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Zimbabwean school children dash from beerhall to classroom
ZimOnline
October 08, 2005

http://www.zimonline.co.za/headdetail.asp?ID=10758

Mutare - Every night, Mushando Bar, a run-down council beerhall in the poor suburb of Sakubva in Mutare city, explodes into life as patrons drown their seemingly unending sorrows. The beerhall is a hive of activity as hundreds of patrons dance the night away and imbibe their "scuds," a local opaque beer renowned for its potency. Young girls who are barely in their teens are also here, flaunting raw flesh as they sell their souls while engaging in the "oldest profession." It is amid this shocking debauchery and acculturation that would have made old Sodom appear mere child’s play, that nine-year-old Tinashe Musvize wakes up every morning to go to school. Tinashe, a Grade 3 pupil from Mutanda Primary School in the eastern border city of Mutare, frankly admits that his is not the best of places to call home. "This is where we now live. I go to school every day from here and these are all my textbooks," says the shy young boy from the beerhall storeroom the family has converted into their bedroom. Tinashe’s textbooks are neatly stacked beside heaps of crates of beer. The family's earthly possessions, which include some few thin blankets, are piled in one small corner.

Tinashe’s family is part of a group of 21 families that sought refuge in this beerhall after their homes and backyard shacks were destroyed by the government three months ago in a controversial clean-up exercise code-named Operation Murambatsvina (Drive Out The Filth). At least 700 000 people were rendered homeless after President Robert Mugabe sanctioned the destruction of urban slums in a massive military-style operation. Another 2.4 million Zimbabweans were also directly affected by the operation, according to a hard-hitting United Nations report compiled by the world body’s special envoy Anna Tibaijuka. The United States, Britain, the European Union and other major Western governments also criticised the clean-up operation calling it a violation of the rights of the poor. But Mugabe has vociferously defended the exercise accusing critics of the government programme of "romanticising squalor." As Zimbabwe joined the rest of the world in commemorating World Habitat Day this week, life has never been the same for Tinashe and the rest of the 21 families here. "We have problems keeping our children away from the main bar. But most of the time they sneak in. Our main worry is that this is the place where all the prostitutes do their business. We are praying for a safe environment for our children," says Memory Musvize, Tinashe’s mother.

While the families are holed up in this derelict beerhall, about 265 kilometres away in the capital Harare, Local Government and National Housing Minister Ignatius Chombo, was cynically paying tribute to the government for "improving" the housing standards for its people. Marking World Habitat Day, Chombo said: "Our government has moved great strides to ensure that all our people have decent housing. Indeed our actions over the past months have shown commitment to ensuring decent accommodation for Zimbabweans." Like Tinashe and the other 21 families, Tongai Zisengwe, a small-time cobbler in the city, is also in the same predicament. He is now staying in a disused soccer pitch, completely at the mercy of the weather, together with his wife and three children of school-going age. "It is because of the government’s actions that I am now living in the open like this. There are no toilets, no water, nothing for human survival. The government has only worsened my situation," he says wearing a sad face. Four months after being promised better accommodation, Zisengwe is still sleeping in the open. "I hear them (government officials) talk about an operation to build houses for everyone whose home they destroyed. Such talk makes me angry, very angry. I have been to the government offices and nothing has come up. I was openly told to forget it because the houses are too few for everyone," he says. The Zimbabwe government last July launched an ambitious housing project to placate rising world anger over the housing demolitions. The new reconstruction programme, codenamed Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle has so far failed to meet its targets as the Harare authorities battle a severe economic crisis blamed on Mugabe’s mismanagement.Analysts say Harare is too broke to raise the Z$3 trillion (about US$300 million) needed for the housing project.

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