A heart of pure gold
June 16th, 2005
Gogo, our domestic worker, took today off work. Yesterday, her husband had come to visit us. In a quiet, sad voice he told us that his home in the high density suburb of Old Magwegwe of Bulawayo was soon to be visited by the “police”. As he had built an extension onto it to house a lodger, he was sure that it was going to be destroyed. He was making plans to have his more valuable belongings moved to a safer place, as he was sure that they would be looted by the “police”.
It hurt us to be able only to offer to help move his belongings – we are literally powerless to do anything more – no courts, no officers of the law are available to assist. Where they find more than one of anything, he said, they were “confiscating” it (rather stealing – with no court order, or receipt provided). If you have three blankets they ask where you got the “foreign currency” to buy them, then they steal two. If you have two 1kg bags of sugar, they take one, he recounted sadly.
But he had not come to tell his tale of woe! No, this humble man in his sixties had ridden his bicycle all the way from town – a trip of at least 15 km – to warn us! He had come to tell us that the “police” had said that once they had finished destroying the high density suburbs, they were coming to “deal with” the occupants of the low-density suburbs.
This man, who has so relatively little compared to us, was more concerned for our welfare than his own.
I personally think that he is actually richer than us – he has a heart of pure gold!
