The ManicaPost
Joseph Kanyekanye
Correspondent
LICON Garwi was my childhood friend who died in his 50s last week.
He worked as General Manager at Megapak in Harare.
He suddenly passed away on October 7 from hypertension-related illness and we buried him at Greendale Cemetery recently.
Everyone in our circles knows this, but I want to share with the rest of the world, and let it know this man as I did.
I want to borrow from Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem titled: “If” which I wish to paraphrase by saying: “If I can fill any unforgiving day’s 24 hours’ worth of time before Licon died, mine would have been a treatise of his profound humanity and everything in him.”
He was my friend, my other brother from another mother!
The walk from the 1980s
Garwi was by all accounts a kind and gentle man that I had the privilege to befriend long back when we wore Mutare Boys’ High School (MBHS) khaki shorts with green ties and brown shoes.
Why am I saddened by his untimely departure?
Why does it hurt so much? Why was this man special to me?
I met him in the 1980s as one of the few kids from Sakubva and Dangamvura who were part of the experiment to reform education in Zimbabwe through desegregation of schools then ostensibly covered up by using zoning to maintain elitist schools.
I was coming from Sakubva, and having endured the so-called first four years of Group B schooling, we were both not familiar with the hard and fast rules of MBHS under a white affable headmaster called, Mr Hulley.
There was clear resistance from the school teachers to this manoeuvre by Government.
This is what reportedly gave rise to Hillcrest Colleges as most of the teachers who resisted our co-option as the ghetto boys ended up at Hillcrest.
Little did they know that we, the sons of the black peasants, had arrived and our sons would follow them to Hillcrest in years to come.
Martin Luther argued that “if we do not learn to live together as friends, we will die apart as fools”.
Pardon the digression, as this should be about Garwi of Dangamvura as told by Joseph Kanyekanye of Sakubva.
Licon and I naturally connected with each other and others from similar modest backgrounds like Stanley Chasinda, Leo Gonda, Sunsley Zisengwe, the late Moses Zisengwe, the late Howard Murahwa, Booker Makwamaya, Simbi and others.
We were sure about one thing: we had to go through Mutare Boys’ High School one way or the other.
This was one hell of an experimental design where the subjects sought one outcome only: success at all times and at all costs.
Our parents were struggling with the expensive uniforms they could hardly afford and we did not want to go back to the ghetto in embarrassment in failure to be ridiculed by those that went to Hartzell and St Augustine’s.
Thanks to the calibre of both white and black teachers then plus the vibrant headmaster who led this transformation — Mr Kuwenga — this experiment worked without us feeling inferior in any respect.
The bond that Licon and I had then was that even when we could afford bus fare from MBHS to the main bus terminus in town popularly known as PaMudzviti, we often walked the distance going home.
We would talk about all matters from girls, the injustices of apartheid in South Africa to the structure of mitochondria as we were studying ‘A’ Level Maths (Pure & Applied), Chemistry and Biology.
There was another group of MBHS entrants we nicknamed “zvibaba” who were mature and had beard but had been roped in by Government to allow them into ‘A’ Level as they had somehow been disadvantaged by the war of liberation.
The real all-rounder MBHS guys were those that had started from Form One to Upper Six like my best friend, Trinity Munowenyu.
These differences were not palpable but we knew then the way we spoke our English made it easy for the girls at Pfacha (Mutare Girls’ High) to differentiate us.
The genius of the Education Ministry then was that they had done a similar experiment at Pfacha; so we were okay.
Lest I be misunderstood, there was no rivalry between the groups.
The main positive influence from this was ironically a school song called: “ex montibusrobur” that gave us strength to adapt and learn to like each other and love what MBHS stood for.
I believe a little miracle happened as “zvibaba”, we the ghetto guys and the “all-rounders” left MBHS as a jubilant lot with no class differences or segregation.
Today, we remain rooted together and in touch through a WhatsApp group called “Men of Valour”.
I read every day and God willing, we should sing our school song whenever one of us passes away.
I only paint the background to allow you to understand Licon and I then and now and how our school song had profound influence on our lives.
At Licon’s beautiful and well-organised funeral (my brother Nyathi of Nyaradzo Group made us proud beyond measure), there were shirts inscribed “Mr Boss you had wings to fly but we were not ready for you”.
None of us was ready, but Chirandu was acting like a MBHS Shumba.
So he went like a rocket as one anecdote of him at school that I will share later shows he knew how rockets moved.
That, dear reader, is the epitome of a roaring MBHS Lion (Shumba Mutare): an unstoppable fellow ready to scale any new heights anywhere in the world and clearly even beyond.
To anyone not accustomed to my thinking, unlike William Shakespeare’s Mark Antony, I went to bury Licon and will praise this kind and coolheaded man who I was privileged to call a friend and a man of valour.
MBHS motto and song:“Ex Montibusrobour”
In one of our discussions as we walked to town from MBHS, Licon and I literally dissected the school song we were very cynical about.
The song evoked emotions we had not felt before amidst a background that we had to change into two buses to and from school.
It took several walks and debates but I bet no one understood the song better than us even up to now.
