Esquire Conant Masocha

My Inheritance! After the funeral on Saturday, as we packed my father’s belongings, we found a small black zip-up pouch. Inside were bundles of Zimbabwe dollars, millions and billions stacked tightly together. Beside them were his bank savings passbooks, carefully kept, pages stamped over the years… proof of discipline, patience and a deep belief in tomorrow. My father retired in 2008. Those who remember 2008 know it was not just a year; it was a storm. Prices changed between morning and afternoon. Salaries evaporated before reaching home. People carried money in bags but still went hungry. Lifetime savings turned into paper almost overnight. And that is exactly what happened to him. Everything he had worked for vanished. From a young age, my father was a hustler. He lost his own father early and started a family at just 18, so life never gave him the luxury of waiting. He worked. He would walk from Plumtree to Bulawayo, driving goats to sell, sleeping in the open until every goat was sold, then take a bus back home. In 1965, he went to South Africa in search of greener pastures, and he never stopped trading. Perfume, soap, blankets, clothes, radios, bicycles… anything that could be sold, he sold. During drought years, he sold cattle and banked the money. He saved, hoping that retirement would finally allow him to rest. But 2008 took that future away. Those notes and passbooks were not just money. They were early mornings and late nights. School fees are paid before new clothes. History decided otherwise. I did not inherit wealth from my father. I inherited a work ethic. Responsibility, Endurance. And the courage of a generation that lost everything, yet still woke up the next morning and continued.