DAWN

2

My grandma was a widow having lost her husband before I had even been born and my dad was in his twenties then. He had died of cancer and left my poor grandma all by herself to take care of my dad and his four siblings who were in their twenties and late teens.
My dad was my grandma’s first born and he was born in Murehwa where they used to live before my grandpa got a job as a cook for a white farmer and his family on one of the estates near Norton called Lydiate, which is where my grandma had been living to date.

It was an estate with a tobacco grading company where everyone in the community worked. The grading company paid the villagers enough to afford decent meals and a decent way of living which wasn’t much to write home about but obviously better than nothing.

When my grandpa died, he left his family settled there with all his children and wife employed by the grading company. My dad and his siblings had had primary school education which is how far I had gone before my misfortune.

The only reason they didn’t further their education was because they not only could not afford it but the only High school available at the time was 5km away in Norton and working for the grading company seemed the easy way. Therefore like me it was education up to grade 7 and getting employed by the Grading Company.

Just the thought of ending up like them, a grade 7 employee of the Grading Company brought shivers to my spine. I had dreams and I could not watch them go up in smoke. The plan was to go to High School, then Uni and graduate with a Bachelor’s Degree and maybe become a lawyer or a Social Worker anything between the two. Oh how I wished I had got enough sex education maybe or just some fore warning of some sort, I’m sure I wouldn’t be here.

My father had turned out to be a gardener with my mum being a maid and we lived in a neat two bedroomed cottage way behind their employer’s main house. Unlike his siblings or the other guys from Lydiate my father migrated to the city and looked for a job using the only skill he had at the time and landed a job as a gardener.

My mum was already working at the house when he came and they ended up falling in love with each other from working together, seeing a lot of each other and having been both single at the time.

Their wedding was officiated by their employer who was a missionary Pastor and they then offered them their fully furnished two bedroomed cottage which was a great blessing they were ever so grateful for hence they lived in Emerald Hill which is where I was born on Christmas day at Harare Hospital. I was one out of a set of twins but my sister is said to have been a still birth and here I was a bouncing baby girl. They named me Immaculate which is how they defined their love from the little English they knew.

Mr Peters, the Baptist missionary was a good man. He was in his early forties when he came to Zimbabwe as a missionary. Average tall, with blue eyes and a warm smile. He came with his wife and child and they travelled across the nation of Zimbabwe evangelizing and spreading the gospel. He eventually bought a house in Emerald Hill which he had been living in until he decided to retire and left it with his son who married a Zimbabwean lady. They started as high school sweethearts and then tied the knot after dating for eight years.

Rob was the name of Mr and Mrs Peters’s only child and his wife was called Chenai. The Lord blessed them with a son and two daughters and their first son was my Ian. The Ian that impregnanted me and rejected me and the unborn child. The Ian I had loved so dearly with all of my young heart.

Mr Rob Peters was Pastor to the church we all fellowshipped that had been started by his father and everything was perfect until I got pregnant. Ian’s parents, who were also my parents’ bosses were not aware of our story or worse their unborn grandchild simply because my parents did not want to upset their employer and Ian was just scared hence the rejection and my ending up in Lydiate.