f it requires a letter of indemnity, it's probably worth doing. That was my thought on 18 October when I wrote a letter of indemnity to Mrs. Dengu-Zvobgo, Director of the Scripps-Pitzer Programmer in Zimbabwe.

"As a student studying with the Scripps-Pitzer Programme in Zimbabwe for the fall semester of 1996, I, Charles Gabriel Mayer, release the Scipps-Pitzer Programmer in Zimbabwe from having any responsibility for my injuries, damages or death resulting during my Independent Study Project with the Harare Fire Brigade (H.F.B.) between 21 October 1996 and 15 December 1996."

But as I was to find out, the letter of indemnity was only the beginning. To begin with, the internship I would be holding to culminate my study abroad in Zimbabwe also requires uniforms -- three of them: the firefighting protective gear, the blue cover-all and the dress uniform.
The cover-all and the protective gear are great, being comfortable, especially the cover-all, and easy to maintain. The dress uniform, however, has taken some getting used to. H.F.B. continually emphasizes the grave importance of keeping the dress uniform clean and well-pressed. My fellow firemen constantly use the phrase, "You must look smart."
I have a problem with the concept of "smartness." During a visit to Bulawayo (Zimbabwe's second largest city after Harare) for two weeks earlier this semester, a security guard blocked my entry into a nightclub. "Sorry, mate," he said, pointing to a sign that advertised the dress code as "SMART CASUAL." Standing on the sidewalk, pointing to my loose fitting shorts and sandals, I yelled at him, "Look at me: I'm smart, I'm casual -- what the hell is the problem?"
Not being smart on the streets of Bulawayo might result in your being hustled out of the slickest clubs; not being smart in the Harare Fire Brigade will result in mugigo. Mugigo is an interesting concept. Roughly translated, it refers to work given as punishment for a misdeed. At some point in their firefighting careers, all Harare firemen have been told "Hande kumugigo," or "Let's go for punishment."
Recruit training at H.F.B., which I had the pleasure of avoiding, seems to have two primary objectives: first, to train new firemen and second, to give Station Officer Chaitaka the opportunity to say "Hande kumugigo." Chataika has a profound understanding of mugigo and its uses. He is the disciplinarian, the drill sergeant and enforcer. Whenever a fireman is found lacking, he is sent to Station Officer Chataika -- a large man. A large, scary man.
During training, recruits enjoy the company of Station Officer Chataika every morning for inspection and marching. One stain on the ass of your pants, one wrinkle in your shirt, one whisker on your chin that your razor missed and it's mugigo for you. Even kiss-ass perfection cannot protect you from Chataika. If a week or two passes without your having been sent for mugigo, Chataika will find you and say, "Hmm, I don't think I have punished you enough recently. Hande kumugigo."
There are exceptions, of course. Two firemen who generally avoided mugigo by impressing the Station Officer during their training are Fireman Phiri and Fireman Mafukidze. Phiri is a small, wiry man, Mafukidze a tank. Between 1600 hours and dinner time, these two men can usually be found in the weight room.
While showing me the proper way to iron my cover-all one evening (to help me avoid mugigo, of course), Phiri and Mafukidze reminisced about recruit training. Every few days, when they had a hankering to see their fellow recruits receive a little mugigo, they would make themselves look "verrrrrrrry smart" for inspection. They would use a tablespoon of shoe polish on their shoes and iron their shirts for hours. After seeing the reflection of his face in their shoes and the knife-sharp creases in their uniforms compared with the slightly imperfect appearance of the other recruits, Chataika would give mugigo to everyone except Mafukidze and Phiri.

The forms mugigo can take are numerous, ingenious, and painful. Fireman Randazha demonstrated for me the dreaded "German chair," one of Chataika's staples. I somehow get the feeling that Randazha spent most of his training occupied with mugigo. A chubby guy with a jocular aspect, he is also slightly afraid of heights, an unfortunate disorder for a fireman.
Randazha showed me how he would sit in the German chair for thirty minutes. He bent his knees at a 90-degree angle and placed his back against a wall. "Chataika watches you during mugigo and if you do fall down," he warned, "you are in big, BIG trouble because you will be insulting his mother!" That's right -- you are disparaging Chataika's mother if you fail to complete mugigo properly. Believe me, one doesn't want to insult Chataika's mother.
Another simple form of punishment is just referred to as "mugigo" because no one has thought of a better name for it. If you have sat in the German chair too much, Chataika will command you to stand on your hands, resting your feet on a wall for thirty minutes. Again, if you fall over, you are not only disrespecting Chataika, you are disrespecting his mother.
Station Officer Chataika came looking for me one day while I was washing a fire truck in the drill yard behind the fire station. "I understand that you are an American," he said.