My fellow MBHS old and new students will forgive me but let me cannibalise this school song to illustrate how profound it was to us as we walked the streets of Mutare from MBHS to Mudzviti enroute to Sakubva and Dangamvura.
Mr Kendrick was the teacher who forced us to memorise this song.
I doubt that he ever really knew how his piano-led rendition always became a source of inspiration in our lives.
Lincoln’s passing has forced me to share our conversations on the matter that went on for weeks until we could interpret our school song below:
Stanza 1: “The mountains all around us/Shall never tower in vain/Long, long ago they bound us/In strong affection’s chain/They gave us strength and beauty/In rock and slender pine/With them we share the duty/To watch the border line”.
To Licon and I, we saw the mountains every day and we marvelled at the beauty of nature and somehow believed the trees watched us beckoning us to succeed despite our very modest backgrounds.
So while some of our fellow pupils (black and white) drove in Nissan Sunny cars, we walked proudly and happily knowing the strength we have came from the mountains.
We developed a friendship with Licon that was never shaken by anything anywhere or anytime. The borderline then was to be watched against Matsanga’s rebels in neighbouring Mozambique.
Stanza 2: “Shout it out/Lift the skies/That every heart shall stir/As we hear our anthem rise/Ex MontibusRobur”.
This stanza invoked a sense of pride and belonging which I frankly never had for my previous school.
It made our hearts swell with pride.
This stanza said to us we have arrived at MBHS against all odds and we belonged there.
Licon and I never left because whenever we met 36 years after our MBHS days, we always came up with stories at the school with fond memories.
We drew strength from the mountains around us at school as we easily savoured the tranquillity of Mutare.
I did not know then I would end up as the group CEO of the largest commercial timber company in Zimbabwe.
I did not know as I do now that I would be able to identify virtually all the tree species we were looking at in 5 years: Pinuspatula, Eucalyptus grandis and Cypressustorulosa.
I went on to study Dendrolody to the extent that even in my sleep or around Murahwa Hills as one goes past Christmas Pass, I can identify every tree species by its botanical name.
I do not know how Licon ended up studying plastics and chemical technology while I focussed on forestry and forest products technology.
I suppose he wanted to save nature while I wanted to make a living out of it.
Our ‘A’ Level Chemistry teacher, Mr Chinowawa, taught us how to do titrations at MBHS.
Licon used Chemistry in plastics and I finally understood organic chemistry in pulp and paper technology and we got our BSc Science Honours first degrees as he wished.
Stanza 3: “Though north and south we will scatter/To join the stream of time/True be our love no matter/What other hills we climb/Though outward bravely turning/New roads to pioneer/Our hearts shall ne’er cease burning/When this refrain we hear”.
Licon and I scattered.
I went to study in Wales and he at the University of Zimbabwe.
We both studied for an MBA at UZ separately but like our school song predicted, we reconnected.
We climbed various hills successfully in our careers and managed to reach the pinnacle in our respective industries.
Our friendship and ex montibusrobur love never allowed us to be out of touch.
In our minds, we still walked the Mutare Boys’ High School journey to our homes happily and confident about our futures and our zeal to succeed at all costs.
The strength we drew from the Mutare Boys’ High School mountains never failed us.
We would discuss when we progressed from boys to men and from men to dads.
No amount of undergraduate, postgraduate or PhD education in my case gave us a stronger grounding than ex montibusrobur.
This man was my other brother from another mother.
Stanza 4: “Shout it out/Lift the skies/Every heart shall stir/As we hear our anthem rise/Ex MontibusRobur”.
For a visitor coming down Christmas Pass into Mutare, you may not be engulfed with the sort of emotions we felt going back home from Harare.
We would complain about certain things that were wrong and what the council should do, but we loved Mutare.
It was inconceivable that we could spend two months without finding an excuse to get home other than the time I was overseas.
MBHS taught us modesty so I leave my readers to judge the impact my friend and I made in our respective industries and our social causes.
Did we stir any hearts?
I attended Licon’s full funeral last Sunday.
Licon stirred a lot of hearts and souls with his humility, kindness and contribution to the packaging industry beyond any fear of contradiction.
Stanza 5: “Up to heaven the echoes fling/Mutare all, Mutare I sing”.
We came out of Mutare Boys’ High School with a deep sense of trying to do the greatest good to the greatest many for the longest time.
For Licon, myself and the other Men of Varlour, we tried to live up to this.
We learnt manners and the “Manyika” phenomenon that every individual matters irrespective of position in life and wealth. At a certain commercial facility in Samora Machel, Licon would know each and every person from the cleaner to the MD.
At Allied Timbers, I remember with fond memories my staff from gardeners to divisional MDs in an organisation that had 4 500 employees.
I still remember their names, children and sometimes spouses from Nyangui, Gwendingwe, Nyanga, Mutare, Harare to my beloved Chimanimani.
When Cyclone Idai struck in Chimanimani, Licon was one of the persons who assisted me to get blankets and maize meal we distributed to the communities for no other motive but that which MBHS taught us to be 36 years ago: men of valour.
Tough man who did not suffer fools
Licon was a tough and humorous boy with simple but effective verbal quips to judge foolish submissions even from teachers.
