The right information is worth much more than money

Comparing notes in Pretoria

 

I took this photo this past Saturday at a piggery project being run by a black South African sister at her plot outside Pretoria. The sister is raising around 1 000 pigs per year. What I have learnt in about 19 years of trying out new ventures is that the right information can be worth much more than money because with the right information you can make money and with the wrong information you can lose all your money. On 2 October 2017, I resigned from my job here in South Africa after 10 years of working at the same level and I wanted a change. I took a bus from Pretoria to Harare that same evening. My idea was to try and manage my piggery project hands-on, we had already invested over $20 000 in the project. I also wanted to grow tobacco on my own since I was not happy with how my cousin had managed my tobacco crop in the previous farming season. I got home in Harare the following evening. On the next morning, I went with Mr. Mereka Maruwira to my piggery project in Chivhu. I have known Mereka since 2002, when I first employed him as a shop-keeper on my very second ever shop that I opened at the farm where his parents had been working in Virginia commercial farming area of Macheke next to our village in Mukarakate communal lands in Murehwa. Around 2001-2002 the farm was allocated to black farmers during the land reform exercise. I would be the first person to open the farm shop after the exit of the white farmer.


Mereka is now a brother to me as over the years, he has been involved in almost all ventures I have tried from managing my lorry, buying and selling cattle for me, going to open and managing my market gardening project at a plot in Kensington, Bulawayo, also coming to South Africa and we have started new ventures, helping to construct our house in 2009, staying at my house in Zimbabwe after we kicked out the last lodger for non payment of rent and now assisting with managing my piggery project. When we got to my piggery project in Chivhu, the worker a son of my wife's cousin was not expecting us. I have also learnt that when it comes to business it is better to deal with strangers and not relatives as it always end badly. The worker told me that feed had run out the previous day and I asked why I had not been told before hand. Around 100 pigs were almost starving, luckily I had brought a sack of vegetables that I had taken from my garden at our house in Zimre Park. I let Mereka do the talking as I was already agitated due to lack of sleep. When Mereka asked if we could get makireshi (maize bran) at the local grinding mill, the worker said there was none and the nearest place we could buy was about 15km away. We then walked to the nearby business centre and we managed to buy 2 sacks of makireshi for about $4 a bucket and that was going to be enough for a day.

 

We then went back to Harare, the following morning we boarded a bus to Mutoko to see my cousin. 3 years ago when I became a partner in the piggery project before taking over full ownership of the project in January 2017, I had spent almost $2 000 to buy and transport a grinding mill machine and left it with my cousin in Mutoko. All I was interested in was to get cheap maize to feed my pigs. Most farmers cannot afford the $1 or 50cents charged to crush a bucket of maize so they rely on batter trade where they will give you a 5 litre tin filled with maize in exchange for the grinding services. During harvest season when maize is in abundance you can increase the charge to 2 tins and you can easily get more than 100kgs of maize per day. When I got to my cousin's place and I asked how much of my maize he had, he told me he had none and he told me some story. I was livid and I kept my emotions in check and decided to take a nap for a few hours and calmed down. It did not make sense that after a whole year, I would be getting such an answer from him. 

Ready to leave Mutoko

At Siyaso, Mbare

Along Mutoko road at Corner Store

 

In my experience ever since I left Zimbabwe in August 2007, when it comes to investing in projects in Zimbabwe,the biggest challenge has been dealing with relatives and workers and not necessarily the economic situation in Zimbabwe. Initially when I started working in South Africa, I was disappointed in the lack of career advancement. South Africa is a complex place where due to racism even black African citizens struggle to get ahead however black citizens can at least benefit due to employment equity. As a black foreigner, I do not qualify for employment equity and many established companies would not consider a foreigner. At times, I would go to the so called interviews where interviewers would not even talk about your qualifications and you would be wondering why you were called in for the interview in the first place. Coupled with the lack of prospects as well as the nightmares that came with dealing with Home Affairs department in trying to renew work permits, I realized within three months that I had to work on sorting out my stuff back home starting by building a house. Towards the end of 2009, I had managed to save some money to begin building our home. I took leave from work and drove to Zimbabwe, pitched up a tent at our stand and started buying building materials and interviewing potential builders.Luckily my first job after High School was as a building studies school teacher at secondary school level.

Around 2001 before we got married, both me and my wife we were working for separate financial institutions in Harare and our employers where assisting with housing loans. We then identified two separate houses in Glen View high density suburb in Harare that we needed to get mortgage finance on. When the valuators from the two banks went to inspect the properties, both properties did not pass the test as construction quality was so poor and both banks refused to bond the properties. I have seen many people based outside the country, they send money to their relatives in Zimbabwe. Some of them misuse the money completely and others will still do construction but use sub standard material. I monitored the construction during my leave and left when the house was above window level. My wife and kids then went back to Zimbabwe in early 2010 to monitor the rest of the construction. In January 2011, we started renting out the house and I also constructed started running a tuck shop at our house and my wife and I would alternate travelling to Harare to monitor the shop.




End of 2011, I started a broiler project at the house and I would visit Harare every weekend of December 2011 to monitor the project. On 25 December 2011, I arrived in Harare and the workers told me that they were battling to find market. I then drove to Mbare Musika and I came with guys who bought 300 birds cash. I then went to Chitungwiza and secured market for the rest of the almost 300 birds and the customer wanted them dressed. I was going to be on duty on 27 December and I instructed the workers to slaughter the chicken and deliver to the customer and I drove back to South Africa on Boxing Day. Unfortunately they did a hurried job in preparing the chicken that all the chicken went bad and we had to throw them away and I lost a lot of money. I then stopped the project.


The business environment in Zimbabwe is very challenging for example the shortage of cash but that can be managed.The high prices in Zimbabwe cushions you when you have to convert your money into hard currency. The current high prices are as a result of the Bond note currency which in my view is causing more problems for the economy and must be discontinued, in December 2017 I wrote the following article and I still stand by those views. http://kanyokad.blogspot.com/2017/12/why-zimbabwe-needs-to-discard-bond-note.html. For example the prices of maize being offered in Zimbabwe to farmers is $390 per tonne and compare that with approximately R2 086.00 being offered in South Africa according to Grain SA. Soyabean producer price in Zimbabwe is pegged at $780 per tonne compare that with R4 460.00 in South Africa. The price of fertilizer in Zimbabwe is about twice the price in South Africa however the other inputs especially labour is much cheaper in Zimbabwe. Over the weekend when I was discussing with South African sister and she was complaining that the producer price per kilogram for pork was around R20 and I was telling her in Zimbabwe the producer price can be almost $4 and it is easier to open your butchery where you can sell for up to $6 or more depending on supply and demand. Also in South Africa, they have to buy all the feed from the shops as there are no communal farmers selling maize cheaply. I mean most South Africans have not seen chigayo (grinding mill) in their life. When I told her that in Zimbabwe you can buy sunflower cake for around $100 per tonne from villagers, I really gave her an idea.

In my experience the biggest challenge has been dealing with relatives in Zimbabwe when it comes to money. Towards the end of 2010, my wife left $1 000.00 with a relative in order to pay for plumbing as well as our sons' school fees. The next week, we got a phone call that our sons then aged 8 and 6 where left on their own and they were not going to school and the relative had ran away with the money. Then end of 2011, there was the problem with almost 300 chicken going bad because people did not care. That is the reason why at least one of us has to go to Zimbabwe every two weeks so that we would buy feed on our own as it becomes difficult to trust anyone with money. Towards end of 2016 almost $2 000 was paid to a relative from the butchery that had bought pork from us and when I went to Zimbabwe in December wanting to buy fertilizer for my tobacco and the money had been used and I had to swipe my SA bank card to buy fertilizer. I don't want to talk about how badly the tobacco was managed from the word go. Many people in Zimbabwe are short sighted in that if they could manage funds well we could mutually benefit in that in countries with better economies, the salaries are much higher and also it is easy to get credit at much better terms and we can fund even bigger projects back home. The idea is that you need to have a working project back home before you decide to relocate and to do that you need to raise as much capital as possible for the business.



Anyway back to my story of October 2017. We then walked about 4kms back to the business centre where I used to run one of my three shops from 2004 until I left for South Africa in August 2007 during the infamous price control blitz of 2007 and then resuscitated the shop again in early 2008 before realising that it was difficult to run a shop all the way from Pretoria. I started to enquire and I managed to buy makireshi for $1.5 per pucket and this was much better than $4 that was being charged in Chivhu. That evening I managed to buy 2 tonnes and also some sunflower cake. The next day, my brother in-law came with his two tonne truck and we managed to carry the feed to Chivhu. I then went back to Mutoko and I spent almost a week walking from one grinding mill owner to the other and managed to buy another 4 tonnes of the feed and a friend offered to transport for me for free to Corner store along Mutoko road. A Malawian truck driver on his way to Masvingo Province agreed to carry the feed for me to Chivhu for R500. I had enough feed to last 6 weeks so I started looking at tobacco farming. In October 2017, the bond note was devaluing very quickly and the price of fertilizer was going up. I went to Mutoko and I was offered seedlings enough for 2 hectares. I was sceptical of sending more money to Zimbabwe. I decided to skip growing tobacco this past season. In December 2017, I went back to Mutoko and bought another load of makireshi again and transported it to Chivhu.

