By Margaret Kamba 

It took me an overnight problem to realize that there is so much talent which is not schooled at all. It also took the same problem to realize that there are still some good people out there who will assist without requiring anything in return. Why is this so? I ask myself but a night in the car made me see and wish that if only we can do more to help people achieve their dreams.

My mother has not been well for some years now and this problem occurred when she was just walking home after dropping off from a commuter omnibus. She just broke her leg and had to be taken to a doctor. Months later, the same leg broke when she had gone for a camp meeting. 

Unfortunately for her the last operation got infected and a wound from that whole process has seen her nursing it up to now. Her sisters, my aunts and their husbands have been very supportive throughout this process chipping in with some medical bills and emotional support.

Over the years, we have seen the use of traditional medicines, the English medicine and Chinese medicine to ensure the recovery of my mother. When you see the wound now and know where it came from you will appreciate the efforts put into this whole process.

So it was upon taking her to the recent dosage which will see a change in dressing to ensure the covering of the wound, that I met up with my trouble. After all that day’s work, I had to travel back to Harare and had to use Mvuma road.

Thanks to the work done by our visionary leader, His Excellency, President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa that Beitbridge road is wonderful to use.

I had literally gotten to Beatrice that I saw an engine check light, battery check light and hot temperature light that I pulled over to see what was happening. The engine was literally overheating. I am not a mechanic but I try to constantly check my dashboard for any communication the car may be giving me. It was indeed telling me that something was wrong. 

So with the little school of cars that I know, I tried to cool down the engine by pouring water and obviously you know the risks associated with that. If you recklessly open the radiator cap, that hot water will scald you. I was anticipating that since I felt that it was hot. The water literally shot up in the air. The water that I had got finished and I thought let me rest myself for a while and see how long it would take before I could be on the road again. Meanwhile, I consulted Google on what to do if such overheating occurred and what the causes could be. Applying these tricks can be helpful sometimes.

I did check the engine again and managed to move again. The whole time I kept checking the dashboard. When I would see the flashing of the lights I would stop. I got to a point when I said to myself, now I am going to sleep here and forget about going until its morning. It was then that I saw a man walking on the road and thought to ask for water.

The man directed me to nearby homesteads where I could get water then left. Before I could even decide on what to do, the man was back to offer help. He would go and look for the water himself and bring it to me so that I would avoid sleeping on the road.

Mr Guzha as I got to know later, is a farmer in the farms surrounding Beatrice and was at some point in his life unfortunate to be attacked as robbers tried to take his car. This is the reason why he said he had come back. He had thought, she is a woman and she cannot be alone at night and what if robbers attack her like they did to me. The man had to show me scars on his head which he said was where he was struck by the robbers.

His help managed to get me some eight kilometres of travel and I am truly grateful to him. The next point I got was a no-go for me. I had to sleep there. Being at night you are oblivious of your surroundings and you cannot just stop every car passing by because you do not what could happen.

Oh these nights can be so cold in a car, I tell you. Without blankets, no proper clothing, you can freeze to death. That accompanied by the passing vehicles can really be something else. How you even get to doze off is a miracle. But this has taught me to travel with my backpack with enough for any eventualities.

In the morning I prayed and asked God to send a helper and He did. The young man called Terry who is a mechanic by the service station close to the Beatrice tollgate is a life saver. Can you believe that he ended his formal education at Grade 7 and learnt all this mechanical work from a man who was a mechanic.

“The man just liked me and would call me to come and see what he was doing. By Form One I was able to dismantle an engine all by myself. I have not studied this course at all but now I think I need to acquire at least a Certificate,” Terry said.

Ask me what he did. He literally got to the car, checked the water level, engine oil level and then identified the leakages and points of leak. He noticed that a bolt which closes one seal was lose and this is where he diagnosed that the engine oil was leaking from and causing the overheating. 

After fastening that bolt, all check lights went off, can you imagine? These are things I could not have managed to identify and do on my own. It took this young man who did not take a mechanical course but was just an apprentice to identify and rectify.

There are many like him with so much talent in painting, cooking, designing and so many other things who need to be identified and capacitated. How do we find them is the question? A deliberate exercise to do a skills audit must be done to ensure that we harness these for Zimbabwe’s economic growth.

Vision 2030 must be achieved and these skills and many other key ingredients will get us there. I appeal to the relevant authorities to help identify these talents and capacitate them so that we build Zimbabwe.