On Monday 3 September 2007, I reported for duty in Pretoria to start a new job. I had left our home in Bulawayo on the morning of 23 August 2007. I had collected my work permit at the South African embassy in Harare the previous day and travelled overnight to Bulawayo. It’s never an easy thing to leave your country for the unknown.
After years of bad economic management inflation was wreaking havoc in Zimbabwe. We called Mugabe’s dubious economic policies- Mugabe Economics. It was mind boggling that Mugabe with his Masters degree in Economics from University of London would manage the economy the way he did.
Beginning of 2007, I was working as the Bulawayo branch manager for an insurance company. For years to supplement our salaries we were running side hustles. Due to ravaging inflation our salaries no longer kept up with inflation. I was earning less than a farm worker in South Africa. About two months before I finally left Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe had launched a price control blitz that not only left us bankrupt but my manager for our 4 general dealer shops was arrested and she now has a criminal record. When she was arrested, the security officers accused her and other business people of trying to bring down the government of Mugabe through price increases.
That first week in training in Pretoria we were asked to introduce oneself. I told the class of about 30 that I was a Zimbabwean. I thought I was the only Zimbabwean until during lunch time a guy came and told me he was also Zimbabwean. I discovered then that most Zimbabweans did not want people to know that they came from Zimbabwe. People are ashamed to let the people know they are Zimbabweans and I don’t blame them. A few years later when we received separate e-mails asking each person to resubmit their work permits, I then realized that there was even more Zimbabweans at the company when some of the guys were panicking.
Black South Africans would tell me during breaks how they admired Robert Mugabe their hero. I got tired of arguing with people. Guys from other races were scared to crack Mugabe’s jocks thinking that I would be offended. Yesterday I saw news of Mugabe’s death on Twitter and to be honest I don’t feel anything. I am not even sorry that he is gone. I started school just after independence in the 80s and this monster destroyed our promising future.
Millions of Zimbabweans of all races are now foreigners because our country was reduced to a wasteland. It’s not easy being a foreigner my friends. His actions led to death of innocent tens of thousands of Zimbabweans, people die from medieval diseases in independent Zimbabweans, about 90% of well educated Zimbabweans are not employed and a government employed medical doctor in Zimbabwe earns less than a domestic worker in South Africa. Millions are planning to leave Zimbabwe even right now.
I am not happy that Mugabe never faced justice for his crimes against Zimbabweans. I already celebrated when he resigned in November 2017.http://kanyokad.blogspot.com/2017/11/why-i-am-rooting-for-my-new-president.html
May his soul burn in hell.
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