I am Zimbabwean

I have survived on the generosity of diners as I wait on all tables of Gauteng without an assured salary.

I have put on weight not from eating their leftover tasteless beef and chicken but from the lack of decent food and adequate rest.

I have shared a single room in Hillbrow and London with countless cousins and friends in order to save the little I earn from tips to buy food and pay fees for siblings back home.

I have looked after and washed the old and the sick in old peoples’ homes of London and Christchurch.

I have guarded buildings and poured fuel in the dry desert of Las Vegas.

I have cleaned the toilets of Heathrow and Gatwick airports.

I have toiled on the farms of South Africa and helped them produce cheap genetically modified food.

I have developed systems in gadgets that have been to Mars and back.

I am the voice of wisdom in the training rooms and universities around the world.

My finger prints are all over power stations around the world.

I fought in the war of Iraq and supported peace efforts in Sudan and killed fellow Africans in Libya.

I was brought home in a coffin because the ego took the best of me and could not bring myself to take ARVs.

I am the doctor that cannot save my own and yet I save countless lives in faraway places.

I endure the cold nights of Siberia and Toronto so I can support myself and those back home.

I deny myself freedom because I have never known liberty.

I provide wise counsel to governments and multinational institutions around the world.

I have designed and worked on sugar plantations of Mozambique, Tanzania and Sierra Leone.

I work in the deep mines of South Africa, Namibia, Australia, Botswana, Mali and Ghana.

And yet, and yet I cannot do the same for the good of my country.

I am the one that is not appreciated and is taken for granted at home. I am a Zimbabwean. – Educated idiot