Dr. Thomas visits childhood home in Zimbabwe

Dr. Paul Thomas, of Integrative Pediatrics in Cedar Mill (see April CM News) was taken to Zimbabwe at age four by his missionary parents. He left after finishing high school and had not returned until this summer. He and his wife Malya had adopted the four orphaned children of his “African sister,” Tsitsi Mutepfa, the daughter of his “second set of parents,” when she suffered a heart attack in 2003.

An invitation arrived for the four children to attend a memorial service at their parents graveside sometime in August. Dr. Thomas says, “Raised to be frugal, by parents who had been influenced by the Great Depression and life as missionaries, I found it difficult to plan this trip for all my family. Initially I was going to send the four Mutepfa kids, as they needed closure in this first visit to their biological parents’ graves at this memorial service in their village. I then realized they needed my support and I needed my own closure, having never visited the graves of my own African parents in the village I had grown up in—Arnoldine Mission in Zimbabwe. The trip was planned for the five of us but it didn’t feel right. In all our lives as parents we had strived to create unity for our children and now we were going to have those that went to Africa and those that did not. A surprise sum of money appeared just at the right time and the invitation to go to Africa was extended to all our children.”

Only two of the Mutepfa children were able to join the trip, along with four of Thomas’ other children (there are nine children in the family, some adopted, some biological). After a 50-hour journey via Germany and South Africa, they arrived in Harare on August 17. They spent the first day sorting out passport problems that had delayed two of their sons back in the US.

Dr. Thomas continues, “we left Harare that evening headed to Victoria Falls. At 3 am we stopped in Redcliff, home of baba Mwandi Mbuya Kennedy Mutepfa, who had taken a month off to accompany us on our travels. In the middle of the night, the family was all up cooking for us and going through the welcome that became a repeat procedure at each new home we entered. After very warm greetings and introductions, there would be a full meal prepared with sadza (the corn meal staple of Zimbabwe), vegetables and meat, which is reserved for special occasions and guests.

“The trip to Victoria Falls from Bulawayo was most interesting in that there must have been six or seven checkpoints where armed police would ask where we were going, what we were doing and sometimes request a copy of the driver’s license. There were also a number of makeshift toll stops where the toll was $1 US—apparently a new phenomenon to raise money to repair the roads. At most of these stops I got the feeling that my ability to speak Shona (the main language in Zimbabwe) and the presence of Kennedy Mutepfa (who is well-known in Zimbabwe for his role on the soccer commission) was a huge plus. We had no troubles at any of the police checks throughout the country. The presence of so many police checks gave road travel a less-than-free feeling and was certainly in stark contrast to the travel we experience here in the US or my memories of travel in Rhodesia back in the 60’s and 70’s when I was there as a child.

“Visiting Victoria Falls was a real highlight from the sheer splendor of the falls. It was just as I had remembered from my childhood and is certainly one of the natural wonders of the world. The falls can be reached by plane, and at this stage of Zimbabwe’s transition government and our experience on the road to Victoria Falls, I would recommend that unless you have a Zimbabwean driver with you for the road travel.

“We stayed that night in cabins right on the Zambesi River. We were startled but excited to have a number of huge elephants walk right through our compound, shaking trees and foraging in the dusk and night just 20-40 feet from us. A number of wild crocodiles were on the bank just 50 feet from our yard. We were living and staying right in their natural habitat.“

The group visited a game reserve before making the journey to the Mutepfa village in Makanda. Dr. Thomas continues, “We arrived in the afternoon and a group of 50+ then drove and walked to “the farm,” another part of the Mutepfa holding where the family farm and graves are. This was a major purpose of this trip—for the Mutepfa children to visit the graves of their parents. There was a time of sharing and crying, silence and peace.

“One of their cows was killed for the upcoming feast and celebration. The following morning was the formal celebration service for their lives. There was singing and sharing with the final sermon by former Bishop Muzorewa (first African Bishop in Africa, winner of Nobel peace prize, first African prime minister of Zimbabwe, friend of our family and twice related to the Mutepfas). This took most of the day and was followed by an all night DJ African Music party using a generator for power and a feast that brought over 700 people—half family and half from the local villages.”

The next morning, the family again visited the gravesites. “Witnessing my daughter Zani’s collapse on her mom’s grave and the deep body and spiritual pain of my children Tare and Zani throughout the graveside service was confirmation of the importance of this journey. The peaceful prayers the following morning at the graves reflected some resolution.”

They continued to Arnoldine, the village where Thomas had lived in his childhood. “The village was very similar to my memory of it. The mud-brick huts I had lived in had long ago been washed away by rains, but the land remained. The elders informed me that after 45 years, this village was still holding this little piece of land for my family—a testament to all that my parents’ work had meant to this village, where our family had lived as if we were part of the village. My mom had established a heath clinic and my parents had helped bring running water, and had helped so many get higher education.”

Dr. Thomas came away from his trip with a new dream—to establish a foundation to help support the many HIV orphans in Zimbabwe. “There is a strong system of extended families but they need help to care for the extra children. We can use our land to build residences for social workers who can determine needs and provide support,” he says. He plans to use the income from his new Pediatric Urgent Care Clinic (see item in Member News) as seed money to realize this dream.

If you’d like to read the full text of Dr. Thomas’ journal of his trip, with more photos, it will be linked from this article soon.

Oregonian article on the Thomas Family, 10/ 26/09

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