There’s a Zulu man who canvasses houses here in Hilton to ask for money. On Saturday he appeared at our gate, where he claimed he needs funds to buy a school uniform for his daughter.
The man, Bhekumzumi Sydney Zimu, 47, has appeared from time to time at my partner’s door for the past eight years. He’s a fixture in the neighborhood, you might say.
“Where is your daughter,” my partner asked Zumi, who had told us his daughter is in the eighth grade.
“In a boarding school in Willowfontein,” he answered. “She’s in grade 12.”
“I thought she was in the eighth grade,” my partner said.
“My older daughter is in twelfth grade,” Zumi said.
Zumi said the eighth grader attends school on a scholarship that leaves him responsible for her food and uniform, which he said he hopes to buy at a store in Pietermaritzburg.
My partner called a Zulu friend, whom she asked to speak with Zumi for the purpose of investigating his story. If it checked out, my partner and I discussed the possibility of driving him to the uniform shop, where a uniform sells for about $5 (U.S.). That would be one way to determine if he’s telling the truth.
Zumi talked with the friend for about four minutes then handed the phone back to my partner. His story was difficult to assess by phone, according to the friend, who recommended that we advise Zumi to come by the office where my partner and her friend work. There the mostly Zulu staff could assess the truth of his tale.
My partner relayed the decision to Zumi. She wrote out instructions to bring a letter from the school that identifies the daughter by name and attests to his being her father.
Zumi said he would do that. Then he began, in his limited English, to tell us about a job he had in Hilton with a man who died. The man’s wife would not continue Zumi’s employment because she had never met Zumi and could not verify his story, he said. Without the job, Zumi needed money to finish putting up his house, which has unfinished walls he says.
We’ll see whether he shows up at the office. In the meantime, my partner is withholding judgment. “He rolls out all kinds of stories,” she says.
UPDATE: As of February 28, Zumi has yet to appear at the office.