Operation Get Out of Poverty

Anna’s alarm rang making her jolt awake from her sleep. She rubs her eyes and looks around frantically. Her alarm says that it’s nine in the morning.

“Oh, shit!’ She exclaims and jolts up. She tries to figure out whether she was for the morning or afternoon shift then realizes that today is her first day off. She puts her hand and her chest and exhales. 

“That bloody job will make me go crazy,” she murmurs to herself and looks around. She sees the pieces of paper where she was jotting down notes on how to find a sugar daddy. She claps her hands together. “Okay, Operation Get out of Poverty Commences Now,” she says to herself. Since it’s nine in the morning that means that her mother has already gone to work. Probably left the front door unlocked as well instead of waking Anna up to lock it. Anna moves the desk from last night from the front of the door and walks into the lounge. Every time that her mother leaves the front door unlocked she low-key expects to find a strange person drinking tea and having biscuits sitting in the lounge. She has no idea why specifically tea and biscuits but she tries not to think about what would happen next. Her mind can go to dark places. Probably the result of watching too much hentai when she was younger. 

She locks the front door and then looks around the house hoping that there is no one there. There is never anyone there. Her neighborhood is pretty safe and the only petty house thefts that happen are usually caused by a gardener or housekeeper who knows the particular details of that house. Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately for Anna) they don’t have a housekeeper so they don’t need to fear things being stolen although Anna has to do most of the chores. 

Anna opens the Seeking Arrangements website again and finds her inbox full. Her experiences with Eastern European men have not been the best so far so she ignores all their profiles until she comes across one that’s actually in Harare. The man calls himself Harare Daddy. He says that he lives in a neighborhood close to Anne’s called Glen Lorne. That’s far too close for comfort. Harare Daddy asks for Anne’s W******p number but instead, she gives him her Telegram so that she can block him if need be and he won’t have a number to call her own.

-Hey there, can I take you for dinner?- Harare Daddy asks her. She contemplates this for a moment. 

-Okay, pick me up at the country club a seven pm- she tells him. 

-Where do you want to go- he texts her.

-Lush- Anna tells him stating the newest, most bourgeois restaurant that she knows at the moment. 

-It’s one of my favorite joints- she continues hoping that she sounds like she eats there often. That’s some advice that she got from a forum that said don’t let the sugar daddy think that he is the one introducing you to the finer things in life and that you’re accustomed to good things.

Now, what shall she wear? Anna has about three cheap wigs that she probably needs to spruce up in order to look presentable for her date. She could wear her natural hair which has grown out. But then she saw on one video that she dared to risk her data watch that apparently rich men don’t like the natural kinky hair of black women and you have to put on straight wigs in order to attract their attention and makeup.

Anna looks ather abysmal makeup kit. There’s foundation, blush (if anyone uses that anymore) and lipstick. Can she manage to make herself look anything but clownish with that? Hopefully. Apparently these days you need like twenty items to do a simple look. Anna sighs. She thinks about her friends in smaller neighborhoods that can pop over to their friend’s house next door and borrow stuff. Well, it’s still morning so she can make a plan. She Googles how to look amazing with no makeup or barely any makeup and up comes a few things. She rolls her eyes when one person shows a barely any makeup look using ten products. That’s not barely anything. She checks up the blog of a French girl who shows how to make the best use of your foundation and have a refreshed and simple look. That’s more of what Anna is looking for. Anna follows the tutorial and looks at herself in the cracked mirror in her room. She looks like a prettier version of herself. She checks herself out in the mirror. But it’s still the morning so she’ll have to re-do this in the evening. 

It suddenly hits her that she doesn’t have an excuse to give her mother as to why she needs to go out that night. Saying she has work won’t work because her mother knows that the restaurant is closed for the next two days. She sighs and texts Harare Daddy again.

-I have some commitments after all, how about lunch?- she tells him

-Still at Lush?- he texts her back. 

-Yes, I’ll meet you there-

As soon as she types that she regrets her decision. How the hell is she going to get there?

-Sure, I’ll be there by one?- he texts back. One? If she’s to get there on time with the terrible public transport system. She’ll have to prepare now and leave. She to the bathroom and to wash herself. There’s a water problem in her area so water isn’t always available. They collect water in buckets and twenty-liter containers for the times that water is out. Sometimes that’s a week at a time, but the city council still regularly sends them water bills as though they are providing the service. 

She takes the bath bucket and fills it with water. She uses it to bath herself, concentrating on the areas on her body where dirt tends to gather. Her punani is unshaved. Good, you only shave that stuff when you expect to use it. The embarrassment of it being hairy will be an excuse if he tries o push for sex. But what if he’s one of those freaky types that like it hairy. She shudders. Maybe it was a good idea that he doesn’t pick her up. That would leave her very vulnerable. She’d be in his space. 

She gets out of the bathroom and begins to dress. She takes her nicest summer dress that she got at a flea market. They call them bend-down boutiques because people have to bend down and sift through piles of clothing to find what they want. She picks the least conspicuous wig and puts it on. She looks at herself in the mirror. Pretty cute. She’ll have to wait to put on the makeup when she arrives otherwise her face will be oily and she’ll be full of sweat. That reminds her that she needs to pack some wet wipes to use on her underarms and face. She’s one of those people that have been cursed with smelly armpits. She wishes that she was like those Asians that don’t even have the chemical that makes sweat smelly and otherwise don’t use deodorant. God really does have favorites, Anna thinks. She takes her Shield deodorant and shakes it, still some left. She check her wallet. She has about ten dollars and some money in her e-wallet that she can use. The money in her e-wallet equals about five dollars. That should be enough to get her there and get herself back. She locks the door behind her and takes her purse. 

