Online Reporter
Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday Life Reporter
GIFT Phiri knows West Park Cemetery like the back of his hand.
While others might stumble about, desperately searching for loved ones in a cemetery that has been decommissioned more than once by the City of Bulawayo due to a shortage of burial space, Phiri never struggles to locate a grave.
Over two decades after he first set foot in West Park, his mind now holds an infallible map of what he calls his second home.
When people come to the cemetery, they are usually overwhelmed by grief, either to bury the dead or to search for long-departed loved ones.
All they see before them are endless mounds, beneath which rest thousands of people buried over the years. Phiri, however, sees sections.
For him, West Park is divided into 2D, 3D, 10D and other sections that stretch to the horizon. He is both a caretaker and a guide, maintaining the graves of the deceased while giving directions to the living.
He has been at West Park so long, tending to old graves and guiding those who have lost their way and forgotten where their loved ones are buried, that he does not even remember the year he started working there.
“I do not even remember the year I came here. The first time I started I was in Form Two, doing my Zimbabwe Junior Certificate (ZJC). I would come here just to help out my uncle after school and in the end I also started working here,” he told Sunday Life.
Phiri does not believe there is a single word for the service he and others provide. He does not call himself a caretaker, even though he spends most of his days sprucing up graves or giving directions to lost people.
According to him, he is simply a citizen helping others in their hour of need. At 40, Phiri still respects his uncle, the man who first brought him to West Park and taught him the ways of the caretakers.
“I owe what I am to my uncle because he used to work for a big construction company and from him I learnt how to do the same job. Instead of constructing houses, I found myself tending to graves and I think this is something that I was meant to do,” he said.
When Sunday Life visited West Park on a recent late afternoon, Phiri was one of a few men hard at work, tending to graves or giving directions to those searching for long-deceased loved ones.
While some might be reluctant to spend their day among the dead, Phiri said he had long shed any fears about being in a cemetery.
“It is all quiet in the afternoon and I guess that could be disturbing for some people who are not used to the place. In the afternoon that is when we get a lot of people because at that time most of them would have left their workplaces and they take that opportunity to come here.
“Some of them just have the grave number but they do not quite remember where they buried their loved ones. We use that to help them. There is some basic information that the public seems unaware of. For example, most do not know that an original burial order has a grave number at the back. It also gives you the section where your loved one is buried,” he said.
While there might be a stigma attached to working at a cemetery, Phiri said his life outside his workplace was ordinary.
“There are quite a lot of us that are working here but even if that was not the case, we ceased to have fear of anything that might happen to us long back. Perhaps this is because we work mostly during the day.
“I do not know what the guards at night might come across, something different, but for us, working around the dead, tending to their graves and other such tasks has become a part of everyday life. We have no fear. At around 5pm I go home like most men, bathe and just relax with my family. Nothing bothers me,” he said.
While the work in the afternoon is more tranquil, mornings are the busiest, as Phiri and his colleagues come face to face with people whose grief is still fresh.
“In the morning, you will not get a lot of people looking for graves because that is the time when most will be burying their loved ones.
“We use that time mostly to help those who want to build around graves and make them nicer to look at.
“Some of us repaint the lettering on the banners which shows the deceased’s names or when they died because with time some of them get scratched out,” he said.
According to Phiri, those living in the diaspora are usually the most eager to maintain the appearance of graves. The evolution of technology has made it easier for Phiri and others to keep in constant touch with those keen to ensure their loved ones rest in dignity.
“We get a lot of work from people who are in the diaspora. They come home, maybe during the holidays and they ask us to maintain the graves of their loved ones. So, most of the well-kept graves are those that belong to people with family in the diaspora.
“They ask for pictures to show that the graves are well taken care of and we oblige. We send those over WhatsApp.
They then send whatever they can whenever they can. It is an arrangement that works for everyone,” he said.
Phiri has come a long way from the young boy who used to frequent West Park when he was in Form Two. Over two decades later, he is now a father of four and proud of the work he has done over the years to put food on the table.
“My children were raised off my work here. I have four children, one of whom has finished Advanced Level and is now learning in Harare.
“My children understand that this is my work. Whatever I get, they are the ultimate beneficiaries. Sometimes they even come to see me work.”
Bongani Ndlovu