PhD student had daily 8-hour walk to primary school
❝ I’ll always treasure my time at Bristol – I loved the people and I can’t wait to come again
Bongai Munguni
SHE walked barefoot for eight hours a day to go to school and studied by the light of grass fires. But Bongai Munguni’s implacable spirit – along with the kindness of friends and strangers – led her on, and she is now studying for a joint PhD at the University of Bristol.
Bongai was born during Mozambique’s bloody civil war. From her family’s temporary home a few miles over the border in Zimbabwe, they could hear the conflict rage around their village.
Soon after the fighting ended Bongai’s father died, and she and her 13 siblings and step-siblings returned home to their life as subsistence maize farmers in their village in Mossurize district, Mozambique.
It was from there Bongai would set off at 5am each day, walking barefoot for four hours to get to Mafumise Primary School across the border in Zimbabwe - returning home each evening after another four-hour trek.
She said: “When I was 12 years old a family friend was murdered in our village and my mother decided it was too dangerous for me to walk to school. I wasn’t happy because I loved school, but I had to comply.
“It was also very expensive for the uniform and books. Instead I helped in the fields. One day I walked to my old school to sell bananas and my teacher, Mr Chipongo, spotted me. I explained that I had no choice but to stop studying and he offered to pay for my Grade 7 exams.”
This simple selfless act would change Bongai’s life.
Although too busy in the fields to go to school, she was able to study at home, devouring the teacher’s notes late into the night by the light of grass fires.
Bongai aced the exams and, aged 15, moved to a Zimbabwean tea plantation where she could “earn and learn”.
“We picked tea leaves from 6am to midday and then studied at school until 7pm,” she explained.
“It was tiring and sometimes we’d fall asleep during lessons but I was so happy to be learning, so pleased to have textbooks and teachers. And it was much better than walking eight hours every day.”
In a country where women marry young and education opportunities are few, Bongai beat her own path.
Today, aged 31, she is studying for a joint PhD at Cape Town University (UCT) and the University of Bristol, a new scheme which sees her split her time between the two cities. But at 18, the idea of going to university at all was a storybook dream.
Bongai’s grades won her a place at the University of Zimbabwe, the country’s top institution. Her family spent days calling friends and neighbours to pull together the necessary funds. They were successful, but in the end Bongai was offered a Government of Zimbabwe Cadet Scholarship and moved to the capital Harare to study economics.
Later, as she worked as a maid to save for a graduation gown, she was offered a job as a teaching assistant at the university. Her monthly salary soared from US$60 to US$1,500.
While teaching she studied for a masters. Graduating in 2016 she was capped by then-president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe.
But life had more surprises in store for Bongai. Testing UCT’s application process for a friend, she wrote out a mock application on herself and was stunned when a few weeks later she was given a place at the university’s School of Economics.
As she prepared to go to one of the world’s top universities, her siblings banded together to raise the funds. She planned to study for the first semester and then leave to work for as long as she needed to afford another semester. But impressed by her assignments and her story of tireless fortitude, her lecturer Prof Murray Leibbrandt ensured she was given a scholarship.
“For the first time ever I could simply focus on being a student.”
Then, in 2019 through a joint academic agreement between UCT and the University of Bristol, and funded by a Cotutelle Scholarship, Munguni entered a joint PhD: the inaugural UCT–Bristol University Researchers without Borders programme. She is being supervised by Prof David Gordon and Prof Richard Harris.
She studied at Bristol during the 2019/2020 academic year – the first time she had left Africa – and will return to the city next year.
Bongai was introduced to Jenny and David Cobbold, who made her feel at home in Bristol, and
Avril Chadwick and her family.
Avril offered Bongai accommodation at their home in Congresbury, but refused to charge her rent.
“It was like having another family. Their friends became my friends, their family became my family,” Bongai said.
“We ate together – African food three nights a week and English food the other nights.
“And we would take the car to places all over – the suspension bridge, Oxford, different churches. It was so amazing. I’ll always treasure my time at Bristol – I loved the lectures and the people and I can’t wait to come again.”
The Chadwicks helped Bongai collect secondhand clothes to ship back to Mozambique and set up a crowd-funding page to raise money for a borehole so her home village could get easy access to clean water.
Bongai said: “We were donated so many things – clothes, toys, books. When the clothes arrived in Mozambique the kids were so happy, for some of them it was the first time they had worn nice clothes.”
The crowd-funding page raised £2,600 and, added to the £2,500 of rent that Bongai did not have to pay, it was enough for the borehole to be dug recently.
Bongai hopes the new infrastructure will mean women of the village do not need to spend hours each day collecting water from the river, and can instead begin their own education journeys.
In two years’ time she will graduate from Bristol and UCT with a PhD from each and afterwards hopes to become a professor.
Prof Gordon said: “Bongai is an inspiration to others and has overcome numerous obstacles to obtain the academic knowledge she needs to help her local community and the people of Mozambique.”