Price of fertilizer in October 2017, Harare, Zimbabwe

 

Towards the end of October 2017, I had about two dozen pigs ready for market and I struggled to get buyers for the pigs. The economic prospects in Zimbabwe were very bleak. I came back to South Africa and the next week Robert Mugabe fired his deputy and I thought things can't get any worse. In early November 2017 we visited my brother in law outside Pretoria where he is doing market gardening growing vegetables normally bought by Zimbabweans in Pretoria and Johannesburg. I told him that I was considering establishing a piggery project in South Africa and then close the one in Zimbabwe and he took me to this plot to see what the South African sister was doing. At the plot, I was stuck by the housing that she had for the sows (female breeding stock), back home we were struggling with housing for soars because if you put more than two together they started attacking each other but this lady could put almost 40 soars in one pen. When Robert Mugabe resigned around mid November 2017 things started looking-up back home, another day I got a phone call from a guy who wanted to buy all my pigs and I said no I was no longer selling.

 

 Last weekend we were in Zimbabwe and we had sent fencing the previous week and we tried to explain the kind of pen they must now construct since number of our breeders has also gone up. The more we explained what kind of pen we wanted for the breeders the more people got confused. So mid last week, I bought a bus ticket for Mereka to come to Pretoria and on Saturday we went to the plot so that he could see the plan. We had a very fruitful day as the lady managed to share with us a lot of practical information. When you are running a project or want to start running a project, it is very important to read a lot of information about the project and also visiting those who are already running a similar project as  you will get insight. In English there is a saying, "You do not need to re-invent the wheel", in Shona we have similar sayings such, "Kugara nhaka huwona dzevamwe" , or "Nherera teerera panorayirwa mwana wamambo".

To show the value of information. In early 2007, I was working as a branch manager for an insurance company in Bulawayo. Due to the economic crisis in Zimbabwe, which can be traced back to 1997, for a long time salaries could no longer match inflation and a lot of people already had side businesses that ended up paying more than their salaries. At that time, I was running three general dealer shops in the resettlement areas of Mutoko and Virginia Macheke. The Zimbabwean manufacturing industry was already on its knees and most of the goods we were selling in the shop was coming from Musina, South Africa. On this particular weekend, I had left work on Friday after lunch and drove to Francistown in Botswana where I would buy clothing and shoes for resale. On the Saturday  morning, I had gone to Musina to buy cartoons of cooking oil, soap, petroleum jelly etc. I left my house in Bulawayo around 3am on Sunday morning driving to Mutoko about 600km away and I would come back during the night as I would be on duty the next day. I gave a lift to a number of people whom I gathered were coming from shopping in Botswana.



During the trip, we started talking about a number of things, I always like to discuss with strangers as I get to learn a lot. Before we got to Gweru a guy was going to drop off and he asked me in passing if sugar beans was available in Mutoko as that year there was a big shortage in Bulawayo due to the fact that the irrigation schemes in Masvingo that normally supplied Bulawayo had been hit by a drought. He then gave me his numbers. When I reached my shop in Mutoko that morning, I remembered the conversation and farmers would come around the shops selling their sugar beans and I managed to buy about 4, 50kg sacks. The following day when I was back in Bulawayo, I contacted the guy to say I had brought him the sugar beans and he started giving me the run around. I then started researching the market and I could see that some companies were offering me about 6 times what I had bought the sugar beans for. I finally settled for a company called Quality Foods and this company was supplying the in-house brands for the major retailers such as OK Zimbabwe and TM supermarkets.The following week, I took leave from work and spent a week buying sugar beans in Mutoko and I managed to get about 5 tonnes and I was able to borrow a trailer and with my company issued Toyota Hilux double cab, I transported the sugar beans in three trips.
 

By the time we went for the Easter Holidays, I had made around R100 000 from thin air and I managed to use about $3 000 to buy myself an Isuzu pick up and the rest against the advice of my wife who warned me about putting all my eggs in one basket,  I invested into my shops and once every month, I would drive to Johannesburg and buy expensive stock wanted by farmers eg solar panels, radios, batteries, kitchenware etc. Every week, I was now making sales of around R25 000.00 and that was a lot of money in Zimbabwe. My salary as a branch manager was only averaging about R1 000.00 even though we were getting monthly increments, however the salaries could no longer match inflation. One of the reasons I had kept on going to work was that I had the use of the company bakkie and now that I had now bought my own bakkie, I decided to resign from my job and start serving the three months notice. I was going to concentrate on my shops, my minibus taxi, my 7 tonne truck that was contracted to carry cotton crop and my market gardening that I was pursuing in Kensington Bulawayo.



Whilst I was serving my notice, the government introduced the price control blitz to try and tame inflation and overnight we incurred heavy losses and the lady managing my businesses was also arrested and she was fined. At that time many people were applying for work permits to come to South Africa at first I was reluctant and my wife encouraged me to apply. The day I collected my work permit at South Afrian embassy Harare, we drove overnight to our house in Bulawayo to collect my certificates and we immediately left for Pretoria and within a week, I started working in South Africa and I opened a new chapter in my life.



Some people have said the current time we are living is one of the best throughout human history and I tend to agree. I remember when I was in high school during the early 90s we did not have internet, if you wanted information you would need to read the whole book just to get a concept. Nowadays there is so much information for example you can go to Youtube and you will see a practical example on how to do something. In the past you needed to physically engage with a mentor but now with the internet and social media, you can easily follow an accomplished business leader such as Strive Masiyiwa and you can begin to learn a lot from him even though you might never meet him in person. Another important issue is to learn as much as you can about business management. In late 2005, my employer funded for my studies in order to pursue the three year program that would lead towards an MBA through Open Learning Centre in Harare. I managed to complete one module before I dropped out. What I learnt in that module when it came to competitive advantage was so life changing in that I managed to apply it to my own personal business and it grew.  



Back to my current situation with our piggery project, I get to visit farmers who have successful projects and I learn practical examples from housing, markets, getting lower feeds etc.

 

My Facebook post on the eve of 2017 Comrades Marathon

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This year I am running my 3rd consecutive Comrades. Towards the end of 2010 I found myself visiting the doctor and I did not understand what was happening to my body, I was weighing over 95kgs. The doctor told me my BP was too high and I had hypertension. I had to wait for a few days for some of the blood test results on cholesterol level, diabetes etc. The doctor advised me to change my diet and also to walk during weekends. I work in a call centre where I would sit from about 7:30am and would work overtime up to 6pm most of the days. In October 2010, I moved to a complex approximately 2.5km from my work place. Around that time construction began at our work campus and it meant that we had to park off site and take a shuttle to work or just walk to the office during peak time. This situation turned to be a blessing in disguise for me. I then decided to park my car at home and I started walking to work. Sometimes when I was late, I would run to work and whenever I wanted to go up or down to the flat I would take the stairs instead of the lift. A guard at the complex at home asked me, why I would park two cars and then walk every day to work and I just laughed. This is the second time I started running. To me running was the cheapest form of exercise and if you want you can even run without shoes. To be honest running also has it occupational hazards, In 2015 I was mugged and my cellphone was stolen when I was jogging in Pretoria Central and also I was once nearly run over by a taxi which started to reverse when I was passing behind it.


At school I was never an athlete for most of my schooling until when I was in O’level. I started running by accident. I realised that any study material I found difficult, I could study and understand the material better If I read it first thing in the morning. My school Nyameni Secondary School was just under 6km from my mother’s home. I would then run most of the way to school just to make it in time. Getting late to school was out of the question as corporal punishment was acceptable at that time. In my final O’level year, during the athletics season, everyone was forced to run the marathon. I came first in my age category and my sister who was two grades behind me also did very well. My mother did not encourage our running as she wanted us to concentrate on academics. Our school athletics team was also invited to the affluent Peterhouse College (we used to call it Cakehouse) for a marathon run. I went on to represent my school at Dairibord Zimbabwe sponsored provincial marathon and I did not make it to the provincial team.