-I have a job interview that I was called for. It’s happening in Newlands. I’ll be home before four- she texts her mother. 

Her mother doesn’t respond but if she wants to yell at her later Anna has proof that she communicated where she was going to be. She heads out. And begins to walk. Transport in her area is still a problem even during the day. As she walks down the road, a car stops to give her a ride.

“I’m going the same way so I can drop you further along so that you don’t have to worry about getting a bus here. I know that they’re troublesome,” he tells Anna. Anna gets in. The guy is friendly and they talk about work and business. Anna complains to him about the place that she works at and how they took advantage of them during the holiday. She could have been resting but instead sacrificed for money that she never got.

“I can relate to that but your restaurant must be so bad. I worked at this restaurant in Avondale that was pretty decent. Our pay was shit but the type of clientele that frequented the place would tip decently,” the driver tells Anna. 

“The type of clientele that frequent our place don’t tip well at all,” Anna tells him. He nods.

“I know that type of clientele. When they would walk into the restaurant we worked in we would all ignore them to the point that the  manager would have to serve them,” the drivers tells her with a chuckle. “People can be so entitled at restaurants when they could simply just eat at home or buy something from a supermarket if they really want food,” 

Anna claps her hands and laughs.

“I know right! On top of that they will always be mean to the waiter when the food is not what they want,” Anna tells him. At that moment as they kiki and talk about their lives and bad customers Anna forgets all her problems.

“We’re here,” The driver says. 

“Thanks hey,” Anna is about to take out some money when he raises his hand. He takes out ten dollars and gives it to her. Anna looks at him with wide eyes.

“Here’s my tip to you for being good company during a drive,” he tells her and drives off. Anna looks at the ten-dollar bill and can’t help but feel like God was apologizing that her bosses had shortchanged her and she had got to her destination without having to pay a cent. Anna felt her heart lift. The restaurant was in the type of place that would turn her away probably without her coming in a car. She has an hour until she’s supposed to meet with Harare Daddy.

She looks around and doesn’t see any taxis. She checks her phone for an app called Hwindi which is the Zimbabwean version of Bolt, the cheaper option to Uber. The Uber of Zimbabwe is usually much too expensive for her, it’s called Vaya. There’s a Hwindi close by and the cost of taking me to Lush is three dollars. That’s not bad at all for Anna. She orders it and even though it says that it is five minutes away, it takes twenty minutes for it to arrive. The driver stops for her and she greets her. The driver is a spectacled lady, very slim lady.

The guards at the front stop the car and ask what they want to do at the country club as the restaurant is in a country club. Anna is glad that she was perceptive enough to get a ride. She sees a nicely dressed lady wearing a flowery dress seated on a chair at the security guard’s cabin. Obviously she’s not being allowed inside until the person that she’s waiting for arrives. 

The lady drops Anna off at the front of the country club.

“Do you mind giving me your number so that I can call you for a ride when I’m done?” Anna asks the lady driver. The lady driver smiles and they exchange numbers. That means that she’ll get more money because she won’t have to give a cut to the app. Anna enters the country club with thirty minutes to spare. She has time to do her face now. She heads to the reception and asks for the toilet. The receptionist seems reluctant to give her the keys until she explains that she’s here for lunch and arrived a bit early so she wanted to apply a bit of makeup. The toilets of the country club are quite luxurious with the softest toilet paper that Anna has ever felt. Quite a shift from the toilet at home where the toilet seat broke and they never replaced it or the dingy one at work where there’s a worker that poop’s in there all the time and leaves poop stains on the side. She takes ten minutes just seated on the toilet seat that seems to have a warmer installed. The only thing missing is a massager.. 

Damn, Anna realizes that time is moving. Maybe he is one of those that keep people waiting for a long time. But then again, he could be the type of person that is early mostly like her. She starts to do her makeup. Fifteen minutes later she is done with five minutes to spare. She doesn’t want to seem desperate. Is it good to arrive on time or early? She goes past the reception. The girl smiles at her. For once Anna isn’t sweaty after traveling because she didn’t have to walk a long distance to the bus stop so she only had to reapply her deodorant a bit. She smells fresh-ish. She sits down on a table and a waiter comes with a menu. The prices make her stomach churn a little bit. She wonders what the waiters are paid with these kind of prices. 

A waiter comes again and Anna explains that she’s waiting for someone. She logs into the restaurant’s Wifi and receives a message on her Telegram. Apparently Harare Daddy messaged her five minutes before. He apologizes that he had an unexpected meeting and won’t be able to make it to their date. He asks Anna to send him her e-wallet details so that he can send her some money for lunch as an apology. She sends him the details and she hears a ding a few minutes later. He’s sent her the equivalent of one hundred dollars. Anna’s eyes widen. That was what she was supposed to make the past two days. She could now officially move out if she wanted to. 

She looks up and signals for the waiter to come over. The waiter comes over and she hands him five dollars.

“Sorry, my date had a meeting pop up. Here’s for your time,” she tells him. The waiter looks surprised but doesn’t reject the money. Anna walks out with the other waiters looking after her, wishing they had been the ones to hand her a menu and get a five bucks for basically nothing.