I was born in a family of six children, five boys and one lovely Yvonne my dearest baby sister. Apart from my fluency in spoken English there was really nothing special to write home about myself at school, I was above average in terms of my school work, slightly exceptional when it came to football but I was rather too selfish and thus a bad team player and as you know soccer is a team sport. Making noise and mischief were rather my specialty this was rather shocking to people who really did not know me because I am rather a bit laid back and reserved on first impressions. I remember this particular day, I was quietly minding my own business and the headmaster appeared from nowhere demanding a list of noise makers from our teacher despite the fact that the class was relatively behaving well. I strongly suspect that the headmaster must have been roughshod by his wife the previous day and wanted to take out his frustrations on us. My teacher failed to stand up for us to the headmaster and simply tell him that no one was making noise, instead she just wrote a small list of the usual noise makers. That was the first of many times to have a brush with authorities, it's as if rebellion has always been part of my being. It is true at least according to my life that whistling is in a bird's nature you can not teach otherwise.
Secondary school was not special either but I learned a great deal about myself, I am slightly lazy but can work extremely hard for the things I am passionate about. I do not know if I had a passion for physics and chemistry or that I was just influenced by my older brother but I enjoyed and did quite well. In hindsight i regret dropping English Literature and history because now I find them quite fascinating. During these days I was well behaved because i was a devoted christian although my friends and few of the teachers I crossed their paths will dispute this. In high school I was distinct, I wore my Afro I really do now know why we were not allowed to wear our natural hair with pride probably a legacy of colonialism mistaken for smartness. Come to think of it wearing my Afro was a revolutionary act against mental slavery expressing pride in my being. I must admit these days I was quite rebellious I questioned every regulation and I never obeyed anything that did not make sense to me. During this time I was now much more mature, less selfish and a team player. I know my character with the way I play football, ha ha ha. I played for the first team since lower six. Unfortunately I never donned the number 10 jersey which I so much adored. If i were to go back to high school that is one thing that I would like to do without fail.
I didn’t pass quite well or at least good enough to allow me to enroll with the department of Accounting at the University of Zimbabwe and I did not want to enroll for the sake of going to Uni. I attempted to redo the subject i had not done but I do not put in as much effort as the subject required I got the same result. At the end of 2002 I began working for City Furniture and Electrical as stock controller. I didn’t like the job much, I have always had a passion to work in a bank so I applied non ceaselessly for the next couple of months going for interviews and not being successful. Finally I got a job with the Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe were I worked until towards the end of 2004 when they decided not to renew my contract at its expiry. During my stay at CBZ under the management of Mr. Mukunyadze I had my best working experience; the working environment was very friendly and it just made you feel at home and at peace. it was that kind of feeling that would make you look forward to going to work tomorrow. When my contract was not renewed i was not really shocked because i was getting lost bit by bit with the little money i was earning, i had started drinking mildly and clubbing here and there, For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. I just took it as correction from the Lord. After 3months I got another job at Zimbank only worked for a month and i got fired for failing to account for less than a dollar in change for National Foods. Now in hindsight everything was just working towards my good but it was difficult to understand during that period. I taught English briefly in 2005 as a temporary teacher in Rusape waiting for Uni to begin as I had enrolled for Banking and Finance at Masvingo State University now called Great Zimbabwe.
In 2005 i then enrolled at the then Masvingo State University later to be renamed to Great Zimbabwe University. Naturally i have always been outspoken and always attempted to speak on behalf of others. This trait combined with my desire to become the University President i soon joined student politics at the university. Great Zimbabwe University (GZU) has two campuses, the faculty of Commerce and the Main campus which houses the other faculties. I was the most influential student from the faculty of commerce having represented students in several cases pertaining to catering, accommodation and academic issues. I was elected into the faculty board in 2006. However the faculty of commerce didn’t have a single person who was in the SRC Gideon Chitanga the then President of the University tried to involve the faculty of Commerce by having SRC Committee elections conducted at the Commerce faculty. I was elected as legal and academic committee member in 2006. As events would have it Gideon Chitanga was elected into Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) as the Vice President i then started representing Great Zimbabwe University as the President at all ZINASU's meetings. It was at one of these meetings that i felt challenged with what other student leaders were doing fighting against injustices at the institution level and at even the national level.
September 23 2006 the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions called for a stay away , and i felt that the students had to get involved, I tried to solicit the SRC leadership to take some action but none would have that, they were too concerned for their security and unfortunately Chitanga was in Prison in Harare. I felt as students we could not allow a situation were we are fighting the same enemy and yet refuse to join hands. Clad in my ZINASU's t-shirt i went around the classes calling everyone to attend a meeting during lunch time. i remember this lecturer who asked me which institution I was from and when i told him that i was from (GZU) he was shocked , he said “i always wondered what kind of tertiary institution this was , were students were quiet as dead” At exactly 12:15 a sizable number of students had gathered i began addressing the students telling them that it was important to join the lecturers and all the workers in Zimbabwe, we could not afford to sit on our laurels , very soon we were going to be workers , in-fact these workers are our fathers and mothers so we are directly affected either way. By the time I finished the crowd had grown as the venue was at the entrance of the dinning hall. Then the principle in charge of the Polytechnic came and scared the majority of the students away as they were afraid of being victimized. in closing I declared the two institutions (GZU and Masvingo Poly) closed until further notice. I immediately went to the hostel to relax and one of my friends Zorodzai came to notify me that police details were on the campus looking for me. I then made my escape out of the campus, but I was still a novice I didn’t know were to go so I roamed the streets of Masvingo City only to return later in the evening. I have my friends Lillian and Josphat some contact numbers I had of Blessing Vava in case something happened to me. That night I went to sleep in Zorodzai `s room unfortunately the police came in the middle of the night at around 3 am in the morning armed with riffle guns and conducted a roll call searching the rooms and I was caught. i am sure they deliberately did this or they mistakenly did this with desirable effects of intimidating and frightening other students. It was my first time getting arrested so naturally I was very frightened perhaps more frightened than the other students who remained behind.
During interrogation was beaten for repeatedly lying that i had addressed students pertaining to our own academic challenges we were facing as students. From time to time they would recite my speech word for word which made me the more frightened of the system. so eventually I started telling them the truth and the beating stopped. what was more frightening was when the officers who work in the president `s office came to interrogate me , they didn’t even beat me but it was more frightening than my arrest by the riffle yielding police officers or the beating of the Criminal investigations officers. All they wanted to know was how much I had been paid by the ZCTU or by ZINASU, they could not buy the idea that I had not been paid by ZCTU or ZINASU let alone had any communication regarding this stay away from the two organizations. What was very intimidating was the age of my interrogators; they were almost the age of my father, around late fifties or so. It gave the impetus that this case was a very serious one; they created my file and told me that they are watching my every action.
As news of my arrest spread across the University scores of students came visiting me, and every visiting hour much to the irritation of the police officers. i was served with better food than they ate for lunch or supper. This made me popular in both campuses much to the chagrin of the institution’s administrators who hoped to maintain the two campuses divided. Fear is imaginary you only fear something before going through it but after going through it you wonder what you were once afraid of, after my release two days later i was more than resolved to lead the battle for academic freedoms at Great Zimbabwe University. To me this marked my true journey into student activism, following the footsteps or yester year student revolutionaries the likes of the late learnmore Jongwe, Arthur Mutambara, Munyaradzi Gwisai, Emmanuel Samundombe, Gideon Chitanga and Promise Mkwananzi. If there was one thing that suffered during my days at the University that followed, it was my spirit as i began to drink and indulge in other worldly pleasures again.
