Chronicle Editor
Angela Sibanda, Chronicle Reporter
AFTER eight years living between the streets and charity homes, a young man from Bulawayo is still hopeful that one day he will get his life together and achieve his dreams of becoming a commercial farmer or an electrician.
At the moment, Tafadzwa Moyo (22) is homeless and lives on the city’s streets.
After everything that he has seen on the streets, he says he is better off the street and one day he wishes to stand on his own.
With the help from charity organisations and well-wishers, he has managed to attend school up to Form Three and he considers this as a foundation that he will build his future on.
Tafadzwa said he joined the streets at the age of 14 in 2013 after he had been stopped from going to school due to financial challenges in the family.
“My parents separated when I was still young and towards the end of the second term of my Form One, I was made to stop going to school because my family was going through financial issues and by then, I was staying with my father and stepmother because my mother had remarried,” said Tafadzwa.
He said after dropping out of school he got frustrated just doing house chores and nothing else productive so he went to Plumtree where he stayed with his uncle for three months before deciding to return to Bulawayo.
“I used to spend more time herding cattle and it killed me to see my friends and peers going to school. The whole thing looked hopeless for me so I left Plumtree and came back to Bulawayo,” he said.
On his return, he stayed on the streets for a while before trying to go back to his father’s home in Nkulumane suburb.
He said his family did not welcome him back and told him to go back and live on the streets.
“Honestly, up to now I don’t know why they did it but my father and stepmom told me to go back on the streets and promised to come and see me the next day. They told me to wait for them near Bulawayo Centre but they didn’t show up. I was disappointed but I had to make peace with it,” he said.
Through interactions with other people on the streets, Tafadzwa made friends and he said he started to do “drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and blue pills at the age of 15.”
At one time, he made friends with two other young men from the streets who sold him a stolen cell phone and one day the friends came with a lot of money amounting to about US$ 800 which they spent with him on beer, new clothes and food.
Little did the then 15-year-old Tafadzwa know that his life was about to hit a U-turn as the money was stolen after his friends had robbed and beaten up someone.
“I only discovered it when the police came after my friends and chased them along 13th Avenue. I didn’t run away because I didn’t know anything but the police learnt that the two buys were my friends so they arrested me.
“I lied about my age and said I was 17 when I was just 15, so I was taken to Khami prison for two weeks but after my age was proven, I was taken to Percy Ibbotson where I stayed until 2017,” said Tafadzwa.
He said when he was discharged, his mother came to took him to stay with her in Famona suburb, but says he left as his mother always accused him of being a murderer.
“So, I went back to Percy Ibbotson and approached one of the staff members who helped me find shelter at Bulawayo Shelter for the destitute. I stayed there and in 2019 I started attending church services from a certain church that used to come and preach to us,” he said.
Tafadzwa said that he has also worked as a gardener in Waterford suburb but it didn’t turn out to be his best job, he said.
“I then approached a pastor from church and asked for help and that’s when I met a lady who has been good to me and has given me a chance to go and stay in the low-density suburbs and took me back to school until the lockdown happened and I was in Form Three at one of the private colleges here in Bulawayo,” he said.
However, as someone who had done drugs before and with the quietness in the suburbs, Tafadzwa went back to doing drugs such as mbanje, cocaine and blue pills again.
“That’s where I really messed up because I even sold my bicycle that one of the pastors had given me. I did it all to get money for drugs,” said Tafadzwa.
The drug influence led him to lie to his guardians and went to Harare where he went back to staying on the streets.
“I then sat myself down and decided I can’t continue doing this, so I came back in Bulawayo and told the lady who is helping me everything and how much sorry I was. I made I vow to myself and God that I am not going back to that life again and every time when I feel lonely, I go to the church there is always something to keep my mind busy,” he said.
Even if he is still on the streets, Tafadzwa is working with charity organizations for counseling and rehabilitation and has been described by those assisting him as one of the dedicated and prayerful young people on the street.
“It’s painful that some of these things we come to understand them when we have stayed too long in them, but street life is not easy as it may appear to a lot of kids who misbehave home and run away. This is not something to get used to, and as for me, I am a living testimony that drugs can ruin your life for the worst and I have witnessed a lot of things through other street people,” said Tafadzwa.
“I lost a future through drugs and the people who were trying to help me lost faith in me and when I think of this, I hate myself. But all that opened my eyes and I am willing to do whatever it takes to find my way out of these streets.”
Tafadzwa has dreams of becoming an electrician or a commercial farmer one day and he is considering going to college to do a course.
He claims he gets job opportunities but when people get to know that he stays on the streets they dismiss him.
A representative of the organization helping Tafadzwa to get his life back on track, said he was prayerful now.
“ From all the kids that I have interacted with here on the street, I can tell you that Tafadzwa is very different and you can tell from his behaviour that now he has learnt life lessons and is no longer seeing any comfort on the streets,” said the representative.
“ He is a very prayerful someone even during our worship services, he is very devoted.”
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