For my A ‘level studies I was accepted at Marondera High School a former group A school (equivalence of a model C school in South Africa). The new school was just over 7km from home. At that time this was the only day formal school that could accept boys for A ‘level in the whole town. When the lower 6 form started the Athletics season was over. At group A schools sports were a big thing. The following year in my final A ‘level year it was also voluntary-compulsory for everyone to run. The very first marathon, I ran faster and after a few kilometres I realised that no one was following me and I was lost. I was called in for punishment, if I remember correctly the teacher who was in charge of sports was Mr Madhiri. I explained to him that I had participated but I got lost and by some luck he believed me. I went on to run another marathon at school and came first, ran inter-house competitions and ran anything from 400metres relay and upwards. We had about 7 other Group A schools that we would compete with in our group. I remember boarding our school bus to Lomagundi College and Watershed College for athletics. The final event I participated in was the Dairibord Zimbabwe provincial marathon that was hosted at our school and I did not make the cut into the provincial team.

 In 1999 during the Insurance Institute of Zimbabwe annual sporting weekend in Harare, there was a 10km road race sponsored by AIG Zimbabwe. I practised for a few weeks and I ran the race and came third and I got $500 Zimbabwean dollars and it was a decent amount back then. So I visited AIG’s new offices at Westgate Shopping centre to have my cheque opened and I was impressed. One of the managers who signed my cheque was Mr Taffy Mathews who would become my future claims manager the following year when I joined AIG. I did not run again for many years to come.
In 2014 I joined the running club at work. My very first race was the Denel 21.1km race in Centurion. I ran well for the first 5km and I walked most of the race. I wanted to quit on the 10km mark but I kept on running and walking and I completed the race in under 3 hours. Towards the end of 2014 I decided to enter for the 2015 Comrades uphill race. Going into my first Comrades, I only ran one qualifying race in January 2015 and my time for the 42.2km at the Akasia race was around 4 hours 56 minutes. I only did a couple of 25 km trainings. Most of the runs I did were 15km and below. On the evening of 20 March 2015 I ended up at Unitas Hospital Emergency rooms after a nasty fall when I tripped on small rocks early in the evening luckily the doctor said I did not need any stiches on my mouth.

I do not trust experts that much, I was not worried that I did not practice the recommended distance or practised on hills. The day before my first comrades was scary, I started expressing self- doubt if I could do this and I barely slept that night. I arrived early at the starting line. I met this guy from Canada who told me that he had barely practiced outdoors due to the cold weather in Canada. This conversation was very important to me, I was feeling sorry for myself but here was a guy who had barely practiced and had flown thousands of miles just to be part of this event. By the time we sang Shosholoza I was in the race. My last two races I have started in the last seeding. So 20 years after I finished High School, I ran my first Comrades race. When we started running I did not stop at the first 3 water points and I had to be careful not to fall, Imagine almost 20 000 runners ahead of you dropping plastics with water on the tarmac which became very slippery. I ran well for the first plus or minus 25km up to the first serious hill out of Pinetown. I kept on saying to myself “keep on moving”. What I normally do when I run up hill, I do not look all the way up, and I just look just a few meters ahead so that I do not get intimidated. It was such a good feeling to overtake runners that were in the seedings ahead of me and this motivated me to keep on going. After about 45km I was exhausted and even small up runs felt like I was running up the Vumba Mountains or Inyanga Mountains and I started walking all uphills and ran whenever it was flat or when it was downhill. I made it in just over 10 hours 38 minutes.


In 2016 I was better prepared, I ran four qualifying races and I improved my qualifying time to about 4 hours 20 minutes however I forgot to upgrade my qualifying time with Comrades so they took the Soweto 2015 marathon result that was 5 hours so I was in the last seeding again. Exactly two weeks before the 2016 comrades, I picked up an injury on my left knee. On the race day, I ran the first half very well and I thought I would make it in just over 9 hours. After that everything went south as I started feeling pain on the left knee and I could only run when it was flat or downhill and walk uphill. I started stopping at all medics along the way and this lady bandaged my left knee to support it and I kept on going. About 10km to go, the pain was so much. I could no longer run even downhill and I started limping towards the finish line and it seemed like everyone was now overtaking me. I realised that I could no longer make it within 11 hours for the bronze medal. With about 2km to go this guy started telling me something crazy, he said that even if he could no longer make it in 11 hours, if I started jogging now, I could still make it in less than 11 hours. I said to myself can't he see that I am limping. Instead of feeling sorry for me he was planting this crazy idea in my mind that I could still make it. This guy became my hero, my unknown soldier for the 2016 Comrades run. He reminds me of my late mum who would always keep on believing in me and telling me that I could pass those national exams and be someone in life. I started jogging and I felt the pain on the knee was not too bad. After about 500 metres I met my team mate who had also given up on making it less than 11 hours, I do not know how I convinced him and we started running and all the while busy looking at our watches. When I entered the stadium, the pain came back again and I wanted to stop and my team mate kept on encouraging me to keep on going. We made it to the finish line in 10 hours 58 minutes. If you saw us at the finishing line hugging you could think we had won lotto. It was okay to cry and feel sorry for one self after crossing finishing line.


My advice to novice Comrades runners on this eve, today is not the time for self-doubt. Today is the time for believing in oneself.  Only for today it’s okay to be a bit delusional and picture yourself as the best runner that was ever seen on this earth and have a good night sleep. Your training might not have gone the way you anticipated, it rarely never goes according to plan. Do not think too much about the hills that you have to go through even myself I do not know the height of all those hills, what I know is that I have to go through them one way or the other even if it means walking most of the hills. Remember like eating an elephant which is one bite at a time, going up those hills is about putting your best foot forward one step at a time. Keep on moving and listen to your body, talk to your fellow comrades especially if you do not feel well along the race. In my view running Comrades imitates life itself; you start the race very light with almost nothing except your positive attitude that you will cross the finish line on time. Along the way there are 45 water points and countless strangers who will cheer you along the way and some will even massage your legs and keep on encouraging you. I do not wish to dispute with what my excellent A ‘Level Chemistry teacher Mr Rimbi taught me 22 years ago, running Comrades has taught me that diamonds are not the strongest natural substance. Human determination and human endurance are the strongest “substances” in this world. Good luck to everyone for tomorrow. Thank you for joining the Comrades way of life.

My reflections after our recent trip to Zimbabwe

A new day in Zimbabwe, 26/05/2018 in Masvingo

I was supposed to go to Zimbabwe alone the previous Friday night. Over the years, I discovered that when it comes to Zimbabwe it is better to frequently go to there and find out the true state of affairs first hand than to rely on the media. I also have to go and monitor our piggery project or any farming project that we would be pursuing at that time. At least once every month I normally drive from Pretoria on Friday evening and leave my car on the SA side and then hitch hike to Chivhu arriving on Saturday morning and then get to Harare in the afternoon.  On Sunday morning, I would then hitch hike to Beitbridge and then drive back to Pretoria arriving on Sunday evening. Taking a bus is normally a cheap option but the journey can take up to 24 hours meaning that I would not be able to make the return journey during the weekend. Because of the high crime levels in SA, it is dangerous to hitch hike within South Africa.  The quickest way to travel is to fly the joburg-Harare route which averages about R5 000 for a return trip and this is not viable as it is better to drive to Beitbridge as this normally only cost me R1 500.00 and I am better off using the extra money in funding my projects back home.

I did manage to register to vote in October last year onto the new voters’ roll, however my wife maNyoni  had not gone to register to vote as we kept on postponing her trip to Zimbabwe. So on Friday morning I got confirmation from Election Resource Centre Zimbabwe that Zimbabwe Election Commission was also registering new voters over the last weekend during the just ended voter inspection period. So this time we had to drive all the way to Harare. After resting for about an hour in Musina, we arrived at the South African border just before 2 am and there were very few travellers around and we were done with all the formalities at the border in less than 30 minutes. We then drove into the Zimbabwean border. After stamping our passports we went to customs desk in order to pay for the Temporary Import Permit for our vehicle.

To be honest things are changing for the better at Beitbrdge border post. I have been crossing this border almost every month since 2006. There are very few touts within the border. This time around we were told we no longer needed to fill in the forms so we went straight to the counter and the officer started helping us. On the wall behind the official was a poster of the new president Mr Mnangagwa another reminder that our former strong man is no longer in charge. Because of the poor road condition in Zimbabwe, it is advisable to use either a bakkie or an SUV. The last time, we drove with the SUV in 2016 we had to pay over R1 100.00 as they used to charge more based on the engine capacity. I was pleasantly surprised when the officer told me that with the new changes all vehicles now pay the same fee and we were charged R640.00 or $50. Another change that I have noticed was that in the past it was never advisable to use toilets on the Zimbabwean border and over the last few years my opinion is that the toilets are now cleaner on the Zimbabwean side.

We were done with the border formalities in less than an hour and we drove out. One of my best feeling over the years  when driving or just walking into Zimbabwe is reading the sign, “Welcome to Zimbabwe”. Back home in Pretoria, whenever we leave our house walking to the shops or driving to the shops on a weekend we have to remind one another if we have our ID documents with us as any official from police, immigration officials, City Improvement District officials etc can stop you especially in the city centre search you and ask you for your papers. The road to Harare needs to be constructed from scratch, however this time around as compared to my last drive in February 2018, all the potholes were filled up except when you are approaching the town of Chivhu where I saw a double cab bakkie had rolled after hitting a bad patch on the road about 1km from the police station.

