At Home in Africa

One day Njiramando Mateo was teaching school; the next he became a subsistence farmer.

"I heard that the government had acquired land in the Nyamakate area of Zimbabwe and was going to resettle people there who had no land of their own," he says. "My father had come to Zimbabwe from Malawi to work in the gold mines. When he got old, he went home to his village in Malawi. Many Zimbabweans were returning to their ancestral lands after independence (in 1980), but I didn't know where I would go. I often thought of getting my own land, but the policy in Zimbabwe was that if you were working for a salary you couldn't get land in the resettlement area. It was for farmers. So, I had to terminate teaching."

Mateo and his wife, Eunice, packed their belongings and their three children and went to build a new life.

"Many people said to me: 'Why are you leaving your teaching to become a subsistence farmer?' What I wanted was to have my own land, because when you get old, sometimes you retire. What I wanted actually was a home--a place to rest."

Mateo first heard about Habitat when he began clearing his land. He went to a meeting and when people found out he was a teacher they asked him to be the secretary of the new local committee. Working with Shadrack Chiyangwa, chairman of the local committee, he began educating people and gathering support. The affiliate started the first three houses in 1996. The next year, the national office hired Mateo as affiliate program manager.

"I have learned such a lot working with Habitat," Mateo says, "I was used to being alone. But, you know, with Habitat it is different. I went with the people, mobilizing them and bringing them together to build those first three houses. I like it better."

Mateo and Chiyangwa want to build houses with all 620 families in the area. They are off to a good start--160 houses have been built to date.

One of them, finished in late 1997, belongs to Eunice and Njiramando Mateo.


--Tilly Grey





Reprinted from Habitat World Magazine, August/September 2000.
This article may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
©2000 Habitat for Humanity International