Average Joe's Blog

Average Joe had been here before; two years ago in March to be exact. Then the situation in the areas surrounding Chisumbanje Police Station in Chipinge District, Manicaland Province was something approaching pitiful. Dried stalks of maize, sorghum and rapoko stood feeble, withered and beaten under the scorching sun of the Lowveld. By the roadside, thorn bushes – the mark of a parched landscape – struggled to create a safe distance from the  blazing sandy soils and their stunted tentacles all over the area looked like the controlled forest of beard on the chin of an off-duty cop. Even some buildings at Checheche Business Centre looked like they had been torn out of a page from the historical Ottoman ruins that failed to survive the plunder of Greek conquerors. Just a stone throw away from the shopping precinct is a mighty channel of sand that looks like the very frontier of desertification; this would be the Save River. Yes, really – it is the legendary Save River whose mysti...

It read like a horror movie script – the tale of a villain who actually wins in the end. The faceless character would strike at night and leave crimson scenes that were littered with clues that the police could not use. One of his accomplices would get nabbed here or there, but the main actor himself would not reveal himself. The police were getting desperate, as they watched helpless while the areas and people they protected were attacked with impunity by the unknown gang that hit the people hard where it mattered most for village folk – in the kraal. It got to a point when the rustlers turned so bold that they ransacked kraals like they were their own. One day they raided the homesteads of Kajawo Chingodza and Collen Tope and shepherded two beasts from each of the two men’s pens. “As per their now trusted method of operation, the seven-member gang targeted mostly oxen, which they knew were docile as they were used to being yoked,” said Asst Stanley Mairi, the Marondera Distr...