For Morgan

For about 11 months between 2012 and 2013, I worked with Morgan Tsvangirai. He had called me one day, sometime in February 2012, to a private meeting where he asked me if I could work with him. It was a surprising and humbling request. I had no right to be there, let alone to be asked of such a responsibility.

I had been working with the MDC-T team at COPAC, the constitution-making committee, as a legal adviser. Some months earlier, Douglas Mwonzora, the co-Chairman of Copac and Tsvangirai had sent a request for assistance in the constitution-making process. It was a great honour to be asked and to be involved in that process and I did not hesitate. I came to Harare and we worked through that gruelling process, which remains memorable. Some have watched the documentary, Democrats and got a glimpse of what it was like.

But this request from Tsvangirai was on a different scale altogether. I had no idea why he asked me and I have never asked. I suspect some well-meaning people may have reported positively on my work at COPAC. He advised me to go and think about it. I went and thought about it, consulted family and friends, and my response was in the affirmative.

And so began a journey in which I got to work with Tsvangirai. In the process, I got to know him very well, both as a person and as a politician. I have never before written of my experiences with him. But today, his personal circumstances have commanded me to say a few words. I speak of him as a person, and not the politician.

I got to know the more personal side of the man, which only proximity affords. I saw a humble man, a very ordinary man whom, I sometimes felt, was suffocated by the cloak of officialdom. We joked and laughed. I did not have to call to go to see him. He could call anytime. I could call anytime too. There were no intermediaries. Indeed, I had the authority of the gatekeeper. Those who wanted to see him called me and likewise if he wanted to see anyone, he sent me: a security guard and messenger!

But I also saw that leadership is a lonely place. It is both crowded and lonely. There are many people who want to be with you because you have power, but in reality there are few friends. His genuine friends were men and women with whom he grew up. One day, we went to Bindura for a rally. On the way he asked his driver to go to a certain house. We drove there and he asked me to come in with him. There, in the house were his old friends, from his mining days in the town. I had never seen him so relaxed and so happy. He was with his people and he felt at home, relaxed in the company of friends who knew him as Baba vaEdwin. They talked about their old days, their friends and all. That’s the man I got to know and those who know him know his signature laughter – a loud, unrestrained laughter of an unpretentious man.

Many times people who complain how tired and worn out they were or how unwell they were. He would laugh and say “Vakomana makaitwa seiko imi? Munongorwara-rwara! Honai isu tiri njanji!” (You guys are weak, look at me, I’m strong).

And he was. There is not a single time that he complained of illness that stopped him from attending to his duty. Which is why I was really saddened when I recently got news that he had been diagnosed with colon cancer. I know too well, how it is when one’s body is encumbered by a chronic illness. It was in November 2013, after gruelling months on the political field when I discovered that I was seriously unwell – a circumstance that caused me to take leave. I ended up spending nearly a month in hospital, itself a life-changing experience. I often joke that I don’t fear hospitals like I used to before that experience!

At the time, Tsvangirai wished me well. The road to recovery has been hard. Now though, it’s my turn to wish him well, too. Cancer is a cruel coward but it can be beaten. But if there is anyone who has the will power and strength to beat it, it is Tsvangirai.

In moments like these, the politics does not matter. It is not an issue at all. My heart warmed today when I read Prof Jonathan Moyo’s message on Twitter today, “I wish [Tsvangira] full and complete recovery in his fight against colon cancer. May God’s favour be with him!” he wrote. Indeed, that is as it should be. We are human first before our professions and careers, political or otherwise. Cancer does not know political affiliation, gender or religion.

I wish him well, as I am sure most people do. What he needs the most right now is to be allowed time to go through the gruelling chemotherapy sessions. And anyone who has had to carry a chronic ailment, or witnessed a relative or friend who has had to carry that burden, will understand and empathise and probably recognise that everything else pales into insignificance.

I speak of course as someone who is partial, but I speak also because I think it is the right thing to do. I finish with one of my favourite Chinua Achebe quotes:

“A man who calls his kinsmen to a feast does not do so to save them from starving. They all have food in their own homes. When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so.”

Blessings to you, Save! You’re a fighter.

waMagaisa