I CANNOT THINK OF LAKE MCLLWAINE without a shiver. It contained both the apex of sexual fulfilment and the deepest, the most radical descent into a fathomless despair. It was also, so I imagine in a mythical kind of way, the moment when the virus entered my body, after which my life would not ever be the same.

Lake Mcllwaine is a big water reservoir about 30 kilometres west of Harare. You drive out of town in the direction of Bulawayo, first passing Heroes Acre with the gigantic monument in socialist-realist style created for the new government by their North Korean friends. Then comes Warren Hills Cemetery, the vast burial ground which, around the time Dambudzo would be put into the earth there in 1987, was growing at an unprecedented pace. Then the bird garden, the snake park and the lion and cheetah park, attractions I knew well from visits with my children. And then you come to the National Park, which at the time still bore the colonial name (it is now called Lake Chivero).

Sir Robert Mcllwaine – obviously a Scotsman with a very Scottish spelling – had been some kind of civil engineer who did very useful things for the Rhodesian settlers by looking into water and soil conservation. The settlers of course needed a steady water supply; they couldn't just go with the seasons as the African population had done. So in the 1950s, when the cities were growing rapidly, dams were created to ensure a permanent water supply for the municipal water piping system. Most of the dams and the surrounding land also became national parks. Thus the settlers also had their recreational areas, where they could take their families and friends for game viewing, fishing and their beloved braais.

The national parks were very well organised and equipped. They had self-catering lodges and chalets and camping sites.

Needless to say, it fell to me to make a booking, and also to bring all the provisions we would need for the three days we planned to stay there, meat for the braai and beer and wine.

I booked one of the lodges near the water, which I knew because not long before I had spent a weekend there with my family.