Cynematik • Cyndi Greening

Inter-library loan finally located a copy of the biography of Sally Hayfron Mugabe. We have been trying to find anything on the first wife of Robert Mugabe and have been quite unsuccessful. There just isn’t much written material out there. I found a 16-page booklet that the Yale University Library would not lend out. The book they’ve located was written by ZANU-PF, the Zimbabwean political party of Comrade Robert Mugabe so I am anticipating that it is not going to be all that revelatory. Sally was born in Ghana, the third daughter of a well-to-do family, she was named by and for her grandmother. Ghana was the first African nation to achieve independence (in 1957). Zimbabwe was one of the last. Born in 1931, Sally died in 1992 of kidney failure. Her only son died at the age of four from cerebral malaria. Everything I read about her (non-propaganda) indicates she was an amazing woman — compassionate, caring, gentle, generous — how did she end up married to the despotic Mugabe and how could she live with herself knowing how he was? Since the book that is coming was written by Mugabe’s political party, I’m not expecting remarkable insights.