As a Zimbabwean, i remain hopeful, maybe out of desperation- Rashweat Mukundu

A workmate came to my office this other day, to tell a ‘hilarious’ story about how his classmates in a part time Accounting class at the Polytechnic of Namibia are, all of sudden, getting high marks in assignments yet struggling in the final exams. Apparently the students’ contract/hire Zimbabweans who sell what Namibians call talk time in the streets, better known as air time in Zimbabwe, to write assignments for them.

“Those Zimbabweans are very good”, she explained laughing. The poor Zimbabweans, my fellow country people, charge 200 Namibian dollars per assignment. At the end of the month, many of them gather at Soweto bus terminus in Windhoek’s high density suburb of Katutura sending groceries and hard earned rands to families back home. Last week I was accompanying a relative who was travelling back home. The first language at Soweto market like in many places Zimbabweans now populate is shona.
“Tanzwa kuti zvinhu zvanaka kumusha, tava kudzokera” (we hear things are now ok, back home we are going back) was the talk at Soweto market, even before the MDC leaders had been sworn into office.

Such is the desperation and hope that many Zimbabweans have in the unity government. I share this hope. I have read many articles and comments about how this process is bound to fail. I agree that there are no guarantees and neither is this the best deal. For a desperate people as ourselves, a turn of some sorts is necessary and this unity government is just one such turn. A change of direction was necessary in Zimbabwe, I dare say in any direction. The steep slope that we have been descending was increasingly out of hand and a detour, of any kind was necessary. I remain hopeful like my fellow country people now scattered all over the word, driven by need that Zimbabwe can turn the corner and move their lives in a direction of hope.

The scale of the Zimbabwe’s crisis is easy to see in human form even in a small city as Windhoek with its 400 000 thousand or so locals. Its well known that Zimbabwean teachers, policeman and women, technicians, school leavers sell talk time, pirated DVDs and many young Zimbabwean girls engage in prostitution. Many more stay illegally, without proper documentation and worse off, Namibians are easing their unemployment rate by creating a whole industry fleecing Zimbabweans of the little hard earned cash promising permanent resident, work permits and anything that can make one stay a day longer. Other brothers have resorted to marrying locals, any women willing to be married. Stories are thus abound in Katutura of Zimbabwean men who are daily beaten by their Damara, Oshiwambo and VaHerero women, and made to surrender all their salary to their wives. More so Zimbabweans, by far qualified than their Namibian counterparts are among the cheapest labour in Namibia, paid pittance and worked like donkeys. The cheap labour of Zimbabweans is a past time even at my work place, anyone wanting cheap labour can look for a Zimbabwean, it sounds like slavery, and it is. My mother’s Doctor, I last saw in Harare in September 2008 is now working at surgery in Windhoek. My own brother, once Chief Architect in Zimbabwe’s Ministry of National Housing is now Chief Architect in the Ministry of Works in Namibia. Every day I meet many of his former colleagues, Architects, engineers and technicians now scattered all over this small city and country. The astounding numbers make me wonder whether Zimbabwe still has any professional capacity in any sector. One wonders how many more are in South Africa, Botswana, UK, USA, Australia etc. The Zimbabwe crisis has humbled a once proud people; from this I am sure we will emerge a stronger people. I have become more aware of the fallacy of globalisation. Daily we are bombarded with messages of how the world is one. Daily in a foreign country one is reminded that you are a foreigner. You clutch to your passport as if your life depends on it, and in a foreign country it really does. Having a place to call home is thus important. Forget about other places; place your hope in your homeland. Nationalism might have changed names and its spots, but it is very much alive all over the world.

This as the case maybe, Zimbabwe still has a chance to recover. Zimbabwe still has a chance to lure back its lost children, open schools; hospitals and kick start its industries. This hope might be exaggerated, but it also shows my desperation for things to get better, so that I can be home as well, one day, just once again. For this reason I remain hopeful that we can turn the corner. And may God have mercy on us in this regard. //End//