Songs for My Country 2

“Lelilizwe khalila mali…hee khalila mali…Lelilizwe ligcwele olovha, hee ligcwele olovhola”. This country has no money, hee it has no money. This country is full of loafers/unemployed people, hee it is full of unemployed people”. Lovemore Majaivana was way ahead of his time when he sang this one in the early 1990s. He was wrong on one thing though, this country is awash with money. It is just that it is held by a tiny minority. A week into my holiday, and am exhausted from listening to stories of poverty. Out of guilt, empathy, or both, I just keep giving away cash. This one’s child needs school shoes if she is to go back to classes, that one needs $20 to get good medical treatment. By the end of my holiday, I start borrowing to survive in Zimbabwe myself!

Out of a sense of duty, I accompany my mother to church. Jesus and I have an on-off relationship. We are currently in an off phase. I don’t understand how with all the piety that fills this country he and his father can turn their backs on people like this. Why can’t they hear the Methodists lift the roof with hymn 191. I hope against hope that we will not sing this song today. But right on cue the voices go up, the wailing begins. Ulabantu bakho Nkosi, kuzozonk’izkhathi….You are with your people Lord, all the time. I can’t bear this. I stick an I-pod speaker into my good ear. It’s not my lucky day. I land on UB40, I am the one in ten number one on a list, I am the one in ten even though I don’t exist, nobody knows me but am always there, a statistic a reminder of a world that doesn’t care….
Has Jesus cared to look at all the beautiful churches that have been built in his honor in the last ten years in Zimbabwe? Beautiful, grand edifices, in the middle of townships and cities, fast deteriorating into shanty towns. The chandeliers in my mother’s church are fit for a diplomat’s residence. The congregation is in various states of need and want. I feel over-dressed.

My aunt’s congregation is building a pastor’s manse fit for a prince. The prosperity gospel types are a sight to behold. Just standing outside one is like being on the sidelines of the Oscars’ red carpet. Prayers seem to be answered on that side of town. In the poorest communities churches are under trees. No frills there. I don’t remember which verse says class division of this sort is ok. I should brush up on my psalms when Jesus and I are on again.
I hope against hope again that the preacher won’t ask us to “pray for our leaders”. First they have to define who they mean. Then they have to provide a rationale. My NGO proposal writing nonsense won’t wash here though. A rather over-dressed woman (thank God I have a partner in crime!), stands up to pray for the so called leaders. I don’t want to be part of it. This time I deliberately scroll through the I-pod.
We’ve been taken for granted much too long,
Building church and university,
Deceiving the people continually,
Tell the children the truth,
Tell the children the truth right now.
Bob Marley is most apt in times like these.

“Zimbabwe will never be a colony again,” they like to proclaim on big placards at Mugabe’s rallies and speak-a-thons. Whoever came up with that outdated slogan should be court marshaled by the generals. Everywhere I look my country has quickly, quietly and yet so visibly become one country or another’s colony. The mere fact that we no longer have a national currency is evidence enough. I do a double take when I see American dollar notes and South African rand in the Sunday collection plate. I am yet to be convinced that a US$2 is legal tender. I have never seen this note anywhere. Not even in America itself. Someone seems to have printed two tones of them and dumped them in Zimbabwe. There is a story there…..
It is so ironic that South Africans, particularly white business were so loud in their condemnation of Thabo Mbeki’s role in Zimbabwe. Yet they seem to be the clearest winners from our crisis. From the goods in the shops, to the best cars on the roads, Zimbabwe could very well be a province of South Africa. Bulawayo was long taken over, the rest of the country is following suit. Young men in Mr. Price jeans and thuggish beanie hats speak in Xhosarized Ndebele in Mpopoma township it’s not funny. My friend Sophie’s dad gives me bubble gum and potato crisps from his shop. The rather strange gum which oozes some yoghurt tasting liquid is from China. The chips are South African. Where is a nation going if it can’t even produce and sell its own sweets? Sweeties! Everything is over priced. A mere litre of Cape juice is US$5. Forget good quality, two-ply toilet paper.
A poorly made Zhingaz (as we call Chinese stuff in slang), polyester blouse will set you back US$40. I wonder how many months it will take a civil servant to save up for the skirt to go with said blouse.

Everybody keeps talking about how things have improved. At least things are full in the shops. I am outraged by the prices. There’s no consistency, I feel cheated most of the time. I eventually stop trying to understand this new economy. I ask friends and family to find me what I need. They know where to go and what a fair price is. I feel hopelessly incapacitated. This is my country for heaven’s sake! I was born here. I grew up here. I should find my own way around it. I am angry. “I can’t navigate myself around my own supposed home anymore”, I post my update on Facebook. Nobody “likes”.
Tell me what can you say?
Tell me who do you blame?
No matter what you say it never gets any better,
No matter what you do, we never see any change….

Phil Collins and I are on the same page. Maybe my eyes are clouded by Johannesburg pollution I can’t see this change they all talk about.

The government no longer controls what people read, watch or listen to. There is a silver lining there! Anyone who can afford to, work for it, or steal it, has a satellite dish to watch DSTV (cable). At the lower end of the spectrum everyone who has electricity has the little gadget for pirating South African television stations. Zimbabweans are up to speed with Generations, Isidingo, and the goings on in the South African body politic. An old portable radio is an asset if you want to hear unofficial Zimbabwean news. You catch the offshore radio stations on Short Wave, not on FM. My 75 year old uncle stumbles upon one such station and he is in news heaven. He can’t stop telling me about it.

“I only buy The Herald and Sunday Mail for the obituaries, and business tender opportunities”, a friend tells me. True the obituaries page in state controlled papers are a marvel. We get to know which of the dead people has five sisters all in London. Which of the late woman’s children are all in Canada and or Australia. Who said there was no glamour in death? A chance to show off your diaspora links.
The fictionalized accounts of political goings on are even more entertaining. But I can’t waste a good US dollar on such painful entertainment. I will save it for the toll-gates.
Zimbabwe is a little outpost for media products from across the border as well. The Sunday Times (SA), Mail and Guardian have Zimbabwean editions. I am happy people have alternatives to State controlled media. I worry about the long term consequences. Acquired tastes are hard to drop.
I am ecstatic when I finally lay my hands on the new independent daily, News-Day. I text Trevor Ncube, (the publisher), based in Johannesburg, “your newspaper and sweet potatoes are making my stay enjoyable”. Finally, a paper with an alternative and factual view. But the steady stream of bad news can be depressing. Senior officials paying themselves obscene salaries. Ministers buying yet more new fancy cars. Nothing gives a sense that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Or as someone said, to even tell us that we are indeed in a tunnel, and of what shape?

After two and half weeks I am constipated from all that starch. I am equally constipated from the litany of bad news. I miss my morning fix, Kaya FM and the very loud traffic outside my window on Corlett drive. Isn’t that bizarre? The former gives me a great laugh, the latter reminds me that I am living in a ‘happening’ country. I begin to miss having a proper bath, not splash my rather substantial self from a small bucket. I can’t get a handle on when electricity goes off and comes back on. I have become a big city rat. I want convenience.

I am happy to go back to Johannesburg. I am deeply sad to leave. I want to go. I want to stay. I don’t want to be in South Africa. I don’t want to be in Zimbabwe. If my relationship with God was in a good phase I could sing a hopeful hymn, or even talk to him. I turn to the next best thing I know. I chose Beres Hammond;

The sun, is gonna shine again
Nine out of ten
Remember,
It’s gonna shine again
Your day will come come
Don’t worry about the rocky road its gonna be
At the end of your tunnel
Is gonna be a light

I sure hope that light is not from an on-coming high speed train.