Within the orbit of the African Development Fund each District Commissioner made an annual estimate of what funds he thought he required under various headings such as cattle marketing and dipping, which I have dealt with earlier, to water supplies, soil conservation, roads, grants to councils, maintenance of plant machinery and equipment, building, afforestation and fencing, including of course, salaries and wages. The Provicial Commissioner inspected these figures, usually on a visit to each station, and cut where he thought necessary, and then collated all his district figures and sent them to Head Office who, having some knowledge of what funds were likely to be allocated, did some more cutting and submitted the whole lot to the African Development Fund Select Committee of Parliament.
The house made the final decision on the global amount to be allocated, which often resulted in further cuts, and eventually the final approved figures filtered down to the District Commissioners, who, until this authority reached them, were permitted to spend up to 25% of the figures agreed by Head Office.
One of the most satisfying aspects of development work was the provision of water supplies. The scope varied between lining and capping a small hand dug well to provide clean water into which no small animals could find their way and die, and in which no large animals could trample, to the construction of large concrete weirs and earth dams. If I recall rightly, a dam with a wall over 4.5 metres high had to be approved by the Irrigation Department (later known as the Department of Water Development and now the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources and Development).
We used to employ well sinkers, usually a local man with a blasting licence, and borehole drills, sometimes the property of Water Development and sometimes the property of a private contractor. A government geophysicist usually sited a borehole but I have sunk many successful wells sited by a stick diviner. The stick moves for me but I have never trusted my ability to the extent of risking money on it. What a wonderful feeling it is to go to a well or borehole in the course of sinking to be met with joyful smiles and shouts of "Sesi bhobozile" (We have broken through!) We were not heartless autocrats, and we derived genuine pleasure from helping people to lead a better life in their sometimes arid surroundings.
Zimbabwe is noted for its extensive areas of granite country, which sweep round from the famous Matopo hills in a vast semicircle in the southern and eastern districts up to the northern districts of Mutoko and Mudzi. The Matopo hills are the best known because of their historical association with Rhodes but for sheer size and grandeur, many of the hills in other areas far eclipse those of the Matopos except perhaps for the mighty Silozwe in the Southern part of the range. For a vareity of reasons much of the communal land is in the granite country. Some say that in the early days the tribesmen preferred to live in granite sandveld because it was easy to cultivate and water was abundant. Others say that it is because the white settlers took all the best red soil for themselves. This is not a political book so I will not go into this. However, it is an unfortunate fact that this sandveld is a fragile ecosystem and cannot cope with the abuse of overgrazing and poor cultivation methods that lead to soil erosion.
Whilst stationed at Essexvale (now Esigodini) I was given the task of implementing the "Matopos Reclamation Scheme". Matopo Communal land consists entirely of granite sandveld interspersed with granite hills, and is very heavily populated and stocked with the inevitable result that severe erosion has taken place. The best solution would have been to move all the people and livestock out and let nature's gentle hand heal the raw wounds over a period of many years. This being practically and politically impossible, we had to resort to the second choice of trying to remedy the problem by artificial means. This was a fascinating exercise broken down into two major parts, the protection of existing arable land and the reclamation of the grazing area.
Teams of peggers under the control of agricultural officers methodically mapped and planned the whole of the arable area and then marked out where storm drains, contours and water ways should be dug. The storm drain is a massive ditch with a bolster on the lower side, to divert storm water from higher land and prevent it washing across the field. Contour ridges are smaller ditches, spaced across the field at different distances apart dependant on the degree of slope of the land. They are designed to prevent erosion taking place within the field. These, and the storm drains obviously had to spill their water somewhere, and so the water way was demarcated into which storm water was directed. This was left grassed so as to form a barrier to the rush of the water. Land that was too steep or already too severly eroded to be cultivated again, was taken out of the arable category and reverted to grazing area.
Obviously this, and similar schemes throughout the country caused seriuos disruption to the lifestyle of the peasants and nothing was done without full consultation with their tribal leaders. Once the soil conservations works were pegged, a sample portion of the contour ridge was constructed by the team of African Development Fund workers and the farmer was given a reasonable period to dig the rest of his contours. There was much complaining especially by women whose husbands worked away from home, but deep down I think everyone realized the need for the job to be done, and very few reached the stage of having to be brought to court for failue to complete the work in the time allocated.
In the grazing areas, all manner of works were designed to prevent the spread of erosion and to conserve water.
The Matopos are well known for the fascinating marshes, known otherwise as vleis or wetlands. Being a source of rich grazing with fertile soils and abundant water, they had become terribly degraded by constant stock pressure and the steadily encroaching spread of cultivation from the outskirts with the pathetic result that most were becoming mere eroded water courses which only flowed during the rains. Yet such was the inherent nature of their soils that if allowed to rest for a season of two, the former grasses and sedges returned and they were well on their way to recovery. So it was obviously a priority to fence off these areas and it was my pleasure to see here and there the result of that work, with the grass tussocks springing out again, water tinkling away, reeds making their appearance and little red and yellow bishop birds with their dowdy mates busy making nesting preparations.
