POLICE yesterday [Thursday] discovered 10 cattle in Waterfalls — three of them
in one room under lock and key at a seven-roomed house while the
other seven were found in the backyard of another house — as
Operation Murambatsvina gathered momentum in low-density suburbs.

The owner of the seven-roomed house, a frail-looking Mrs Jadwaga
Holmes (77), had initially resisted opening the door to the house
after the police arrived at the property following a tip-off from
neighbours that cattle were being kept inside.

Upon opening the front door and getting inside, the police
discovered three cattle locked inside one of the rooms.

The tame cattle — which looked like a crossbreed of Afrikander and
Hard Mashona types — were feeding on hay stashed all over the room.
In an interview, Mrs Holmes — whose husband died in the 1960s —
said at times she slept in the same room with the beasts to
safeguard them from theft as she lives alone.

"I sometimes sleep in the same room with the cattle because I fear
thieves would break inside and steal my cattle," she said.

Mrs Holmes, a Zimbabwean of Polish extract, does not have relatives
in the country.

"I have been staying here since the 1950s. Although I have two
children, I don’t know where they are," she said.

Mrs Holmes said she was afraid that her house would be demolished
during the ongoing clean-up exercise and she had nowhere to go.

Although she admitted that she did not have a permit to keep the
cattle in a residential area, she said the cattle had been her only
source of livelihood because she collects their droppings to sell
as manure.