Nyanga

The Nyanga uplands were farmed long before any village stood here. Across the plateau lie stone-walled terraces stepping up the hillsides, sunken stone-lined pit structures that were probably cattle pens, and hill forts, the remains of a large farming society of roughly the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries, best seen at Ziwa to the north-west. The Manyika, who gave Manicaland its name, formed chiefdoms in these hills, and their descendants farm the same slopes.

European settlement came with the British South Africa Company in the 1890s, when Cecil Rhodes bought a large estate on the plateau in 1896, attracted by the cool climate, and built a homestead at what is now Rhodes Dam; his land later passed to the state and became the core of the national park. Settlers planted exotic pines and eucalyptus, stocked the streams and dams with trout brought from abroad, and built the hotels that made the district the colony's holiday retreat — a role it has never quite lost. The village, originally spelt Inyanga, grew as the service centre for those farms, plantations and hotels.

The liberation war of the 1970s reached the district hard, since the Mozambican border lies a short distance east and guerrilla groups crossed it. After independence the estates changed hands in stages, most sharply during the land reform of the 2000s, and the district's economy has since leaned on timber, smallholder farming, potatoes and a tourism trade that rises and falls with the country's fortunes.

This is Manyika country, and the dialect, the food and the church life are shared with Mutare and the districts between. The mountains carry a spiritual weight that outsiders notice quickly: Mount Nyangani is spoken of as a place with its own rules, stories of walkers vanishing in its mists are widely told and widely believed, and families with a connection to the mountain's shrines are treated with respect. Objects are not casually removed from the mountain, and guides will mention what should and should not be done up there.

Alongside this is a long tradition of the plateau as a holiday place. Generations of Zimbabwean families have come up for the cold weather, log fires, trout fishing and golf at the old country hotels, and school parties have camped in the park for decades, so the village sees a stream of domestic visitors as well as foreign ones. The two worlds — plantation and hotel on one side, smallholding and church on the other — sit close together on the same hills.

Church life is strong, from mission-founded congregations to the white-robed apostolic groups who meet in the open on Saturdays. Funerals draw relatives back from the cities, gardens and cattle are the common currency of conversation, and the cold of the highland winter shapes daily habits in a way it does nowhere else in Zimbabwe.

Nyanga is a village of a few thousand people serving a much larger rural district of scattered homesteads, and its scale shows: one main street, one market, a hospital and a cluster of schools. Most residents live in Nyamhuka and the villages around, and many work on the plantations, at the hotels and lodges, in the district offices or on their own land.

Farming sets the rhythm. The cool, wet uplands grow potatoes, cabbages, peas, apples and other temperate crops that struggle elsewhere in the country, alongside maize and beans for the household, and smallholders sell into Mutare and Harare. Pine and eucalyptus plantations and the sawmills that go with them are the other long-standing employer, along with trout farming and tourism. Cash is short, and many households depend on relatives working in the cities or abroad.

Mornings begin cold, often in mist, with fires lit for tea and school children walking long distances on the hill roads. Power cuts are routine and mobile signal comes and goes in the valleys, so plans are loose. Weekends bring church, football on rough pitches and funerals, and in the holiday seasons the roads fill with cars from Harare heading for the hotels and campsites.

Everyday cooking follows the national pattern: sadza, the thick maize-meal porridge, eaten by hand with muriwo — covo, rape or pumpkin leaves cooked with tomato, onion and often peanut butter — beans, dried kapenta or matemba fish, and beef or chicken stew when there is money for it. Bota, the thinner breakfast porridge, is taken with peanut butter or sour milk on cold mornings.

What makes Nyanga different is what the altitude grows. Potatoes are the district's signature crop and appear boiled, roasted and in stews; peas, cabbages, carrots and temperate fruit such as apples and plums come from the same farms, and roadside stalls sell them by the bucket in season. Trout from the dams and streams, stocked since the colonial period, is the local speciality on hotel menus, usually grilled or pan-fried with butter, and macadamia nuts and honey are sold along the roads.

Drinks are hot and sweet more often than not: strong tea with plenty of sugar and milk, grown down in the Honde valley below the escarpment, is the drink of the cold mornings, and coffee from Chipinge appears too. Maheu, the thick fermented maize drink, sorghum beer brewed at home for gatherings, Chibuku from cartons and the usual lagers cover the rest.