With thanks to Diana Hirsch for her amazing blog on life in Que Que - see http://www.oncecalledhome.com

The following is one of her recent postings

The Little Town That Could 

The Beira and Mashonaland Railway Company completed the rail link south between Salisbury and the Globe and Phoenix Station, later called Que Que, in 1901. The link to Bulawayo was completed a year later. Now coal fired boilers could be introduced on the Globe and Phoenix Mine, meat to the market and women arrived in Que Que.  The daily passenger trains from Bulawayo and Salisbury still passed through Que Que, at the ungodly hours of one and two am respectively a half-century later.

Umniati River in flood with the new bridge under construction

The Little Town That Could

In January of 1953 clouds hung low and heavy like wet blotting paper while thunder rumbled ominously across the sodden land.  The heavens opened and torrential rain for the eighth day bucketed down.

Riverbeds that had been sandy wastes for the past two years were now raging torrents, carrying away precious topsoil, uprooted trees and the bloated carcasses of cattle and goats.  Roads were impassable in many places. The railway bridge over the Umniati River, linking Que Que to Gatooma and the towns to the north, collapsed.

Holidaymakers were returning home in time for the new school term. Behind the hissing Garrett steam engine passengers looked anxiously out of rain-streaked windows.

“What do we do now?”

“How long before the bridge will be repaired?”

“We are pretty low on cash.”

Dad, was mayor.  He reassured the crowd on the platform, “We’ll make things as easy for you as we can.  The railway engineers and their gang are already on the job.”

A rota system was organized.  The large kitchen at the boarding school was opened.  The Red Cross provided food; the Women’s Institute brought hot meals to the elderly on the train as well as magazines and books.  The ladies stayed to chat and give cheer to the worried folk.

The school bus ferried groups of passengers to the school for meals.

The welfare bus took others to the mine shower block for a hot shower.  Soap and towels were provided.

The Globe and Phoenix Mine Compound Manager, pith helmeted A. J. Liebenberg, cranked his car into high gear and arranged housing and food for the third and forth class African passengers at the First Aid Pavilion.

Much to the Hirsch children’s consternation, their home at #1 Silver Oaks Road was opened to families with young children, who had the run of the very large, long verandah.  They had use of our toys!  My Rosebud dolls suffered broken limbs and  torn clothes.  Brian’s Meccano set lost nuts and bolts, levers and gears and David’s golliwog disappeared altogether.   Mom was impervious to our complaints.  How could we be so selfish?

Our commodious kitchen was opened to mothers with babies to feed and bottles to sterilize late into the night.

Stranded motorists occupied all the rooms at Sloman’s Que Que Hotel.  Mattresses were put down in the lounge to accommodate the overflow.  Homeowners opened up their homes as well.  One family had measles.  Dad found a similar family in town.  All were sick together.

Teperson and Malkow’s Midlands Bakery did a roaring trade sending their “boys” down in their plastic capes with trays of hot sausage rolls, meat pies, chips and sticky buns for sale.

Mr. Cloete of Vernon’s Café, not to be outdone, provided enamel jugs of hot coffee and tea, packets of biscuits, sweets and Willards chips, as well as cigarettes and matches.

The Medical Officer of Health did a splendid job with sanitary pails.

Telephone lines were down, but news still came over the wireless at six in the evening.  A daily bulletin was posted on the station notice board chronicling progress on the damaged bridge.  Bets were laid.  The town’s rallying to the stranded passengers plight and the cheerfulness of all was catching.  A festive air developed.  Soccer matches and other games were played on the platform.

Extra food and hot drinks in thermoses were sent to the hard working railway engineers and their gang.  Ribald jokes were shouted across the turbulent river to folk on the far side who had come to watch the river and monitor progress.

After four days the bridge was deemed safe.  The Garrett was unhooked, the fire stoked.  Smoke rose in the soggy air.  With a few optimistic hoots the engine rumbled its way out of sight to test the bridge on its own.

For what seemed like eternity the swelling crowds waited and listened for the returning Garrett.  Youngsters put their ears to the line…then they heard it: the engine’s whistle, a whistle of success.

The whole town turned out to bid farewell to the passengers.  Dad wore his red robe with its ermine collar and mayoral gold chain.  There were tears of happiness and relief.  The most enthusiastic cheers were from the three Hirsch kids.

In response, the spokesman for the passengers concluded “Que Que is the little town with the golden heart, the little town that could.”

A big thank you to Eileen Underwood of New Zealand for this picture of the Umniati River and to Dora Dunkley (Candy) for details.

