Mount Selinda

Mount Selinda, at an altitude of 1,100 metres, is a village and mission station in the province of Manicaland in the eastern mountains of Zimbabwe. Located close to the Mozambique border, it lies in an area of outstanding natural beauty. Mount Selinda sits on an east-facing slope, on the very edge of the Chirinda Forest Botanical Reserve – the southern most tropical rainforest in Africa.

The dominant people of the area are the Ndau tribe, who claim close links with the Zulu tribe of South Africa. Their language is chiNdau. Most of them live by subsistence farming.

For centuries, the local Ndau people have called the Mount Selinda area "Chirinda", meaning "lookout" or "vantage point", and certainly the etymology of this name becomes abundantly clear when standing on the western slopes of Mount Selinda, with sweeping views for miles around. The Shangani people to the south pronounced Chirinda as "Silinda" and the name "Selinda" is clearly an English corruption of the Shangani word. The first mention of the name "Mount Selinda" appears to have been in the late nineteenth century when the land in the area was claimed by European settlers. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions approached Cecil John Rhodes of the British South Africa Company, seeking land on which to establish their mission. Rhodes himself granted them land in the Chirinda area, much of the land situated on an already-existing farm called Mount Selinda. Although there are no documents in the Deeds Office reflecting it, it would appear that a Mr. Steyn occupied the farm at the time and sold it to the mission for a sum of £300 (three hundred pounds). In 1892 a Mr Wilder, Mr Bunker and Mr Thompson commenced the establishment of the Mount Silinda Mission (historically the name Silinda was adopted by the mission and the name Selinda was the name of the farm). But it was not until 1901 that the American Board Mission finally obtained legal possession of the farm Mount Selinda under Pioneer Title.

Mount Selinda lies at the southern end of a mountain range which separates Zimbabwe from neighbouring Mozambique. This range, hundreds of kilometres long, runs in a north-south direction, with the Nyanga mountains lying at the northern extremity. Mount Selinda itself consists of two large, densely forested hills which rise up from the mountain plateau, with the two hills possessing a gentle but distinct saddle between them. No other high ground stands between Mount Selinda and the Indian Ocean some 400 kilometres away – a major factor influencing Mount Selinda's wet climate. To the north east of Chirinda Forest lies the Ngungunyana Forest and eucalyptus plantation C. To the east of Mount Selinda the land descends gradually down into Mozambique, but to the west of Mount Selinda the geography changes suddenly and dramatically. After 30 km the mountain range plunges down to the flat, arid lowlands of the Sabi River Valley where, in searing summer temperatures of 40°C and higher, heat-tolerant baobab and mopane trees abound.

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