We arrived in Chivhu and Inevitably I started discussing politics with my father in law. Over the years we always had a healthy debate as I supported Morgan Tsvangirai. This time around I conceded that Chamisa is not ready to be president. We then proceeded to drive to Harare and we arrived at our house in Zmre Park around 4pm and we quickly collected the proof of residence and then drove to Zimre Park primary school.  Whilst I went to inspect my name on the voter’s roll, maNyoni then joined the short voter registration queue. By 5pm we were back at our house. The lady staying at our house mentioned in passing that they have been going to many Zanu-pf local meetings yet MDC has not yet organised even one meeting in the area. My impression is that MDC is assuming that they have already bagged the urban vote so they don’t need to campaign there which I think is a big mistake.

I give lifts to hitch hikers in Zimbabwe as it is very safe to do so and also when I hitch hike in Zimbabwe, I also get help from motorists. I like speaking to strangers and I always ask them if they see any changes since the new government took over. I don’t stay in Zimbabwe and I have seen positive changes such as at the border and the business confidence has improved. Last year when I resigned from my job to concentrate on my business, I did spend most of October 2017 in Zimbabwe and I could see there was no future in Zimbabwe. I then came back and told my wife that I would not invest further in Zimbabwe and I concentrated on South Africa. Ever since the coup in November 2017, things started improving again. One notable change is the police harassment and corruption, on this trip we were only stopped at two check points for the whole 600km journey from the border to our house. I previously wrote in my blog about my trip in March 2016, when I was stopped and harassed at 16 checkpoints from Beitbridge to Mutoko. This time around the two officers whom met me only asked me to show my licence and my TIP and they treated me with utmost respect and we even joked and they wished us a safe travel.



The biggest mistake that the government has done is to stick with bond notes.  Last year in December I did write an opinion piece on why Zimbabwe needs to abandon the bond note and I still stand by those views (http://kanyokad.blogspot.com/2017/12/why-zimbabwe-needs-to-discard-bond-note.html) Due to the bond note, the rate for the Rand is R10 as to $1. All of a sudden due to this,fuel is actually now cheaper to buy in Zimbabwe than in South Africa! Cash shortage is still bad, on Sunday morning at OK Masvingo a lady begged to swipe my groceries and I gave her cash.

2018 was supposed to be the year that MDC takes over from Zanu, instead it has been one disaster after the other. It started with the death of my hero the leader of my party Mr Morgan Tsvangirai and the next day whilst his body was still in the morgue, there was a meeting at MDC headquarters Harvest House in Harare to anoint Chamisa as the new leader. It did not make sense to me why the hurry. Personally I have made up my mind that I will not vote for Chamisa, however I will still vote for an MDC MP candidate or a credible independent candidate. Like I did in 2013, I will also not vote for an MDC candidate for councillor. Ever since 2002 when we first voted for MDC councillors, we have stayed in Chitungwiza, Harare and Bulawayo. The municipal services have deteriorated in most towns except in Bulawayo. In my view it is only MDC councillors in Bulawayo who deserves to be returned to office. I am very nervous of voting for Mnangagwa as I know his history but at least he seems to be taking the country on a different route from Mugabe. Any way I could just vote for him just to thank them for making sure that Grace Mugabe would never become my president.

We have almost 9 weeks before the next election so a lot can change.

Happy Africa Day to my people

Some call it the dark continent, sh*t hole countries, backward place etc. I can’t help it, I love this place. Seriously, there is no place like Africa. There are many reasons why I love this place. The definition of family in the African culture is much wider than what was taught to us by our European colonizers. In my mother tounge in Shona my father’s brothers are not my uncles but they are simply my fathers, I call them baba munini or baba mukuru. My mother’s sisters are not my aunts, they are also my mothers and I call them amainini or amaiguru. In Shona culture children born from my aunts or uncles are not my cousins, they are simply my brothers and sisters and there is no distinction between them and my blood brothers and sisters. In 2002, my cousin’s husband was being buried in Honde Valley just outside the city of Mutare and I attended the funeral. As the eldest brother attending in the absence of my uncle who died in the 90s, I immediately assumed his place and my cousin’s in-laws some of them already elders had to consult with me even though I was not yet 30. The same happened again in 2004 when the husband of the younger cousin sister was being buried in Wedza.

The definition of one’s relatives in Africa is so much wider. In general any adult who is the same age group as my grandparents or my parents automatically becomes my grandparent or my parent. I am from the Mhofu (Eland) totem, so every person from mhofu/mpofu totem automatically becomes my relative. My in-laws are from the Hungwe/Shiri/Nyoni/Bird totem, so everyone from that totem is my in-law. My paternal grandmother is from the Mbizi/Zebra/Dube/Tembo totem, so all the Tembos are my relatives. My mother is from the Moyo/Heart totem, so all the Moyo Muzukuru people are my mother, infact in Shona culture my mother’s brother and his children are automatically my mothers. My maternal grandmother vaSoko is from the Soko/Monkey/Phiri/Ncube totem, hence people from this totem are my relatives also. African culture values continuity, when my father died in 1990, I knew even though he was gone, his brothers, cousins would also be my fathers. The same when my mother died in 2002, her brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces from her side of the family all become my mothers.

The people in Africa are so friendly, respectful and helpful. Whether I am walking in a street in Harare or Tshwane, if any person wants to ask me for directions, they always greet me first, my favourite form of greeting in Tshwane is, “Askies Papa” before a lady asks me for directions. When I moved to South Africa in 2007, I once tried to ask a taxi driver for directions before I greeted him first and I learnt my lesson. Also as Africans we have now managed to colonise our colonisers’ languages English, French and Portuguese are now part of our languages as much as Shona, Xhosa, Zulu, Chewa, Afrikaans, Swahili, Arabic etc. Why is it so expensive to visit other African countries? Try booking a flight to either Nairobi or Addis Ababa the price will knock you out of your chair. But then when you want to book a flight to Dubai then all of a sudden Kenyan Airways or Ethiopian Airways become very cheap and here is the kicker, they will route you through Nairobi or Addis Ababa!

In Africa there is a belief that there must be a reason for any happening. As Chinua Achebe put it in his novel, Things Fall Apart, “When you see a toad jumping in broad daylight, then know something is after its life”. End of last year, I visited my in-laws at their farm in Zimbabwe and when my father in-law was driving me back to the nearest town we passed through to pick-up one of his friends at his farm. They started a discussion about why it was not raining and they were worried about their maize crop that was wilting in the fields. They concluded that it was so and so who was continuing to work on Chisi. Chisi is along the same lines as a Sabbath day where people in a certain geographical location are not allowed to work on the fields on a certain day of the week. Some locations will have a Chisi on every Thursday or Friday. It is believed that if you work on that day you will bring bad luck to the whole area and if neighbours report you to the chief you will be fined heavily. During the whole discussion, as someone who is western educated and was “corrupted” against my peoples’ thinkings. I kept saying to myself, “but this dry spell is affecting the whole country as well as neighbouring countries and according to the satellite weather maps it would persist for a few more weeks”. I just kept quiet.

As Africans are we true forgivers? People who caused many deaths during colonialism and periods of racial segregations including Apartheid where never tried. After Independence there were many atrocities from civil wars in Mozambique, Angola, Gukurahundi Massacre in the 80s in Zimbabwe, ongoing civil wars in DRC up-to this day, Rwanda Genocide, Sudan massacres and civil wars, 2008 state sponsored violence after Robert Mugabe lost the first round of the elections in Zimbabwe, Somali civil war etc. In other parts of the world, people have been held accountable for their actions an example would be Nuremberg trials.

As Africans we are good at accommodating other people. Some had their native names changed to make it comfortable for the colonizers. My grandfather of whom I am named after, I am told he was working in the kitchen of a white farmer. The farmer could not be bothered to pronounce his difficult Shona name, hence he was given a new name, Dabson. I have also seen here in South Africa among my African and Indian colleagues electing to have another name that people can easily pronounce. As Africans most of us have to observe African religion and traditions and then we are also expected to observe the Western religion and traditions. At times it can be quite funny, for example I celebrate two wedding days every year, one when we negotiated lobola in line with the African custom and the other when we had the Methodist Church wedding. At times it can be very challenging because when you are at work, school or college you have to observe European traditions and when you go back home you have to quickly switch into African traditions and vice versa.

