FROM swimming in flooded rivers in rural Mutasa in Manicaland to operating bus business, the aunt of the depot, Afra Nhanhanga leads CAG’s Mother’s Day tribute.
There was no bridge. No road. No other route to school in rural Manicaland her home so she swam.
At 7 a.m. she is in the office, pen in hand, mapping diesel routes and fish harvest cycles. By 7 p.m. the blazer is off, the apron is on, and she is stirring sadza for her husband and children. In between, she has ordered a fleet of buses wrapped with ‘Happy Mother’s Day, our drive force’, signed off on branded coffee flasks, golf shirts, caps, and flyers, and reminded staff that “business breathes through relationships.”
At CAG Travellers Coaches they do not call her director. They call her Tete. Aunt to the drivers, aunt to the depot staff, aunt to the young women counting cash who remind her of herself at eighteen with a conductor bag.
She is mother, director, wife, aunt, and businesswoman rolled into one. And this Mother’s Day, she is making sure Zimbabwe’s mothers are seen.
“We’re branding buses with messages that say ‘Thank you, to the mothers’,” she told The Standard, walking through the CAG spacious yard in Belvedere as a designer held up a mock-up of a pink-and-green thermometer flask.
“We’ve done flasks for the women who wake before the sun, golf shirts for the mothers who close deals, caps for the ones standing on roadside stalls. Because motherhood isn’t one job. It’s every job,” the CAG director, once a conductor said.
Her office overlooks the depot now, but her mind still keeps Nyanga’s rivers. She grew up in a two-room house in Harare with her parents and siblings including her sister, who was specially abled, and her brother. But before Harare, there was Manicaland.
“When I was small back in Manicaland, I swam rivers to reach school. Not in a boat. Just me and my brother Sam (now also a CAG director) kicking through water with who knows what below.”
There was no bus then. No branded cap. Just a girl, books wrapped in plastic, and a current that did not care about homework. Money was short, so she sold whatever she could carry, flowers, onions or clothes.
“People say I had luck. It felt like work that never stopped,”she said.
At 18 she pinned her hair and took the conductor bag. Before sunrise she was on Harare buses, counting coins, calling out stops, checking faces so nobody’s fare went missing.
“Men said I would quit,” she recalled.
“In the fuel crisis I followed diesel trucks past places I didn’t know, because no fuel meant no work.”
That conductor’s bag taught her the rule she runs CAG by today.
“Business breathes through relationships, drivers, rivals, shop owners and passengers.”
It is why the Mother’s Day campaign is not just billboards. It is personal. Drivers will hand out flyers. Depot staff will gift mugs to women in the queue.
“If you touched my life when I was calling stops, I’m touching yours now,” she said.
Later, when she moved into transport and fish farming, the rooms did not change. Still full of men who doubted her. She kept the same rule and the same values, and Nyanga’s rivers in her head.
“I will say what I wish someone had said to me at the riverbank, hold your roots, turn the hard thing into a step, and keep going,” Nhanhanga added.
So this Mother’s Day, CAG’s buses will roll out carrying more than passengers. They will carry her message. The flasks will hold more than coffee. They will hold recognition for the 4 a.m. porridge makers, the school-fee jugglers, the women who, like her, switch from strategy decks to supper without missing a beat.
Her staff jokes that she has two shifts.
“At 7 a.m. she’s asking about diesel hedging,” said one manager. “At 7 p.m. she’s texting to ask if we’ve eaten.” She laughs at that. Then gets serious.
“My children must see both. They must see me lead in the boardroom so my daughter knows she can. They must see me cook at home so my son knows he must,” added Nhanhanga.
The Mother’s Day line was not cooked up by an agency. It came from her kitchen table.
“My aunt raised three kids selling tomatoes. My sister taught me patience without words. My mother made a two-room house feel like a mansion. This campaign is for them. For all of them,” she said.
“I’m the girl who swam to school,” she said, looking at a proof of a cap that reads ‘CAG Mother 2026’ recognising the work of mothers.
“If I’m here, you can cross what’s in front of you too.”
The flask on her desk is plain. She has not taken one of the Mother’s Day ones.
“Those are for the other mothers,” she said.
“Mine’s at home. My daughter filled it with tea this morning.”
Then she checked her watch. 6:45 p.m. Time to drive home. Time to cook.
The river is behind her. But she still swims it, every day, for the people she feeds at CAG, and at her table.
