Sitting next to the 75-year old Anne Kororo on a flight from London to Harare early this year was a revealing experience. The reason for her flight to the UK was to drop her two grandchildren at their parents relocated four years ago. The family could reunite only now after the parents managed to organise work permits and become legal immigrants.

Since Zimbabwe’s economy nosedived after 2000, many young people fled the country en masse in order to look for greener pastures in neighbouring countries and even further. During the formative years of the meltdown, many professionals and ordinary people relocated mainly to the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. They had to leave their children behind in the care of their ageing parents who, in most cases, had to abandon their rural life in order look after their children’s homes in the city.
   

Grannies as home managers
“I have been looking after my grandchildren since my son and his wife left for the UK when things really got tough here.” explains Anne. “They always send me money for the upkeep of their home and I am also responsible for all the school needs, including attending consultation days, paying utility bills and supervising the maid and gardener. Our neighbour, Irene Moyo, who is one year older than me, takes her grandchildren to Australia and New Zealand every year in order for them to spend holidays with their parents who left six year ago. Our children in the diaspora prefer to have us, their ageing parents, to look after their homes than to entrust the task to strangers.”
 

Expensive domestic workers
It also happens that, due to the high cost of domestic workers in Europe and other developed countries, some people end up asking their elderly parents to come over for that pertinent role.  Still in her early 70s, Norah Simbi has two daughters resident in Canada. Over the last five years, both of them gave birth at different intervals. Each time, Simbi was flown over to babysit for durations of up to six months.
 

Truant grandchildren
However, getting flown over and seeing the world is the nice part of the deal. Most of these elderly people find it to be an extremely daunting task to look after their left-behind granchildren. They can be so undisciplined and adventurous that the situation becomes very quickly unbearable.
 

"The kids will sometimes lie about non-existent school events and end up engaging in criminal activities involving drugs and alcohol. Sometimes the parents are out of jobs and can no longer send the same amount of money back home. Thus, the standards of the homes often deteriorate rapidly under grandparents’ administration.” laments social worker, Susan Khoza.
 

With her grandchildren at their parents in London, now Anne has only the maid and gardener to supervise. But the job does not get any easier. Some of these workers can be untrustworthy, lazy and unruly when they know that their real employers are far away. With no more rural homes to go back to, Anne and so many other elderly people in Zimbabwe continue to live in a stressful situation which is beyond their control. 
 

Listen below to young Phathi Makhawulane talking about her peers who are under their grandparents' care while their parents are working abroad.

Photo: Maureen Sill (Flickr CC)