BULAWAYO - Lumbering wearily under an enormous bundle that is bursting at the seams with an assortment of discarded paper, 50-year old Sarafina Tshuma trudges towards the southern edge of the city, fearful not to miss the Friday noon deadline. 

She emerges from an alleyway to join five other women already gathered at an open space guarding equally large bundles of waste paper while they await the arrival of the truck to pick up their weekly collection. 

Some of the women engross themselves in loading packages onto a platform scale for the buyer to determine payment. 

"I don't mind being mistaken for a vagrant or tramp by members of the public who see me scrounging and rummaging through trash cans in the alleyways," says Tshuma who ekes out a living from selling waste paper to a recycling company. 

Shrinking job opportunities stemming from an unrelenting economic recession now in its eighth year has worsened hardships for Zimbabweans battling to fend for their families.  

The economic crisis that critics blame on repression and wrong policies by President Robert Mugabe has spawned the world’s highest inflation of more than 26 000 percent, and acute shortages of foreign currency, food, electricity, fuel and just about every basic survival commodity. 

Many Zimbabweans – at least three quarters of the country’s 12 million people according to conservative estimates – have fled the economic meltdown to neighbouring countries and as far afield as Britain, America and New Zealand in search for better paying jobs and living conditions. 

But others, like Tshuma and her colleagues, have stayed behind to tap into the hard opportunities that an economy in recession sometimes presents. 

The women have taken advantage of failure by the city council to clear piling garbage because of a depleted and aging fleet of removal trucks to create unusual income generating opportunities for themselves. 

"What has been council failure has turned out to be a blessing in disguise for us," Tshuma says, at the same time complaining that the rains that have been pummelling the city non-stop since around December have undermined her efforts to collect greater quantities of waste paper. 

"It is hard work but there is money in collecting waste paper. The rains, though welcome, are doing down our business" she says. 

The other women hasten to assist her take the burdensome load tied together in tattered Hessian bag off her head. Three well-built men were required to help lift up the load of waste paper onto the truck taking it to the recycling factory. 

"I have six grand sons and daughters to clothe, feed and educate," Liz Dhumela, one of Tshuma’s colleagues, told ZimOnline at a satellite waste paper collection point on the fringes of the city. 

The waste paper company pays Z$160 000 (US$0, 16 cents) for each kilogramme of recyclable paper collected. 

US$0.16 might seem nominal but in an economic environment characterised by run-away inflation that the IMF estimates has breached the 150 000 percent, it is sufficient for women like Dhumela and Tshuma to get by. 

Tshuma says two of her daughters "crossed the border" into South Africa in search of work while the third was deserted by her husband together with her two children "for regularly falling sick and chalking up huge medical bills." 

"Men no longer seem to bother about child support," Tshuma says, blaming her son-in-law for neglecting two of her six grandchildren she now fends for. 

Unemployment currently estimated at about 80 percent has meant that men regularly default on child support payments. Moreover, the value of monthly child maintenance payments is being persistently whittled down by galloping inflation. 

Crescencia Hlongwane, another woman at the collection site says she has given up chasing after her former husband for child support since she started collecting waste paper six months ago. 

"The Z$100 000 maintenance payment could not sustain my child," Hlongwane who has a four-year old daughter says. 

The money from her husband, according to Hlongwane, was not enough even to buy a piece of candy and add to that the bureaucracy she had to surmount to get the maintenance payments – it was just not worth the trouble. 

"I make much more than that collecting waste paper than waiting for maintenance payment," she adds though unwilling to disclose exactly how much makes per day. 

"The money has given me a sense of self-reliance and weaned me from dependence on someone who does not seem to care for me and his daughter." 

Margaret Dhlodhlo says with the money she makes from collecting waste paper, she assists her husband raise money to look after the couple's family of four and two orphans - one left by her sister and the other by her husband's sister as well. 

"Our combined income helps us educate the six children. Collecting waste paper helps lighten the burden on my husband, who would otherwise struggle to make ends meet by himself had I not teamed up with these other women," says Dhlodhlo. 

The men and women who prowl the alleyways picking up recyclable paper are clearing up what could have been unsightly piles of garbage. 

"It is now more than two months since we saw refuse trucks driving down the alleyway to pick garbage," says Calvin Sengwayo who runs a medium sized book binding concern along Fife Avenue in the central business district. 

"Without these women, the sanitary lanes would be impassable with mounds of garbage. We appreciate their contribution to environmental cleanliness by picking up garbage for sale," Sengwayo adds. – ZimOnline