MASVINGO — Sitting next to each other, mumbling during lunch at Mucheke old people’s home, Martin Banda (72) and Gogo Elizabeth MaNdlovu, who hardly remembers her age — are not related, but their tragic history is tied to their age and nationalities.
Banda is originally from Zambia, while MaNdlovu, who is blind, came from South Africa.
Abandoned by their families due to old age and dumped at the poor old people’s home in the populous Mucheke high-density suburb, they find comfort in each other.
“I came to Zimbabwe with a few relatives in the then Rhodesia where we worked for some white farmers. But when the white farmer lost his plot, we regrouped with my few relatives and became squatters.
“But as the going got tough, with the prospect of getting back home in South Africa becoming slimmer, my few relatives dumped me here. As I am speaking, I have no relative in Zimbabwe, and no-one has visited and I do not know where they went to,” she said.
The same applies to Banda, who said he yearned to get back to his home country.
“I was working for a mine in Chegutu, but we were retrenched. I had a family like you, my son. But they have totally forgotten about me.
“I had a wife, but we divorced after the retrenchment. I have a son who is working in South Africa. He left me here and he made a follow-up visit only once in all the ten years that I have been here. He never came back thereafter, never communicates with the authorities here, nor sends any money.”
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“I wish to get back to my native Ndola province in Zambia, but I do not have any money, and neither do I still have a home there, as I was told my relatives had left our original area,” he said.
And Banda’s desire to get back to his home country was not only driven by nostalgic memories or home sickness, but also the pathetic conditions during which he and 45 other inmates, some from Zimbabwe — found themselves in at the home.
Mucheke Old People’s Home administrator Louis Phiri, said the institution was living from hand to mouth due to a shoe-string budget resulting from donor fatigue.
“We are really constrained here as we have got a lot of problems.
“To start with, the Zimbabwean inmates have not yet got their grants for the past two years and we are struggling to make ends meet. Apart from the grants, the local relatives have shunned them — they rarely visit,” he said.
Elderly citizens are entitled to a $15 government grant per month, but the money has not been disbursed for the past two years.
Phiri said the institution risked its water supplies being cut off as they owed the Masvingo City Council a bill running into several thousands of dollars.
“Our bill runs well over a thousand dollars. We petitioned the council, but all they could do was to spare us from disconnecting water supplies. The monthly bills are still coming, which means the municipality wants its money,” he said.
Asked if the local authority was not mandated, on moral grounds, to exempt such institutions, Masvingo mayor Alderman Femius Chakabuda said he no longer took questions from Newsday.
Apart from water bills, the institution also owes power utility Zesa close to a thousand dollars.
To make matters worse, the donor community had folded its arms and placed their hands too far from their purses.
“Few people are donating in kind. The donor graph had drastically fallen downwards because of the cash crunch. We have been affected seriously.
“Apart from the Christmas Cheer fund which comes once a year, and has to be shared among all old people’s homes and orphanages in the city, we hardly get any donations.
“The last time, we got some blankets from the Prime Minister (Morgan Tsvangirai) and this really saved our inmates from freezing,” he said.
However, all hope, according to Phiri, is not lost as Mucheke Old People’s Home is involved in an income generating project following last year’s $14 000 donation from the lotteries, dubbed the “President’s Fund”.
“We got a major boost last year when we were given $14 000 from the President’s Fund through the national lotteries and it indeed eased some of our problems.
“Apart from paying some of our debts, we started a chicken breeding project where we sell the birds while some also feed our inmates,” he said.
