Rutendo Eveline Chikafa

born 2 Nov 2000

This 4 pelx is where Rutendo lives, the second door from the left.  This house has two rooms, a kitchen/family room/bedroom, and a parents bedroom.  The house has electricity but they only have it 3 times a week.  This house is in the suburb of Sakubva which is a high density living area. Lot's of houses  built very close together with many families living in them.

 Rutendo is on the left in pink.  She has two brothers and a sister.  The family has lived in the house for 12 years. They have been paying money to the city council to get a piece of property to build a home of their own.

 This is the kitchen/living room/bedroom area.  When there is no electricity they cook outside which is on average every other day.

 Washing the dishes is one of Rutendo's jobs.  Take a bucket of water, a little soap and start scrubbing, the house has no running water.

 Here Rutendo and her mother are walking to the community laundry, water, and toilet area.

 This is a Zimbabwe toilet.  Notice, no toilet paper, either you bring your own or go without. At night the family uses a bucket if they need the rest room rather than walk down to the community toilet.

 No doors on the stalls.  The shower is on the other wall directly across for the toilet holes. It is an open area with several shower heads. There were five women bathing so I took no picture. People aren't concerned when you walk in, every one is washing and talking, I was the only uncomfortable person in the room, and I was the only one with clothes on.

 Rutendo is filling her bucket to carry water back to their home. This troff is were they do their laundry. The ladies bring large bowls and scrub their clothes and rinse them all by hand and then carry them home where they hang them on a line by their front door. There is a lot of thievery so you stand guard over your clothes while they are drying.

 She is carrying about 18 liters of water weighing approximately 37 pounds and doesn't act like it is even heavy. Women carry everything but their babies on their heads.

 We asked Rutenda what games she likes to play. This game is called pada. After making the squares with a piece of charcoal from the cook fire, she hops on one foot and scoots a piece of wood from one box to the next. It looked so easy we thought how could this be fun? But when we tried to do it we found it was quite challenging and it didn't look easy anymore. She also likes to play net ball. They make a ball out of used plastic bags and then go to a near by court where there are nets or they just draw a box on the ground. She doesn't have any toys, nor do her brothers.

 

Like the majority of students she walks to school, there home is less than a mile from her school. Kids are usually pretty grateful for the opportunity to go to school so they study hard.

I asked her to show us where she sleeps,  she unrolled a mat and her brother moved over the kitchen table. She and her brothers and sister all sleep there on the kitchen floor. Guess there is no sleeping in, with this family.

 This is a family picture minus her father who is still at work. He is an accountant at the Provincial Hospital. Her father is also the branch president of the Sakubva Branch.

Notice the large green bush in front of their house?  That is sugar cane, everyone loves to chew on sugar cane.