memoirsfromzimbawee

That night, Alfonso sneaked into the protected area unnoticed. It was pitch
dark and he wore no shoes on his feet. Slowly, he worked his way through the
fence after cutting the wires with a sharp pair of pliers. In the dark he
managed to grope his way along until he reached the tunnel. Like a trained
soldier, he crawled silently through the tunnel, until he could feel cool
air above his head. That was when he realized that he was now in Zimbabwe’s
El Dorado, the Chiadzwa diamond area. Suddenly, he froze on hearing the
voice of an armed soldier: “I am trained to kill, and I shoot on sight”, but
the soldier was not talking to him, only boasting to his fellows. Shocked,
he could see silhouetted figures, smoking. The pungent smell of cigarette
smoke itched his nostrils, and he restrained the urge to sneeze. Hours
later, his loot wrapped around his waist, his heart leapt with joy, but he
knew that any slight movement would spell his doom. He had never felt close
to death like this. He bit his little finger for twenty minutes, inwardly
praying. It seemed the night would never end. Out of danger, he retraced his
way to the tunnel and crawled back to safety. Hitching the earliest lift he
could get, he was in Harare early that morning, and somewhere in the high
rise buildings a deal was secretly struck and a transaction concluded. With
a wad of twenty thousand US Dollars in cash, Alfonso returned to Mutare. A
month later he moved from the sprawling high density suburb of Dangamvura to
Morningside low density suburb, into a posh house, basking quietly in his
new found quick riches.

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