Not everything is rosy among us Africans, we are not united and we are our worst enemies. This reminds me of the title of this book I saw many years ago, “We met the enemy, the enemy is us”. As research has shown, during the slave trade, other Africans would catch their brothers and sisters and sell them to slave traders. The current borders we have in Africa are imaginary lines drawn up during the Berlin conferences of 1884/85. The strange thing is that a European who has settled in Africa is presumed to be more of a citizen than another African who crosses these imaginary lines. On both sides of Limpopo river along Zimbabwe and South Africa border there Venda people yet these Africans treat each other as foreigners. The same along the Plumtree border between Botswana and Zimbabwe you have the same people separated by these imaginary line and they now treat each other as foreigners. The same thing along the border of Zimbabwe and Mozambique and many countries such as Rwanda, DRC, Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya. A person of European origin who left countries such as Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Angola, Namibia etc. when they got their independences and decided to settle in South Africa, will be recognised more as a citizen than say an African who left those countries and also came and settle in South Africa and will forever be labelled as a foreigner no matter how many years they have been in South Africa.

I was in South Africa during the first Xenophobia attacks of early 2008 where even some South African citizens where murdered because they looked like foreigners! It was so bad and people were so worried, I remember one white work colleague pleading with me to come and stay at his house until the government had the issue under control. As has become the norm whenever people are not happy for any reason and start to demonstrate, the first thing they do is to loot the spaza shops owned by Somalis or foreigners of Asian descent. It's as if people has made their minds that these foreigners do not matter and they are sub-human. To be fair there is a case to be made that Somalis only assist their fellow countrymen with expertise on how to run spaza shops and yet they don’t partner the locals and also impart the same knowledge and support to local citizens.

Our reality as black people is that we still suffer the most and we do not fare very well on economic indicators such employment levels, promotions, education levels, property ownership etc. It is even worse if you are African and female as you are more likely to be left to fend for children on your own even though you will be at the bottom in terms of accessing economic opportunities. One gets the impression that the life of a black person does not matter. Even in the diaspora things are not looking rosy for people of African decent for example in United States of America a black male is most likely to be killed by police without consequence to the perpetrators and also black males constitutes the largest population in the prison sytem even though they are a minority in the population.

In DRC millions will die in poverty even though their country has one of the biggest deposit of minerals. Many in DRC might never own a smart phone even though coltan used to make I Phones and Samsung Galaxy phones is mined right in their country. Maybe it is the difficulties associated with being labelled as black that drives people from trying to run away from their black identity. For example beauty is normally defined in European terms, our sisters use dangerous chemicals to try and lighten their skins and also they even go to the extent of wearing hair from strangers just to look European. Identity is very complicated especially here in Southern Africa. Many black people celebrated the accent of former president Barrack Obama into office and also only last week we were celebrating the marriage of Meghan Markle into the British royal family. The reality is that if both individuals where staying  in this part of the world, would they classify themselves as being black? Steve Biko once said, “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed”

Today we pay homage to our leaders who championed our struggles for liberation from colonialism, segregation and apartheid. We remember all of them from Nkwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Joshua Nkomo, Nelson Mandela, Robert Sobukwe, Winnie Mandela, Bram Fischer, Chris Hani, Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo, Robert Mugabe, Samora Machel, Julius Nyerere, Eduardo Mondlane, Fidel Castro, Sir Seretse Khama, Antonio Agostinho Neto, Jomo Kenyatta and many more. We must acknowledge that like all of us human beings they were not perfect but they did did their part. One of the things I have continuously heard from many of my black brothers and sisters here in South Africa ever since I settled in this country is the same saying, “Nelson Mandela did nothing for the black people” and I have respectfully disagreed with that view. Just as you cannot blame the founding fathers of United States of America for the election of a toddler like Donald Trump, you can’t blame Nelson Mandela for the ills especially during the Zuma years.

Our founding fathers did their part and gave us the right to vote, it is up to us as citizens of Africa to take our responsibilities seriously. Across Africa, people still vote along ethnic, racial and gender lines and they do not put in power competent man and women who can take this continent forward. Next time you want to blame someone for the current state of affairs in Africa, look in the mirror and see the culprit. Next time you see boats capsizing off the coast of Libya with fellow Africans desperately trying to get to Europe and want to blame someone, please just save it. Remember what president John F Kennedy said many years ago, “.... ask not what your country can do for you---ask what you can do for your country.” I ask you the same question, what are you doing for your African country? We have immense challenges right now and some people are doing something about it. I think of Advocate Thuli Madonsela who had the courage to stand up for the truth during her years as the Public Protector of South Africa. I also think of former finance Minister Mr. Mcebisi Jonas who refused to sell his country on a silver platter. I also think of our MEC for education in Gauteng province Mr Panyaza Lesufi who is doing all he can to eradicate racial segregration in public schools in our province.

I believe this century belongs to Africa.

Happy Africa day to all my friends who considers Africa their home after all Africa is the original home of mankind.

God bless Africa!

PS. When is the black ANC government going to declare May 25 as a public holiday? Hopefully it will be in our lifetime.

Remembering my mother a brave lioness this Mother's day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnSmNYy5-80

This Mother’s day I remember my mum. She has been gone now for 16 years but she is not forgotten and she was one of a kind. With apologies to Khaya Dlanga (https://mg.co.za/article/2013-08-09-00-khaya-dlanga-my-mother-a-woman-who-never-knew-her-place/) my mum also did not know her place and it was thanks to her attitude in overcoming cultural barriers littered in her path that I turned out the way I am. My first clearest memories of my mother are from around 1982 when we were still staying at Belingwe police station with my father and my two sisters. In December 1982 my youngest sister Phillipa had been left with my partenal grandmother in our village in Murehwa about 600km away. My mother and father came from the same village although technically where my paternal grandmother’s homestead is where the other village starts before we cross the small stream that normally only have water mostly in the rain season. Some villagers call the stream “karukova kekwa Dhabisoni (the stream by Dabson’s place). My grandfather’s name was Dabson and as the eldest grandson I was named after him. I am told my grandfather had married a second wife a few years before I was born and he moved away with his new wife to Chikore in Manicaland Province after I was born. I only saw him around 1989 when my father was seriously ill and around end of 1990 after my father’s death.

The Shona are known for butchering English names when they pronounce the name. In the Shona alphabet there is no L, Q and X letters. My father’s name was Phillip and villagers would call me mwana waFiripi (Phillip’s child).  I remember a girl with the name Sylvia, she would be called Sirivhiya. Some would call me mwana WA Ranga (after my mother) my mother’s English name was Charity, or muzukuru wa Ndaiziveyi (grandson of Ndaiziveyi after my paternal grandmother) my grandmother’s Christian name is Ruth or Ruse in Shona pronunciation. Villagers would also call me muzukuru wa Tapson after my maternal grandfather.

 One late afternoon in December 1982, my mother received a telegram to say my sister was seriously ill and she was suffering from Kwashiorkor. By that time all the buses to Harare had already left. That evening my mum took I and my sister Rosemary named after my paternal grandfather’s sister her Shona name is Shupikai. I would call her Shupi and I would call out her full Shona name only if I was cross with her. That evening we started hiking mostly trucks, the next morning we were in Harare. We arrived at our village and my sister was already at the government hospital in Mutoko about 35km away. Our village was the last before you enter the commercial farming areas. To the East and North it was the Mutoko white commercial farming areas and to the South it was Virginia Commercial farming areas of Macheke. I still remember the journey by bus from our village to Mutoko. Along the way there were many burnt building such as farm houses and farm stores. I was told this had happened during the war of liberation and the war was so bad that the white farmers had abandoned their farms. Even after the war ended and the country gained independence in 1980, the farmers never came back to the farms. In the early to mid- 80s many of my relatives both on my father’s and my mother’s side left the village and were allocated land in this area of Hoyuyu Resettlement area of Mutoko.

In December 1982 my father was transferred from Belingwe to Amaveni Police Station in Kwekwe whilst we were still at the village. My sister was discharged from hospital and we were on our way to our new home in Kwekwe. From that episode of my sister’s illness my mother vowed never to leave any her kids with relatives. In January 1983 my mother enrolled me at Amaveni Primary school to start grade 1. My first teacher for the first two years was Mrs Chizano. I am from the generation that never went to pre-school. So from Mrs Chizano I learnt my first English words, how to read and write. I also learnt about Christianity and the concept of Gehenna. Mrs Chizano also taught me an important life lesson, ‘doing the right thing can be tough but it pays off in the end”. What I feared the most then in the order was my mother as she was very strict, my teacher as she did not hesitate to use the rope  and god. Some boys who were now in high school told us about the imminent war between Soviet Union and the Americans as it was at the height of the cold war. They told us how destructive the nuclear bomb was and once it was detonated it would be the end of the world. I now had one more thing to add on my list of things I feared- the nuclear bomb.

One evening in 1983 I was playing hide and seek with other kids. I was hiding by the lawn outside one of the houses in the police camp and I saw a spear and I started playing with it on the lawn next to my feet. The next moment I saw a lot of blood coming from my foot and I did not feel any pain at that time. I ran to my mother and she saw that I hap partially severed two of my toes and she then carried me on her back for 1.5km to Amaveni Clinic. I remember the pain when the nurse applied an ointment on the wound and started sewing stiches. We would go together to have the bandages changed. There was one unwritten rule from my mother, you could only bunk school if you were admitted in hospital. Almost every of my primary schooling years, I would be very sick either from tonsillitis or from Malaria.

