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She has to do without her sense of sight which she was born with.
This is the story of 67-year-old Jamilla Bakare, a mother of five who became blind after being afflicted with eye cancer that saw her eyes being plucked out.
Mbuya Bakare cherishes the days she saw the sun rising and setting, seeing her loved ones and the beauty of her surroundings.
But fate struck when she went to the doctors complaining of eye problems, a situation that saw her being diagnosed with eye cancer and eventually having her left eye operated on and removed, in 1998.
Eight years later, the right eye also went under the scalpel, but unfortunately, it also suffered the same fate as the left one, leaving her totally blind.
“I used to work at a farm in Macheke but my employer said although he was trying to help, there was nothing he could do since the law didn’t permit that owing to labour practices so I was helped with inputs. This was a way of giving me somewhere to farm, but because of the high cost of living, I lost everything. I have to fork out school fees for my kids,” she said.
The only option left for her to earn a living was begging but not all is rosy on the streets of Harare. Only a few have alms to spare for her begging bowl. Some heartless ones even abuse her.
“I can only visualise them stealing from me, and this is reality and its happening to me. Sometimes they kick me, hurl abusive words at me. Two days ago they passed through here, and I heard them saying, ‘this lady looks like a monkey, imagine! It makes me cry but as you can see, no tears can come out of my eyes.
“Such is my life, because my tears can’t come out, and this means that no one can feel sorry for me, except myself. They think I am pretending to be blind, but the fact is that I am really blind. I used to wear dark glasses but I had to leave them owing to such circumstances,” she said mournfully.
And true to her words, the vultures, who are street kids, fellow beggars and thieves, swoop on her, to feed on the alms she would have made.
“A few minutes before your arrival, some of them dropped something into my plate and I tried to feel out what it could have been, but I couldn’t figure out what this could have been, because I can feel the texture of money on my fingers,” she says as she produces a wad of scratched lotto cards from a hidden place under her mat.
“What are these? Are they worth anything. Tell me son, is this good?”
I tell her that the lotto cards are valueless.
Her son, Edward, is in Grade 5 while her daughter is in Grade 1.
The kids are forced to beg alongside their mother in a bid to complement her earnings – a development that exposes them to the travails of street life.
“My first born was forced into her situation because of my blindness. She was too young but wanted to help me to feed the family but her marriage to a certain man did not last long.
“Those are some of the circumstances that we meet on the way. I even advised her to relocate to the rural areas so that she can fend for her kids because life there seems to be quite affordable to those who are able bodied,” she said.
Mbuya Bakare says her wish is to own a plot where she can venture into farming.
“Given the chance I need a plot, so that I can farm. I can do anything, even weeding,” she said.
Online Reporter