Dear Mr President, Greetings to you, your Excellency. It has been a rather long time since I last met you.
Guest Column by Vince Musewe
In January 1985, at the death of my late father, William Simpson Musewe, you came to visit us in Highfield, Harare, to pay your last respects to a man you called a friend.
You came with Nathan Shamuyarira and, if you remember well, your car broke down about 100 metres from our house and you had to walk there!
Yes, I vividly remember you, —impeccably dressed in your navy suit, red tie and black shoes, energetically walking past George Nyandoro’s house as you came to ours.
I was 22 years old then, studying economics at the University of Zimbabwe. I am almost 50 years old now and often stay with my mother at the same house you came to visit us 28 years ago. She is still going strong at 84.
I recently visited the Highfield Clinic where I and many others were born in 1963.
Those days, Mrs Dumbutshena (Enoch Dumbutshena’s wife) used to be the sister-in-charge. As I recently walked into the old building, a cold chill, like death itself, ran over my spine.
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It was dark because power was off and it was cold and dreary.
The maternity ward looked and felt like a place of death and not a fountain of new life. I noticed the old iron beds still standing strong from yesteryear, with ragtag linen on them that can hardly warm a mouse. It was quite spooky in there and looked as depressing as you can imagine.
I also went past the Zimbabwe grounds, after finding my way through the tall uncut grass and smelly rubbish dumps around the area. In it, were little children playing soccer in the dust.
Yes, Mr President, it is now dust because the grass there no longer grows. You do remember when you first came into the country in 1980 and you held a star rally there?
We were all there sitting on the lush green grass waiting just to take a glance at this famous man. Those were the best of times. When it was too hot, we even used to take a swim in the public swimming pool there that is now full of sand and rubbish.
I remember, we used to pay five cents to watch movies at CJ and we also had a library there, a soccer club, tennis table and a karate club. This kept us constructively occupied and out of trouble. Many colourful weddings were held there and I remember gate-crushing just to have a glance at the beautiful brides doing their wedding steps.
“Teen time” at CJ at night was a special event for the grownups and we heard many intriguing stories about that, because we were not allowed to go.
When I was at primary school in 1970, we had the excitement of seeing caterpillars coming to tar our roads. We would watch these prodigious machines and wonder how on earth, the proud driver could manipulate such an amazing animal.
Soon our roads were tarred which meant that we could no longer play with straw boats in the roads as we used to do after it had rained, or play dunhu and pada in the dusty roads.
My dear President, these memories are so precious to me and I am sure to you too, but it seems that all has been lost. I sometimes wonder what those little children that are now growing up in Highfield will have as their memories.
Smelly rubbish dumps, uncut grass, dusty playgrounds, no libraries, potholes everywhere, no swimming pools, no movies, dark streets at night so they can’t catch ishwa, no visits to colourful weddings at CJ or festivals at Gwanzura Stadium.
We had a flurry of commotion in Highfield some time last year, potholes were quickly fixed, promises made and CJ painted because of the launch of the so-called township tourism project. In my opinion, it was a waste of resources and for me, a working and fully equipped clinic is more important to Highfields right now.
It will save precious lives. I am devastated at the legacy we are likely to leave, unless we do something about this situation. Yes, we can rescue this situation now Mr President. The sooner the better because, as you know, the days are dangerous and we must take full advantage of every opportunity.
We must hasten to replace the years the locusts have eaten and place Highfield where it should belong in all our memories and in the history of Zimbabwe. It is the cradle of the revolution, the fountain of our first black professional doctors, nurses, teachers, politicians and academics. It is indeed a special place.
From there, Zimbabwe was truly born and, like the maternity ward in which I was born, Highfield Clinic in particular and Highfield suburb in general, remain unfit to be the birth place of our future leaders. I anxiously look forward to meeting you again soon to discuss this and other matters.
Yours sincerely, Vincent Musewe. [email protected]
