband left to set up a farm in Tanzania, which was rightly seem as grounds for divorce, so now she is effectively running the place on her own. The land is big and beautiful and has lots of potential for both agriculture and tourism, but she’s not been able to get loans to develop things because she doesn’t “officially” own it to use as collateral. Despite this cavalcade of difficulties she keeps on going and keeps on smiling. She’s quite the inspiration.

Seeing the dairy itself was interesting, with the sucking machines and the area where they package the milk and make a sort of yoghurty thing called “lacto”. The cows (or, as Debbie calls them, “mumbi”, which is a local word) seemed very happy, wandering around where they pleased and voluntarily coming in to be milked. Some of them were so excited that they jumped a fence to get ahead in the queue. 

In the evening she cooked us a big and tasty meal then we chatted some more. She was an amazing host, always offering help and very good at helping fulfil needs and wants only half alluded to (for example, I said that I missed being able to buy cheese and dried fruit and she made up bags of each for me to take away with me). I also learned loads about the history and geography of Zim, from the sort of on-the-ground perspective that is so much more real and granular than (say) wikipedia. Such a wonderful experience all round. 

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