Buried, But Still Breathing

Tatenda was born where the red earth kisses the soles of barefoot boys, where the wind carries the scent of sadza and smoke, and the sun teaches patience by the way it scorches everything that stands too still. He was named Tatenda — "we are thankful" — by a grandmother who prayed in whispers and believed names could shape destinies.

In Zimbabwe, he learned to smile with little. To be grateful for electricity when it came. To fetch water without complaint. To laugh, even when the cupboards were bare. The struggle was never new, but somehow, it always came dressed in fresh clothes. Still, like many young men, he believed there was something better beyond the border.

So, when the chance came, he packed a small bag, kissed his mother’s forehead, and boarded a cross-border bus bound for South Africa. The ride was long, filled with strangers and silent prayers. He didn’t know what waited on the other side, but he knew what he was leaving behind: a country that loved him but could not feed him.

He arrived in Johannesburg with more hope than money. At first, it was exciting — the noise, the speed, the chance. He thought things would start quickly. They didn’t.

Work was hard to find. Papers were harder. Even when he smiled, people looked past him. He was just another voice with an unfamiliar name, one of thousands trying to survive in a place already stretched thin. Days turned into weeks. Weeks into months.

He found a room — one window, one mattress, four walls of peeling paint. He paid rent when he could, skipped meals when he couldn’t. His phone became both a lifeline and a burden. Every message from home was laced with expectation: How’s the new life? When are you sending something? Don’t forget us.

But what do you say when you have nothing to show?

Tatenda stopped calling. He sent voice notes with borrowed laughter. He lied to protect the ones he loved from the truth — that he was breaking in slow, quiet ways. That he sometimes stared at the ceiling and wondered if this was it.

He wasn’t lazy. He wasn’t ungrateful. He was just… tired.

And no one tells you what to do when you’re the one everyone expects to rise, but you’re drowning quietly, with no one to notice. No one claps for the man who wakes up and keeps going even when there’s no reason left to.

But in his silence, something still lived. Maybe it was stubbornness. Maybe it was faith, or shame, or the echo of his grandmother’s voice reminding him, “Your name is a prayer. Don’t forget that.”

And so, Tatenda breathes.

He gets up.

He keeps trying — not because he feels strong, but because he refuses to stay down.

This is not a story of triumph. Not yet.

It’s a story of someone still standing.

Still hoping.

Still breathing.

Even when the world feels like it stopped listening.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s enough for now.

Every morning, Tatenda wakes before the sun, not because he wants to, but because rest is a luxury he can’t afford.

He steps into the cold city air like a man rehearsing for a role no one cast him in. His shirt is clean but tired. His shoes are starting to whisper with each step. He moves through the streets with purpose — or at least, the performance of it. Because in a city like this, if you slow down, you disappear.

And Tatenda knows what it means to be invisible.

He’s stood in lines that stretch around buildings, hoping for day jobs that vanish by the time it’s his turn. He’s smiled at people who looked through him, spoken in careful words to make his accent smaller, less noticeable. He’s entered rooms and felt like a ghost.

Here, in this land of opportunity, some men become shadows before they ever get a chance to shine.

It’s not just the work — or the lack of it. It’s the loneliness. The way your phone stays quiet. The way your story goes unheard. He sees other men like him — standing at corners, pacing outside hardware stores, waiting for a hand to wave them over. Brothers. Survivors. Strangers carrying the same silent ache.

There’s a heaviness that builds when you’re not seen. A kind of emotional erosion. Not loud, but steady.

And Tatenda feels it most at night, when the world goes quiet and he can hear his own heart beating too loudly. He lies on his mattress, looking at the ceiling, thinking of all the ways he’s tried. All the “maybe tomorrow”s. All the “just keep going”s.

Some nights he cries. Not with sobs. Just tears — slow, shameful ones, the kind a man wipes quickly in the dark.

Because where he comes from, men are meant to endure. Not break.

But inside, something is cracking.

He misses home — not the poverty, not the struggle — but the familiarity. The sound of his mother humming in the kitchen. The way the neighbors used to shout across fences. The greetings that felt like belonging.

Here, he’s just another face. Another name no one bothers to pronounce properly.

But in that invisibility, in that weight — Tatenda begins to see something.

He’s not the only one carrying it.

There are thousands like him. Men who left home hoping to become more, only to be reduced to labor and silence. And yet… they continue.

They get up. They keep going.

And Tatenda begins to wonder if that’s the real miracle — not success, not wealth, not applause. But the simple act of staying alive. Of keeping your soul intact when the world acts like you don’t exist.

Maybe, just maybe, there’s power in being the man who’s still standing.

Still trying.

Still breathing.

Even when no one’s watching.

Shona Proverb: “Chauinacho batisisa, chasvika chave chako.”

Hold on to what you have — it will soon become yours.