By the time I was doing grade 4 or 5 as we were not on medical aid, whenever I was seriously ill my mum would instruct me to go to charge office and get a blue form from the officer on duty. All the officers knew me and they would give me the form which acted like an official order to the hospital (I have forgotten the name of the form). At that time the Zimbabwean government was still credit worthy. In the 80s the government health facilities where still of a very high quality in Zimbabwe. It is said at Independence in 1980 the Zimbabwean dollar was stronger than the American dollar. The 80s were a bliss as everything worked, we did not have water cuts or power cuts then. The road did not have potholes then. I remember then at school we would be able to buy buns and a 200ml fresh milk sachet for less than 30cents and we would buy sweets for a cent. With that form I would go to the government Kwekwe General Hospital with my mother on the first visit. With tonsillitis the doctor would prescribe me to get injections that would last almost a week. The following visits I would come on my own to have the injections and my mother would check the hospital card to make sure I was not skipping the treatment. She would give me the bus fare to the hospital and most days I would walk the 5kms to the hospital and use the money for pocket money.

One day a lady also staying in the police camp asked me to go and buy something for her from the shop and I refused. When my mum learnt about my refusal, she was not impressed at all. She then told me that the lady had been struggling to bear her own children and every night she prayed to god crying why she did not have her own babies and here I was adding to her misery by refusing to do errands for her. I really felt bad after that I started helping whenever I could. My mother was very strict. She loved farming as she would keep a huge garden everywhere we stayed until her death, I think these straits came directly from her father and mother. From what I gathered from my mother both my grandfathers originally only had Shona names but when they went to work mainly at the commercial farms also known as mapurazi in Shona (plaas in Afrikaans). The white farmers would not be bothered to pronounce difficult Shona names and they would be given English names. My grandfather did not know his date or year of birth and from our estimation he was born around 1910.

During some of the school holidays, we would go to the village and I would spend most of holiday at my maternal grandparents’ home as I got to play with my cousins. My mother would stay with my paternal grandmother and I learnt earlier on that these two ladies did not see eye to eye. My maternal grandfather was a very strict disciplinarian and he was a very wealthy man by village standards. He had over 50 herds of cattle, a house with zinc (iron) roof, a blair toilet, many bicycles, scotch carts etc. Every morning, he would wake up very early and go at the outside fire place and my maternal grandmother Vasoko (from the monkey clan) would prepare tea for him. I would join him every morning for tea as I was also an early riser. At that time many villagers only had thatched huts and they were using the bush as their toilet. Not many people liked him in the village although they would not tell him straight to his face. Some kids would whisper to me that my grandfather was a wizard. With my western education I was not superstitious as most villagers who would be scared of walking at night lest they met goblins. I was scared of real things like village dogs, snakes, stones and obstacles on the road. Our village was next to a range of hills so the hyenas would laugh during the night but it was unheard of for a hyena to attack a human being.

Generally many people in the village did not believe that if you worked hard you would prosper, the thinking was anyone who was prospering was using muti. If a person was struggling, the thinking was that someone was bewitching you. Around 2005, I was running up to 10 general dealer shops around Mutoko and Macheke Resettlement areas and I also bought a 7 tonne lorry. I then heard from my nephews and nieces that my uncle’s Zambian wife had told all the kids to run away every time they saw me. Her logic was that there was no way at my age I was able to have run such modest businesses without have killed small children and having their body parts mixed with muti.

My grandfather was also street smart on top of being very strict; I can write a whole book about his antics. He once told me a story of what he did when he was working for the farmer feeding pigs. One day he strangled a pig and showed it to the farmer, the farmer said, “Puza Tapson” and my grandfather went on to eat the carcass and he continued doing this for some time. The farmer must have suspected that something was amiss and when my grandfather showed the farmer another dead pig, the farmer said, “tshisa Tapson, henaro disease”. After that the pigs stopped dying. In the village every house had this bathroom made from tall dried grass. These bathrooms were mainly for bathing and since there was no piped water in the village we would use buckets and dishes. One morning my grandfather wanted to take an early bath and he noticed that someone had defecated in the bathroom. There were only two small children staying with him being my cousin brother and my cousin sister. He called the two kids and asked who had done this despicable deed and no one owned up. The blair toilet was about 75 metres away from the homestead and one of the kids must have been scared to walk alone in the darkness to the toilet. My grandfather then took a stick and started to beat the two kids and in a spare of the moment the two kids simultaneously picked the faeces with their bare hands from the ground.

From an early age my mother would insist that I and my sister wake up at dawn everyday even on weekends or school holidays.  My mother would only tell you to do something twice and on the third time even if she was holding a knife she would throw it at you. Every morning my mother would tell us the same story when working us up, “Dabbie, Shupi wake-up, my father taught me that a person must be awake by the time the sun come out”, we would complain that our circumstances were different than when she was growing up in the village as she had to go and fetch water and work on the crops but us we were in the town. Whilst arguing with her I would be working up because I knew by the time she came to where I was sleeping she would either come with a bucket full of cold water to throw on my blankets or a stick to beat me up. Up to now, I don’t need an alarm to wake me-up; I always wake up before dawn.

My mother also believed that every child including boys must be taught to do house chores. Her logic was that if I was not taught to clean the house, wash and iron my cloths, cook for my self etc. by the time I left her house to go and work I would be desperate to find someone to do the chores for me that I would end up marrying an old woman just to get someone to take care of me. My sister Shupi could cook pap by the time she was 7. One day when I was in grade 3, I came home from playing and my mum said she not going to cook that night, my sister Shupi also said she was full and was not going to cook. That night I went to bed hungry and I quickly learnt to cook pap.  In the police force they did not recognise customary marriages so my father was considered a bachelor and our family would share the 4 roomed police house with another family. My mother had a dilemma in that my grandfather would not give his hand to have her wed until all the lobola money had been paid. Fortunately marriage laws had evolved and now for one to get married a couple needed two witnesses to accompany them to the magistrate’s offices. My grandfather would call this type of marriage muchato wekwamudzviti (marriage presided by the Native Commissioner). It appears no one sent my grandfather a memo to say that with the new laws he was no longer required to come in front of the Native Commissioner to give his blessing as the father of the bride. After my parents got formally married, we started staying at the married quarter’s section and we now had the full house to ourselves. This marriage certificate would come in very hand in 1990 when my father died.

My father would battle with alcoholism and this probably had such an effect on me when it comes to alcohol and smoking and those memories discouraged me from drinking alcohol or smoking. My parents had an arrangement that after my father got paid my mother would then manage finances. Our standard of living started to improve. Towards the end of 1987 my mother left me and my sister in the company of my father as we were going to school and she took my younger sister and my two brothers to the village as she was going to start farming at my father’s plot. In November 1987, government workers got their bonus. My father drank himself until he was sick. When my mother came back my father was broke. My mother does not know what my grandmother did with the produce that was harvested from her plot and also what happened to the goats that she had bought and left at the plot. My mother never went back to farm at the village again.

My mother was also a member of the Kuyedza Women’s club which catered for spouses of police officers and she learnt many practical lessons such as sewing, cooking, baking etc. This would come in handy for us after my father’s death. In early November 1990 my father died after a long illness and that marked the beginning of hardships in our family. Three weeks after my father’s death, the family gathered at my grandmother’s homestead where they had to distribute my father’s clothing which was mostly given to me. My father’s will was read and I remember this sentence from the will, “my wife should stay wherever she wants to stay”. The expectation from both sides of the family was that once the pension money came out my mother would come back to the village and build a homestead and buy some cows and probably get married to my uncle as a second wife. A ceremony was held where my mother had to choose if she wanted kugarwa nhaka (wife inheritance) either by my father’s only brother or his half- brother.  What happened is that my two uncles would sit next to each other and as the eldest child and son I would also sit with them. My mother would come with a stick and if she gave it to either of my uncles it would signify that she wanted to be inherited by that uncle. My mother came and gave the stick to me to signify that she no longer wanted to be married within the family and she only wanted to take care of her children. 

