The man on Harare street corner

Background: This is a more recent piece, written in early November 2010 after a trip to Harare. It is centred around a street vendor who sells mobile telephone top-up cards in the Avenues area of Harare. It chronicles the challenges, fears and opportunities of the era in which Zimbabwe is governed under a government of national unity.

The man on Harare street corner

Alex T. Magaisa

THE big bird landed at Harare arriving to a hot reception courtesy of the brilliant October sun shortly after noon on the 20th day of the month.

The hotness of the October sun is tradition in these parts of Southern Africa but even folks of advanced age could barely remember the last time temperatures had been so highly elevated as they were at this time.

The sun rises early. It hits you hard at about 8 in the morning – by then folks here would have long risen, getting busy with their daily chores and other adventures, all designed with one goal in mind: to survive. Things have not been easy in recent years but folks have learnt to survive.

By the time the clock reaches 10am, the sun seems to have been drawn even closer to the land. Yes, it is hot. Escaping the receding temperatures in the British Isles, I had been looking forward to the sun – to its warm embrace – but my body had already begun to rebel.

But even then, the Zimbabwean gentleman doesn’t shed his tie and jacket. The suit, it seems to be a necessary accessory. I do not know why but it probably announces one’s station in life; it probably says, ‘I am somebody’, maybe it demands and gets serious attention – it probably says, “Take me seriously!” So when you walk into the bank, maybe the bank teller looks at you differently. Perhaps when you arrive at the Passport Office with its perennially long queues and large crowds, the suit is a feature of distinction. Or when you walk into the supermarket, the security guard doesn’t follow you around. Because you have a suit.

So as I watch fellow men clad in shiny suits that often look bigger than the wearer, under the punishing glare of the October sun, I am reminded of the tug-of-war in a society still struggling to define its way; a society that is at once trying to chart a new path but cannot exactly discard its past; a society that has an ambivalent attitude towards its past; a society that at once hates some its past but still cannot let go elements of that hated past; a past in which a ‘gentleman’ wore a suit and tie, the weather conditions notwithstanding. A man can sweat buckets, but he still wears his suit … and the tie.

A ‘nervous condition’, perhaps – I am reminded of Tsitsi Dangarembga’s classic, Nervous Conditions. A heavy suit under the red hot October sun, I notice a violent battle of the mind and of the mind and the body; a struggle between a Westernised past and an aspiring indigeneity. A country that is at once fighting to indigenise but whose judges still wear, under the October sun, horse hair that make up the wigs and huge black gowns. They sweat, both the lawyers and judges in packed courtrooms – because the gowns and the wigs are ‘tradition’. Even the President arrives for Parliament’s opening on horse-drawn carriage, much like the Queen of England does when she makes the trip from Buckingham Palace to Westminster. Yes, trying to indigenise but still clinging to the old tradition.

I know a man at the corner of Josiah Chinamano Avenue and Second Street. I have seen him a few times. He is always there it seems, from dawn till dusk. It is difficult to gauge his age from appearance alone. He is neither young nor old. It is hard to tell. The last time I was here, in July, he was at the same corner. He occasionally gets up to run to a passing vehicle along Second Street. The vehicle slows down and passengers hand over heavily soiled notes in exchange for mobile phone cards. That is his business, this fellow at the street corner. He sells mobile phone top-up cards. A dollar each. Two dollars sometimes. And so on. Buddie. Easycall. Telecel, Business something. And so forth. These are the names of the cards that he sells. A few times, passers-by stop and buy from him, too. Residents of nearby flats call him out and he runs to them with the cards. Business seems brisk at this little corner of Harare.

He doesn’t have many people to talk to but when he does he exudes genuine warmth. He wears a generous smile, a smile that exposes one or two missing teeth but the kind of smile that you get from a well-meaning man in the village, a smile that says, “I am a good man”.

But it also seems like a smile of helplessness – a defensive smile, the one that says, “I mean no harm, Sir”. It is a smile that a victim issues upon meeting his tormentor; a smile that is not really a smile but one that has evolved from years of crying, perhaps - you know, when you have cried so hard and so long in your life, you figure out it is better to smile. So people think you are smiling. They think you are happy. They think you mean no harm. In fact you are angry. Very angry. You are tired of crying. Life has been you so hard that you have probably forgotten how to cry. And so you smile. Or people who see you think you’re smiling.

