There were about 150 inmates, many of them staring our way. We were older; we were the only whites. We joined them on one side of the open room. As names were called, prisoners were obliged to acknowledge their presence and shift to the opposite wall. I parroted some of the others, using the Shona word “ndiripo” when my turn came. The gesture drew some cheers and applause. It seemed an icebreaker, and before the session was over, we were being tutored in how to say “mangwanani,” or good morning.

Prison movies had made me fear predation. But the inmates were instead a forlorn lot, a fair selection of Harare’s downtrodden, people who’d once had decent jobs and who’d now been reduced to scrounging and worse. Two of the more personable ones were car thieves. Only because their families were starving, they said. Two others, Donald and Lancelot, were accused of poaching after cutting the hindquarter off a deer that had been hit by a bus.

We mingled easily, swapping stories and comparing bug bites. Most were in a worse fix than we were. None said they’d been beaten; they weren’t political types. But few had lawyers — and many were jailed without their families knowing. This had dismal implications. The jail provided prisoners no food. If no one knew you were there, no one knew to bring you something to eat.

At breakfast, Stephen and I were allowed downstairs and pointed toward a well-stuffed wicker bag. The empathetic wife of the British ambassador had personally overseen preparation of our first meal. Sandwiches of bacon and eggs were triple-wrapped to hold their warmth. Tea, coffee, cocoa and sugar were packed in little bags to use with a thermos of hot water. There were juice boxes, soda cans, chocolate bars, hard candies and breath mints.

Neither of us had much appetite, but we were enormously grateful. Thwarted as journalists, we now had renewed purpose.

We could feed the hungry.

A Deadline Looms

It was a Friday, and Fridays held a fateful deadline. If we didn’t get bail, we’d be locked away all weekend. We were relieved to be sent back to Law and Order, where we again found Beatrice Mtetwa, our lawyer.

The night before, I had wanly told her that the case against me seemed hopelessly open-and-shut. I had written articles, and anyone who Googled my name with “Zimbabwe” would have all the proof that was needed. She harrumphed at that, insisting that even a simple database search was beyond the technical expertise of the Harare police.