"Yes, sir," I replied enthusiastically, thinking that he would tell me how much he longed to visit my country and so on.
"Can you march?" he asked.
"Can I march, sir?" I said stupidly.
"Yes, can you or can you not march?" he repeated.
"No, sir, I cannot march," I replied.
"Then tomorrow you will spend the entire day marching," said Chataika, walking away.
Fortunately for me, I was off the next day and the officers between Chataika and me in the chain of command have protected me from his marching and his mugigo.
In light of that exchange, I have exhibited my best behavior in order not to attract Chataika's attention. Phiri and Mafukidze keep a close eye on me and advise me when my actions might land me in Chataika's office. After my eighth shift, Phiri was shaking his head in dismay at the shabby appearance of my rubber fire boots. Having washed and ironed my cover-all the night before, Phiri and I spent an hour one morning washing our fire boots with warm soapy water and polishing them with black shoe polish.
When we finished, we carried our boots from our rooms to the fire engines. Firemen looked at us in dismay as we passed them in the corridors.
"Phiri showed you how to polish your fire boots?" Kumire asked.
"Yes," I said, "to avoid mugigo, of course."
Kumire shook his head, "The two of you are a bad combination."
All of this mugigo may seem like a waste of time, but the system has produced first-class firemen. After fighting two major fires with Mafukidze, I came to appreciate his uncommon discipline, competence and courage. As the leading attack team, we fought a large house fire during one November evening and then battled a massive blaze in Mbare township the very next morning.
I had been impressed with the size and devastation of the house fire, but the township fire was worse. Countless makeshift shacks were well alight -- maimbas yakabaka, as we say in Shona. After a good thirty minutes of blasting thousands of gallons of water, we finally managed to control the fire. We saved a permanent structure in the area where the fire had been burning, but nothing was left of the make-shifts. The destruction was extensive and depressing. After shutting down our line, Mafukidze and I went to the pump panel of our fine engine. He opened up one of the discharge valves and we used the water to wash the soot and grime off of our faces. Township kids gathered all around to watch us, but ran away when I tried to let one of the kids wear my helmet.
Harare firemen dread township fires because the poor condition of township fire hydrants and the huge crowds of spectators there hinder their efforts. They tell stories of people with screwdrivers trying to take tail lights off fire engines while township fires rage. One senior engine driver told me that he sometimes has to take care of crowd control by spraying the throngs with a fire hose. Spectators run when firemen start dousing them lightly with water -- there is a spurious rumor which circulates in the townships that the Fire Brigade fights fire with a mixture of water and acid.
During my semester in Zimbabwe, I have lived in communal rural areas north of Harare, high-density townships in Bulawayo and middle-class, low-density suburbs of Harare. As a result, I thought I had been exposed to a complete cross-section of life Zimbabwe. After fighting fires in Mbare, however, I realized I had been blissfully ignorant of Zimbabwe's most destitute people.
Mbare was one of the first African townships built during Rhodesian times. The original houses are built with brick and metal roofing, but around the original houses have sprung scores of makeshifts, constructed with scrap woods, plastic and cardboard. Some of the families living in make-shifts get electricity from the permanent houses, but most use paraffin to fuel lights and cooking stoves. When a paraffin stove explodes or a lamp falls over, dozens of make-shifts can ignite in a matter of minutes. Since there are few reliable water sources in the townships, most fires cannot be fought until the Fire Brigade arrives with the water we carry in the fire engines.
I attended my first ever fire in Mbare township early in November. I was assigned to establish a steady water supply from a fire hydrant to my fire engine. Prior to this call, I had not been to Mbare, and the obvious and total impoverishment of the place was chilling enough to distract me from my duties. As my crew fought the fire in the large make-shift house with tank water, I ran up and down the streets looking for a hydrant. I plowed through a mob of spectators, trying to be polite in the heat of the movement.
Five minutes after arriving at the scene, I found an underground hydrant and began removing the dirt, debris, and rocks embedded in it. Dozens of people gathered around the hydrant to watch me work then scattered in all directions when I opened the hydrant, from which a geyser of filthy water shot skyward.By the time I had established water supply, the blaze had reduced the make-shift to a pile of smoldering rubble. My officer instructed me to start salvaging whatever I could from the wreckage.
As I siftedt hrough the burnt household belongings, a man who had been watching from the crowd approached. He was wearing dress slacks, but had taken off his shirt and tied it around his waist.
"Can you keep all of the things from here in one place?" he asked, pointing to the area where I was working. "This is all one room, right here, and I want to keep everything together."
I agreed and continued to sift through the smoldering embers. It finally dawned on me that this man had stood and watched his home turn to ashes in around fifteen minutes. As the embers cooled, he began to look through the rubble with us.
