A group of women run to meet a passing truck on the Harare to Bulawayo highway.

They are hoping to entice the drivers into buying the fruits of their harvest – colourful wild mushrooms.

It’s rainy season and fungi appear from the damp soil.

Rich in protein, antioxidants and fibre, wild mushrooms are a revered delicacy and income earner in Zimbabwe, where food and formal jobs are scarce for many.

Locals walk into the bush to collect them to supplement their income.

But they must do it under the cover of darkness to avoid the landowners who would not welcome their presence, explains mushroom picker Diana Chiwara :

“This is the bush where wepick mushrooms, we wake up early morning around past 3 am and walk deep into this bush. We can’t come late in the day because it’s restricted to be in this place. The owners of this place don’t always allow people tocome and pick mushrooms here. So wecome early andwill behiding from them, so that by the time it’slunch time we are already leaving.”

Her pre-dawn trip to the forest marks just the beginning of a day-long process.

From the bush, Chiwara heads to a busy highway.

Using a knife and water, she cleans the mushrooms before joining the stiff competition of other mushroom sellers hoping to attract passing motorists.

There are thousands of varieties of mushrooms.

Some are perfectly safe to eat such as portobello, shitake and the common button mushroom found in supermarkets.

But many wild mushrooms can cause stomach upset or allergic reactions, or may even be fatally poisonous.

It is very difficult to tell edible and poisonous mushrooms apart.

It requires expert knowledge and training to learn which ones are safe to eat.

Those without training should not attempt to pick mushrooms for human consumption of any sort.

Here the expert knowledge and training is passed down through the generations, typically from mother to daughter.

Today, Polite Mugobo is heading out to collect mushrooms with her husband and son.

She says it’s not a task for the faint hearted : “Sometimes we meet thugs and they steal everything from us. Sometimes the farm owners chase us from their land. So we try to do this while hiding, it’s tough. We also have to be careful so that we don’t get attacked by dangerous wild animals.”

The family team comb through the morning dew for shoot-ups under trees and dried leaves.

Once they have enough, they clean their bounty and arrange it in bowls to sell.

“We sell this mushroom for US$1 a bowl like this during the rainy season. Our customers regularly stop on highway to buy mushrooms. On a good day or during the weekend we go home with about US $20 – $15 each,” says Mugobo.

Women such as Mugobo are dominant players in Zimbabwe’s mushroom trade, says Wonder Ngezimana, an assoc iate professor of horticulture at the Marondera University of Agricultural Science and Technology.

“Predominantly women have been gatherers and they normally go with their daughters. They transfer the indigenous knowledge from one generation to the other,” he says .

About one in four women who forage for wild mushrooms are often accompanied by their daughters, according to research carried out by Ngezimana and colleagues at the university in 2021. In “just few cases” — 1.4% — mothers were accompanied by a boy child.

“Mothers were better knowledgeable of wild edible mushrooms compared to their counterparts – fathers,” noted the researchers.

The researchers interviewed close to 100 people and observed mushroom collection in Binga, a district in western Zimbabwe where growing Zimbabwe’s staple food, maize, is largely unviable due to droughts and poor land quality.

Many families in the Binga, which is over 8 hours driving from Harare, are too poor to afford basic food and other items.

So mushroom season is important for the families.

On average, each family made just over $100 a month from selling wild mushrooms, in addition to relying on the fungi for their own household food consumption, according to the research.

In large part due to harsh weather conditions, about a quarter of Zimbabwe’s 15 million people are food insecure, meaning that they’re not sure where their next meal will come from, according to aid agencies.

Zimbabwe has one of the world’s highest rates of food inflation at 264%, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Police routinely warn people of the hazards of consuming wild mushrooms.

In January, three girls in one family died after eating poisonous wild mushrooms. Such reports filter through each season.

A few years ago 10 family members died after consuming poisonous mushrooms.

To promote safe mushroom consumption and year-round income generation, the government is promoting small-scale commercial production of certain types such as oyster mushrooms.

But it appears the wild ones remain the most popular

Angolan President Joao Lourenco held a three-hour private meeting in Luanda on Saturday with his Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) counterpart, Felix Tshisekedi.

The talks came a day after the Angolan parliament approved a year-long deployment of up to 500 soldiers to the troubled eastern DRC.

But Luanda said the contingent would only be moved when it was certain that the right conditions existed in the cantonment areas.

“Today, a delegation of the ad hoc mechanism, which includes military officers, is visiting these areas to confirm that all is in order,” said Francisco Furtado, Minister of State and head of military in the Angolan presidency.

The troops will help to maintain peace in areas held by the M23 rebel group. The militia resumed fighting at the end of 2021 and have conquered large swathes of territory in the DRC’s North Kivu province.

Angola’s president played a key mediation role in trying to end the conflict, but the latest ceasefire he negotiated collapsed earlier this month on the same day it was due to take effect.

“It is still a concern of the DRC government that we need to see an engagement of all parties, on the part of the government of the DRC, on the part of Rwanda, and also on the part of M23 in terms of compliance with the cessation of hostilities,” said Furtado.

The DRC has accused Rwanda of backing the mostly Congolese Tutsi group, a charge that Kigali denies.

British Interior Minister defended a controversial plan to deport asylum seekers arriving in the UK to Rwanda during a visit on Saturday.

Suella Braverman spoke to journalists at a news conference attended by Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Vincent Biruta, who also defended the agreement signed between the two countries.

“What we want to do is to create innovative solutions, to be able to offer to these asylum seekers and migrants alike, safety, security and opportunities for them to live a decent life. And we are going to work with the UK to propose that solution.

Under the plans, migrants arriving in the UK in small boats would be flown to Rwanda, where their asylum claims would be processed. Those granted asylum would stay in the African country rather than return to Britain.

The agreement between Britain and Rwanda “will lead the way in finding a solution which is both humanitarian and compassionate and also fair and balanced”,  said Suella Braverman.

“..  the humanitarian thing to do is find another solution and that’s why I believe, just as the minister has just said, that there is a real opportunity here to resettle people in safe and secure environments where they can lead a prosperous and healthy life”. 

Thousands of people took to the streets In Britain on Saturday, including London, Glasgow and Cardiff to demonstrate against the plan.