A Matopo Christmas

December 1958. It may have been December 22 – I am not sure. We lived then at Matopo Mission, 25 miles from the end of the tar on the Old Gwanda Road south ofBulawayo. In Manitoba, where we live now, Christmas comes with cold, up to minus 30 Celsius, but Matopo is in Zimbabwe, and Christmas means time for a picnic!

Every year the missionary family gathered a few days before Christmas for a picnic. We came from Matopo, Mtshabezi, Wanezi, and Bulawayo, 30 or so adults and children. In December 1958, we met at Matopo Mission, from where we drove to one of the “outschools” nearby, a place called Dopi.

At Dopi we unpacked the picnic, enjoyed our food and gifts and volleyball. Always volleyball when the missionaries played together. Then came the clouds and the rain. December in Zimbabwe is the rainy season, and we had a good tropical thunderstorm. With the rain pouring down, there was no choice but to head back to the mission, where we had enough room to finish our party inside, but there was a problem! A little spruit that we had crossed easily in our VW Kombis when we arrived was now a raging torrent, perhaps 100 feet across. [My childhood mind remembers 100 feet. Adult reflection suggests 20 feet is more realistic.]

The flood was too deep and swift and wide to drive across in our Kombis, so we went back to the school to make a plan. The adults decided that Frank Kipe and Al Book would walk back to the mission, hiking through the rocks of the Matopo Hills around the flash flood, get the Massey Ferguson diesel tractor there, and drive back to Dopi. [If other people remember differently about who hiked back to the mission, I defer to their memory.]

Meanwhile we waited in the school house. My Dad later recalled Elwood Hershey getting anxious about the long wait and piling wood on a fire we had built on the earthen floor of the school, until the sparks almost reached the thatched roof. When Dad pointed out that he might burn the school building down around us, Elwood hurriedly removed some of the logs.

My sister and Alvera sang a duet, “Deck the halls with boughs of holly.” We played games, sang carols, passed the time as well as we could while we waited for the men on a tractor.

Finally, Al and Frank arrived. We drove down to the river, which had sunk somewhat, but Frank still got wet driving through it, sitting on the tractor seat. The men took the spark plugs out of the VWs and then Frank towed us across. I remember lifting up my feet as the water ran across the floorboards of the Kombi. On the other side, the men dried off all the engines and reinserted the spark plugs. We finally got back to Matopo Mission about 1 a.m. [Again, the time is the memory of an eight-year old speaking 61 years later.]

The families from Wanezi still had a four-hour drive home. I suspect they put a long-distance call through to one of their number, who had not been able to join us. It might have been from Elwood to Dorothy Hershey, which would explain his frustration with the long wait and thus piling logs on the fire in the school house.

I probably went to 12 Christmas picnics, growing up in Africa. This is the only one I remember. A truly memorable Christmas Picnic.