Grace Mutandwa

Godliness is With God

Cleanliness is an aptly-named cleaner at the Embassy. I bump into her on my way out of the building, dressed in a very smart, black outfit. She tells me that her sister Godliness has just passed. Zimbabweans like euphemisms: people don't die, they pass, they became late or they go to be with God. 

The wake is in Epworth about 20kilometres from Harare. Cleanliness has no transport and no cash for the bus. Now what's in my mind is a quick trip to the one cafe in Harare that still serves a weirdly delicious Afrikaans variety of doughnut. These are going for US$1 – everything is priced in US dollars now. The Zimbabwean dollar is late, like poor Godliness.  But I won't be able to enjoy a doughnut knowing Cleanliness is still standing by the road waiting for a miracle. So I give her a lift.

Bumping out through a dodgy suburb, I ask more about Godliness. "She lived next to me before we were married. But her husband lived in Epworth, so she moved there. She was 22 when she had a baby, but then the sickness came. Her husband died last year, then her baby and now she is late too".

Cleanliness is composed.  I say she must be upset. "Ah, it's alright". She's not unfeeling, death is just so much more everyday here and her sister's was expected.

Godliness had HIV, I suppose? "Sure. But we don't mention about that. It's our African taboo. Nobody says that anyone has HIV". This is disappointing to hear. Harare is plastered with posters urging people to be open about their HIV status. But attitudes have not changed yet. How can a wife persuade her unfaithful husband to wear a condom if she can't mention the possibility that he has HIV and may pass the lethal virus to his family?

We're into Epworth now. The town is named after John Wesley's Lincolnshire birthplace and the Methodist mission is still active. But the mission hospital is overwhelmed by the health disasters hitting Zimbabwe. The ripe stench of sewage is nauseating – the collapse of Harare's formerly excellent water supply and treatment infrastructure has caused a cholera epidemic. And diseases like cholera quickly do away with vulnerable people like Godliness and her poor family.

We pass the cemetery. There are three basic wooden coffins waiting their turn. Each funeral party is pointed towards the next empty hole when its turn arrives. Cleanliness will be back here in the morning with her sister's body.

The road runs out and I drive across an eerie wasteland around a flooded quarry. "This is where people come to kill themselves", says Cleanliness, "there are many who use it because it is deep and you drown quick".

By this stage I am seriously depressed. We get to the house – breeze blocks and long-legged chickens. Cleanliness is keen for me to join the wake, it's quite a coup to get driven to the event by a fat white man. But I've seen an HIV corpse before, and  if I have to look at Godliness' stick-like bones wrapped in failing, papery skin, I'll be ready to jump in the quarry too. So I escape.

I get lost in the maze of muddy streets and stop to speak to an old timer. He asks about the talks and is not surprised nothing has happened. "They don't care about the people. They won't care if we're all dead". The old fella offers me a couple of tomatoes he's been trying to sell. I offer him the dollar I had earmarked for a doughnut and get something more nourishing: a big grin.

Posted at 10:22 27 October 2008 by Philip Barclay  |  Comments[2]