BY Onie Ndoro It was a bad day for me. The work was never easy. It was even worse for me working for Amandwandwe Security Company. They demanded an arm and a limb from each of their employees. This on its own was not a problem  The dilemma was that the work rate did not correspond with the pay sheet at the end of the month.

There was no need for second guessing as each one of us was left with egg on the face come payday.

I knew that my colleagues were as miserable as me.  The money was never enough, for some like me, I never looked forward to the day.  It was doomsday. At the Amandwandwe gates, on payday there would be hordes of vendors collecting  their debts as most of us lived on the  twin evils of chikwereti and chimbadzo! Only last month, John a colleague  saddled with numerous debts had donned  on a  Jim Hendricks  wig. The surgical mask did the rest as he bacame unrecognisable.

By the time his creditors realised that he had walked nonchalantly past them  in disguise, it was  already water under the bridge. Of course, next time when he met them he would have a good excuse. He was a sweet talker that one as he had an oily tongue. It was surprising as he would end up borrowing more. Anyone who came selling anything, he would buy, be it madora, clothes, shoes, blankets  you name it, he would get. Such  was his gift of the tongue.

For most of us, this was our story.  This life, there was no balance. I am not sure whether this is the reason they called us mahobho. The word was  despicable enough and it was just as good as calling us “useless beings.” In years gone by, there was even a song about the security guards.

Our pay was generally low, never mind you were a senior mahobho (supervisor)  or a small mahobho, the pay was just not good enough. Little kids in the ghetto ridiculed us never mind their parents and that look- alike knobkerrie made it worse.

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As I have said at the beginning, it was a bad day for me. Having  paid one debtor after another, I was left with hardly anything. The EcoCash balance was frightening enough after the last creditor. Any Finance minister would envy me for it was quite a mean task to have a budget that would see me through the month. What remained could hardly sustain my basics like  rent, transport and food provisions.  Never mind about school fees. Besides my children, I was still taking care of my parents and  expected to pay fees for my two young siblings  in the countryside.

Mai Maidei and the children were home and obviously there were great expectations of goodies. No wonder I was a regular for my friend Baba VaTata, the Borehole Baron or the big ghetto chimbadzoist!

Even as I boarded the sluggish Zupco bus, my mind kept thinking of ways I could break out of this poverty. At the back of the bus there was some continuous commotion that kept interrupting the good run of my thoughts. A guy, whom I knew only by sight was demanding his change. I heard the conductor say: “How  can I give you change when you haven’t paid anything?”

“I paid, you are a thief, that’s what you are,” he shouted.

By now everyone in the bus was silent and trying to make head or tail of this drama.

“Mabatanidza  mari  nani  mudhara?”  Asked the conductor.

The guy then pointed with confidence at a lady just sitting in the front seat.  That’s when all hell broke loose.

“Munopenga baba imi! When did you give me your money?”

There was now commotion in the bus.  “Dhiraivha, stop the bus!”  The conductor shouted. Things were  now getting out of hand. As usual.  They wanted to chuck the guy out of the bus and from the look of things, this was not going to be a walk in the park.

It was at this point that a good Samaritan paid the fare for the wayward passenger. That was a great relief for  everyone otherwise our journey was going to be delayed and would have taken  long to reach our destination.

The effront of it, the guy was not even grateful. He even kept saying: “I paid, you are all thieves here.”

After a few moments, someone started talking about Bright Shantali who had murdered  twenty three  people in cold blood.

“I  hear there are more victims, as many as 30 victims,” someone joined in.

“He is the son of Lucifer that one. How can a normal human being commit such atrocities?” This time, it was Mabhatiri. We lived on the same street. His business was buying old car batteries. He specialised in giving the batteries a new lease of life.  His batteries were always overpriced and did not have a long lifespan.  Some of his customers would come back for refunds which on its own was a futile effort. He had once worked for Exide Batteries and had learned a trick or two. I was not sure if the name Mabhatiri was a nickname or not.  Most likely it was a trade name.

For all his efforts,  lifting batteries daily had given him large biceps which made him look like an Olympic body builder. His physique discouraged some of his customers from coming back when they did not get value for money.

By now, there was a heated argument as to who was the worser evil between Bright Shantali, Chidhumo and Masendeke, the axe killer of the 1980s. Most seemed to agree that Bright Shantali was in a league of his own, the devil incarnate. The country was not at war and so how could someone kill twenty three people across the country’s provinces?

After an interminable silence, Mabhatiri said: “Come to think of it, Putin may be worse, look at the massacres in Mariupol and Bucha in Ukraine.”

I was impressed. It seemed many people were watching the war in Ukraine following the Russian invasion. It was quite a big change from the usual discussion of football, particularly the English Premier League. On most days, traveling by public transport, there would be heated debate when the big clubs like Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea or Manchester City lost or won their games.

I avoided disembarking the bus at the shops, my usual bus stop. Instead I opted  to do this ceremony at the last bus stop and quickly lost myself in the melee of other pedestrians and vendors crying out their voices hoarse as a couple of them tried to outdo each other to attract customers. Why was I playing this hide and seek? In the ghetto, there are no secrets. My pay day was known to many people. How? I don’t know.

This is quite frightening if you don’t dwell in the ghetto. The walls have ears and eyes, need I  say more. Of course, paydays of teachers,uniformed forces and civil servants were an open book so to speak. For this group of government workers  even their salaries were a well kept open secret. Mahwindis  touts or rank marshalls at the many bus termini around the country’s towns and cities boasted that they earned more money per day than  a teacher’s salary at the end of the month.

This was crazy! “Tibvirei apo maticha, hamuna chibhanzi, ndinokutambirisai muri 10!” It was common to hear a dirty, sweaty smelling tout insulting teachers. This was before the kombis were banned and some of these touts had become a law unto themselves. It was common to hear them throw obscenities at people much older than their parents, many times without provocation. For sometime, it was not too hard not to believe that they earned more than some civil servants. Maybe this contributed to their downfall as they had become a nuisance.

Let me not digress much. On this day, I did my best to avoid Rasta and the usual crowd of hangers-on. They knew who got paid and kept their eyes open. The moment they saw you they would pounce. In fact they would descend on you so that you buy them one or two beers and some cigarettes. That’s life in the ghetto.

  • Onie Ndoro is a writer, educationist and IELTS teacher. For feedback email oniendoroh@gmail.com
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