"I bought 50 kilos of mealy meal just the other day," he said, pointing to a huge pile of scorched porridge. "That was food for my children." Turning to his right, he pointed to a pile of tangled springs. "This was where my bed was and this was where my children slept." Standing in this charred, surreal moonscape, his hands on his hips, sweat dripping from his face and bare upper body, the man guided us stoically through what remained of his house.
Once we doused whatever embers remained and rescued what we could, my crew packed up our gear and left the scene. As we drove away, I glanced at the man, still standing in the rubble. We had done our job by putting out the fire, but it seemed a minor deed and a small consolation. We could do nothing more than abandon that man now, and the hard part, the rebuilding, we played no part in. I unbuckled my fire jacket, took a deep breath, and did not think about that man again for the rest of the shift.
When we are not running on calls, we spend a lot of time in the fire station, socializing. Harare Central Fire Station is larger than most fire stations in the United States, since it serves as the headquarters of the entire Harare Fire Brigade. Despite its impersonal size, the firemen have made it a second home. We spend most of our free time shootin' the shit on a balcony that faces the Harare city center to the north-east. After dinner, we go out there and sit, with the modern, crystalline skyline as our backdrop.
As far as firefighting goes, I am young and inexperienced, even naive, and the H.F.B. firemen know it. They frequently try to prepare me for the ugly realities of the job, often echoing the proverb, "be careful what you wish for." After an off-hand comment about my disappointment at having seen few car accidents, an older fireman asked me if I had ever seen a body without a head. I shook my head. "It is very nasty," he noted, almost to himself, "very nasty."
One Saturday evening while I was completing some assignments for my university class, Fireman Bvumavaranda came to my room and knocked quietly on my door. I invited him in and he sat down on my bunk.
Bvumavaranda, a slight, friendly man, has quietly helped me throughout my time at H.F.B. whenever he has seen me confused or frustrated.
"I wanted to make sure that someone has given you latex gloves," he said.
"No," I said. "No one has." After four shifts with the Brigade, I had begun to think that the H.F.B. never used latex gloves, just as they rarely ever used breathing apparatus in fires.
"Mayer," he said, "it is Saturday and we are likely to see a bloody car accident tonight. You should always keep a sealed packet of these gloves in your gear." With that, he pulled a packet of Johnson and Johnson gloves out of his cover-all pocket and handed it to me. "We are terrified of AIDS," he said, "and you should be too."
There were no calls that night.
As with nearly any fire department, however, I spend most of the time not out fighting fires, but at the station -- cleaning equipment, training, writing, playing snooker, and eating.
Of all these diversions, the most unexpectedly challenging would have to be eating. Meal time in the Harare Central Fire Station is a complex and daunting affair. A cook employed by the Harare City Council prepares sadza (a Zimbabwean staple made from maize that the firemen describe in English as "thick porridge") and small groups of three or four men each prepare their own mixture of vegetables and meat. These concoctions can be as simple as boiled meat or long-term projects which require involved preparation long in advance. The other day, Cook Gahadzikwa showed me a special dish that Fireman Kumire was preparing for himself: bull testicles.
Not knowing if I would be welcome into any of these self-selected food preparing groups and not knowing if I really wanted to, I bought some vegetables one day, intending to feed myself salad for lunch. As I began washing lettuce, firefighters gathered around me in curiosity. By the time the salad was ready for eating, half of my shift had assembled around me.
"Mayer," said one guy, "you're not going to eat that jungle food, are you?"
"Of course I am," I said, "and I am going to enjoy it." With that, I shoved a huge leaf of lettuce into my mouth. "Mmmmm, zvinonaka, I said, meaning "very tasty!"
The assembled group laughed uproariously, so hard in fact that one fireman even coughed up his sadza.
That night, I wanted to make salad again, but had run out of lettuce. I did have tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions, so I started cutting them up. One of the medics looked over my shoulder.
"Ah," he said, "nice-nice."
"What?" I said.
"Nice-nice," he said, "I see that you're preparing nice-nice."
"What's nice-nice?" I asked.
"It's what you are making," he said.
"But why is it nice-nice?" I asked, feeling like I was trapped in an Abbot and Costello routine.
"It's nice-nice because it's nice," he said. "You know, vegetables are nice. They look nice, they taste nice, they smell nice, they are nice."
"So you don't call this salad?" I asked.
"Ah, ah! No! We do not eat salad. We do eat nice-nice."
So when I finished cutting up my vegetables, I went out to the balcony where some firefighters were playing draft (a British game like checkers with Zimbabwean rules). These were the exact same guys who had made such a spectacle out of my salad only six hours earlier at lunch."
"Ah, Mayer," said one of them, "I can see that you've made yourself some nice-nice. That's nice."
"Yes it is," I said, as I started eating.