Harare taught me how to survive city panhandlers

When I was a teenager in Harare, days like Mother’s Day were important for my wallet.

A week or two prior to the day, I would ask my mom for money so I can buy her a present. When my mother would question the irony of my asking her for money to buy her a present, I cheekily would respond that I didn’t have a job.

I would then proceed to buy her something much cheaper than the amount of money I received and then use the rest of the money to catch a movie with my friend Yvonne and have an ice cream cone at an ice cream parlour in Harare's CBD where we all wanted to be seen.

Now, there was only one problem with the place. Young panhandlers had realised that this was the place where all the "salads" (Zimbabwean equivalent of barbies, so called because it was believed we were the class of kids that ate all meals with salads or worse, thought salad to be a meal) hung out.

These panhandling children seemed to be aware that, perhaps, Yvonne and I in particular, were not exactly loaded because they would never ask us for money like they did with our other peers. They would ask for the ice cream we were eating. More than once, these poor street children would ask, “Sisi ndipeiwo ice cream” while grabbing at the ice cream.

Now when this happened, you could do one of two things. You could give the child the ice cream. Or you could smash the ice cream cone that had been grabbed to the ground, stamp on it and ensure that both you and the street child were losers.

HANDLING A PANHANDLER

I admit to doing a lot of the latter. After all, how much more extra money did I have after buying my mother that tacky pair of earrings, the cheapest Mother’s Day card I could find, the ticket for a movie and the ice cream cone? Certainly not enough to buy another ice cream cone at the overpriced Milky Lane. Just enough to get on Peugeot 504, where four of us sat in the back across each other and the person at the end held the door so that they wouldn’t fall out.

I have found myself having to dig into this long-forgotten skill for inspiration on how to deal with panhandlers in Nairobi. My more memorable one is this last Sunday in the CBD.

A young man in a school uniform approached me. “Excuse me, madam.” he said politely.

“Yes?” I said equally politely.

“I need some help,” he continued.

I was reading a book as I walked so I asked him, “Would you like me to give you this book?”

I don’t think this was what he was expecting but he quickly recovered, “The book would be nice but even better, I need to ask you for some fare to go to Kitui.”

I had plenty of time so I asked, “And what are you going to do in Kitui?”

NEAR-TRUE TALE

“That’s where I stay with my grandmother and also go to school,” he answered.

“So what are you doing in Nairobi?”

“I had come to see my sister who worked as a domestic worker in Lavington. She was supposed to give me school fees and transport fare back to Kitui,” he responded.

“So what’s happened to her?”

“When I got there, they told me that she got pregnant and was fired so now I don’t have money to go back.”

Now this could very well have been a true story, but somehow I wasn’t convinced.

“So you’re telling me you travelled all the way from Ukambani to Nairobi without having talked to your sister first?” So I added to cover my conscience, “Tell you what? I have time. How about I take a walk with you to the Ukambani bus stop, I buy your ticket and you sit on the bus?”

Now he very well could have called my bluff, agreed and then asked for a refund from the matatu tout for Ukambani, but I think he realised he had wasted way too much time with me. After all, how much is a ticket to Ukambani?

So he just laughed, shook his head and walked away. And he forgot to take the book. 

Zukiswa Wanner is a South African author living in Kenya.