Vunderkind
Social Member
As Robert Mugabe turns 90 today, a weekend of celebrations have been planned in Zimbabwe to celebrate the long life of the president. Mugabe was born in the village of Kutama, south-west of Zimbabwe’s capital, and he was educated by Jesuits before becoming a teacher. It was after this he joined the liberation struggle, spent 11 years in prison and went on to become Zimbabwe’s first leader in 1980.
Here are five facts about Mugabe you may not have heard about – and which may just be the secrets to his longevity.
“I fall sick if I don’t exercise”
Mr. Mugabe made that statement three years ago. He wakes up between 4am and 5am every morning to exercise while listening to BBC World Service. He says he isn’t in love with the gym machines his wife had installed in the state house, saying “in prison we had no equipment, we just had ourselves and that’s what I still do today.”
Also, he prefers his sadza – which is a Zimbabwean staple food – to be made traditionally, instead of in the refined version, which is quite popular in the country. Mugabe doesn’t smoke, but is known to have some wine with his dinner.
“I have died many times – that’s where I’ve beaten Christ”
In spite of the constant rumors of his ill health – there was once a Wiki leak saying he had prostate cancer – Mugabe’s health and political zing looks hardly subdued. The only confirmed ailment he has is cataracts – he removed one this week. “I have died many times – that’s where I have beaten Christ. Christ died once and resurrected once,” he said on his 88th birthday.
Although Mugabe was born Catholic, he said in an interview that he wasn’t a devout Christian.
“I want everyone to play cricket in Zimbabwe”
Mugabe is a fan of cricket. He is the patron of the Zimbabwe Cricket Association.
"Cricket civilizes people and creates good gentlemen," Mr. Mugabe said several years after Zimbabwe became independent. “I want everyone to play cricket in Zimbabwe; I want ours to be a nation of gentlemen."
Kwame Nkrumah Fan
Mr. Mugabe's political awakening happened while in Ghana, where he was a teacher and met his first wife, Sally Hayfron. He arrived a year after pan-Africanist politician Kwame Nkrumah had led the Gold Coast to independence in 1957, the first sub-Saharan country to throw off the shackles of colonial rule. He said he was inspired by their liberation encapsulated in Ghana's Highlife music.
On his return home two years later, he began politicizing people. "I started telling people… how free the Ghanaians were, and what the feeling was in a newly independent African state,"he said in an interview in 2003. "I told them also about Nkrumah's own political ideology and his commitment that unless every inch of African soil was free, then Ghana would not regard itself as free."
Had a child at 73
He has three children with his second wife Grace Marufu, his former secretary. The couple's third child, Chatunga, was born in 1997, a year after they were married.
His first son, Nhamodzenyika, died of malaria at the age of three in Ghana. Mr. Mugabe, then a prisoner of the Rhodesian government, was refused permission to join his wife Sally in Accra for the funeral.