Regrettably, I have heard that as a result of the breakdown in discipline during and after the guerilla war, the position is back to square one again. Communality and the preservation of natural resources do not go well together, and the only ultimate solution will be the issuing of individual rights or firm and disciplined control with harsh penalties for those contravening the rules.
Where severe erosion has already taken place in the grazing areas and gulleys had formed, these were treated by the building of all manner of bolsters and walls above and within the gulleys to interupt and control the flow of water. These ranged from minor stone faced banks to massive gabions constructed from stones (about football size and smaller) wrapped in wire mesh and placed within the gulley.
The mesh was laid down first and the stones were placed in it, the sides of the mesh being brought up and over the stones and wired on top. By this means, the gulleys became silted up and gradually the ugly scar of erosion healed over, grass grew in the silt, and by the time the wire mesh rusted away, the stones they contained had become embedded in silt and were immovable.
Numerous masonary weirs were built in natural streams and water courses. One ingredient that was not lacking was granite and the granite sands derived from it. These weirs acted as erosion barriers when the water course was suffering from the effects of excessive flow, and in the streams, became reservoirs of water from which the local people and their livestock could derive water, as unfortunatley, from being an area where every stream was perenially running with crystal clear water, due to cruel pressure by man and beast, most now only flowed during the rains.
Some of the weirs we built were massive stone masonary structures. The largest was placed across the Mazhowe River and was about 14 metres high, designed by the Ministry of Water Development on a curved pattern which we used to compare proudly with Kariba and Kyle dams. All the rock for the masonary was blasted nearby using explosives, homemade with ammonium nitrate mixed with dieseline, cheap (in those days) and effective. If one was lucky enough to find exfoliated layers of granite (the "onion skin pattern") one could shape all the rock required just by judicious tapping with a 16lb hammer. As the level of the Mazhowe dam wall rose we rigged up an ingenious system of a "Blondin cable" based on the system at Kariba, and consisting of a wheel-barrow from which the wheel and legs had been removed, attached to a wire rope and operated by a windlass. This was loaded with wet mortar (sand and cement) and winched over to where it was required. It was a proud day when we completed this dam and a prouder day when it filled and spilled over the concrete lip. In common with a few other dams that I had been associated with, we stocked it with large-mouthed bass, which were of course intended for protein for hungry tribesmen. As a secondary consideration the staff and friends were allowed recreational fishing.
The Mahalini dam in the Nswazi communal area breached and emptied one flood year. As it was the only large dam in a comparatively dry area, its loss was a source of great hardship to the peasants and their livestock. I managed to aquire funds to repair it the next year on the drought-relief "work for food" scheme, whereby destitute peasants were given rations for themselves and their families in exchange for their labour. This worked very well to the satisfaction of all. Twenty wheelbarrows were purchased, the sides of the breach were shaped down and a trench dug into the base of the breach. A clay core was inserted and then earth was brought by wheelbarrow and tamped by the weight of the barrow and the feet of the pusher. Several months later the dam wall, which had originally been constructed by bulldozer in a couple of weeks, was complete again and looked as good as new.
The first rains came and the dam started filling. More rain fell and the water was lapping the spillway. As it was an earth dam, the spillway of course was placed to the side of the wall. Then one morning, filled with gusty rain, I received a telephone call from the Chief who lived near the dam. "Come quickly, I think the dam is going to break again". Horrors - what could I do? Anyway, I jumped into my old landrover and tore out just in time to see water flowing through cracks which had developed. As I watched, the centre of the wall collapsed on itself and a torrent of mud gushed downstream. That was the beginning of the end and from both sides of the new breach, huge chunks of compacted earth heaved away from the rest of the wall, stood trembling on their foundations,washed away and collapsed into the rushing flow of mud. And so an hour later the dam was empty except for the normal flow of water in the bottom of the breach. No blame could be attributed to anyone - I had sought profesional advice but apparently the soil was not suitable. There was no point in wasting further funds on another repair job, and so I applied for and got an allocation of money for a borehole, which was sited by a government geophysicist and proved to be a great success, providing all the water requirements previously supplied by the dam. As its yield was so good and demand on it so great, we fitted it with a diesel engine and pump. Most boreholes were fitted with handpumps, and field staff were endlessly making the rounds, pulling up the cylinder from the bottom and clearing out miscellaneous collections of rocks and junk which naughty boys had dropped down just to hear the intriguing noises that occurred when rock hit water and echoed upwards.
This again is the snag with communal property, no-one would take the blame and bear the responsibility when the pump ceased functioning, so the oft-criticized administrator came and sorted it out for them. Paternalistic? Probably, but they did not have the equipment for such repairs and the borehole was invariably the only one within 10 kilometres and they relied for their very existence on them.