At the end of August 1991 we left the accommodation in the police camp and my mother started renting a few rooms in Dombotombo Township and at that time I was at my aunt’s house in Murewa for the school holidays. When I came back beginning of September for the start of the school third term my mother told me the pension money had come out and she had bought a house from the municipality in the new housing development in an area called Yellow City. I went with my cousin and we slept at the new house on the day we arrived I never slept at the rented house, that night mosquito feasted on us. The following  days we moved our furniture to the new place. The houses were four roomed houses. The municipality had only put outside doors, no window frames, no electricity, no plastering to the walls. For the first few months we had to put zinc iron sheets to cover the gaping holes where the window frames were supposed to be. My father’s life insurance pay-out came out. My mother and I were named as co-beneficiaries. My mother got her portion as a cash pay-out and mine as a minor went to the Master of High Court. With her pay-out I went with her to buy window frames, window panes, door frames, internal doors, cement to plaster the house as well as electrical wiring. By the time I was 15, I was already helping my mother with budgeting whenever she got the merger widow’s and minors’ government pension we would draw out a grocery list and I would go with her to do the shopping. Our house had about 450 square metres of land so my mother had a big garden and we would get extra income from the produce coming from her garden, she would also knit jerseys from the machine she had been given by her youngest sister.

When I was in secondary school, I started going on my own to the village and I discovered that the relatives were furious that my mother had decided to stay in the town and not to come back to the village and farm like everyone else. I told my mother about this and she did not care. The education standards in the rural areas where not as high as in the townships. Most of my cousins dropped out after grade 7. Kids were expected to help in providing farming labour and they would walk long distances to school, they did not have the qualified teachers like we had in townships, during the rainy season when rivers were full kids would miss school for days until the rivers receded. In the rural areas they did not have well stocked libraries like us and also they did not have electricity to enable them to study at night. Another advantage was that during school holidays we would meet with students going to some of the top schools in Zimbabwe such as Kutama college, Goromonzi High School, St Augustine High School e.t.c and exchange notes. The pass rates in national exams were very low in rural areas.

Some months when things were very tight we would put lodgers on the other two rooms and we would only use two rooms. My mother would rear broiler chicken for sale and we would also run a tuck-shop from our kitchen window and I was in charge of managing the tuck-shop and I would go to the wholesalers and bakeries to buy stock. It was always tough to study with a paraffin lamp since it was expensive to study with a candle. Fortunately when I was in the middle of form 3 (grade 10) my mother managed to pay to connect electricity to our house. Those days my mother struggled to provide enough food for the five children at times we would run out of mealie-meal, I would only eat in the morning and walk a long distance of up to 7km to school, spend the whole day without eating anything and only eat at night. Sometimes during school holidays, I could come home in the afternoon from the library and there would be nothing to eat, I would go and get sticks in the nearby bush set up a fire and roast some dried maize kennels drink water and go back to the library to study.  I could see that my future was very bleak and my mum never got tired to encourage me to study harder. Somehow she always gave me hope that if I pass my exams my life would improve. My mother would vet the friends that we could hang out with.

Around 1991 the police had sent out a cheque to the school nearest to our village for my father’s last salary for November 1990. Fortunately my mother’s sister was teaching pre-school at the school and she received the cheque. When my uncle (my father’s only brother) came to the village and heard about the cheque. He asked my aunt for the cheque and he promised to take it to my mother. My aunt did not suspect anything and gave him the cheque. My uncle went on to fraudulently cash the cheque and used up the money. My uncle had not finished school, I remember around 1984 when he was in form 3 (grade 10) he had impregnated a girl who was the headmaster’s sister. In Zimbabwe the policy was if a school boy impregnates a school girl that would be the end of both their education. The remaining few cattle that my grandmother still had were all taken to pay Lobola for my uncle’s new wife. Within the following two years, he would divorce her. Luckily he had passed his Zimbabwe Junior Certificate National Exams very well and due to the civil war in Mozambique around that time many qualified teachers where shunning to go and teach in Mudzi next to the Mozambique border as the war in would spill into Zimbabwe. My uncle got a place there as a temporary primary school teacher there and taught for about 6 years until the end of the Mozambique civil war. Somehow he did not improve his education during those years. After my father’s death, he came to our house and he demanded to be given part of his brother’s pension money when it came out as he now wanted to finance his O’Level studies. My mother just ignored him.

In 1994 I was now in A’ Level and my two sisters were also in high school and my mother was failing to cope with the school fees so she went to confront my uncle to recover the money that he had fraudulently took. My uncle was now working with his two cousins who were now running their security company in Harare. When my mother got there the three of them wanted to assault her for demanding the money. According to my mother my uncle said he had every right to take the money as it belonged to his brother. He went on to say that my mother was trying to show off by sending me to A’ Level, instead she should have let me look for a job. As for my sisters, he said it was pointless to send girls to high school because once girls have finished grade 7 they can now write letters they should get married. Words have power. All my cousin brothers went as far as O’Level and all my cousin sisters once they finish grade 7 they got married. Whereas my mother a simple widow managed to send all her five kids up to A’ Level.

Towards mid 90s, my mother teamed up with other former members of the Kuyedza Women’s club and she recruited and started working for the NGO, she would go to the commercial farming areas to teach life skills to women working on the farms. My mother would always come to my school events, from grade 3 to grade 7, I was always in the top 3 of my class and every year, I would get a book prize and my mother would be there and every term my mother would buy me a watch for excelling. In 1994 when I started A’ Level, I had failed to get into Fletcher High School which was my first choice on the sixth form selection form. I had only managed 4 Distinctions and my classmate Simon who got 5 distinctions managed to get in. I was selected by Mutambara High School in Chimanimani and when the acceptance letter came, I boarded the overnight train to Mutare and then took the B&C Bus to Chimanimani arriving at the school just after lunch. I started inspecting the school facilities and when I got to the boys dormitories, the environment reminded me of Nhowe Mission that was closer to our village, I decided there and then that I would not come to this school. I then took a lift back to Wengezi on the Birchenough Bridge –Mutare road. I arrived in Mutare in time to catch the train back to Marondera. I told my mother that I would not go to Mutambara and she did not argue with me.

I started looking for a place at other schools including Marondera High School and they told me they were full. I was already street smart back then, I went to the police camp to see baba Challe who had previously worked with my father in Kwekwe during the 80s and asked him to go to Marondera High School and assist me get a place. He was now riding those big police motor bikes similar to those on the presidential motorcade. He was now working as part of the presidential motorcade. I also went to see my father’s former classmate who was now a provincial educational officer and he gave me a letter to take to Goromonzi High School. At Goromonzi I could only get Arts subjects so it was a non-starter for me as I only wanted to pursue Mathematics, Biology & Chemistry. The next morning, I waited outside the headmaster’s office and baba Challe came wearing his police uniform and riding his bike and asked to see the headmaster and within a few minutes I was called in and I was offered the place. I managed to enrol for Biology and Chemistry but the 2 mathematics classes were already full and I was advised to take Geography instead. At that time I still wanted to pursue medicine so studying Mathematics was non-negotiable for me. I told the teachers that I would do the two subjects full time and then pursue mathematics at night school. The following day my mother visited the school and I do not know what she told the teachers and I was finally enrolled for mathematics.

If my mother had gone to the village our lives could have been different. We might not have got the education we got and especially for my sisters their future would have been very bleak like those of my cousins who left school early and married very early some even married before turning 14. Five of my very close sisters died before they turned 30 or just after that. When my younger sister got her bachelor’s degree and her masters’ degree, I told her I wished our mum to share in all this success.

Now in the 21^st century the path for black women is not very clear as they do not belong within the two subsets of privilege namely white privilege and male privilege. The reality for black women is the following:-

-          Some families still believe in not giving the same opportunity to a girl child as they give to a boy child. My uncle and her sons back home belong to the apostolic sect that practices polygamy and they also don’t believe in western medicine or traditional medicine. I have lost count, the last time I checked my uncle had 8 wives and my other cousin had 12 wives and the other had 14 wives. My cousin sisters and my nieces only go to school up to grade 7 and they are married off around their 13^th birthday. No one is allowed to seek medical assistance even for child birth, immunization, malaria, even bone fractures. One of my cousins has teachers to thank after they involved the police to go and fetch him from the house so that he would get medical assistance after his arm was fractured.  At times three or more children would die at the same time from diseases that can be prevented by immunisation. Even though Zimbabwe has progressive laws against child marriage and immunisation, it appears there is a gentlemen agreement between the ruling party and the apostolic leaders in that hundred of thousands of their members vote for the ruling party and in turn the government looks the other way.

-          Statistics show that in general it is very difficult for women to get jobs and at times their spouses prevent them from working. My mother went to school under the racist regime of Ian Smith when the education of Africans was not a priority for the government during the early 70s. She went as far as standard six, the same level as my father. Her father told her that she could not continue paying for her education because as a girl she would get married and he felt it was a waste of time. In the early years of her marriage to my father, there was an opportunity for her to also join the police force and my father refused. I imagine how different our lives would have been if my mother had also been allowed to work.

-          When women get employed in general they get paid less than their male counterparts and their work does not get acknowledged. Last month there was a story that Bongani Bingwa shared on the 702 Break Fast Show where two work colleagues one male and one female were doing the same kind of work and they e-mail addresses got switched around in error. From that story the male colleagues who everyone now thought was a female from the e-mail addresses started getting fewer sales and more complaints and for the female colleague whom everyone thought was a male started getting more sales and more compliments.

