The day when everything went wrong

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BY ZULU, Grade 4, Chiredzi

I remember the lorry I boarded at Masekesa one Sunday in January 2005. The inside was nasty, with some of the paint vanishing. The paint made people’s clothes dirty. Though the conductor was collecting fares, people were not satisfied with the condition of the vehicle.

My friend, John, had said to get down from the lorry but I just ignored him. Immediately after it’s departure the rain started to pour down. We and our luggage got wet because the lorry was uncovered. On the way we come across a wide river where there was a narrow bridge. The driver forced to cross, and on this he succeeded but slowly. We were shivering with cold as well as the fear of crossing the narrow bridge.

Since the lorry took long to cross the narrow bridge, the driver accelerated the lorry to a high speed of about 120 kilometres per hour. My friend shouted, “Zulu! Zulu! Stop the driver please, the road is slippery ” And I also noticed that for sure it was slippery. By then we were all filled with fear and coldness. I was fearing that how such a lorry could move at such a speed while the road was slippery.

On the two kilometre peg before our destination the lorry started to swerve. People started to shout to the driver to reduce speed, but due to the time delay he didn’t respond. The lorry overturned at a sharp corner, the front bars struck against a big rock, bumped and sunk in the mud ground.

I didn’t know how I come to the hospital. What I remember are two uniformed people who asked my name. I didn’t answer because I had just come round from an unconscious state. I had a bandage on my leg. On this day l lost my luggage, books and my voice as well

From then I am now careful, I check the conditions of any vehicle I want to board . I learned that it is dangerous to travel with any badly conditioned car, bus or lorry - and while raining.



The day I will never forget
BY SAM MOYO, Grade 5, Zengeza

There are many days in a year but there is only one day I will never forget. The day I will never forget is 19 May 2006. This was the day when I was chased away from school after my parents failed to pay school fees. The fees had been raised from $500 to $2 750 without warning. I was very sad and worried because I am a good student and I always got excellent marks at school. I cried the whole day and I refused to eat anything because I had no appetite.

I didn’t know what to do. I was only in grade five and I did not want to spend time playing with dirt in the streets or becoming a street kid. I want to be a doctor when I grow up and I work very hard to get good marks. Our teacher, Mrs Gumbanjera, is always telling me that I work very hard. My mother also cried with me because she did not know where she could get the money to pay for my school fees. My father also had no money because he was not working. He had not been working for two years and he spent most of his time reading and watching television at home. I begged him to give me money to go to school but he did not even reply to me. He just looked sadly at me.

My father was always looking for work everyday but it was hard to find. When he left his job as a bookkeeper in Harare, he bought us a lot of nice clothes and he was always taking us into town. After sometime, he stopped buying us things and he told us that life had become very difficult. He no longer gave us money to spend at school and he did not buy potato crisps and zapnax as he used to do.

My mother tried to borrow money from neighbours but they all said they did not have any money. Some of them said their children had also stopped going to school because of the school fees. Everybody was complaining about the high school fees and the cost of living. They were saying that everything had become very expensive and it was better to leave work and go and stay in the rural areas. Mother had phoned her brother uncle Mike, who is now staying in London with his family. Uncle Mike sent money for both my younger sister, Yeukai and I and after three days of staying at home, we started going to school. From that day, Uncle Mike and his wife are always sending us money and clothes but I will never forget the day I was chased from school.