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Rumbidzai Ngwenya Features Writer
When Grace Muchenje’s husband died in 2002, she was only 35-years-old. She was left with four children to look after.
Since her husband’s death, Muchenje resorted to vending at Glen View 3 Shopping Centre in Harare to make ends meet.
This enabled her to feed the family and pay bills for a while.
She was determined to continue vending, but the burden of paying fees for the children, rent and buying food started weighing heavily on her.
Remaining in the city was no longer an option, she had to relocate to their rural home in Chivhu.
Her husband had left her nothing.
Her husband was a policeman and she was entitled to a pension.
In the village, farming was the only thing Muchenje could do. But without oxen to cultivate the land and other farm inputs, she could only yield enough to feed the family and nothing more to sell.
Getting pension from the police force and NSSA has been a nightmare for her. She only received pension from NSSA for a few months before it was stopped. She could not afford to go and collect the pension in Harare because of cumbersome paperwork requirements.
The only way of earning money was doing all sorts of odd jobs for privileged families and brewing traditional beer for village men.
Life was tough for her.
Putting food on the table and clothing her children became difficult.
They went to school not properly dressed and fed. In most cases they would be chased for not paying fees.
Although there were programmes like BEAM that assisted underprivileged children, hers could not qualify, there were other orphans who did not have even a single parent.
She worked hard determined to provide for her children, especially basic education.
During weekends she would take her children to help her out in the fields.
She was eager to send her children to school. Muchenje knew the value of education in the fight against poverty.
She was determined to make a difference in her children’s lives.
As young as she was, she could have remarried but she did not do so.
She could not take away the only thing her children were left with, a mother.
“Because I was an orphan, I was raised by well-wishers who abused me,” said Muchenje.
“I went to school only up to Grade Seven until they said they could no longer afford to. During that time, I went to school on an empty stomach with no shoes or jersey even in winter. Most of the times I was chased school for failing to pay fees.”
She had no one to look up to.
“I had no one to turn to,” she said. “That is not the life I wanted my children to live if I had chosen to remarry. Besides my husband was a good man and I wanted to honour him for the rest of my life.”
After her first two children passed their O-Levels with seven subjects each, she could not afford to take them to A-level.
Like many of their age the time, moving to South Africa was their only option.
Without any qualifications they could not secure well paying jobs nor afford to take care of the remaining family back home.
Muchenje continued her fight.
Sadly, in 2005 she lost her third child. It was a devastating setback.
Today, 16 years after Muchenje became a widow, her older son now works in the Government, her daughter is in college and her last born son finished his A-Level recently.
Her last born got nine points at A-Level.
As hard as the situation was, she managed to educate her children.
She still does odd domestic jobs in the village to help out her son who is the only bread winner.
Everybody in the village calls her for odd jobs and she doesn’t discriminate, she is a hard worker.
Through hard work, she now has three cows.
The work she has done over the past years had caused health complications such as back and chest pains. But to her it is all worth it.
“If I die today I know my children will never live in the streets or suffer, I am a proud mother.
“Even if I did not have an office job, I did what some men are not able to do — educate my children,” said Muchenje.
She knows one day when all her children are working, she will reap what she had been sowing. She just has to live a little longer.
Muchenje is not alone.
There are thousands of widows in Zimbabwe who are striving to raise the children alone.
They face numerous challenges and life for them is an uphill battle.
As the international community celebrates mother’s day, it is women like Muchenje that we should also celebrate.
Women who have battled for most of their lives to ensure their children have a future.
They have suffered rejection and abuse and still they stand.
The women often lack support.
With the prevailing economic situation in the country, many families are failing to provide basic education for their children. The situation is even worse for rural widows.
Many people who have been raised by widows can relate to these struggles. We need to celebrate these heroines.
Women are tough, resilient, emotional, fragile, and vulnerable, but still they remain strong through the different stages and phases of motherhood.
They deserve a hearty “Happy Mother’s Day.”
Online Reporter