Mujuru’s Secret Miracles: Destitute Poor Girl Raised Now Top Accountant
12 November 2015
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Joice Mujuru has been called a stingy woman who helps no-one. Some have attacked her saying she did  nothing for the community during her tenure in government. But ZimEye conducted some research recently and obtained direct eye-witness accounts from several of Mujuru’s secret works of compassion.
 
As Zimbabwe struggled through the post independence period of darkness with many school children failing to make it past secondary school, Mujuru unannounced would tour the jungles of rural Zimbabwe quietly lifting many orphans and destitute kids some who are now sitting on top of the world. ZimEye begins this series to investigate the untold Mujuru story.
Case Study 1 – Netsai, Public Accountant, Foreign Missions
Netsai (not her real name) had the following to narrate: “I was born into a poor family. I never had a pair of shoes until I was 14 years. My parents were separated. I was an intelligent child but lacked parental love and care.
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I passed grade 7 despite the challenges. As a primary school child in grade four I remember jumping onto a truck with other people from my village and surrounding areas and going to work on a commercial farm near Bindura (kwaSorati). They did not care what age one was as long as one was old enough to be able to help pick cotton from the fields. We could be at that farm or other farms for a week or two.
 
One memory that stayed with me is when we got to the farm: they cleared out a disused large hall of human excretion on the floor using farm machinery and told us to put down our mats and get ready to sleep before going to work the next morning. We had no choice. Poverty is real.
 
I would make around ZW$10 and use it to pay my school fees for primary education. I enrolled for form 1 in a school where I had to walk at least 2 hours to reach the school. That was only one way.
 
Leaving home at around 5am. This was now a different ball game altogether no amount of labour on the farms was going to be adequate for me to raise my own school fees while active in school, but I wanted to further my education and I was blessed with a good brain.
 
My intelligence made one teacher advise me to seek Social Service help, since sometimes I could be absent from school for weeks due to school fees problems. I was so young but I went to Mt Darwin to the Social Welfare Office.
 
I was promised support and letters were sent to school from there. I approached a local businessman; Mr Stavros who owned a service station by that time in Darwin for help with bus fare to go back home.
 
He felt so much pity and wanted to know more about me. He gave me his attention, and through our discussions he said, “You deserve to go to a boarding school. Social Welfare should send you to a boarding school. I will give you support and we can talk to other businessmen here to help you with uniforms.”
 
He took me to Mr Patel who was an Indian businessman who then offered to give me uniforms. It’s a long chain. Unfortunately Mr Stavros died a week later from heart attack.
 
But the good news is I had found a place at Mavhuradonha Secondary school through Mr Patel who had contacted the Headmaster. But still the dilemma came when fees was not paid in advance I could not go to Mavhuradonha. The challenge continued.
 
Then one lady told me, “Go to Mai Mujuru’s office and tell her your problem she will help you.”
 
Mai Mujuru was the Governor of Mashonaland Central and based in Bindura at the time and I was in Mt Darwin and I had no bus fare. It was a sad story indeed. From this lady at the Welfare Office I got help with bus fare and I went to Bindura.
 
I carried all my school results with me. When I arrived at her office the secretary was very kind. I told her why I was there.
 
She took my school results to Mai Mujuru as I waited in the secretary’s office.
 
She came back and ten minutes later Amai came out smiling and said, “come here Netsai (not real name) “, calling my name as if she knew me from before and I was a long lost relative.
 
I followed her. She then said, “We have kids but they are playing with school and a child like you is such a great blessing. I want you to be my own child.
 
“I want you to go to a girls’ high school of your choice and tell anybody who asks you anything that am your mother. During your school holidays you can stay with us.”
 
I was in disbelief for a while. I did not expect that. It was like a drama. But it was real. This stranger was taking me in as her own child just as I was: wearing my only pair of shoes: sandak by Bata one of which was torn and I was holding it together using back elastic (ndandi/rekeni). She asked me which school I wanted to go to, but the young village girl I was I had no clue.
 
She suggested that I go to the Salvation Army run Usher Girls’ School and sent me there. I had a new life. I became a child of hers. The lady who was Head of the school took me so close like her child too as she knew my painful past. She was fully informed of my life. What my adoptive mother gave me nobody could ever give me…a mother in letter and spirit. My biological mother left when I was three months old.
 
I was nursed and raised by my paternal aunt on one of the Mashonaland central commercial farms until I was about eight years old. I was the youngest of three siblings from my parents. I met my biological mother for the first time and only once when she came to our village homestead for my paternal grandmother’s funeral.
 
