Tommy Atkins' Goats

Seen/heard on the A.U. campus last week:

Student A: “Oh, my brother, how about lending me a pen or pencil?”

Student B: [Reaches into pocket, pulls out five writing instruments.] “Don’t ever go to war without your weapon!” [Puts all pens and pencils back into pocket; walks away.]

Friday was my day to work the Manicaland Agricultural Fair. That was great for me since I was thereby forced to skip my statistics class, and I’d given a quite nasty test on Thursday afternoon. We piled an excess of students & staff into a pickup and headed to town. As the ranking faculty member I was put in charge of T-shirts plus the money for entrance and lunch. I was not, however, trusted with the plastic chicken (uh, Ellen Goldey has plastic people in anatomy lab; ag schools have plastic chickens), which remained in custody of a permanent staff member who could presumably be executed if the precious chicken were lost or damaged.

When we arrived at the Manicaland Fairgrounds, our crop-science teacher (a very bright man with the morals of the plastic chicken) demanded his lunch-money and T-shirt immediately. When I complied, he complained about the size of his T-shirt (it was an “L”; I’d issued the only “XL” to a pregnant woman); then he disappeared without working even ten minutes. Hope was expressed that he might have been kidnapped by terrorists, but since terrorists in Zimbabwe are as rare as T-bone steaks, such justice seems improbable.

In addition to guarding the plastic chicken with our lives, we were expected to explain poster exhibits and to entice any high-schooler of apparent aptitude into taking a University fact sheet. Also, since the fair was being officially opened by Zimbabwe’s Vice-President, we were supposed to suck up to her if she came into our shed. But Friday was “Fair Day” for elementary schools, so most of our clientele were a bit young for proselytizing—and mostly wanted to play with the plastic chicken. In the afternoon a tall clown (& face-painter) began a loud Shona chant just down the hill from our exhibit. This motivated the aggregation of perhaps 150 very small children, who followed the clown around the Fairgrounds as if they were rodents and he the Pied Piper. When he brought his procession by our shed, he “lined out” with his kids a special English chant, concluding with “At Africa University AT AFRICA UNIVERSITY always remember ALWAYS REMEMBER your parents still love you YOUR PARENTS STILL LOVE YOU!” I regretted our failure to procure, somehow, sufficient sweets to reward the clown and his happy throng.

The morning would have been a bit long except for our neighbors, the team from Marymount Teachers College (much less prestigious than A.U. because they give only diplomas while we grant Degrees), who had brought their marimba band. They played continuously for several hours—wonderful music; Dr. Fisher would have been in hog heaven—and even some of the soldiers danced.

In the afternoon the Vice President did show. She was an ample personage whom Terry Ferguson would have identified as Tutti Green’s big sister. She was welcomed by legions of majorettes, ranging in age from perhaps 2-15 years. The antics of the majorettes were accompanied by Zimbabwe’s Army Band, of which I shall write more shortly. The VP spoke in English (was she Ndebele? I should know things like that), but the loudspeaker system worked less than perfectly, and I heard little beyond “…blah, blah, blah, sustainable development, blah, blah, blah, agricultural production….” That particularly disappointed one of our students (a Mozambican born in Arizona) because he’d wanted his picture taken with her.

As some of you know, I’d attended the Manicaland Ag Fair during my last sojourn in Zimbabwe, and back in 2000, my favorite part was the livestock show. This year I must sadly report that live-animal exhibits had been cancelled—presumably because nobody would expose valuable animals to the hazards of transport (I mean, some folks looked as if they’d try to par-boil even our plastic chicken). This did not mean, however, that absolutely zero domestic artiodactyls were in attendance, for the Army band had brought its two goats. These are magnificent animals, capable of standing at Attention for extended periods, and (I promise that I am not making this up) they march with the Band in time to its music. Because I have an abiding curiosity for things military, I asked one grizzled old sergeant about the goats. He was extremely proud of the animals and said that one had actually earned a rank-stripe (promoted to the ZDF equivalent of our Army’s PFC) for exemplary behavior. Encouraged by the sergeant’s willingness to talk, I asked him about the significance of the goats. “Nobody knows,” he shook his head; “we inherited the tradition many years ago, from a British regiment that was stationed in this country.”

Thus, even in a country that is starving for meat, some things are just flat sacred. And Queen Victoria, wherever you are, the sun may now set on the flag of your Empire—but perhaps not on the traditions of your Army.