From the September 25, 2005 Issue of The Boston Globe

In Zimbabwe, hope survives destruction
Women rebuild a business, with aid from Mass.

By John Donnelly, Globe Staff | September 25, 2005

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- Against great odds in this disintegrating country, six poor women pulled themselves out of poverty.

An Italian entrepreneur taught them how to make high-end paper products. A Cape Cod store sold their bookmarks and greeting cards made from cardboard and banana leaves. And two schools -- one in Harare, the other in Orleans, Mass. -- followed their progress keenly and offered support.

Then, three months ago, President Robert Mugabe's government bulldozed the women's homes, along with those of 1,500 other families, in the settlement of Porta Farm outside the capital, while targeting what it called illegal shantytowns. Nationwide, the demolitions have left 700,000 people homeless.

The women scattered. Their work stopped. Students in Massachusetts and Zimbabwe, crestfallen, felt all had been lost. But, it turns out, not all was -- especially not the women's spirit.

Unknown to the students until a few days ago, the women managed to save their equipment and supplies and to stick together, moving to another dusty plot outside Harare. Although they lack sufficient housing and money to buy food, the women believe they can start anew.

''We are trying to stabilize our lives," said Mavis Bosha, 45, a widow and mother of nine, who was located earlier this month along with two of her business partners by a volunteer connected to the paper-products enterprise. ''But we need to get back to work."

For many outsiders, the uprooting of six women from southern Africa may seem just another tale of woe on a continent that has despair aplenty. But for many students at the Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School in Orleans, this was personal -- and wrenching -- because after the home demolitions, no one knew what had become of the women.

The episode also was an unintended lesson for the students in the ways of the world: Despite outsiders' good intentions, a repressive government can easily squash the dreams of its people.

The Cape Cod middle school became involved through a Cambridge-based school-learning program called the Brick Project, which through the Internet linked the Massachusetts middle- schoolers with those from Zimbabwe, Lithuania, and India. Students in Harare's Arundel School had learned about the women during visits to Porta Farm, and their shared information motivated the Cape Cod students to help.

The US students raised $180 to help the women's business by selling a CD of their school chorus. Project organizers in Massachusetts also found a place for the women to sell their products -- Zizini African Arts Center in Hyannis.

''We wanted a real-life educational experience for all the kids involved," Verity Norman, the Brick Project's global coordinator, said by telephone from Orleans. ''We wanted them to feel like if they put an effort in, they could make a difference in the world. They have felt that, but they have also seen the roadblocks -- that a corrupt government is something very few people can do something about."

When word of the demolitions reached the students and the owner of Zizini from people associated with the project in Zimbabwe, they found the news difficult to accept. ''I was very, very upset because the women were finally getting on a better track, and now they would have to start from scratch," Rachel Lake, 11, a seventh-grader, said in a telephone interview from the Orleans school earlier this month, before the Zimbabwe women were located.

Added Andrew Smith, 13, an eighth-grader from Barnstable: ''I wonder how they are feeling."

At Zizini, owner Allan Elangwa Shaidi said he felt devastated. ''We had built a relationship with these people, and I felt very proud to be associated with a group of people who really depict the triumph of the human spirit," he said.

Norman, of the Brick Project, had been unable to find the women over the summer. But through an intermediary, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals from the government, a Globe reporter met secretly with three of the women earlier this month. The arrangements were carefully made -- the women were picked up at a downtown location in Harare and then taken to another location that they did not want identified.

There, the three talked freely about their plight, and that of their three partners.

On June 27, the women said, two police officers ordered Porta Farms residents to pack up their belongings and leave. The officers told them that on the next morning, bulldozers would raze the decade-old community, which included a school and a day-care center.

''We thought it was a joke," Bosha said. ''So no one did anything."

At 11 a.m. on June 28, more than two dozen men arrived in cars and a truck, and a bulldozer began knocking down their plywood homes.

Several of the six women in the paper-products business quickly gathered a dozen men to empty out their factory, which included lifting a heavy machine. They were able to salvage almost everything. The materials and machine were moved intact to another factory nearby.

In the first days, they slept out in the open. ''My 2-year-old woke up in the night, and she was surprised to see the sky," said Yvonne Gondo, 28, a mother of three. ''She said to me, 'We're outside, we're outside, Mom!' "

The United Nations set up tents for the families. But in late July, police ordered them to leave and transported them in trucks to another area outside Harare. There, authorities gave them basic materials for a makeshift home -- nine wooden posts, a sheet of corrugated metal for a roof, and plastic sheeting for walls.

Since then, wind has ripped apart the sheeting. Once again, they are sleeping in the open.

''It's very difficult for us now," Gondo said. ''We have so many problems -- financial, social. . . . It's a very repressive situation."

Their children have missed nearly three months of school. They will have to repeat the year, which runs from January to December -- if they can find a school by January. For now, children run around all day, often becoming bored and restless.

Susan Sibanda, 34, a mother of five who is seven months' pregnant, said that when the women were working, she earned enough to support the family. Her husband does odd jobs but spends his salary on alcohol, she said.

''He contributes nothing to family," she said. ''Because of the paper-making business, I never used to worry about his drinking. But now I don't have money to feed my children anymore."

Bosha, the oldest of the three women, said the group hasn't given up on the business. They are talking with a local factory owner about renting space and will worry later about raising money. In the beginning, she said, the women will work alternating shifts -- three at the factory, three at home with the children.

''As soon as we can get some money -- for rent, for transportation back and forth -- we can start," Gondo said. ''That's what we all want."

The Brick Project hopes to help the women with financing new outlets to sell their products. ''In the next few weeks, we want to get them started again," said Brick Project's Norman. ''Time is of the essence."

The Cape Cod students, cheered on Friday to learn that the women were safe, are talking about a new fund-raiser for them. ''Instead of giving up, they are looking forward to the future," said Lake, the seventh-grader.

John Donnelly can be reached by e-mail at donnelly@globe.com
© Copyright 2005 Globe Newspaper Company.