Mothers of the Revolution: The War Experiences of Thirty Zimbabwean Women
Seri Jeni:
It was after this [the removal of the population from areas where they supported the freedom fighters] that one of my children joined the struggle. What happened was that she woke up early in the morning and got ready the various things he used to sell. Then she changed into a denim dress, underneath which she wore a jersey and she put her brother’s baby on her back, saying that she was going to the township. She left the keep and then gave her little brother the baby. She said, “Bye-bye, we shall meet again some day.”
At the end of the day, as it grew dark, I asked my other children where she was. The little boy said she had told him that she was going to the shopping centre but that as she left, she had said, “Bye-bye, we shall meet some day.” She never returned.
I did not sleep that night. I felt very worried and powerless. THe following morning I told my husband that our child had disappeared and he said that I should have told him before, so that he could have reported it. After a week some men arrived to say that their son wanted to marry my daughter. My husband was very annoyed because he thought that meant that they knew where my daughter was. He wanted to beat them but my brother-in-law stopped him.
After that the police regularly came to my house to ask about my daughter. They said that we were looking for a child who was long dead. They said that they had seen her go and that she had been killed immediately.
This was untrue. She went and fought in the war. It was a painful to think about. When a person was killed, the security forces hung the dead body on a chopper and every time this happened, I thought it could be my daughter. I had no happiness for thinking about my child. Each time I heard that comrades had been killed in such and such a place, I thought she could be one of them. I was very worried. She was my fourth born child and she had been very interested in the war and had often gone to the base: many children did. They simply told the guards on the keep gate that they were going to the township. It was three years before I heard about my daughter again.
Excerpted from Mothers of the Revolution:
Mothers of the Revolution tells of the war experiences of thirty Zimbabwean women. Many people suffered and died during Zimbabwe’s war of liberation and many accounts of that struggle have already been written. But the story of the women, the wives and the mothers who remain behind, has not yet been told.
Related Links:
Mothers of the Revolution (Saying Yes)
The book @ Amazon
Diary of a mad reader 
I don’t think I want to hit the like button on thi. Instead I will just thank you for posting it,
Glad you found it of value, Daniel!