In face of desperate African poverty, Ruth Feigenbaum provides a beacon of hope

By Suzanne Belling · March 1, 2012

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (JTA) -- Two years after moving to Zimbabwe from South Africa 20 years ago, Ruth Feigenbaum noticed that her gardener, James Phiri, was losing weight and looking ill.

With the help of a physician friend, Phiri was diagnosed: Like nearly one in seven Zimbabweans, he was infected with HIV. Feigenbaum and her husband, Alan, were about to leave for a trip, but they left Phiri with money and food.

Three days later he was dead.

“It upset me beyond belief,” Feigenbaum told JTA. “Who would support his family and so many of the relatives and orphans of those who died from AIDS-related illnesses?”

A veteran of the fight against apartheid in South Africa -- Feigenbaum was an active member of Black Sash, an advocacy organization that Nelson Mandela once called “the conscience of white SA” -- she responded to Phiri’s death by founding a support group for families affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Ruth Feigenbaum with Rabbi Moshe Silberhaft, aka "The Traveling Rabbi," in the library for AIDS orphans in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, July 2011. (Courtesy SGOFOTI)

In the years since, Feigenbaum has become a major player in helping care for Zimbabweans affected by the disease, working her international Jewish connections for financial and other support she uses to alleviate suffering in a country that the United Nations considers the poorest in the world. Life expectancy there is just 47 years, and one in four children are AIDS orphans.

With assistance from World Jewish Relief in London, Feigenbaum launched the Support Group of Families of the Terminally Ill, or SGOFOTI, an apolitical, nongovernmental organization that provides emotional and psychological support to the families of HIV/AIDS victims in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city, where Feigenbaum lives.

Along with partner Patricia Tshabalala, a woman Feigenbaum calls Zimbabwe’s Mother Theresa, Feigenbaum has built SGOFOTI into an organization encompassing seven constituent groups serving a cross-generational spectrum, from children orphaned by the disease to grandmothers struggling to support families who have lost their breadwinner -- all this in a country with weak civic institutions and a culture of fear cultivated by the iron fist of strongman President Robert Mugabe.

“I don’t play bridge or go to tea parties, so this gives me something to do in Bulawayo,” said Feigenbaum, who visits each group on a weekly basis. “But I get just as much out of it as the people. It has also taught them that not all whites are racist, and they have learned something about Jews and Judaism from me.”

One of the SGOFOTI’s member groups is Vulindlela Guardians, located in the Bulawayo suburb of Mpopoma. The group provides orphaned children with school fees, clothing and a place of refuge.

In 2009, Feigenbaum helped provide the group with a library through her connections to several Jewish South African expatriates living in Australia. Two women -- one a former student of Feigenbaum’s from Johannesburg -- had been distributing recycled books to African children through the Union of Jewish Women of South Africa. Feigenbaum persuaded them to donate a shipment to establish a library for the children at Vulindlela Guardians.

The books were delivered personally by South Africa’s “Traveling Rabbi,” Moshe Silberhaft, for whom the library was named. At the dedication last year, a South African television crew shot footage for a documentary titled “Shalom the Beloved Country.”

“The library will help inculcate a culture of reading for the children,” Bulawayo Mayor Thaba Moyo said during the ceremony, according to text of the mayor’s remarks provided by Silberhaft. “You have equipped our city with great ammunition, which is education. We note that education is vital in spearheading development in our society.”

Ruth Feigenbaum with Patricia Tshabalala at the facilities of the Support Group of Families of the Terminally Ill. (Courtesy SGOFOTI)

Feigenbaum and her husband are among the last Jews in Bulawayo, a community that once numbered more than 1,000 and is now down to a few dozen. The couple manages to keep a kosher home only with help from Silberhaft, who sends them necessary supplies from abroad.

In her work with local Zimbabweans, Feigenbaum has introduced some Jewish teachings. During the library dedication, she had tears in her eyes watching the orphans sing songs in the two main indigenous Zimbabwean languages, Shona and Ndebele, as well as in English and Hebrew.

“They greet me on every visit with a ‘shalom’ and thank me by saying ‘todah rabah,’ ” Feigenbaum said. “At Pesach time, with the matzah sent to us by Rabbi Moshe, I arrange a third seder so they can learn a little about our customs.”

Feigenbaum’s efforts have helped engender warm feelings toward the Jewish community in a desperate place where few people have any firsthand exposure to Jews or Jewish customs. Following the library dedication, Tshabalala wrote an earnest letter to Silberhaft thanking him for his efforts.

“Please tell the Jewish community I thank them for their love, care and support,” Tshabalala wrote last year to Silberhaft, “and for making me and my people part of their family.”

Ruth Feigenbaum, founder of the Support Group of Families of the Terminally Ill in Zimbabwe. (Courtesy SGOFOTI)