16 Mar 2015

Like any other young couple, Neo Busani and her boyfriend migrated from Maitengwe village to the city in a quest for greener pastures. Little did she know she was up for a tough beginning.

Bad luck would strike. Her boyfriend became very sickly and physically weak after being diagnosed with stomach cancer. Analgesics failed to mitigate the agony. Busani tells BOPA in an interview that by then they cohabited at a church with their two year-old son. At this stage, she explains that her partner felt like he was given capital punishment but never was he a pessimist.

It took an act of courage, driven by a certain measure of hope for things to change for the better. Her boyfriend wrote a letter to the Office of the President asking for a piece of land to turn it into a place of abode. The 23 year-old mother of two explains that within a week an assessment was done and later the family was allocated a stand at Tsolamosese location.

Dead broke, Busani had to build a house, simultaneously nursing her ailing partner and fending for the family while she awaited a house from the President’s Housing Appeal Fund.
She made bricks with straw and that resulted in a structure that failed to protect the family during harsh weather conditions.

As if that was not enough, the father to her son gave up the ghost; the game was up. Her hopes to be affianced were quashed. Just two years after graduating from teenagehood, Busani would take up the gauntlet, paddle her own canoe, all at once expecting her second child. That is when the fund’s emissaries came to her home to break the good news.

Although Busani had initially requested for an extension of her single room, a philanthropist, through the fund, decided to build a new structure.

In June 2014, construction of a three roomed spacious house commenced. Today her yard boasts a peach painted house with a veranda that serves as a playground for her son who is about to celebrate her fourth birthday and his 11 month old sister.

Indeed adverse conditions do not last forever; brighter days are in store for Busani. As happy as lark, she explains that now she feels she is part of society because the house will earn her respect.
“…ndo be ndi gala pa ka sitilika ne bana ti se nga lale ti nigwanya ne zwija. Ndo kholwa kubi sekwa ba ndi thamila ba dwilile be thusa bathu ba se pelele ipapa,” literally meaning that she was staying in an unsafe structure with children because the rain used to drench both her family and belongings.

And government should continue extending the gesture to those in need. Yet running short of appreciative words, Busani does not stop reflecting on the past when her emotional weakness hit the nadir, and the people whom she could have leaned on detached themselves from her. And the ‘housing appeal fund’ was her last hope.

“Ne bana dumbu ba ka shatha, (even the children are happy),” she adds as she cuddles her youngest child while the first born is pestering her for attention.
Though the period of misfortunes is over, the unemployed mother who survives through menial jobs is to feather her nest as she awaits the official handover of the house that is likely to bring surprises for the family.

This project adds to the President’s Housing Appeal’s achievements. Like Longfellow once said, “The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight; But they, while their companions slept, were tolling up in the night.” ENDS