Fly high Shingi

Walter Muchinguri
On Friday a large number of people from all walks of life converged at the Nyaradzo funeral parlour along Willowvale to bid farewell to Air Zimbabwe public relations manager Shingai Dhliwayo (nee Taruvinga) who died tragically in Botswana.

The diversity of the people who came to pay their last respects was testimony of the kind of person that Shingi was.

She was a professional who discharged her duties diligently as a Public Relations person and more importantly she was a humble and cheerful person who always smiled even when the chips were down. These are traits that served her well in her work at Air Zimbabwe and endeared her to many including the media fraternity.

That is the Shingi I knew. When I received news of her death on Sunday I was initially shocked at her passing on and then deeply pained after learning of the details of her death. I am still wondering why someone had to harm such a good nurtured professional like her.

My mind switched to the last time we had talked on Friday April 29 when she called me late at night after the Trade Fair.

“Bhudhi tapedza nezveTrade Fair saka taakugadzirira kuenda kuDar-es-Salaam saka ndati muzive because ndatomwaya maadverts (My brother we are done with the Trade Fair we are now preparing for Dar-es-Salaam flights so I thought I would let you know beforehand because I have already booked the adverts) she said before giving me the details and a comment after which she promised to get in touch with me the following week to give me more details.

That was the last I heard from her until I learnt of her death last Sunday. I first met Shingai three years ago as Air Zimbabwe was preparing to relaunch its Harare-Johannesburg route and we subsequently travelled to Johannesburg together with other journalists on the very first flight after the relaunch.

After we landed in Johannesburg she spoke passionately about Air Zimbabwe’s revival even though there was a lot of skepticism about the national airline’s ability to rebound after its planes had been grounded for a few years.

I appreciated her passion and optimism and zeal to do her work. Being a PR person I half expected her to dictate or at lest coax us to write a good peace for the airline but she didn’t do that because after giving us the details she left us to do our work.

She acted like a true professional though she knew that the airline badly needed positive publicity she never tried to influence what we wrote like what others would have done and I respected her for it.

Over the years we flew together on different assignments and also met during interviews and press conferences and every time she would address journalists as “my brother or sister”.

But even then she still understood the fickle relationship that existed between journalists and public relations practitioners.

She embraced both good and bad publicity and never complained when a bad story about Air Zimbabwe was published.

Instead of complaining, she always tried her best to address whatever issues had been brought up.

She was quick to organise interviews and supply information or respond to questions when approached, a thing that most PR practitioners fail to do.

She also admitted where she or the airline had failed. That was how open minded and humble she was. She was a very sociable person, which worked well for her especially in sticky situations.

I still remember a press conference at Rainbow Towers early this year where the dignitaries were running late and the journalists that were there were getting a bit agitated after waiting for long, she managed to calm everyone down by constantly engaging in small talk and assuring everyone that the event will start soon even though I could tell she was also becoming increasingly anxious by the way she was constantly looking at her watch and making calls.

She made a difference at Air Zimbabwe because she did her job diligently, like a true professional that she was.

It was therefore saddening to attend the service at Nyaradzo and seeing her body being taken to Norton where it was interred.

I know I speak for a lot of people, especially my colleagues in the media who had the opportunity to work or interact with her, when I say Shingai you were a good friend, colleague who ran a good race. You did your duty well farewell. My heartfelt condolences to the Taruvinga, Dhliwayo family and all at Air Zimbabwe especially the PR department.