I am a very bitter man. I need peace but can’t seem to find it. I fought hard during the colonial era against Ian Smith because I wanted to live a comfortable life. We won the struggle, but now, two decades later, my choices are limited.
I was born 66 years ago and have lived in Harare’s Glen View township area in 8th Crescent all my life. I wake up five days a week around 3.30am to start work at 4am. It has to be early because I work at a bakery and have deliveries to make. It’s a 12-hour shift but my salary is nothing to write home about.
I can’t buy anything with my monthly salary of Z$1,2-million (about R1 000). Groceries cost me an average of Z$800 000 a month (about R800), rates Z$60 000 (about R60), electricity Z$50 000 (about R50) and my phone bill normally comes up Z$250 000 (about R250). Then there are clothes and food for my children and school fees every school term — how am expected to survive in this world? My salary, like the land during the drought, has been sun-baked by inflation.
Every day, the food is the same. I have breakfast — a slice of bread and black tea. Milk and eggs are a luxury here. Lunch is far from exquisite; a Coke at work is all I can afford — that is, of course, if I have a bit of cash to spare that day. A plate of sadza costs Z$15 000 (about R15) but it is a little beyond my means and my stomach goes without.
The only decent meal I have is when I get back home after work, but often we sleep on empty stomachs (usually during the middle of the month) when our groceries run out. But I am not alone in my suffering, not that it is any consolation. Many of my friends and relatives living here in Glen View have carbon copy lives.
My two unemployed children, aged 24 and 28, live with me. They can’t start life on their own without jobs and share the little food I bring home with the rest of the family.
With all this poverty I understand why scores of school drop-outs in our townships leave for England, United States and South Africa. There is nothing for young people here anymore.
Yet despite my meagre income I like my job and I have been working for Qtees Bakery for the past 11 years. I am one of the few who can boast about having a house of his own but, after all these years, I am still not able to save even a penny of what I make.
I could have retired years back but it’s a pity that all my life there wasn’t a single company providing pensions for its employees. If I can’t work who will sustain my wife, nine children and their kids?
One of my greatest fears is getting sick. My grandchildren are not on medical aid. Even if they were, there aren’t any drugs in hospitals. The conditions under which patients live are unbearable. Even if doctors refer you to pharmacies, drugs are expensive.
I doubt if ever I will be able to live a normal and comfortable life ever again. Problems mount every day.
All my children married and two died leaving behind children I now have to take care of. Two are unemployed. Five of my grandchildren are going to primary school.
It’s as if I have started marriage and life all over again. I have to take care of my grandchildren until they finish school. I have never had a holiday all my life. It’s been work, work and work, but I have nothing to boast of, except this house of mine.
My wife, Molly, is a cross-border trader. Every month she goes to Botswana or South Africa. Without her helping hand, I wouldn’t have been able to survive.
Basic food commodities are very expensive. My wife brings cooking oil, sugar and other commodities for sale. That’s how my grandchildren have been able to survive.
During the struggle in the 1960s, I was a Zanu-PF political commissar. I was detained several times by the Smith regime after participating in political demonstrations in Harare’s townships.
There was so much euphoria after independence on April 18 1980. It meant Zimbabweans could now live in peace after a protracted bloody liberation war struggle. Now, you cannot understand what I am going through unless you live in my shoes.
Story narrated to Godwin Gandu