Mangongongo

"I love you dad", where the words that stuck in his morbid mind as he tried to escape the raucous noise in the truck they were packed in. His seventeen years old, beautiful daughter had shared these words early in the morning when he did the school run.  Noma, his full-time housewife, had also said a protective prayer over him as he left for work. They had managed to have one child, and no one knows if it was by choice or by fate. Noma and his daughter were his world - at least he could revel in the memories of the moments they had shared right in the heat of the summer noon, made worse by the thick metal helmet he was wearing.

Born of humble parentage in the rural parts of Chikomba, Anachan was not exposed to much and the ideal life he aspired to have was the one the local constables were leading. Friday nights were the highlights - opaque beer, pipes and turns on the few local hookers at the Rural District Council bar. In this remote setting, they were untouchable too. In-fact, they were the law. They commanded respect and were held in high regard. Their jobs were very simple - maintain order without meddling with civilian lives as much as possible, which they did so well. There were a few teachers from the local schools as well as a few nurses from the local clinic but these did not really appeal to him. Nurses had white uniforms, which maybe wasn't his colour, and the teachers wore no uniforms. The big brown shoes, the thick blue pants and the huge belts plus the caps were definitely more appealing to a young village herd boy who spent a big part of his childhood ignorant of his own shoe size. He also did not know how to tie shoes laces up until sixteen - when he got a pair of soccer boots from the local school.

He would read while herding cattle, he would walk for hours to go to school. He is one of those few people who learnt to keep a single pen until it runs out of ink. His father was a communal farmer and his mom was also a housewife - they were poor, among the poor. The playing ground was skewed against him from the onset but this only sank his five siblings. Anachan swam through it and was determined to make the grade for police recruitment. A string of passing marks in four of the core subjects ebbed away a modicum of hope his family had yet that actually inspired him in leaps and bounds. It took him an additional two years to finally pass Math, which meant he was ready to apply for police recruitment at twenty five.

Zimbabwe had fully succumbed to the effects of maladministration for 38 years with the government of the day obviously clueless over how to revive the economy. Its austerities were being felt across the nation. Even the police were not exempted. 'Rigged' elections and a violation of human rights had planted a seed of bitterness and anger in the masses and it was growing well. Police brutality was watering the seed almost on a daily basis and the galloping exchange rate was fertilising it. A screeching halt to avoid a swarm of vendors who were running in all directions in a one way lane snapped Anachan from his midday reverie and it teleported him from the bliss of his married life to the harsh realities in the failed State.

19 years after his recruitment, a year closer to his retirement, this is not what he signed up for. That was clear as day in his mind. The kombi had run out tarmac and was between a rock and a hard place. The police truck with the riot squad and the pursuing police officers, all armed with baton sticks and the law. He watched with a heavy heart as his colleagues stormed out of the back of the truck, seemingly indifferent to the plight of the vendors, baton sticks in hand and eager to pounce on any vendor they would come across.