Two years later we visited my maternal grandparents homestead in another village to bury my mum. Until I met Mai Mujuru I had never felt nor experienced a mother’s love. I had only ever been the ‘unwanted’ step-child. My natural family is large as I have half siblings on my dad’s side.
 
Thanks to Amai for taking me in I am the only one that went to school up to and past ‘O’ levels in my whole family. Today I am the family’s main breadwinner and beacon of hope. After Usher Girls’ Amai arranged that I go to Chipindura for A level. She connected me with the late Boarder Gezi so that in case of sickness or anything he could give me close support. He was very supportive too. I remain her real daughter.
 
She could remove a dress and give me if I say, “Amai I love it” and she would give me…anything I needed or wanted including under garments. I remember getting T shirts from her backyard tailors…women who made T-shirts from her servants’ quarters as a women’s income generating project. She never cared to know who my family was or if we had any relational ties.
 
She just saw a needy child and met me at my point of need. Now I work for one of the Foreign Embassies as Chief Finance Officer. She is a woman with a humane heart. Those who have had a chance to know her as a person did not fail in their lives and I know I am one of the many children she helped. She does not give only school fees support, she gives love and encouragement.
 
She gives her whole being. In my rural district she started an irrigation scheme which was helpful to many. It gave a source of livelihood to many in the community. One of my natural brothers used to buy tomatoes from the scheme for re-sale in Bindura. While I may not be Dr Joice Mujuru’s biological child I am blessed and proud to call her my mum. She is my mummy, the only mother I have ever known. She made me who I am today. She has touched many lives in her quiet and unassuming ways.

11 Replies to “Mujuru’s Secret Miracles: Destitute Poor Girl Raised Now Top Accountant”

  1. A certain friend of mine whose aunt was a close ally of mai mujuru once told me that as soon as she was made vp she went round the townships in harare, bindura etal vachicollecta all the kids that had been sired by rex and since they were kids of an excombatant they were eligible for state funded education. Unfortunately she did not extend that same hand to a lot of street children in harare and all the cities. So i guess all those kids will be coming out of the woodworks and claiming that she was their hero. Besides I think Netsai could be one of those kids sired by Solomon who knows, hence the fact she is hiding her name which could be a mujuru futi.

  2. Aiwa, zve “miracle” yemabasa akanaka taazwa. What is the proportion of destitute children who obtained help from Mai Mujuru, not just as an individual, but using government funds intended for that purpose? What proportion was prevented by Mai Mujuru in her capacity as VP of the nation, from accessing government funds intended to provide relief for a variety of social ills?
    Reading through this story, this kid was well connected. Munofunga basa reku foreign embassy wakandoripinda nje, pasina ruoko rwa Mai Mujuru as VP? Nhasi uno ukasvika panzvimbo uchiti ndauyawo ndatumwa naMai Mujuru unoitwe mbwa.
    Manje ne miracle works dzataurwa, ngei magraduates mamwe akafanana nemusikana uyu vari kushaya mabasa. Pane vangani vakabatsirwa naMai Mujuru?
    Vanhu musando pembedze zviro nezvisakafanira. Vangani varikubatsirwa ngenharaunda mu kurarama kuno. Ungafamba uchitaurire nyika kuti Mai nhingi ndakavapa muboora? Kwakuera munhu uchiswere kuwokote zvakadarozvo.
    Patsika yedu, kubatsire unotambudzika ibasa renharaunda, ende harina unoswera achizvitaura ngekuti “Munhu wese munhu nge mumwe munhu.”
    Mwaakude kuzviite vaRungu vanokupe ma points e volunteerism kana ukanyore kuti “ndinoende koobate maoko kunenge kwafiwa panhaunda pendinogara” here?
    Ndichochega here, kuperekedza mbuya ku manyoka! Zvimwe zviro muna pembedza mwafunga. Munotinyadzisa.

  3. I hope mai Mujuru also takes aboard the secret children that the general sired. There is no need for any court procedures. There was also a case of some chaps who were swindled by her daughter and son in law. She could not tolerate them at her office. If you want to be a monkey, then be a gorrilla. Then there those who were kicked out of their properties by the general without any compensation. You will not steal from jack to support paul ,unless if you are some robin hood of some sort.

  4. Majaira Donor wenyu Gire, naMugabe the only two Zimbabwean donors we only know today. Thus so excellent work, when giving the right hand should not know what the left hand has done. Thus true giving.
    Thnx amai.

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