A short life that will never ever be forgotten

She was a bright and happy girl, aptly named Polite.

Few people knew about her during her short life of about five years, but an outcry about her death echoed much farther than the boundaries of the Lowveld and even South Africa.

If her foster parents, Blessing and Gospel Rangarira, have their way, her name will never be forgotten again. They plan to establish a school carrying her name and have already formed a non-profit organisation called White River Door of Hope to help other less privileged children.

“We desperately want to teach children in less privileged circumstances that they could also succeed in life and help to provide the means for them to reach their dreams.”

That is their wish because Polite’s first few months of her short life were almost as sad as the way she died on a Tuesday evening after being given a lift by her favourite teacher at her nursery school.

She was abandoned and dumped by her biological mother in the lounge of the people who would later become her foster parents. And a little less than five years later, on that awful Tuesday evening, she was killed by two dogs.

With tears still appearing in her eyes every now and then, Blessing recently agreed to talk to White River Post about the girl who first brought chaos, then pure joy and later tears of bereavement into their home.

“At the time in 2014 we rented out our home in White River to two families. On a Saturday evening one of the tenants phoned me to say the mother staying in the flat, left her baby and a bag with necessities in the lounge and vanished into thin air,” Blessing remembers.

“We went to fetch her the next morning and with it being over a weekend, cared for her until we could take her to the child welfare office on the Monday morning.” Eventually the Rangariras decided to become Polite’s foster parents. “Even though we already have four children, of whom one has already left home, two are at boarding school in Zimbabwe and one attends White River Primary, she immediately became part of our family.”

The family had to adapt to having a baby in the home again, but Polite provided more joy than anything else. “She was such a bright and happy child and we all just loved her,” she recalls.

Soon Polite started to attend the Gracelink Nursery School in town, which belongs to her mother. There she was the darling of teachers and developed into a clever toddler. Before the “graduation ceremony” last year, she nagged for a new dress and proudly modelled it for photos on receiving it.

Every time she accompanied her mother to drop her sister off at the primary school, she talked about her own going to “big school” next year. She couldn’t wait to wear the uniform and carry her own school bag into one of the classrooms. That is why her parents are now working towards establishing a school named after Polite, starting with grade ones and growing to accommodate learners as Polite would have progressed through the grades.

On that fateful day Blessing had to go to Hazyview and remembers the last time she saw and spoke to Polite: “I arranged with the teacher to give her a lift home and left the school with her sitting on the teacher’s lap.”

When she stopped by at her home, Blessing couldn’t find her keys for the gate. “Since Polite was always the one that remembered everything, I called the teacher and spoke to Polite, not realising that it would be the last time I would hear her voice…”

Blessing, however, bears no grudge towards the owner of the dogs. Exactly what happened during those terrible minutes after she parked at her neighbouring house and opened the gate still remains a mystery, since she herself is still too traumatised to clearly recall what happened.

Polite was known to the dogs, since she often visited the neighbour’s house. “We all knew the dogs were dangerous and their owner would always ask to give a minute while she locked them in their enclosure before opening the gate for children,” Blessing says.

“So Polite is now mourned by two mothers – me and her favourite teacher, the woman whose dogs killed her,” Blessing says.

Anybody interested in supporting the Rangariras in their effort to immortalise Polite’s memory, or with the White River Door of Hope charity for less privileged children, can call Blessing on 074-955-5079.