Chibage and Chandler

A round hut, a market stall, an hour-long walk home, and the notes I read on the way.

Emillio Itai Marambo  ·  Cape Town

When you climb the ladder, when you are finally self-sufficient, you start walking into rooms that do not care where you came from. Platforms where your story can sound like an excuse. That is why most people keep the touching part to themselves.

Tendai put up a post on LinkedIn about a story close to mine, and he asked me to share my own. Trust me, there are far more hectic stories out there than this one. They say you should hear someone else's story before you decide how big yours is.

2004

The best of my childhood goes back to 2004. My dad was working at a bank, and I had to change schools because my little brother was starting Grade 1.

Two years later, all of us — my parents included — were sleeping in a round hut with a traditional floor. Not the modern kind.

2006

From there, life took a short, sharp turn. My parents were away most of the time, looking for whatever would keep us alive, and my brother and I were left on our own.

I was 12. That is the age I learned to be the father and the mother of the house.

2009

My dad had moved to Harare, and he came back to take me with him. He did not have a job. What he had was an idea: that I would get a better education in town.

It did not go to plan, so I learned to hustle with him. The hustle was eggs, R2 each, at Mupedzanhamo market in Mbare. The income could not stretch across two households, so he decided to bring the whole family to one place.

2010

That is how we found ourselves in Epworth. With help from relatives I started Form 3 at a school 6km away. Weekdays were for school. Weekends were for hustling, the whole family together.

For the first half of the year we sold chibage chakagochwa kumagaba. Dad went to source the stock, my brother and I went for firewood, and Mom did the setup and kept the place clean. We ran that for six months. After July the business expanded into chips. When summer came we added freezits, selling them at exactly what we paid for them — I'm leaving that one for another article. By December we had moved to chibage chakabikwa, and that carried us through the holidays.

The walk

Somewhere in all of that, one thing became clear to me: I had to use every minute in that classroom to actually understand, not just to write things down. The walk home was an hour long, so I read my notes while I walked. Crazy how I used to think in those days.

And crazy what God does. With all of that, I finished the year as the top student at my school.

Chirumhanzu

That took me to Chirumhanzu for A Level, staying with my grandmother. Same story, different place. The field first thing in the morning, then school. Weekends were for herding cattle with the great minds of L. Bostock and S. Chandler open in front of me — Pure Mathematics.

2015

I went into A Level believing I would get a scholarship for university, and God rewarded me for believing in Him. In 2015 I got a Presidential Scholarship, and the rest is history.

Today

Today I work as a software developer at a company in Cape Town. I have been able to lift my siblings, and to help my parents live a better life.

So if you are still in the part of the story that hurts: it is not an excuse. It is the foundation.

A few words, for anyone reading from outside

Chibage chakagochwa kumagaba

Maize roasted over coals in old tins — the classic roadside stall.

Chibage chakabikwa

Boiled maize. The December version, when the green mealies come in.

Mupedzanhamo

The big open-air market in Mbare, Harare. The name means roughly "the end of poverty".

Freezits

Frozen flavoured-ice sticks in a plastic sleeve, sold from a cooler box in summer.

Form 3

Third year of secondary school, around age 15.

Bostock & Chandler

The standard Pure Mathematics textbook for A Level. Heavy, in every sense.

Written by Emillio Itai Marambo. Shared at Tendai's request.