Cathy Buckle: The threads that connect us to Zimbabwe
Key topics:
Lunar eclipse connects over 85% of the world’s population.
Memories of Zimbabwe link people, places, and wildlife.
Friendships and shared stories form unbreakable threads.
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By Cathy Buckle
Dear Family and Friends,
The lunar eclipse, which gave us a spectacular viewing for over an hour in Zimbabwe this week, provided the most amazing connection with over 85% of the world’s population. Visible from Australia, Asia, Africa and Europe, we were lucky to have a beautiful clear sky with not a cloud in sight and so we all went outside wherever we were. Looking up at the shadow beginning to cover the moon it was strangely comforting to know that so many people were connected, so many were looking up. As the night grew darker and the moon turned deep red, I thought about all Zimbabwe’s connections and the invisible threads that link us together.
Whether we live or work in Zimbabwe now, or did so decades ago when it was called Southern Rhodesia or Rhodesia, there is an unbreakable thread linking us all. Perhaps it is the name of a place: Chimanimani or Chikombedzi, Binga or Bindura, Rutenga or Rusape, Shamva or Shangani and so many more, they are names engraved in our collective memories.
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Maybe it is the wilderness that connects us? The wooo-ooop of the hyena in the night; the song of the nightjars at dawn and dusk; the splash and grunts of hippos as they slip back into the river at dawn; the little elephant shrew sunbathing on the rocks on a winter morning. These noises and sights link us too, close your eyes and listen, can you hear them and think of ‘home.’
Perhaps it is the people that connect us? The young school children walking down those dusty paths, carrying a little cloth to clean their shoes with when they get to school; the boys on donkey carts carrying bricks or grain; the women walking with babies wrapped in towels on their backs. Can you see them in your past, in your present? Were they also looking up at the lunar eclipse?
Maybe it’s a specific place that connects us: the shop that’s always had the creamiest, softest ice cream in a cone with a flakey chocolate bar in the centre; the take- away on the highway that sells the best meat pies and hottest samosas; the garden restaurant where a scoop of ice cream in a coke-a-cola is called a Brown Cow and it fluffs up and overflows when you stir it.
Perhaps the thread is just in your garden on an early Sunday morning under a bright blue sky, watching as a grey heron lands on top of a Msasa tree and yawns as it starts its day. Or maybe it’s just those clear and starry nights when you sit out under the Southern Cross and look for constellations and shooting stars.
This week I received a letter from a man who has been reading my letters from Zimbabwe for over two decades. From time to time we’ve exchanged stories and memories over the years, joining the threads that have connected us, but tears filled my eyes as I read his recent letter, likely the last I will ever get. “I regret dear Cathy that you will have to withdraw me from your wonderful letters these past 20 odd years. I am on my third bout of cancer but this last one is unbeatable and I expect only a couple of months more to live. I have loved all your stories many of which I have shared from my youth in N. Rhodesia, Malawi and Botswana. I’m just an old Madala!” As they say in Zulu, my friend Colin, hamba kahle (Go well). I will look for you in the shooting stars as I sit out under the Southern Cross on a balmy night in Zimbabwe. The thread will not be broken.
I end with a message of thanks to my friend Mike Begbie, Zimbabwean, astronomer and photographer who, from 7 thousand kilometers away, helped me understand how to take a photograph of the red lunar eclipse. My eclipse photograph, and the yawning heron in my garden, can be seen on my website and social media pages.
There is no charge for this Letter From Zimbabwe but if you would like to donate please visit my website. A home audio recording of this Letter is available for a small contribution to the mailing expense, please email cbuckle.zim@gmail.com if you are interested.
Until next time, thanks for reading this Letter From Zimbabwe now in its 25th year, and my books about life in Zimbabwe, a country in waiting.
Ndini shamwari yenyu (I am your friend)
My new Photobook “Zimbabwe’s Timeless Beauty The 2025 Collection” and my Beautiful Zimbabwe 2026 Calendar are now available. Along with all my books, they can be ordered from my website or from LULU. Click here to order www.lulu.com/spotlight/cathybuckle2018