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Mutero: A seasoned politician
Lifestyle Reporter
GROWING up in a rural Zimbabwe, or colonial Southern Rhodesia as it was then, Betty Mutero was exposed to many things at a tender age.
She always believed in education as a means to success and as a rural girl the combination of exposure and education really shaped her life.
She enjoyed learning and during spare time she never stopped doing so.
"I had a passion for learning new things and I am glad I developed that at a tender age. It shaped and developed my character," she revealed during an interview.
As a young woman, Betty loved sharing her knowledge with others something that was to become a part of her career when she started work as a social worker.
From the outset, Betty was imbued with a go-get attitude that made her a strong woman even when the odds were against her. From their rural home they later moved to a farm in Musengezi.
Her father was a schoolteacher and in those days teachers were highly respected members of society. Teaching and nursing were the two professions open to black Zimbabweans and the two where they could rise to the top.
So when Betty’s father decided to take her to the then Dadaya Mission, it was a question of giving his child the best education that he possibly could give.
And interestingly, at Dadaya Mission was where she grew politically and learnt to speak her mind.
"The principal at the school was Garfield Todd while his wife was our English teacher. My classmates included Willie Musarurwa and Silas Mundawarara.
"So one day, we were told that a black teacher would take over from Mrs Todd. I objected to that and later on I incited the whole class to rebel against the decision because we never imagined a black teacher in front of the class.
"However, we were surprised to see that the teacher was Ndabaningi Sithole. He had just come from South Africa and this was his first deployment.
"When he heard that we did not want him as our teacher he investigated the issue and found out that I was the ring leader of the rebellious group," she revealed.
Later, she was punished for inciting others to rebel against the black teacher.
"He (the late Sithole) called me to his house and asked me to babysit his child during which time he also taught me the relevance of having a black teacher at the school.
"As he explained to me, I could see that he was, in fact, politicising me because he made me see things that I had not thought about before," she said.
Now that she had learnt the politics at the time, Betty soon finished her school and went straight for teaching.
All was well and good before she returned home to Musengezi where she caught a cold.
"The nearest clinic was at Kutama Mission and I was admitted at the clinic for five days," she said as she went through heaps of yesteryear pictures.
While she was at the clinic she fell in love with a handsome guy called James, a teacher by profession, who months only later became her husband.
After getting married the couple moved to Shabani (now Zvishavane) where after finishing work some women from the compound in the mining town would come at her house to learn how to sew.
"There was activity at the mine and the management decided that I quit teaching and start social work. I taught women how to sew and cook, what was basically known as domestic science," she said.
Her husband was transferred to Bulawayo to become the head of Helemani School.
The couple, with their first child Zivai moved to the City of Kings.
"We had just had our first born Zivai or Tony when we moved to Bulawayo. The other three children Shungu, Natsai and Kundisai were not yet born. On the names of the children, my husband wanted the names to mean that Kuziva kunopa shungu dzinonatsa wozokunda.
"However, it’s sad that my husband and Natsai are both late but the others have their own families," she said.
While in Bulawayo in the 1960s, Betty was employed by the municipality as a social worker and at the same time studying for a diploma in social work at the Zambian Open Highma College.
"Together with other women we formed the Young Women’s Christian Association with help from an American woman. During that time I got a scholarship to study community development in Germany.
"This meant that I had to leave my husband and children to study in Germany. And when I returned from Germany, my husband was had then been appointed the second inspector of schools and transferred to Masvingo having lived in Bulawayo for eight years," she said.
Later, Ian Smith’s government introduced community development as a policy in the 1960s.
"There was a white woman who was in charge of the community development programme but the problem was that she could not do it alone, she needed someone who was well versed with the communities.
"She then wrote to me in Masvingo and asked me to join her since she could not speak local languages. The job involved a lot of travelling and that meant I had to leave my family again.
"Another problem at the time was that I was not formally employed because community development programmes were supposed to be headed by white personnel not black people.
"After a lot of convincing from Mrs Wilson, who was my boss, I was formally employed but I still did not get the same treatment as she did. During meetings, they would drink tea or coffee while I was just seated. This really hurt me such that I decided to move around with my own flask with tea, which I drank outside meetings.
"Things changed later when Mrs Wilson convinced the white people that we were colleagues and equal," she remembered.
She also reckons that life during the Smith regime was not easy for black people. In 1963 while she was still in Bulawayo she got her driving licence, but this was no mean achievement for a black woman.
"You know my boss would fly and I would drive. So one day I drove to the airport to pick up Mrs Wilson and everybody looked at me in disbelief.
"After I picked her I then drove to the service station to fill up the tank and still the fuel attendant would look at me suspiciously."
Being among the first black women to own a car also opened her to racial prejudice.
"An incident happened when I drove into town one day and as I was parking outside the bank I heard white children shouting ‘mummy, mummy come see nanny is driving a car’," she said jokingly.
Indeed, it was rare sight to find a black woman driving a car and for Betty as one of the few blacks to own a car the experience was overwhelming. She hardly drove around without turning heads and nobody thought it was her personal car.
Bill Saidi, a veteran journalist who lived in the same era as Betty, also reckons that they were few black who owned cars at the time and such achievements were a rare sight.
But with support from her husband, Betty travelled across the country training trainers in community development.
She then enrolled for an Associate of the Institute of Education from the University of Rhodesia now UZ.
"I’ve taken education as a continuous process where you learn from cradle to the grave. Maybe that’s why I’m not showing signs of aging although I was born in 1932.
"I travelled throughout the country working with women from different communities teaching them how to sew, cook, handicrafts and bookkeeping for those who ran their markets.
"I would then sell those artifacts in Harare on behalf of women. I later realised that it was not possible to continue doing that since it would take me ages to go back to those communities.
At Independence in 1980, while in Masvingo she started community development for the Government before being appointed director of projects in the Community Development and Women Affairs Ministry headed by then Minister Joice Mujuru, now Vice President.
"My husband was then appointed permanent secretary in the Youth Ministry although he was also a priest in the Methodist Church. For me it was a continuation of what I had been doing over the years," she said.
As fate would have it, her husband suffered a stroke due to pressure of work and was confined to a wheelchair for 14 years.
"I asked for early retirement from Government but I was still very much involved in several community development activities. I remained a member of YWCA and director of the Association of Women’s Clubs.
Betty is a well-travelled woman who has brushed shoulders with luminaries across Africa.
As chairperson of Mbuya Nehanda Children’s Home, she met with the late legendary Miriam "Mama Africa" Makeba and Dorothy Masuka, among others.
Describing herself as a seasoned politician, Betty says she respects other people’s views.
"Yes, I’m a politician, a seasoned politician who respects other people’s views because it is important to know what other people think.
"I’ve been involved in Zanu-PF Women’s League and I still go to church.
She firmly believes that political education is the answer to the national healing process.
"There is general lack of political education among Zimbabweans and this is why people often resort to political violence. People need political education and should be tolerant of other people’s views," she said. |
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