Nyamapanda

Nyamapanda is a small town of 1,800 inhabitants (2006 estimate) in the province of Mashonaland East in Zimbabwe on the border with Mozambique across from Aldeia Chuchamano . It is located on the slopes of the Zambezi Valley at an altitude of 579 m on the well-frequented and continuously paved road Harare - Tete - Blantyre .

A government report in 2005 complained that people in this border area were cultivating very little land. To do this, they sent their children to the border to clean buses, unload trucks, change tires and go to prostitution. Only a few have real jobs. There are several stone quarries near Nymapanda in the Hurungwe district. Pink marble, granite and limestone are mined, but quartz is also extracted. However, that doesn't seem attractive.

The border at Nymapanda is mainly used by truck drivers (Gonyeti = long-distance drivers), but not only. Goods pass here legally and illegally. Sugar, margarine, milk powder and cornmeal leave Zimbabwe illegally for Mozambique, Malawi and Tanzania . On the other hand, mainly electrical appliances and clothing from Asia, but also drugs, are smuggled into Zimbabwe. The loss of customs revenue for Zimbabwe is estimated to be ZW- $ 1 million per day in 2006. Since the truck drivers have to wait longer for their clearance at customs, prostitution is widespread and with it AIDS. The conditions for this are the same as in Chirundu . Aid projects are now distributing condoms, leaflets and posters to the drivers in order to get the infections under control. Another problem is the land mine fields along the border from the civil war in Mozambique. 130 km have been cleared so far, with over 7,000 mines defused. Another 205 km still have to be cleared. Illegal immigrants from the Congo and Rwanda are also arrested almost every day. All of Zimbabwe's problems are immediately apparent in Nyamapanda. This is finally manifested by a report by The Herald in May 2006, which writes that a man in Nyamapanda collapsed dead while drinking a competition - motto: the winner takes it all: prize money ZW- $ 50,000, therefore a good € 5,000, which is unusual a lot is for unemployed African smallholders.

Coordinates: 16 ° 58 ′  S , 32 ° 52 ′  E