heist

Scraping together the money for T's fees for her social sciences degree at the University of Zimbabwe is always something of a challenge. She's in her last year now. First she comes to visit, bearing baby and a raft of exam results. Problem is: I haven't got the fee money together yet. My father is still trying to raise it, and I've been crafting desperate bios of T to send to my former English teacher who edits a parish magazine in the town I grew up in, in the hope somebody, somewhere will dig deep. Visit over, Dad texts. He's raised some -- but not all -- of the required (desired?) sum. Shall he send it? Yes, I say. Something, surely, is better than nothing. T does not have a bank account. Her husband (it's official, note: he's paid lobola), mired in the depths of rural Gokwe for 20 days per month carrying out a pre-Census mapping project, does not have a bank account either. Neither do her parents (this may not be true: I think it's rather that T knows she wouldn't see the money if it went to them). We settle on Western Union. Text messages bat to and fro between England, Harare and other locations, setting up secret questions, reference numbers, Union offices where she'll go to collect the cash. Then I wait. And wonder. For 24 hours. Were those sms-es intercepted? Has somebody withdrawn the money without our knowledge? Was it her brother's cellphone I was using (I have a whole handful of cellphone numbers to use for her, most of them belonging to other members of the family)? Late at night, my 'phone pings. "sorry 4 th late reply my 4n was off the whole of yesterday we only got power @ 1 this morning thank u 4 the money & ve a blessed day." Phew...Except, this morning. Last-but-one item on the ZBC news bulletin. "Police are investigating the theft of 83,000 US dollars from the University of Zimbabwe." Apparently an official was walking the 100 metre distance between the accountant's office and CBZ bank's campus branch when an armed gang of six pounced on him. "The money was part of what students have paid for this term's fees...."