Brotherhood on the streets

about, but a shared experience; a shared fate?
Or, a shared street for that matter?
The story of three Harare street kids might veritably demonstrate that the common bond of suffering and want, might as well provide the ultimate bond.
Meet young John Macheso, who is crippled, sitting in a ramshackle wheelchair, biting his bare, cracking lips. He is being pushed around in his ramshackle by his two friends Flavien Senga (13) and Tatenda Pesai (14) who are taking good care of him in the streets where survival is for the fittest.
And what would have pushed this man to take to the streets where he has to contend not only with the harsh elements but hard hearts?
John says he has found more love in the streets than he got from his family.
“Flavian and Tatenda are my family here. . . they have shown me more care than my stepmother would have done,” he said tearfully.
“My father owns a house in Overspill Epworth and he runs a college in Ruwa but here I am under the good care of these young friends.
“I ran away from home last month after I got fed up with my step mother’s ill-treatment.
“All the way to the city centre I have met different people who have helped me in different ways but Flavian and Tatenda are just above everyone,” he narrated.
John said his young friends always go out and bring food for him in a fashion that demonstrates brotherhood than mere street interaction.
“I don’t know why these young boys are kept around me, it appears to me like they are angels from God. To tell the truth my daily meals come from these two guys, they think like grown up men to say the least,” he says.
Flavian also spoke about how they met John and also detailed their daily interaction with him.
“We make sure that if we go out to beg we return with something for him”, said the young boy.
“We have chosen him as a friend because we noticed that nobody here wanted to associate with him.
“The idea of him always sitting in his wheelchair makes him a burden than a natural friend who can provide mutual benefit that’s why most people do not want to be associated with him.
“I personally made a decision to befriend him after I sympathised with his situation. Now as I plan my day I know I have someone I have to look after,” he added.
All young Tatenda could justify why he chose the older guy for a friend, was: “Because he is disabled.”
He explained of the daily struggles of life:
“We make sure that we don’t eat whatever we get for the day while John is not with us.
“We push him in his wheelchair to Streets Ahead everyday for a bathing session.,” said Tatenda.
If John had a diary he would put memoirs of how friends would bring food to his bosom after a long day of burning hunger. One day he would get down and reminisce how true friendship rescued his day when Flavian and Tatenda, like trusted lieutenants, have always reported and remained true to him.
And, he would equally be read in the memoirs of Flavian as a trusted friend and not as a burden in the fight for survival of street life.
Theirs is a story of how all weather friends scratch each other’s backs in turns and how love can turn hell into heaven. Although John now enjoys his companionship with his two friends in the streets than he said he got at home since his father married a second wife after a dramatic separation with his mother in 2007, he longs for a better life.
He remembers, when all was well between his parents, being sent to King George Primary School in Bulawayo where he completed his Grade Seven in 1997 to be told by his father that he could not continue with school because the family coffers had dried out.
Now, living in the streets, he seems to have his future shrouded in a haze of uncertainty and the only thing that consoles him is love from fellow street brothers.