My name is Thabo I am 17 years old. I went to school up to Grade 4, I could not proceed because my mother could not afford school fees. My father had died. I was staying with my mother until she decided to leave for Mozoe where she went to sell her wares. She did not come back; life became worse for me as I did not have food. I went to Kuwadzana where my mother’s relatives are and told them about my mother’s situation. They gave me some money to go to Mazoe to look for her, I went there but I could not find her. I came back to Epworth, started fetching water for people, and doing other jobs to get food. At times I would eat food from dumpsites. That is when my friend’s mother took me in.
A few days after I started staying with my friend’s family I was told that my mother fell sick while in Mazoe and went to our rural home in Buhera where she died. I couldn’t attend her funeral. Her relatives have promised to come for me but they have not done that yet.
I still want to go back to school or to find something else I can do to change my life.
Before the lockdown, I used to work for people to get money. I used to weed people’s fields as well as fetching water to get money but the lockdown has made it difficult for me to continue doing it.
“I took Thabo in because of the situation he was in. At first, I thought I was just going to look after him while his mother was away only to be told that his mother died. So we are just staying here, I am crippled, I have a swollen leg and hand meaning I can’t do much. We don’t have much here so when there is the food we eat what is there when we do not have we do not eat,” said the mother who took Thabo in.
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