The traffic lights of Thomas Chigide’s highway of life never turned amber. It was all either a full stop or a hard go, and he knew exactly what fate had in store for him. But the COVID-19 pandemic hit at the prime of his youth, and he was not spared from the disruptions that affected lives across Zimbabwe. At the time, Thomas was serving his industrial attachment in the trenches of Bindura, a mining town 90 km from Harare, as part of his honors degree in social work.
One thing stood out about Thomas: an unrelenting pursuit of community and social justice. Everyone who crossed paths with him remarked upon his dream of becoming a prominent social worker. He was firm about recruiting like-minded comrades along the way, and in doing so, earned respect and loyalty from those who aligned with his vision.
Thomas was not the kind to believe a man had to be sober and straight-laced to be great. A strong academic background often gives the impression one is too smart for one’s own good. Hanging with junkies was the first time society began to express worry about the young man. At the church the youth group expressed worry when he didn’t show up on Sundays anymore, but in their hearts they knew he hadn’t lost his faith. In the ghetto corner stores, he made family and friends, but slowly it took away his flair and swag. To Thomas it was a necessary prize to pay for becoming a revolutionary: being with the masses, the hoi polloi.
His family upheld Christian values starkly, yet Thomas had his fair share of imperfections. He found a way to carve his imagination into realities that did not sync with that kind of surrounding. In Bindura, a town whose economy was driven by the mining sector, he made friends with fellow youths who had abandoned the conventional path of excelling in academia before embarking on a career – the dream of most Zimbabwean parents. In this town, kids as young as 12 knew that gold panning was a lucrative hustle, despite the dangers associated with it.
Many of them would be broke and hopeless by the time they hit their 20s, because a quick buck had gotten to their heads. Drawing comparisons with his own life, Thomas appreciated the perseverance that had carried him toward an educational foundation, one that at least qualified him for opportunities in the corporate world. But it simply was never enough.
The real battle in Thomas’s life was the pressure from his own mother. She wanted to see him prosper in a white-collar job, while he had ambitions as a social entrepreneur. He graduated and walked into different jobs, but none of them worked out. After three years, he quit and decided to champion youth movements, hoping the government or other organizations would fund his cause.
Now Thomas is not unlike the youths he left behind in Bindura: all hoping to wake up one day in a Bentley paid for by their mining fortunes. The only difference was that Thomas carried a lingering optimism that his efforts would one day come full circle, whilst the youths who bypassed school were growing weary with each dig into the ground in search of precious minerals.
Thomas’s life now revolves around graphic design, writing, and recording himself, spreading the agenda for brands that align with his dreams. He is not just a junkie in the hood but a figure of hope, bridging the gap between ambition and desired outcome for many youths around him. Parents worry about their children spending time in the studios, fearing they’ll get caught up in whatever drug hits the streets. Yet Thomas has remained steadfast in his belief that one day Zimbabwe will be a country that allows the young people to fearlessly pursue their dreams.
The story of Thomas Chigide is the story of many young people in Zimbabwe who, at the mercy of a lack of opportunity, have become street occupants, surviving on a bottle of cough syrup and cigarettes from long days of hunting for a break that never seems to come.
Like a million other youths, Thomas comes home to his mother singing, ‘Musoro makazara chamba kwete madhiri’ – you only think about smoking weed, not securing deals. ‘Thomas iwe!’ – oh Thomas!
