Blue mountains, golden fields, gin and tonics on the terrace--once it had seemed
the most idyllic place on earth. But by August 2002, Marondera, in eastern
Zimbabwe, had been turned into a bloody battleground, the center of a violent
campaign. One bright morning, Nigel Hough, one of the few remaining white
farmers, received the news he had been dreading. A crowd of war veterans was at
his gates, demanding he hand over his homestead. The mob started a fire and
dragged him to an outhouse. To his shock, the leader of the invaders was his
family's much-loved nanny Aqui. "Get out or we'll kill you," she