-          Some statistics such as the percentage of black females with driver’s licence would shock you.

-          In Pretoria and in Harare, I saw women who are exactly in the situation that my mother was when she was raising me and my siblings. I see women making fat cooks for sale from as early as 4am in Pretoria Central and when I am in Harare, I see women waking up around that time going to Mbare Musika to buy vegetables for resale. All these women are hardworking, they put their family’s needs ahead of theirs and at the end of the day they get very small amounts to get by but they don’t complain.

-          Women also suffer from patriarchy and the sad part is that fellow women are at the fore front of propping up patriarchy. Just look at elections in both Zimbabwe and South Africa where women are the majority but they will never vote for other women. In Zimbabwe we are facing an election in two months’ time and you can see from the candidate list being put forward by both Zanu-PF and MDC parties women will be lucky to get even a third of the seats. I grew up in police camps where women would look down at second wives and I would hear words like, “she took someone’s husband”. However in the African culture it is man who normally approaches women but the women gets the brunt from fellow women. It was Steve Biko who said, “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed”. Its time women woke-up and prop one another to also advance their best interests.

-          Also not forgetting the shocking violence perpetrated against women. As a runner, I know that female runners do not have the same priviledge like us male runners to run wherever we want and whenever we want lest they become victims of crime.

 

I look back at my life so far and realise that I was lucky to have the mother that I had. She guided me at the most time of need and she taught me the values of the hard work and also the power of believing. My mother still lives in my memory and when I dream of her I talk to her as if she is around. I have also had amazing assistance from many outstanding ladies both when I was growing up and now at this stage. I want to say happy mother’s day to Manyoni my beautiful wife the mother of our three boys. Also to my two sisters or more like my two daughters Rosemary and Phillipa, all my cousin sisters, my grandmother, my mother's sisters especially Mrs Nkonde who taught me in my teens the concept of Karma,my mother in law, my aunt Mrs Maposa. I also had other mother figures growing up in police camps and in the townships. I remember Mrs Chapuma my best friend's mother. Also our neighbours, Mrs Chekera, Mrs Wakatama, Mrs Maida, Mrs Chihwai. Also my mother's friends, Mrs Mugandani, Mai Kuda (Mrs Mugariri). Other amazing ladies that helped me were my grade 1 and grade 2 teacher Mrs Chizano, my grade 3 and grade 4 teacher Mrs Chirimuta. Also my form 1 and 2 history teacher Mrs Mufambisi, my  O’Level English teacher Mrs Gwanzura who spoke English better than than the British as well as my A’ Level Biology teacher Mrs Rimbi.

During my over 21 years working life, I have had help from amazing women such as Ms Tendai Chingovo my former boss at AIG Zimbabwe and as I wrote in my blog last year in September when I celebrated 21 years of working (http://kanyokad.blogspot.co.za/2017/09/what-i-have-learnt-in-my-21-years-of.html) she was a transformational figure in my career. Also my first secretary at ZIB Mrs Loice Shangwa, Sandra Chipunza my secretary at Zimnat Harare and Alice my secretary in Bulawayo. Also my peer Ms Emilia Hatendi who was our human resources Manager and she never tired of telling me, “Kanyoka show emotional intelligence’’ as well as my last boss in Zimbabwe Mrs Precious Chasara who was both firm and fair to all of us. In South Africa, I have had amazing bosses from Michelle De Winnaar, Maureen Siobo, Lerato Rasontsoere, Isabel Erasmus my previous boss as well as my current boss Abigail. A lot of the people have moulded me, I mentioned them in my blog of September 2017.

Happy Mothers’ day to all the ladies. As they say in Shona, Musha Mukadzi (The woman is the anchor of the house), we must improve opportunities for women as that has a direct bearing on the welfare of their children. I am what I am mostly because of the values that my mother installed in me when I was growing up under challenging circumstances. I can’t wait to go to sleep and talk to my mother as we have a lot to talk about this day.      

http://kanyokad.blogspot.co.za/2017/08/dear-mama-my-hero.html

 

 

Complaining without taking action is futile

One thing I learnt earlier on in my working career was the futility of complaining and complaining and not taking necessary action. In December 1997, I joined a South African owned insurance company as a trainee underwriter and I was going to earn Z$3 000.00 and this was slightly more than what I had earned as a temporary teacher and almost three times what I had earned as a printing apprentice. After leaving teaching I had started work as an apprentice in the printing industry in Harare.  I had wanted to be in Harare as I was then pursuing my studies with CIMA and I wanted to access their library which was very difficult to do from Murewa where I had been teaching.  I quit within 5 months as I realised that it was a waste of my brain. I remember telling my aunt Mrs Maphosa within a month of starting at the printing company that I would not stay in that role for long. The apprenticeship role would have suited someone with only 5 O’Levels. However when we went for an interview with the Human Resources Director of the American company that also supplied ATM machines to banks, they insisted that they would only employ people with 3 A Level passes and two of us where recruited

My problem towards the end of 1997 was that after the unwise decision by Robert Mugabe of awarding war veterans the unbudgeted gratuities the Zim dollar had fell sharply against major currencies in the previous months and life was getting tough. I could no longer afford to finance my accounting studies that were payable in British Pounds. Fortunately the insurance company could give me a loan to pursue an insurance qualification.  I then embarked on my insurance studies that were also payable in foreign currency. For the rest of the 1998 we were not awarded any salary increments because we were trainees even though we were now doing the same work as the experienced staff. 1998 was one of the toughest years for me because after paying for the study loan I barely had enough to survive and I could not afford to buy furniture or fancy clothing. I remember visiting a workmate at his rented house in Zengeza, Chitungwiza and it was fully furnished and I compared to my room where the only furniture I had was a bed and a cheap kitchen table with 4 chairs which I had bought so that I could use for studying. After having failed to secure a place at the University of Zimbabwe when I finished high school, I had made up my mind that once I started working I would sacrifice everything and make sure I got a tertiary qualification a decision which in hindsight was wise because in 2007 when the Zimbabwean economy tanked it was easy for me to go to the South African embassy in Harare and apply for a work permit  and within a few weeks being able to escape the troubles in Zimbabwe.

In January 1999 despite the ravaging inflation in the country at the time we were awarded a 20% salary increment and after we complained it was adjusted to 40%. By that time most of my group started leaving. In May 1999, I joined a local insurance company for a salary of Z$8 000.00 and I was lucky in July they increased my salary to Z$9 500.00. The day my probation ended, I had another offer at another company and I accepted the offer and I only worked at that company on the first day from 8am to 10am before the General Manager of the previous company phoned me and I got a counter offer and I was now earning $13 500.00. In April 2000 I then joined an American Insurance company in Harare in the claims department for a salary of Z$20 000.00. During my 2 and half years stay at that company it was a time of personal growth for me. By the time I left I had moved from farming claims and now doing corporate claims. At that company whenever one passed their professional examinations they would write off the loan and by the time I left I was about to finish my Associateship examinations.  The only reason I left was that I realised there was no growth as the company was busy shrinking for example when the violent land reform started in Zimbabwe they had stopped insuring farms and they had retrenched about 40% of the staff and also the branches now only had skeletal staff. By end of 2005 the company shut its doors in Zimbabwe and would merge with the company that I was now working for in 2005.

At the end of 2002, I got a job as a junior manager at a local insurance broking company and the following year I completed my Associateship examinations. Towards the end of 2003, a friend of mine who had been the best man at my wedding told me that the then second biggest insurance company in Zimbabwe was looking for an underwriting manager who would be in charge of their biggest insurance brokers and he encouraged me to apply. I did not think that I had a chance nevertheless I applied and I was surprised when I got the role.  This was a daunting role. I remember during the first management meeting at the company there were almost 20 managers and the boardroom was almost full. In the management team you had chartered accountants, renowned insurance practitioners, lawyers, marketers, IT people, human resources, Internal Auditors etc. I had excellent support and I prospered. The following year, I got an offer from a competitor they wanted to appoint me as their branch manager in Bulawayo. I was not interested in the job but nevertheless I used the offer in order to bargain for a better company car and other benefits. In 2006 after the merge with the staff from the American company, I lobbied to be transferred to Bulawayo after the managing director turned down my request for voluntary retrenchment.

In life there are two types of people, those who complain and those who do something about it. I strongly believe that if you are not happy about something take some action and take calculated risks. Sure you will make mistakes but when you make mistakes you learn from them and grow as a person. One must keep on doing their work properly even if you are not happy but only you can change your situation. A lot of people complain about their governments here in South Africa and in Zimbabwe but how many people actually vote? Surely I got judged a lot about my job hopping but if I did not do so I would  not have got the positions and the experience. If you are in an environment that is stifling you by all means leave, you are not a tree and try something else because if you keep on complaining and slacken your performance as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow they will fire you and you will struggle to get a decent job due to bad recommendations.