I remember vividly an Applied Maths lesson where the teacher got worked out when he gave an example of a rocket travelling to space at a certain speed.
The teacher wanted to illustrate that the rocket ordinarily would maintain a constant speed unless disturbed by another force.
Licon, with the then characteristic brash Group B background pointed to the teacher without any fanfare the obvious question to him on how the rocket would come back.
The teacher lost it and we suspected then that the teacher had some loose screws somewhere as he always wore a yellow jersey no matter how hot it was.
We laughed out while the teacher was seething with anger. Licon just laughed but he was marked by the teacher thereon but that surprisingly never bothered him.
I think this, however, cost him from being a prefect as I was appointed a prefect and head of Crawford Hostel.
We remained friends with no rivalry or ill-feeling. I also remember our walks from MBHS to the ghetto where we would talk about Paul Hogan on TV.
Licon loved and adored stand-up comedy.
I also remembered his cultured demur when he met my late father at our house for the first time during school holidays.
My father liked the skinny guy and encouraged our friendship.
It was a contrast of him with what I saw at school.
I later learnt that at home, Licon was a disciplined boy who showed respect to elders, but reserved his quips to anyone else who talked “tosh”.
It was his defensive weapon used with maximum effect but beneath the veneer was a kind man.
40 years of friendship
Licon will be remembered eternally in my head as a friend and above all an honest individual.
I got to visit their place in Dangamvura when we were kids.
He was impressed by my late father who was gentle and easy-going.
He even made this remark this year. We talked initially of going to study at the University of Zimbabwe or NUST that had just opened.
As fate had it, I ended up in Wales on a scholarship and he went to UZ and when we eventually met when we were working, we regrouped again.
He beat me at getting his first degree, but I beat him to the MBA and MD position, but we agreed he will catch up and he did.
He was promoted to the general manager position six months ago.
Sadly, he has beaten me again, and unfortunately on the last trip we all go alone.
I am saddened that I did not have a chance to say good bye.
In Harare, we met on a number of occasions at social events.
I would drive to his workplace for a lunch. We had mazondo at his house some years ago which he personally cooked in their lovely large garden.
The Licon I knew as a kid remained: jovial, free of malice and very frank with a lot of humorous quips.
We never fought or had any differences in close to 40 years of friendship. The friendship was very important to us never to allow any trivial difference to keep us apart.
Licon ended up as chairman of one of my manufacturing companies.
I will miss him.
My last full day with Licon in 2021
My last full day encounter with him this year was at the height of Covid-19 in Harare when he came with his son and picked me from my home in Borrowdale.
We had a meal, drinks and discussed politics and business. I also knew that the following day he was leaving Harare at 5am to attend a funeral in Manicaland.
He castigated me for not having taken Covid-19 jabs on time and he followed up the issue on Monday to ensure I went for vaccination even when he was on a long journey.
I did get the jabs as “instructed” by Sir Licon.
The Covid-19 pandemic limited our interactions in line with guidelines from the health authorities in the last year-and-a-half but we always kept in touch.
Sadly missed but always missed
I will miss him dearly.
I hope the heavens will receive my friend.
I pray to God that when my time comes, the Lord will allow me to meet this man again.
It is the only consolation out of this tragedy.
There was no farewell, there was no warning and there was no sign of this calamity visiting us.
My wife will attest that on the night he died, I never caught any sleep.
I could not sleep at all and I did not know what was bothering me.
A glass of Jack Daniels whisky failed to resolve this.
I was to learn early in the morning that he was gone.
Chirandu was truly gone and we walked that troubled night in telepathy on our very last walk from MBHS to Mudzviti.
Licon, I shall miss our conversations.
I shall also miss you, my dear friend.
I shall miss a sounding board now that SaManyika went back to the United Kingdom.
To Licon’s family and relatives, I pray you get strength to soldier on as we did when we walked from MBHS to town.
I will always remember our walks from MBHS to town. In times of tragedy like this one, our faith is tested.
I am Catholic and I have literally e-mailed God to say why, why and why?
I am still waiting for a reply.
I cannot begin to understand the pain we all feel but we need to move on without forgetting this kind man I am proud to call my friend.
The parting comment on my departed friend is that you are irreplaceable.
I am unhappy you have gone to the heavens without giving notice.
You have unfairly walked this trip alone, without telling me Licon!
I am, however, happy that our old friends from Sakubva and Mutare Boys’ High School, the late Moses Zisengwe and Howard Murahwa, all men of valour, will guide you in this last walk. When we meet again, I would like us to walk together as we started 36 years ago.
I also expect to resume our conversations but perhaps about or children then.
Goodbye for now Chirandu until we meet again.
I wish you had told me how to resolve the Applied Mathematics problem on how the rocket can come back.
I think the answer is and was that those that need to see the person in the rocket again have/had to eventually follow the same path as we all will do.
Till then, Licon, prepare a space for me and other men of valour so that we can shout ex-montibusrobur again.
You should be a prefect when I come there so you will need to accommodate my request.
Farewell my friend.
Your friend,
Joseph“JK”Kanyekanye
