Blind teacher fails to get job: Turns to farming

Lifestyle

Freedom Mupanedemo ---
Clutching a hoe in one hand, a visually impaired Mavis Simango fumbles the ground with the other hand, weeding her maize field.

Her cultured hand can now differentiate maize from weeds. Under the mid-morning sun, she intermittently, stands up to excuse her burning back-borne and goes down, repeating the act again and again, driven by the ancient rhythm of life to survive.

It’s cumbersome and she sweats heavily, something grim for someone of her persona but she has no option after failing to get a job since her graduation from teacher’s college in 2015.

The maize field is her only hope in her world full of darkness.

“I was born blind. I am a teacher by profession but I am failing to get a job. I applied for a teaching post in Masvingo, I applied in the Midlands and still no school has responded.

“I have nowhere to turn to except to farming. My family needs to eat. My husband who is also blind, left for greener pastures in South Africa but things are hard for him there.

“At least if I had a job here things could be better. People have suggested I see Minister Dokora but I have no access to him. I however have access to land, hence I am trying to eke a living out of farming. But I am sure you know farming is hard for a blind person like me,’’ she says.

Simango (36) is a mother of two from the hunger-stricken Mataga Village in yonder Mberengwa District and has to soldier on, doing all the work like any normal villager.

With her husband, Ngonidzashe Makura (40), also blind, having left this poverty ravaged family in search for pastures green in the neighbouring South Africa where two years on-he is still trying to make ends meet with no feedback-Simango is left to fend for the family.

In her blindness, she has to till the land, she has to cultivate the land. In fact, she has to make sure that the family ticks after she lost all hope of getting a professional job. What is only left for her is to get into peasant farming like any villager.

Growing up, Simango recalls hearing and reading many success tales of people living with disabilities some on wheelchairs, some dump and deaf some on clutches but somehow making it in life.

As one leaving with disability, she liked to pick up on the positives from these tell-tales and one thing that made her grew up an optimistic lass is that most of these stories did not end in tragedy and instead fulfilled the old adage that “disability is not in ability”.

Somehow, this encouraged her and today she is a qualified secondary school teacher after she persevered and graduated from Mutare Teacher’s College about three years ago.

“I attended Chegato High School and was encouraged by the saying that goes “disability is not inability”, I scored seven point at ‘A’ level and enrolled for a teacher training course with Mutare Teachers’ College. I completed my diploma two years ago but until now I am failing to get a job. At times I feel disappointed by this thing called life but what can I do?” asked Simango rhetorically with a quaking voice, her blind eyes tweaking harder to try and retain tears from rolling out.

Married to Makura whom she hooked up with at High school, Simango says she hoped for a better life despite their condition but reality is proving to her that “blindness means being cursed”.

“Maybe being blind is a curse, I am beginning to realise that life is cruel and even more crude if you are blind like me,” she mourned.

“My husband did not further his education after we completed ‘A’ level at Chegato High school, he hoped I would get a teaching job so as to fend for our two kids but with things not going as we thought, he decided to go to South Africa but still things are not well with him there.

“He has not communicated but the word says he is begging on the streets of Jourburg and things are not fine with him,” she narrated.

Makura says she is left to fend of the family and every day, she wakes up and gets busy in the fields like any other villager.

She bemoans heavy rainfalls and floods that hit Mberengwa district saying she was not expecting to get any significant yields.

“I can plant, I can cultivate crops but despite all this hard work, we were affected by floods and my yields will not be as to my expectation,” she says.

“While still doing my teaching diploma, I did my Teaching Practice (TP) at Chinyaradzo Secondary in Zaka and it was during this TP that I started building my four-roomed house. I could not finish it then and hoped to do it after getting the job but the job is evading me. The house remains incomplete,” she says.

A school headmaster who spoke to Zimpapers syndication on condition of anonymity said there were negative perceptions about blind teachers, which could be the reason why schools were not keen to engage Simango.

“She is a qualified teacher yes but you know headmasters are more concerned about the pass rate and maybe the idea that she is visually impaired may compromise the pass rate.

“She needs an assistant and that assistant may not be so aggressive so as to make pupils understand,” claimed the headmaster.

Senator representing people with disability in Zimbabwe parliament, Annah Shiri said she was shocked that Simango was failing to get a teaching job when the country was facing shortage of teachers.

“Newspapers have ran stories about the shortage of teachers in Zimbabwe but here is a qualified teacher who is failing to get a job because of her condition, it is unfair and we will look into it,” promised Sen Shiri- Zimpapers Syndication Services

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Blind teacher fails to get job: Turns to farming

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