I am sitting in my car going through all sorts of emotions. I have just had a very sobering experience. Sometimes you think you are going through the most and then you encounter people who are going through something even more difficult.
I was driving along Borrowdale Road and our car packed up. Parked on the side of the road waiting for help, I decided to get something to eat as I was feeling hungry. As I was crossing from one end to the other, I saw 5 gentlemen lying faces down on the grass. Some with heads on their bags as pillows. I wasn’t about to disturb them. However I became so unsettled by what I saw. I decided to ask the young men by the traffic lights who these gentlemen were and why they were lying there.
I was told that they are security officers who guard premises in nearby areas but do not have money to go back and forth to their homes everyday and so they come together after their evening shift and rest. Before they go to the next shift depending on who has what, they will cook sadza and vegetables. However most times they spend the day without eating. They go back to their homes on their day off.
My heart broke, for them. I felt their struggles in the pit of my stomach. I have my struggles too, so does everyone else but to see what I saw today made me realise the depth of how people are suffering.
People are depressed and going through a very tough season. There are days when I get a call from someone for assistance when I barely have anything too. If people had the courage to share we would be amazed at the load they are carrying.
I may not be able to solve the world’s problems, especially that of the 5 men I encountered today. The least that I could do for them was to give them some money for some mealie meal and relish for a couple of days. I had woken one person up to give him with the hope that I would walk away quietly without disturbing the others but he woke all of them up in disbelief. As he told the others what I had done, they all showed gratitude, the kind that I do not like, the sort that comes from munhu apererwa, ashaya zano, sincere yes but very sorrowful. Nobody deserves to experience what I saw today and yet this is a sad reality for many.
May God help us in our various journeys to remain steadfast. May He meet us at the deepest point of our need. May we be kind to each other, we may not know what the next person is going through. Today, I pray for my country, I pray for us as a people. We are not okay……….nhai Mwari we, tiitirei nyasha.
Sylvia Mushonga Samanyanga, Facebook
