The Nhamo Family

The Nhamo family were a known family in Mabvuku. They often knocked on
people’s houses begging for food and clothes. They did get some food but it
wasn’t enough to last them two days.

Before poverty, they had depended mainly on agriculture. They did crop
production and reared livestock. They bred rabbits and they grew maize, wheat
and rape. They sold the wheat so they could gain some income but the rest were
for themselves.

When the drought came, the crops weren’t getting enough water and they soon
dried up. The rabbits also died due to a lack of water and this left the Nhamo
family with nothing but the last dollars they had acquired from selling wheat.
They used the money to buy seeds and saved a little bit, but when they planted
the seeds there was no sign of growth.

They had been living in a rental property, but from the day they left the house life
had been very difficult. They ended up living in squatter camps with a group of
other homeless people. They built shacks that were made of cardboard that they
picked from bins from grocery stores. In those bins was where they found their
breakfast and dinner every day, but they were times when the food they found
was too little to fill their tummies.

The family began getting more desperate for resources and ended up stealing
from vendors in the streets. It got to an extent that they robbed a convenience
store and grabbed all the food and money and left without a trace.