Journey Ends For Superwoman
It was a journey that – as all journeys do – started with a whimper in a maternity clinic on the 24th of October, 1959 in Chivhu; then known as Enkeldorn, in Mashonaland East Province. Native Zimbabweans were still crumpling under the colonialism yoke, but as the sixties approached, winds of change were blowing all across Africa, and they must have caught on the infant, Barbara Gakanje when she cried her first breath that October day. Growing, she must have been doing all the feminine chores done by every other girl in Mudavanhu Village. But there was a stillness about her that struck a cord in her younger brother, Last Gakanje, who was also the youngest child in the family. “She was of royal blood,” said Last in a tribute to his late sister at her home in Seke Communal Lands recently. “There was this amazing quality about her being a messenger of truth all the times. She spoke her mind and did not apologise for it.” The same treatment was given to those who tried to dress her