I do not know where he goes to relieve himself during his business day – there are no public facilities nearby. I do not know what he eats during the day or at night. Nor where he goes to at dusk, when he abandons his business post. At night this corner is open for other business. Big beautiful cars stop here too, not for phone cards but for the services of young women who ply their trade during the darker hours of the night. I wonder if he, our phone-card man, has children - a wife and children to whom he returns at night.

I asked someone once, when I was buying a Buddie, as one of the phone cards is known. I asked how much a seller gets for selling a phone card worth a dollar. “About 8 cents”, I was told. 8 cents. Count your 5 fingers on one hand, then another three on the second. That’s what a man or woman gets for navigating the busy street corners of central Harare trying to earn a living. That’s all they get for being good, decent, and ‘smiling’ men and women who give life to people’s mobile phones. For being agents of the big mobile phone companies that reap huge profits day after day. 8 cents. I don’t know if it is true and I hope it is not.

We had waited upon arrival at Harare International Airport a few days earlier. We waited in the queue to the immigration desk. And we waited some more. There was a drum-beat on the other side, somewhere near the arrivals lounge. It reminded me of the drumbeat of the village. Back then, there were surrounding villages where they beat the drum literally every night. You could hear the drumbeat late into the night. It was like a lullaby for the whole community, a musical performance for the gods, perhaps.

It was part of our life in the villages - the sound of the drum. Even today if I lie down and close my eyes, I can still hear the drum beat from the villages – it’s amazing what the memory can do, it keeps so many things; it keeps them in the head and occasionally it brings them back, usually when prompted as the drumbeat at the airport did on this occasion.

So as I stood in the queue, waiting for immigration, the mind travelled back many years, to the drumbeat of the village, the memory resurrected by the drumbeat at the airport. So no, there was no firing squad, there wasn’t a flying squad, no, not even a frying squad at Harare Airport – but I can confirm that there was a cheering squad. I wondered why they were beating drums at the airport. It didn’t take long though to realise why.

A fellow with a huge entourage emerged from behind our long queue. He was wearing a stylish hat. He was a young fellow – excitement clearly registered on his face and walking with the briskness of man feeling very important and meaning business.

There was a loud cheer in front of us, a small crowd surged forward, mobile phone cameras at the ready. So I asked the fellow behind me in the queue.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“That’s Munya” he said.

“Munya who?” I hesitated but eventually asked.

“Munya from Big Brother”

“Oh, I see”. It suddenly dawned on me what the hullabaloo was all about.

“So he won, then?” I asked my newly found friend.

“No, he lost!”. He said it with a dismissive laughter. “Akaruza”, he repeated with heavy emphasis.

“So what’s the celebration for then?” I asked because there seemed to be a real celebration going on as big men in very big and bright suits had suddenly joined the scene, ushering the ‘hero’ through a backdoor, television cameras in tow. It was quite a scene, I have to say. I asked again why the celebration for one who had lost because in the melee I had lost my new friend’s attention.

“Because it was rigged!” my new friend explained. “Akarigwa mufana wacho (The vote was rigged against him)” he expanded.

It was then that I heard that some very big business people had launched a fund to award the new ‘national hero’ not just the $200,000 prize money but to top it up with an extra $100,000 all to spite the riggers!

It seemed to me that across the country this, at least, was one thing on which there was a general consensus – that the Big Brother vote had been rigged. I smiled at the thought that across gender, tribe, race, political affiliation, Zimbabweans seemed for once to be united on one instance of vote-rigging.

Later in the week, the new hero, was on TV and the front page of newspapers, shaking hands with his hero, President Mugabe (whom apparently, we were later told, he is ready to serve) receiving the handsome cheque. Even the President was not happy that young Munya’s vote had been rigged and time had been created in his busy schedule to make sure the new hero was duly rewarded by his hero.

Munya smiled too as he received the cheque. It was a broad smile. A smile worth $300,000 perhaps.