After convincing him that she would be good for her monthly rentals in full from her outside catering business, he agreed to have her as a tenant in one of his houses.
Even though Johane, Thomas and I were still in the care of our step-mother, Bertha, our mother had already started planning for our homecoming.Īs she was going about her hustle, she would be referred to a Mr Chipun- za who owned several properties in Chitungwiza. She would eventual- ly share with me that after moving from Mufakose, number 15 Nhuta Close, where she had been staying courtesy of her sister, Cinderella and her hus- band, Ernest Nyamayedenga Kamwara, she had worked like a horse in order to be able to afford to rent a full house, so us her children could enjoy the life they were used to before the collapse of her marriage. The change in my mother’s fortunes was quite telling. All that mattered to us at the time, was the fact we had a roof over our heads and that we were under the loving care of our mother. As children, it had not crossed our minds to ask her about the ownership of the house, as we did not think it was actually possible to lease a whole house, since the common practice was for tenants to occupy a single room or two, at most. In all the time we had been living in Chitungwiza, my mother had presumed that we knew she was renting the house. On enquiring what had caused my mother to relocate from Chitungwiza, where she had a whole house to herself, I would get to know for the first time that the property which I had always thought to belong to her, house num- ber 1693, Unit A, Seke, had in fact been a rented property from a Mr Chipunza who worked for John Sisk and Son, a company which had secured lucrative contracts to build houses in Chitungwiza. Apart from the bright lights and access to running tap water, something we didn’t have back in the village, I couldn’t see anything else that could make my new environ- ment comparable to the privacy we had enjoyed in our little granary-cum bedroom in Chifuri. I quickly realised, however, that this place was very different from the one we were living in when I left Chitungwiza for Chiduku. It all happened so fast that I initially did not comprehend what was going on and before I could put the pieces together, I was welcomed into a block of flats at Matererini hostels, where as I would soon find out, we were sharing space with the family of Abigail Murota. Upon our arrival, we headed straight to Matererini Hostels in Mbare, which was to be our final destination. However, to my complete surprise, our trip terminated at Mbare Musika, which was ordinarily our stopover on our way from the village as it was the rank for most rural buses in Harare. I was excited to be returning to our home in Chitungwiza, where I looked for- ward to reconnecting with my old friends. Nevertheless, there was no going back for me as I had reached a point of no return. I must admit though that leaving Johane and Thomas behind, was like losing a part of me, even though they had gained acceptance in their new setting and were comfortable in their surroundings. My injury would be a blessing in disguise, as it paved the way for my return to Salisbury. Our previous time living in the city had come to an abrupt end in 1977 when Father took us back into his custody, following our poor showing in the grade seven exams, in our final year of primary education at Farai Primary School, thus condemning Johane, Thomas and I to life in the village in Chifuri where he had moved in with his new wife, Victoria Mutizamhepo. When my mother Mabel came to fetch me from Rusape, after my discharge from the District Hospital, where I had spent almost a month recovering from the life changing injury to my left leg in August 1979, the Salisbury (now Harare) that I came back to, had completely changed from the one I had left almost two years back.